Been up most of the night with my dog. He seems to be having an allergic reaction to his antibiotics. He’s being treated for Anaplasma a Lyme Disease type of blood bacteria.

At 3:30am, he became extremely nauseous and spent an hour outdoors eating grass and vomiting. By 5:00 am, I called the animal hospital where he is a patient. The answering service said that they’d page the doctor. Minutes later, the answering service called back and said the doctor was unavailable and to call the Emergency Vet Service (stationed over 45 miles away). I did call and described his symptoms. (In between times, I had looked up canine reactions to antibiotics.Severe reactions were dangerous and could lead to anaphylactic shock and seizures,sometimes death!)

By this time, I noticed that his face was swelling! (A symptom of the worst reactions.) The emergency vet asked me to bring him in…I am without a vehicle and most likely an hour away. They then told me to find some Benadryl and to not give him any more antibiotic…yeah, I had already decided that!

To get to the point, I remembered that there was a newer pet hospital in town. By this time Ollie’s symptoms were stabilizing and my fear of him not making it to the 8:00am opening at our hospital, had faded. I looked them up online and found that they offer emergency care. HELLO! Why didn’t my hospital tell me? Could it be that the new hospital is considered competition?

I will be getting to the bottom of this at 8:00 am. If I am somehow wrong about them, I will post an explanation at the bottom of this….If I am right, there will be a scathing Letter to the Editor in our newspaper soon.

PS. Always keep Benadryl on hand!