Puppy drama!

Oh my goodness, what a day! The day started off shortly after 5:45 with my hubby rolling out of bed. I lazily dragged myself out of bed a few minutes later and started getting ready. At 6:30, Hubby was loading up the car with his suitcases when I noticed that Sebastian had something in his mouth. I was able to see that it was one of my soft foam ear plugs ... right before he swallowed it. I immediately went into panic mode and let Hubby know what had happened. Of course this event didn't change the fact that his plane was leaving in an hour and a half, so he was forced to leave while I stayed with the puppy. Sebastian was acting pretty normally, but since he weighs less than 3 pounds, I wasn't sure if he could handle the ear plug in his gut.

I called his vet as soon as the office opened at 7. The girl answering the phone said that she thought he would be okay but to call back in an hour to talk to someone else. I called at 8, and the nurse I spoke with asked me to go ahead and bring him in. We arrived at the office at 9 and were seen around 9:45. The vet (not our normal vet but still great -- I love this office) told me that if Sebastian had been a Labrador, she wouldn't be worried about the ear plug, but since he was so little, she thought it would be best to induce vomiting in the hope of retrieving the ear plug. She anticipated that the process could take two to three hours, so I left him at the office and ran some errands. When I showed back up around 11:45, she told me that he hadn't thrown up the ear plug yet but that she wanted to give him another round of vomiting before giving up. She let me come behind the desk to the room where the pets were being treated, and my heart melted.

Sebastian was in a row of cages that looked like horizontal lockers with grates instead of doors at the front. He had a towel he was resting on, and I could see little puddles of white phlegm that he'd been throwing up. His little beard was all wet, and his little ears were pulled back. When he saw me, he slowly tiptoed over to the front of the cage and licked my fingers as I stuck them through the grate. The vet let me open his cage, and he slid into my arms. He quickly found his favorite spot, nestled up on my chest with his head tucked over my shoulder next to my neck; then he turned and started to lick my cheeks. He was so docile, and I could tell he felt horrible. As I talked to him, he cuddled into me as deeply as he could as if to say, "Mom, please make all this stop." The vet told me to take all the time I wanted with him, but I couldn't stay much longer because I started crying right there in the vet's office. I felt so silly; Sebastian is only a dog after all, so why was I crying?

I left and called Hubby immediately upon getting into the car. I broke into tears again as I related to him everything that had happened since we talked last. I also told him that I felt responsible since it was my ear plug that Sebastian had eaten. He reassured me that he didn't blame me for any of this and that I hadn't forced the ear plug down Sebastian's throat (I'm guessing it had fallen off the nightstand in the middle of the night, but I don't know for sure). I felt a little better after talking with him, but I still didn't feel great about leaving Sebastian behind without a good solution. At home, I scoured the entire ground floor, hoping against hope that I had just missed the ear plug and that he hadn't really swallowed it, but no such luck belonged to me!

I still hadn't heard from the vet, so I left to pick my puppy up around 2 PM. When I got there, she saw me coming in and brought him out to me. He still hadn't thrown up the ear plug, so she discussed the options with me, and together we decided that I would take him home to watch and see how he did. Armed with the number of an emergency vet nearby, I returned home with my sleepy Yorkie baby.

We got home, and I could tell he immediately felt better knowing that he was back in his own domain. I got him to eat about twelve bites of his puppy kibble (how do I know twelve? I counted!), and we went upstairs to watch TV. About five to ten minutes later, all of a sudden, I saw him start to make gagging motions. I swooped him up with my right hand, and with my best mommy-to-be-one-day motion, I used my left hand to catch his throw up. To my (great) surprise, along with his kibbles was an intact ear plug!

I am so thankful that this has all turned out okay. I was very nervous about leaving him alone even for a few hours for me to go to work tomorrow (luckily for me I am on a rotation where I could take today off as I wasn't essential to the team today), but now I feel much easier about going to work. He is curled up next to me on one of his favorite towels right now, and he looks comfortable for the first time since early this morning. I couldn't imagine a better ending to this day!