The Journey of Parenthood…

Almost Deadly First Night

I have had many, many pets. Puppies and Kittens both! I know whenever you get a new pet that first night with them is the WORST. They are all up night and therefore so are you. I remember one of my cats meowed the entire first night I had him! I was reminded of this “first night curse” when we brought Kye home!

The child didn’t sleep all night! I was EXHAUSTED (remember I still hadn’t had but maybe 2 hours of broken sleep since Tuesday night and it was Thursday night) and Zach got very frustrated because he sat up with him. The baby did not want to be laid down so Zach held him most of the night.

We found out later that the reason he was so fussy is that we didn’t know how to swaddle him correctly! One little thing makes all the difference as he is a pretty awesome sleeper now…but we are first time parents and we were clueless!
Zach and I both HAD to get some sleep. Zach realized after this night that he requires lots of sleep to function properly and we did get frustrated at each other at one point. Luckily Mom was there so from 2:30 to about 5:00 she took over and layed with Kye while Zach and I slept. Again, I tried to sleep. When they give you a prescription at the hospital…GET IT FILLED. I totally forgot about it and so I didn’t have the 800 mg of ibprofin to help me through the night. I literally felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

I got up around 5ish to feed him and went and sat in the nursery to wait for him to wake up to eat. I heard a sound that I KNEW was Levi was in the guest room getting into something. He’s a very good dog but will get into stuff if things are left on the floor!

I really didn’t feel like getting up as, at the time, it took me awhile to get all positioned to breastfeed. I made myself get up and go into the guest room. There were little red candy wrappers covering the floor. I did an AWESOME job during delivery of not saying a single cuss word..but seeing those wrappers I let one slip. I frantically looked around the room and found the bag of Dove dark chocolates Mom, Brandon, and Chrissy bought for Zach. The bag was opened and there were 11 candies left in it. I read the label and originally there were 35 candies total.

My first move was to wake Mom and ask her if she’d eaten any of them (the more that had been eaten by people the better) then I woke Zach and asked him. Neither of them had eaten any. I googled it and found a site that said the darker the chocolate, the more toxic it was to dogs.
For the second time in two weeks I called the ER vet. The guy was really nice and told me it could be deadly but that I needed to give him (and Sadie just in case she ate any) 5 ml of hydrogen peroxide. Random! But it worked. He puked EVERYWHERE. Super duper dark chocolate chunks. Most of it was outside but he also puked all in his crate, a huge spot in the nursery, and a spot in the living room. Sadie barely threw up and it wasn’t chocolatey so at least we knew she didn’t eat any of it.

I was literally hurting from head to toe. I had a migraine, mouth sores, dead arms, extremely tender breasts, contractions in my tummy, and sore “down there” stitches! The only thing not hurting were my legs! And I had to feed the baby. AND I was dealing with a dying dog. Not a fun first night for sure!

At 6:30 am I called Charlotte and asked her to take Levi to the vet as soon as they opened. I was nursing and Zach was laying on the floor when Levi came in and crawled under the crib. Zach freaked out and said, “He’s dead!” Thank the LORD he had just passed out. My poor baby! Mom and Zach loaded him up with water and Charlotte took him to the vet.

I only broke down and bawled once which is pretty awesome considering. I just felt so guilty and what made me cry was thinking about him dying and not being there to comfort him. I didn’t even drive him to the vet! He had to go with a “stranger.” I called and checked on him every two hours. At first they told me it didn’t look too good because the chocolate gets absorbed into the dogs system and they would have to put a catheter in to try to get out all the urine but that he wouldn’t be able to live through it if his heart didn’t calm down.

Each time I called things looked better and better. When they opened on Saturday morning I called right away and they said he had chewed through his IV and could come home!!! I was so so so thankful and told Zach we were going to get him. I wanted US to be there for him to welcome him home! Our first outing without Kye…was going to the vet! It felt great to get dressed and ready and even better to have my baby back in my arms. He was so precious and so so happy. The vet asked if we wanted the leftover chocolates back…haha Zach said NO! I don’t think he’ll be able to eat dark chocolate for awhile after cleaning up all that puke! It was great to see him so happy to be home. Sadie was precious too as she followed him all over the house and Zach even caught her LICKING him while they were outback! They do not have a loving relationship so seeing that was really sweet and let us know that Sadie missed him just as much as we did!

While it took him several days to get back to his old self I’m happy to report that Levi is 100% back and as sweet as ever! Also Mrs. Charlotte came over and did some cleaning magic and was able to get the huge stain out of the nursery carpet. It all worked out okay! We have NO CLUE how much the little vet visit will cost us, (they agreed to just bill us since we have enough going on right now) but it was well worth it!

Emily Parker
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1 Comment

  1. Rachael
    March 21, 2009 / 9:37 pm

    I’m so glad Levi is fine!! Swaddling is TOTALLY the trick… Those sleep sacks are like heaven I would spend $100 if I had too!! I just bought Macy a bigger one because she outgrew the newborn one…. :::::Tear:::::

    Reply

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