Our trip to the emergency vet

Don't worry, Josie's fine. Which is more than we can say for our rug. (46)

When Josie was rescued on the streets of St. Louis she was nursing a litter of eight puppies. All of them lived and were adopted out to caring homes. Those who’ve met her can attest to the fact that she’s the sweetest dog. She loves people, and the people of Lisbon love her.

She also has an ingrained fear of going without. Her time on the street taught her never to pass up anything that might remotely be considered food. In St. Louis, she would hoover up cicadas, gumballs (green ones? *chef’s kiss*), acorns, and wide variety of other detritus. It was bad enough that we mapped the neighborhood oak trees in order to avoid them so we wouldn’t have to constantly be yanking her snout off the ground. (If she ate too many acorns, she would vomit. Invariably, at 2 AM.)

On the streets of Lisbon, the scavenging opportunities are exponentially more abundant and varied - it’s a city. Every walk is a buffet line. Yummies - bread products, chicken bones, unidentifiable patches of goo, and more - can magically appear around any corner, on any stretch of cobblestone, at any time. We are constantly on our guard trying to ensure it’s just her nose on the ground, not her tongue or teeth.

Recently, we must have missed something. On Thursday, December 1, her stool – normally firm enough to kick down the road – was mostly liquid. We left the apartment, gone for barely four hours, and she pooped. On the rug.

In the eight years we’ve known her this had never happened before. By early evening, we were taking her outside every 90 minutes or so and she was pooping pure liquid each time.

Stupidly, we gave her her usual dinner, which, as usual, she scarfed down. Not long after, she vomited it back up. On the rug.

We decided to sleep in shifts. Scott went to bed early at 21h30. Amy woke him four hours later after returning from another outing and reported that Josie’s stool had turned bloody. We decided to take her to the emergency vet.

We’d made a plan for just such an eventuality back in July so we knew where to go. The 24-hour Hospital Veterinário de São Bento is 850 meters from our apartment (just over half a mile). The only question was how to get her there. We decided to try walking.

Josie had been a little listless on her last couple of outings but a 2 AM, full-family trip to a new neighborhood was an exciting enough prospect to perk her right up. We were joking en route that they wouldn’t believe she was sick.

Photo by Scott, taken in July. We planned ahead for this.

The sign for the vet is not lit at night. Since December 1 was a major holiday in Portugal, we were worried as we approached that they might not have been open. The fear intensified after we rang the bell and got no response. We were starting to frantically check our phones for other options when the door finally opened.

Dr. Nikonov was a godsend. He is thorough, kind, caring, and he speaks excellent English (it’s at least his third language; he also speaks his native Ukrainian-Russian (his words) and says his Portuguese is better than his English). He asked us a bunch of questions about her vaccination status, medical history, diet, symptoms, and any recent changes that might have been precipitating factors. He checked her over thoroughly and said her gums looked good, temperature was normal and that were it not for the vomiting and diarrhea, she is a perfectly healthy dog. He noted that she is friendly and well-tempered.

He did an x-ray to check for obstructions (he didn’t see any), and gave her two shots to calm the symptoms. He prescribed a prophylactic antibiotic (which he had on hand and gave us before we left) because her internal mucous membrane was disrupted leaving her open to potential infection. He also prescribed an anti-nausea medication which we were able to pick up from a 24-hour farmácia right on our way home. He told us to switch her to a chicken-and-rice diet, that if things didn’t improve in 48 hours we should bring her back so she can get the medicines by IV (they can’t help her if she’s vomiting them up), and that if we needed to return doing so during the day would be cheaper than the middle of the night.

(Interesting cultural difference alert: note the prices and times under “Consulta geral” on the sign below:

It costs twice as much to go to the vet at 9:30 AM than it does to go at 7:30 PM.

We left the vet around 3h15 and were home not long after 3h30 Friday morning.

The facility itself is gorgeous, and huge. No wonder it took so long for the door to open:

Image lifted from their website - we weren’t taking photos at 3 AM.

They have an outdoor courtyard in the middle of the building somehow. It wasn’t sunny in the middle of the night. This image is from their website.

Total cost for the visit was 159€ including:

• Urgent consultation during the 24 - 10h time slot

• 2 injections

• x-rays

• antibiotic pills

We also spent 6€ at the farmácia on the way home for the anti-nausea pills.

The doctor said the shots wouldn’t work instantly but she shouldn't need to void as frequently. She pooped around 3h20 on the way home and did not ask to go out again until nearly 6h. Then - without having had the luxury of sleeping in shifts, under the influence of some heavy drugs, and with a completely empty gastro-intestinal tract - she slept like a puppy for hours. She Did Not Appreciate attempts to get medicine and/or food in her, or to take her outside until about 14h Friday afternoon when she scarfed down enough chicken and rice we had to take the bowl away for fear she’d eat too much and overwhelm her system.

We were worried enough on Friday to cancel plans we’d had for Saturday but by early Saturday afternoon she was almost right as rain (only remaining issue was no pooping since 6 AM on Friday) so we went out to watch the USA-Netherlands World Cup match and started to mix a small amount of her regular food into her evening chicken and rice.

As of today, nearly a week past the incident, things are almost back to normal. Attitudinally, she’s back to her old self - she wants to go ever farther on her walks, she’s happy to see people when out and about. Nobody would know anything ever happened. It’ll probably be Monday or so - after she’s been off the antibiotics for a couple of days - before her stool is 100% back to the way it always has been. Josie’s fine.

Josie leading the way down the road to the vet this afternoon. She didn’t have an appointment - maybe she just wanted to go say thanks. Photo by Scott.

Anyone know a perfume-free way in Lisbon to deodorize a rug?

That’s all for now.

Love from Lisbon,

Scott & Amy