Today was supposed to be a normal trip to the vet to get passports and mandatory vaccinations for our dogs for our upcoming move to China, but it ended up with us almost losing a family member (in our home dogs have the same rights as people so they're really close to us).
At the vet everything went fine: the dogs had 2 shots each, 1 for rabies and a few others and 1 for leptospirosis, and the passports were prepared at the same time as the shots were given so we were in and out pretty quickly. But almost as soon as we got home things took a turn for the worse...
We hadn't been home for more than 5 minutes when I noticed our older dog Honey feeling sick, I let her out the back door and she threw up instantly when she got outside. When she came back in I noticed that her eyes were starting to swell shut and she had trouble breathing, and I immediately realized that she was having an allergic reaction so I called the vet. They told me to come back asap so I grabbed Honey and rushed to the car, and luckily the vet is only 6 km away from our home so I got there pretty quick. I did brake a few laws on the way, mainly passing cars and doing a 110 in a 50 zone (which if caught here in Finland would result in going to court and getting fined thousand of euros), but I really didn't care.
At the vet they immediately gave Honey a large dose of cortisone, and then we began waiting to see if the reaction would stop. By the time I got there her face was all swollen, and her whole body was covered in lumps so she looked really gruesome
After about 45 minutes the reaction started to wear off, but she was still pretty swollen up and itched like crazy. The doctor gave us a pack of pills which are used on humans in case of snake bites (the pills are basically strong cortisone because we don't have any deadly snakes here) and told me to give Honey 1 pill every 2 hours until she's back to normal. Back home she's been a bit tired all afternoon, but now it's 11pm and she looks to be all ok.
I'm relieved that everything turned out well at the end of the day, and this strengthens my view of life that you really shouldn't take anything for granted. It might all be gone in a blink of an eye, so give an extra hug for your loved ones and tell them you love them cause you never know what's around the corner.
Good night, Joni