T has taken Dax to the emergency vet

Dax started vomiting around 6am this morning and has continued vomiting, not able to keep water down.  He's also acting like his abdomen is in pain, and he's shivering.  So he's probably got an intestinal blockage from the sticks he was chomping during yesterday's walk.  Ugh.  I feel like a bad parent.  But he's been chomping on sticks forever.

The repeated vomiting is a sign of a blockage.  A call to our regular vet --> immediately led to a recommendation that we take Dax to an emergency vet.  Even as we were preparing for that departure, Dax vomited up another huge blech of water and bile.  I'm already doing laundry for the previous bunch of towels needed to clean up his vomit -- I'll have a second load of laundry now.

There's three stages of blockage -- first can be handled by getting him to vomit up the entire contents of his stomach, including the blockage, but he's already been vomiting A LOT, and it's been too long since yesterday's walk.  Second stage is removing the offending matter via endoscopy.  But if the blockage is too far along, then surgery of the intestines is required.

Why do dogs have to be so stupid!  Ugh.  His stick chomping got significantly worse when we put him on a diet, after he started having shoulder problems, from his shoulders getting older.  Our 10-year-old pup.  I had to avoid taking him to the part of the playground that is floored with wood chips, because he was swallowing them.  But then yesterday there were sticks all over the place from the wind.

We have pet health insurance to cover incidents like this, so it isn't a money problem, it's a "Hope Dax will be OK" problem, followed by managing his recovery, and then finally beating it into his head that he's not allowed to chomp on sticks anymore :-(

doggie ICU

T left Dax with the emergency vet, the doctor was optimistic but said they needed to keep Dax under observation, give him IV drugs and saline, and perform some tests.  We don't know the results of any of these tests yet or whether Dax will need a procedure to remove an intestinal blockage.  We don't know whether we'll be picking him up tonight or tomorrow.  It's weird to have a dog in the hospital when he was perfectly fine yesterday.  I'd expected to take him on a hike this morning.

My unrelated anxiety flare of last night is gone, and I've been in normal contact with K since around 11pm his time last night.

It sounds like T is talking with the doctor on the phone right now.  We have a delivery dinner on the way, not worth cooking a meal when we might have to go pick up Dax at any minute.  I'll wait a bit to hear what the news is before I hit "post" ...

The tests show that Dax doesn't need surgery and can return home this evening, yay!  T will pick him up after we eat dinner.

Murder on Middle Beach

One of my lowbrow interests is True Crime, I dunno why.  I'm not into horror fiction, I'm not into detective fiction, but True Crime stories fascinate me.  Some of the most interesting books I've read have been about serial killers, especially the gay serial killers.

I grew up in a peaceful family, in peaceful neighborhoods, and I'm about as nonviolent as a bunny rabbit.  Despite my interest in consensual BDSM.  But something about True Crime gets me going.

So, I'm watching the HBO documentary Murder on Middle Beach.  Of course I have a crush on the young investigator, heh, so cute, but he's got a girlfriend.  [The crushing part of my brain is getting a lot of exercise lately from talking with all these online boys.]

He's doing a documentary about his own mother's gruesome and unsolved murder, from 10 years ago.

He talks to his family members, his mother's friends, and various investigators.  He hacks into his mother's ancient Facebook account and text messages.  He uncovers how fucked up his family was while he was in high school and he didn't even know it.  It's well done so far, I've watched two of the four parts, I'll probably stick with it through the end.

There is a lot of opportunity in documentaries to manipulate footage and recordings, by taking things out of context and even out of order.  So as a viewer you have to be careful about drawing conclusions.  But this documentary is good storytelling so far.  After I finish it I'll look for some other sources so I can critique its methods and accuracy.