Around 1am, Sam began to act strangely. He would make a strange, gargley noise that became a bark. I could not tell if it was pain, disorientation, frustration, or something else. I was up most of the night helping him to be as comfortable as possible and deciding if I needed to take him to an emergency clinic. I decided not to take him in for two reasons - first of all, there were times when I thought he might be passing on and I figured that it would be best to stay put and be present with him; secondly, he would rest apparently comfortably for periods of up to an hour at a time between episodes.
I am as comfortable as I can be with my decision to wait until morning. We went to the vet this morning and Sam had a fever of 106 - extremely high. Our choices were to put him to sleep or start him on fluids, antibiotics and temperature reducing methods as well as doing blood work and X-rays to try and diagnose the root cause. Mike is not in New York yet, so I called him and we both agreed that we didn't feel that Sam was ready to leave just yet. My sense from Sam is that he was fine with whatever we decided - either way is okay with him. This still could be the end of the road for Sam, though we are going to see if some basic care and monitoring shifts his situation. In February 2008, some of you will remember that we had a similar episode with Sam (high fever, admitted to the hospital, etc.) - though we never determined a cause, he fully recovered from that event, however ths is an almost 4 years older dog (equivalent to probably 15-20 human years).
We'll know more this afternoon. If he isn't stabilizing enough to suit the doctor they will recommend that we transfer him to an Emergency Hospital that is staffed 24 hours, or make a decision to help him pass. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it...
In the meantime, my plan is to add more stories to Sam's blog and take a nap...
Thanks to Everyone for your wonderful support!
Jen, Mike, Sam, Allie, Emmy, and the cats
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