Boy have we had a bad weekend.
Last Thursday Frenchie took ill with being sick. We carefully watched her during the day and she did seem a bit quieter than usual.
Anyway, come Friday morning she had extremely bad sickness and diarrhoea, so we rushed her down to the vets for a checkup. Our vet, Nigel, thought that it was just gastroenteritis. She had no other real symptoms and her temperature was ok. He gave her a jab for the sickness and also some anti-biotic tablets. That afternoon she perked up and was even barking and jumping around when a cyclist dared to cycle past our home!
However, come Saturday morning she was worse. As well as being sick she was extremely lethargic to the point that she didn't want to walk, and when she did she dragged her feet. Of course Nigel wasn't working this weekend, so I had to take her down and wait for the vet that was on duty to be able to see her. By this time her temperature had dropped by 4 degrees.
They kept her in and that afternoon took an x-ray and also blood tests. Neither of which were conclusive. There was no blockage showing on the x-ray. The blood tests that could be done in-house showed slightly elevated white cells and the vet thought that the signs pointed to a problem with her kidneys. This could be an infection, or even poison or something else.
Come Monday morning she had perked up a bit (well she had been on a drip!) and was wagging her tail at the vet. Her temperature was also up again. They proceeded to do a scan. Bad news... This showed what seemed to be puss in the uterus - in other words a pyometra - she would have to be spayed.
I waited with baited breath for the phone call to tell me that she had had the op and everything was ok. Well, the vets didn't ring until nearly 5pm!!! But when they did it was to tell me that they found that it wasn't in fact a pyometra but a hernia! This hernia had allowed some intestines to slip through a hole into a place they shouldn't be! So they, thankfully, left her "woman" bits in tact and fixed the hernia.
It is thought that the hernia may have been caused by straining when she had diarrhoea and sickness!
So now it is a slow journey to recovery. As I write this Frenchie is still down at the vets. She is back on a drip, but tomorrow morning they will offer her a small amount of water. If she can keep that down then they will offer her a small amount of food. If she can keep that down then she may well be back home fairly soon!
So, although we thought our breeding plans were thrown out the window, it seems that there is now a good chance that Frenchie will be able to have a litter, albeit a little later than we had planned.
