sitting in panera... waiting...

dropped him off at 8 am this morning. the vet student on his case is amazing, she's very sweet. she has corgis, i will have to send her something special - this has to be her last rotation and she will be a great vet, she cuddles rah up and she handled him well, including around other dogs that reacted towards him :)

he had his pre-op check yesterday and shocked the shit out of all of us - TOTALLY NORMAL yesterday. echo was NORMAL. no vpc's on the ecg or during the echo - for almost an hour my dog was VPC FREE???? the dog whose holter 2 weeks ago was worse than ever now had an hour of his life that he didn't throw a single arrhythmia???

the cardiologist (who is fucking adorably cute by the way, of course im down here sweating my ass off and my hair is frizzing in the 10000% humidity ) actually considered that i may have brought him the wrong dog? and that we never had the right diagnosis to start with - pulled out his old records and confirmed that 1) this was the dog with DCM and 2) he did have it ...

he gave me the option of whether or not i could do the study. i was afraid he was going to say rah COULDNT have the procedure because of the results... but he said it was up to me. lydia says she thinks if i was local they would have said no - but because i drove down from NJ they werent going to turn me away. but knowing he was looking better than ever (and knowing its just a snapshot, but its a frame of mind!) calmed me a bit...

so i dropped him off this morning at 8. definitely cried. they saw him yesterday in all his light chasing glory. he smells like fish from swimming in carol's pond. we gave them all his annoying deedle dude toys that sing when he chomps them and she said he could have them once he recovers. everyone in the hospital loves him and the receptionists and other students were already calling him when i walked him back in there today because he's very recognizable (besides the fact that he's the stinky dog) - when they walk him down the hallway (ok when he pulls them, since no one could figure out his heel command and he doesn't respond to heel!!!) he goes up to everyone and stands next to them until they pet him, then moves on.

i got the call at 11 am that he was being wheeled into fluoroscopy to start the implantation - first they are sedating him mildly and putting the implating catheter/port in, awake. then they knock him out and test the location of the catheter (coronary sinus), blow up the balloon and cut off blood flow for 10 minutes or so while they agitate the endothelium with saline and then inject the stem cells. he should be getting that right now.

they have an emergency/critical care doctor (that was actually a resident that i went to vet school with!) in there as well as a boarded anesthesiologist the entire time. he will recover and go into the ICU overnight, the entire time being on telemetry (an ECG unit that will display his heart rate/rhythm onto a display in the center of the ICU so the techs/drs can visually see it at all times) and hopefully come home tomorrow. he's on leash walks and no horseplay until he gets home friday.

im waiting for the call that he's awake. because he's affected they have to hold off for 30+ minutes once the jugular implant/port is removed. im nauseous. people keep calling about other things and i wish they would stop because i think its the vet school!

the person im staying with down here has the property from heaven. 19 fenced in acres, including some for her horse (that rah is terrified of, by the way). a pond (now muddy). the entire fence is fully dog safe, so the dogs can be entirely free. she left all the trees on her property so its all natural. she has a full agility ring set up with all contact equipment. the dogs hike all day long run wherever they want in the woods. rah's actual love is that her water bowl outside is a running bird bath with a fountain in it - he spends hours in front of that fountain playing with the water, they fill it 10-15 times a day because of him.

still waiting... .