OtherDogGeeding still wasn’t feeling well and my gut told me to take him to the emergency vet instead of waiting for Monday morning, so WifeGeeding and I took him to the North Texas Emergency Pet Clinic which was probably five miles down the road.
The staff was exceptionally friendly and lead us to an examination room. We consulted with Dr Johnson and she contemplated if blood work or an x-ray should first be done. We pushed for the x-ray since I thought a piece of grapevine was stuck in his throat. Something that I thought wouldn’t block his air passage but still would cause the uneasiness.
After about a 10-15 minute wait Dr Johnson showed us the x-rays and the first words out of my mouth were “Oh my God!” OtherDogGeeding swallowed a sewing needle. Not only did he swallow a sewing needle, but it was lodged upwards just a tiny bit away from his brain. Dr Johnson explained to us that she could sedate him and hopefully just pull it out. However, it could be so far inserted that she just couldn’t pull it out and would actually have to cut him open, and that still wasn’t a guarantee solution. WifeGeeding and I were freaking out, and hoped and prayed for the best. Dr Johnson’s staff was finishing up a surgery already in progress, and then they would start on OtherDogGeeding and would call us with an update. All during this time WifeGeeding and I felt so guilty about this and was trying to track down where he found the needle since neither of us sews. Turns out the needle we keep in the bathroom for removing splinters and stuff was the culprit.
The next two and a half hours were extremely long and painful, but finally the phone rang and Dr Johnson had great news. She was able to simply pull it out. I always make sure a sewing needle has some thread attached to it just in case it’s dropped it can be easily found (something I learned from MomGeeding), and I think Dr Johnson said that helped with her retrieval. WifeGeeding and I immediately headed back to the pet clinic and found a very alert and happy fur-child – he was back to his normal self.
OtherDogGeeding has to stay at the pet clinic for 12 hours for recovery and then we can bring him back to GeedingManor. They gave us a CD of his x-rays, but I can’t get them to run on our PC’s. Once/If I can view the files, I’ll make sure to post the x-rays. But for now, here are some pics I snapped with the camera in my phone. WifeGeeding and I are off to clean and inspect the floors. Oh, and there goes our stimulus check.
This was a pre-surgery picture. The sign reads “Please do not move my neck, I have a needle stuck in my throat!”
This is a bad x-ray, but hopefully I can get the x-ray viewer on the PC to work so I can post more detailed pics.
Here’s a picture of OtherDogGeeding after the operation being happy and alert again.
Our hero, Dr Johnson.
I get a kick out of the little doggie i-v.
It is a national icon, one of the world’s greatest tourist attractions – and an appalling advertisement for Italian builders. But now, 18 years after it was closed to the public for fears that it might topple over, the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been stabilised and has been declared safe for at least another three centuries. 
