PART ONE
WARNING: contains some gory stuff
9:30pm on September the 10th, we got back to the bus after spending the evening with three of our cousins. Opening the door of the bus, Jessica was in ahead of me, then stopped and held up her hand. “Wait a minute. Do you smell that?” she asked. I sniffed cautiously. “Ugh, what is that?!”I nearly gagged as the putrid stench entered my nostrils. Chantel arrived at the door behind us. I turned around. “Just wait a minute, there’s a funny smell in here,” I said, and Chantel quickly backed out. “Get a light!” I said to Jessica, and ended up grabbing a torch myself, and clicked it on. It was a good thing we hadn’t moved since noticing the stink. All around us, amazingly not under our feet, was brown liquid. All over the generator, the floor, the steps we’d just walked up. With the torch, we worked our way carefully forward, trying not to breathe. Jessica turned on the lights and headed down the back. At some point the others had arrived and were waiting outside. “Was there this much throw up on your bed before?” Jessica called out from between the beds. Sparkie had thrown up a little bit on my bed before we’d left at 7:30. I walked up to her, avoiding the mess on the floor, and found Sparkie sitting miserably on my bed, a massive pile of foamy vomit in front of her. “Um... no,” I said. The rest of the clean-up is a bit of a blur. We found more vomit on the back bed, so had to strip my bed and the back bed almost entirely, while Mummy cleaned up the front. Sparkie was looking very unhappy, drooling and restless. At some point I took her outside and I noticed she had very runny poo. It might have been just after that or maybe a while later, I don’t know, when I saw she was leaving wet drops on the floor as she walked back to bed. My heart started to beat faster. I grabbed a tissue and wiped it up, then gazed in horror at the red stain on the tissue. It was blood. And it was dripping at a fast rate from her rectum. For a split second it seemed as though I was looking through a smoky haze, then I was on the floor beside Sparkie trying to calm down enough to answer Mummy’s “what is it?” We drove to camp somewhere in that confusion, and Sparkie was now shivering, vomiting again, still drooling, and still bleeding. I was struggling to hold myself together as I told Mummy to call the vet. By the time we got there, it was nearly midnight. Sparkie was lethargic and lay on the floor of the waiting room. We weighed her, and after an examination, the vet gave her an injection of antibiotics and another to stop the vomiting. We got back out to the front desk and Sparkie proceeded to throw up another massive amount of foamy water on their tiled floor. We paid for the treatment, and took her home. Vet’s orders were to take Sparkie outside to relieve herself every two hours – so after finally getting to bed at 2am. I diligently got up at 4am, 6am, then again at 8am. Coffee woke me up a bit, and Sparkie seemed to be doing better. I gave her a small amount of water, which she held down. But by 10am, she was coughing up her water, needing to relieve herself every fifteen minutes, and the bleeding was getting worse. She refused to eat – I tried dog treats, cooked chicken, and even vanilla ice cream. Nothing interested her. I went shopping at 1pm, leaving her in Daddy’s
care, and got back to find her exactly where I’d left her. Daddy said she hadn’t moved. I tried to walk her around a bit, but she was really drowsy. She kept flopping down on the grass, eyes closing, breathing shallow. That’s when I really started to worry. I got Mummy to call the vet again, while I watched Sparkie breathing. Just making sure she kept breathing, you know? We arrived at the vet at 3pm, and they weighed Sparkie again. I couldn’t believe the numbers on the screen – she’d lost nearly half a kilo in thirteen hours. They examined her, and then she fell asleep on the floor. A big puddle of bright red blood gushed out from under her tail. I was freaking out by this point, but on the outside I was calm. A towel was placed on the floor, and I tried to keep Sparkie conscious while Mummy filled out the paperwork to get Sparkie admitted. Her breathing was barely there, and every time I stopped talking to her, her eyes closed. I was terrified that if she went to sleep, she would never wake up again. “You hang in there, girly, ok? You’re gonna be fine. Hey, stay awake, will ya?” Leaving her at the vets’ overnight was one of the hardest moments of my life.
WARNING: contains some gory stuff
9:30pm on September the 10th, we got back to the bus after spending the evening with three of our cousins. Opening the door of the bus, Jessica was in ahead of me, then stopped and held up her hand. “Wait a minute. Do you smell that?” she asked. I sniffed cautiously. “Ugh, what is that?!”I nearly gagged as the putrid stench entered my nostrils. Chantel arrived at the door behind us. I turned around. “Just wait a minute, there’s a funny smell in here,” I said, and Chantel quickly backed out. “Get a light!” I said to Jessica, and ended up grabbing a torch myself, and clicked it on. It was a good thing we hadn’t moved since noticing the stink. All around us, amazingly not under our feet, was brown liquid. All over the generator, the floor, the steps we’d just walked up. With the torch, we worked our way carefully forward, trying not to breathe. Jessica turned on the lights and headed down the back. At some point the others had arrived and were waiting outside. “Was there this much throw up on your bed before?” Jessica called out from between the beds. Sparkie had thrown up a little bit on my bed before we’d left at 7:30. I walked up to her, avoiding the mess on the floor, and found Sparkie sitting miserably on my bed, a massive pile of foamy vomit in front of her. “Um... no,” I said. The rest of the clean-up is a bit of a blur. We found more vomit on the back bed, so had to strip my bed and the back bed almost entirely, while Mummy cleaned up the front. Sparkie was looking very unhappy, drooling and restless. At some point I took her outside and I noticed she had very runny poo. It might have been just after that or maybe a while later, I don’t know, when I saw she was leaving wet drops on the floor as she walked back to bed. My heart started to beat faster. I grabbed a tissue and wiped it up, then gazed in horror at the red stain on the tissue. It was blood. And it was dripping at a fast rate from her rectum. For a split second it seemed as though I was looking through a smoky haze, then I was on the floor beside Sparkie trying to calm down enough to answer Mummy’s “what is it?” We drove to camp somewhere in that confusion, and Sparkie was now shivering, vomiting again, still drooling, and still bleeding. I was struggling to hold myself together as I told Mummy to call the vet. By the time we got there, it was nearly midnight. Sparkie was lethargic and lay on the floor of the waiting room. We weighed her, and after an examination, the vet gave her an injection of antibiotics and another to stop the vomiting. We got back out to the front desk and Sparkie proceeded to throw up another massive amount of foamy water on their tiled floor. We paid for the treatment, and took her home. Vet’s orders were to take Sparkie outside to relieve herself every two hours – so after finally getting to bed at 2am. I diligently got up at 4am, 6am, then again at 8am. Coffee woke me up a bit, and Sparkie seemed to be doing better. I gave her a small amount of water, which she held down. But by 10am, she was coughing up her water, needing to relieve herself every fifteen minutes, and the bleeding was getting worse. She refused to eat – I tried dog treats, cooked chicken, and even vanilla ice cream. Nothing interested her. I went shopping at 1pm, leaving her in Daddy’s
care, and got back to find her exactly where I’d left her. Daddy said she hadn’t moved. I tried to walk her around a bit, but she was really drowsy. She kept flopping down on the grass, eyes closing, breathing shallow. That’s when I really started to worry. I got Mummy to call the vet again, while I watched Sparkie breathing. Just making sure she kept breathing, you know? We arrived at the vet at 3pm, and they weighed Sparkie again. I couldn’t believe the numbers on the screen – she’d lost nearly half a kilo in thirteen hours. They examined her, and then she fell asleep on the floor. A big puddle of bright red blood gushed out from under her tail. I was freaking out by this point, but on the outside I was calm. A towel was placed on the floor, and I tried to keep Sparkie conscious while Mummy filled out the paperwork to get Sparkie admitted. Her breathing was barely there, and every time I stopped talking to her, her eyes closed. I was terrified that if she went to sleep, she would never wake up again. “You hang in there, girly, ok? You’re gonna be fine. Hey, stay awake, will ya?” Leaving her at the vets’ overnight was one of the hardest moments of my life.