Sawyer

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A major muse in my life is Sawyer, obviously. Understanding how he views life so simply makes me question how I view my life. He has taught me the literal importance of stopping to smell the damn roses. So this week, I wanted to focus on him and share a recent event that happened in our lives.

He and I were traveling during the winter break so, I missed his third birthday on January 1st. Finally, we were reunited and headed back home to Savannah, Ga. Upon returning home he developed severe neck pain. We visited the vet the day after arriving to address this neck pain, as well as, to deal with annual shots. Our vet had targeted the pain to be a slipped disk. The next day the pain had reached its high. It was brutal and forced my dear friend, Rebecca, to drive us to the ER. The emergency vet, too, declared it to be a slipped disk and provided us with even more pain medicine.

So, we headed home with more medicine. Hoping he would sleep through this neck pain. We never expected the change we would receive in the coming hours.

The next few days were brutal. The nights were long as he laid barely breathing at my side. I would stay up just to make sure he was conscious and shake him if it wasn’t obvious enough. He had completely stopped eating – and wouldn’t eat for a full 7 days. 

I had done some research of my own, and thought Sawyer was experiencing some negative reactions to the Bordetella Vaccination. He was showing similar symptoms I discovered thanks to dr. google. I had remembered a friend of mine say they lost their dog due to a negative reaction to a vaccine and grew very worried. 

We ended up going back to our vet, who redirected us to the ER, again, where he would stay the night in an oxygen tank. We then learned he was dealing with aspiration pneumonia.

The aspiration pneumonia was caused by the drowsiness from his medicines. He was so lethargic that he inhaled his own throw up, resulting in toxins entering his lungs.

All of this seemed so tragic to me. I seriously thought my little boy was done. Everyone reassured me that he was strong enough to fight for me.

Thank goodness, Sawyer made a full recovery. I had already had the wheels rolling to create a dog company, yet, I was still searching on how to be different. Rebecca wondered if I could take our recent experience and try to help other dog owners who may be faced with similar situations. I decided having a blog to share experiences could truly benefit. If I had heard another dog owner’s story on how their dog successfully made it out alive from a sickness I would have felt much more at ease.

Not too long after our incident, I found out my cousin, Veronica’s dog, Champ, was sick and needed to be placed in an oxygen tank. He experienced a much more in depth recovery than Sawyer. After my experience with Sawyer’s sickness I hoped I would be able to set her at ease. Thankfully little Champ has also made a full recovery!

By understanding and sharing the norms that feel so scary, I hope dog owners can feel more at ease when dealt with such tragic times. Unable to talk and communicate with our animals, it is so easy to expect the worst. This is due to how much we freaking love these babies! We cherish them to the largest capability. Because of this we can think irrationally (at least I do), because the love is so strong. 

On a personal standpoint, I felt I should have known better to prevent this sickness from happening. I am not a vet and really can’t put that amount of pressure on myself. This has alerted me to be more cautious about the medicine I give to Sawyer. As well as, RESEARCH more of what his annual shots mean. About the neck pain, an hour after going to the ER it went away and has not come back. Maybe he got enough rest with his pneumonia, but that pain miraculously went away. Also, when Sawyer healed, he healed issues that had been ongoing months before he even got sick. Something very odd, however, I will fully take my healthy, happy, little boy!

Until next time,

xoxo Sawyer’s Mom

PICTURES: Puppy pictures because how could I not?? Thanks to Sawyer’s aunties for taking such great pictures of him!!