While you were going about your life

To celebrate my daughter’s tenth birthday, she and I went to Anaheim, stayed in a fancy Disneyland Resort hotel and visited both Disneyland and California Adventures.  We had the most fabulous time.

As we sat waiting for the 7 PM parade on Main Street in Disneyland, my phone rang.  It was my husband, telling me about a situation involving our 11-month old puppy and a bottle of ibuprofen.

Lola the Dog found a bottle of ibuprofen on the counter, snatched it and then demolished it.  The boys found the remnants of the bottle on the living room carpet, along with a reddish stain from the caplets she’s eaten.

For your information, ibuprofen is toxic to dogs.  I didn’t know that but I knew an overdose of pain medication couldn’t be good.  I told my husband he’d better call the vet immediately and that he’d probably have to take Lola to the emergency vet.  After I hung up, I used my iPhone to do a Google search which pretty much confirmed my worst nightmare.  A dog can die from ingesting ibuprofen.

Luckily, the bottle was a small one containing 24 pills when full.  It probably had 18 or 19 pills in it when Lola ripped it to shreds with her teeth.  Interestingly enough, the child-resistant cap was completely intact, but the bottle itself was destroyed.

Unluckily, 2000 mg of ibuprofen can literally kill a dog of Lola’s size, so she’s been hospitalized ever since, getting aggressive treatment involving intravenous fluids and medications and probably some kind of extremely expensive hocus pocus.  She’ll be in the hospital until Friday and we only hope that they will discharge her alive and well.  The alternative is unthinkable.

So, while working and supervising Grace’s schoolwork and carrying on with the daily requirements of life, I’m worrying about our puppy and hoping for the best but dreading the worst.