“If you see someone drowning you must try to rescue them, even if you cannot swim.”

Curly Joe went in for surgery to repair his liver shunt this past Thursday (Sept 25th). Unfortunately, the doctor was unable to access it, as it was covered with too much liver tissue. Hours after the surgery, Curly Joe still wasn't fully awake. They put him in an oxygen cage and prepared to give him a blood transfusion. That night, they told me they were going to give him another transfusion (plasma, this time) and that he was considered a very guarded patient. Friday morning, the doctor called to basically tell me that Curly Joe was still doing poorly (bleeding in his chest) and probably wouldn't get better. After a long talk, we decided the best thing to do would be to euthanize him. My sister was working, but they told me he was comfortable and would be alright until we could get there.

A half hour later, I called to let them know we were leaving. The tech told me the doctor wanted to talk to me and put her on the line. She told me that one of the other specialists had stopped by to look at Curly Joe and wanted to take radiographs ("on the hospital") to see what was going on in his chest because "he doesn't see a dog who is ready to die." She apologized for putting me on a emotional rollercoaster, but said that they wanted to tap his chest, drain out the blood and use it for an autotransfusion. Between crying jags, I gave her permission to do what they had to for Curly Joe. The doctor said that we would still have Curly Joe's shunt problems to deal with, but if we could just get him past this, we could look at our other options later. She is doing research to find a doctor who can do a different type of procedure more specific to Curly Joe's predicament.

An hour later, my sister and I were on our way to visit him. I called ahead of time and the tech told me they had gotten a lot of blood out of his chest and were slowly pumping it back into his veins. When we got there, the tech warned us that Curly was hooked up to a lot of tubes and wires, so we should be prepared. When we walked up, there was my sweet little puppy, lying in a big, see-through box, covered in blankets. When the tech opened the door and I leaned in, Curly immediately tried to stand up. We calmed him down (his blood pressure was still a problem and we didn't want him to get overexcited) and commenced with the petting. He whined the whole time. He was on two different painkillers, so he was pretty comfortable, but I'm sure he was sick of being in the box. We were hoping that seeing us would boost his spirits and make him fight harder. It certainly made us feel better. He gave us kisses, we gave him kisses. Everybody was happy. He still wasn't out of the woods, but he certainly didn't look as bad as I'd feared.

We didn't stay long, and I felt horrible for leaving him again, but he needed his rest. I called the hospital a few hours later and the doctor told me he'd gotten another unit of his own blood and was doing well. Still not out of the woods, but definitely improved. I called again at around midnght and the tech told me that Curly Joe was walking around outside, going potty and eating well.

I called again this morning to find that he hadn't needed another transfusion last night. His PCV was at 30%. That's the low end of what they wanted for him to not need another transfusion and still not quite as high as they'd like it, but they still think that he can probably come home tomorrow (Sunday). We are going to visit him again tonight.