Lola’s Resurrection

Lindsay will be writing about this. Sad story, with a happy ending.

When we got Lola from the pound she a little problem with her right eye. It kept getting infected and she would rub it all of the time. We took her to the vet for her initial screening and we were told to just put some eye gel in and see how it goes. It didn’t go well.

A few weeks later, Lola woke up at 5:00 am and started crying and rubbing perfusely at her eye. I ran her to the vet and saw a different doctor and found out she had an ulcer on her cornea. Her right eye had a mild case of entropian, which is a common condition amogst bulldogs. It is caused by the eyelid rolling inwards and then scratching the lense. We were given some meds and a big lampshade cone. We got the ulcer healed up, but surgery was needed to correct it permanently. 

Bulldogs are a difficult breed to operate on because of their breathing issues and sometimes allergic reaction to anesthesia. Needless to say, Greg and I were very nervous about her going into surgery. We both (especially Greg) had a really bad feeling about it, but ignored our gut because we thought it was just nerves. The day I brought her into the surgery, I felt very strange and really wish I had listened to my instincts. I swear that Lola felt something as well. When I was leaving the house with her she was extra playful and affectionate with Greg. While I was in the elevator with her, I bent down to give her a kiss and she put her front paws on the leg and gave me a sweet little kiss. This was strange because she had never climbed on me before. When the vet tech went to take her in the back, she didn’t want to leave me and I had to coax her through the doors. 

Around noon, when she was scheduled to have her surgery, I got a call. It was the doctor and from the moment I picked up the phone, I knew something was wrong. Lola had a heart attack he told me. I have never felt so sick to my stomach and dizzy. He went on to say that they were able to bring her back quickly and that she was currently stable. Before they even started the operation, her vitals began to drop off and she stopped breathing and started to arrest.That is when they noticed her oxygen valve had not been opened. It was a human error. We lost our little Lola for a whole 5 minutes. 

I hung up the phone with doctor and stood there for a few minutes not even knowing what to do. I tried calling Greg, but couldn’t get a hold of him. I then called my friend Emily, who has a bulldog as well and told her what happened. Thinking back on it now, I was in total shock and the news had not sunk in yet. Emily was always a voice of reason and a good person to talk to when you had no idea what to do in a situation. She told me to get in touch with Greg and get up to vets office as soon as possible. I finally got in touch with Greg and I can’t even begin to say how horrible it was to give him that news. That’s when I finally broke down. Greg and I agreed to leave work and rush up to the hospital.

They put us in a room and explained everything that happened. She recovered quickly and was not deprived of oxygen very long, but that there was still a chance of neurological damage. He then took us into to see her. That was extremely hard, she was coming off the drugs and very out of it. Knowing that we didn’t have a car, the doctor said that he would drive her over to the animal emergency care hospital. Lola would remain in ICU for the next two days. 

The first night she was there, she was resting comfortably it what looked like an incubator. We actually felt relieved because she looked so comfortable and happy. Although coming back into the apartment that night was very difficult. She wasn’t there to greet us at the door, there wasn’t a constant snoaring noise in the background and there was no reason to get up early in the morning for a walk. The next day we went to see her and it was much worse. She had shaved spots all over her and she hardly recognized us. Because they were more concerned about bigger things, her eye care was neglected and she was dragging it along the ground and crying. Her eye looked so incredibly awful, we were convinced she was going to lose it. She was in so much pain, that she even tried to give me a warning bite about getting too close to it. The doctors at first were concerned that she had neurlogic damage because she was being aggressive and had never been so before. We explained to them that she needed care for her eye and that it seemed like she was in a tramendous amount of pain. The doctors there we wonderful and took our advice and decided to try out some pain medicine. We left that night hoping for the best the next day.

After a sleepless night and a lot of crying, we dragged ourselves back into the hospital scared as ever. Were we going to get the same dog back? If she is aggressive, what are we going to do? Those questions kept running through our heads. Here we were with a dog we only adopted 3 months ago and had completely fallen in love with. She was the best dog we could have ever asked for and now there was a chance we were going to lose her. We entered the hospital with caution. They knew we were coming and had already put Lola into a dimly lit (bright lights were hurting her eye) room for us to visit with her. Greg went into the room first and I slowly followed. I looked down and there was little Lola looking back up at me and smiling. She was back!!! We got our little girl back and she was so happy so see us!! Her behavior was due to pain and the doctors were no longer concerned about neurological damage! A weight we had never felt before was lifted from our shoulders and for the first time in two days, we smiled again. 

The doctors said she was ready to be medically discharged and we happily asked to take her home. After receiving a laundry list of care instructions and medications, we called a cab and took our little Lola home. She was definitely loopy at first and we were still nervous. Day by day and week by week Lola made a complete recovery and was back to her little bully self again. Our bond with her grew incredibly strong and somewhere on her level she knew what we did for her. 

Despite everything that happened, we actually don’t hate her doctor. He did everything he could to rectify the situation. He was very honest with us, drove her to the hospital, called us and the hospital everyday, he took care of the bill and continues to give us free followup visits. He could have easily lied to us and left us to deal with the situation. Human error is sadly going to happen, even to the best of doctors. However, if Lola had not made it, I’m not sure how forgiving we would have been about this. At this point though, we are so happy to have her back, we don’t even care about being angry. I will say that this ordeal has probably aged us about 10 years though. Greg now has a visible amount of grey hair.

Lola still needs to have the surgery done. We are putting eye gel in as much as possible to keep it lubricated and comfortable. It actually recovered very nicely from the damage she did to in the hospital. At this point though, we are not sure if we are ready to send her back for the surgery. We are just flat out too scared. When spring comes around, we will reconsider what to do, but for now we are going to kick back and enjoy our wonderful miracle puppy.