Scout, the Perpetual Patient

My poor Scout has had a rough month! Four weeks ago she was jumping off the bed at my grandparents' house and banged her back paw on the footboard. She spent the rest of the day limping, and her paw started to swell up. We thought that she has just bruised it because she would let us feel all the way down her leg and would only whimper when we got to the bottom of her pad. I drove home Monday and realized that it might be worse than we thought because she would cry if she put too much weight on it, even while laying down. I took her to the vet and found out that she had broken a bone in her foot. Essentially, her pinkie toe was snapped in half. Luckily, it was a clean break and she did not need surgery. The vet placed a soft cast on her foot and away we went.

She quickly got used to the cast, and was running around like the crazy girl she is. We had to take her in two weeks later so that the vet could make sure that the bone was healing, and then she is scheduled to get her cast off tomorrow.
 
This past Saturday, we invited our Oklahoma friends over for dinner. (That's right, we have exactly two friends up here and half of the couple went to high school with Nick.) They had not been here more than five minutes when Scout starting acting weird and could not stand. Her eyes were bugged out and she looked terrified. We didn't know if she had re-injured her toe because she was so unbalanced but let me feel her foot without crying. She was staggering around, threw up, and then had an unmistakable seizure in the backyard. I have never been more scared and was running around trying to find my phone and the vet's number. We lucked out when they told us that they would stay open for us and to bring her up NOW!

Our sweet friends piled into the car with us as we took off for the vet's office. The vet did some blood work and found that her phosphorous levels were a little high, which could cause a seizure. She recommended that we bring Scout to the animal hospital so that they could monitor her overnight and give her an IV with some seizure meds and something else to keep her hydrated. The second vet didn't think that her phosphorous levels were too high to be overly concerned about (meaning that we wouldn't need long term meds), and instead thought that she might have somehow ingested a toxin which could cause a seizure. Low and behold, we just had a new cleaning lady come that afternoon. I think she went a little overboard with the pinesol when cleaning the floors, and we fear that she might have used that to clean the dog bowls which are kept in the kitchen. Scout is obsessed with food and licks her bowl and Waylon's bowl after they eat (and sometimes even the floor if we drop some food), so I think we might have found the culprit. We came home and mopped the floor with plain water and cleaned their bowls with hot water. I am not taking any chances, and will definitely talk with the cleaning lady before she comes back. Of course, we cannot know for sure that this is what caused her seizure, but I am not willing to take the risk and assume it was something else.

We got to pick up Scout around noon on Sunday, and I have never been more relieved in my life to see my sweet girl. She has another bandaged foot where they had her IV, so the poor baby looks like a little invalid with her two bandaged paws. She is back to normal and we are just praying that we don't ever have another episode like that again. Nick and I were terrified, and I almost lost it once we got to the vet's office and had to wait for results. We don't have children yet, but these dogs are our babies and we love them like they were our own biological children. Just the thought of something happening to them brings me to tears. I just love my sweet beagles!