Never A Dull Moment

Our kitchen counter looks like a pharmacy right now. There's medicine for Sam (two different anti-seizure meds), medicine for Doug (allergy and herbal stuff for his liver), medicine for Byron (antibiotics following his surgery for the abcess), and medicine for Coco (anti-inflammatories following her spay operation last week).

So Monday night, as is my usual M.O. when I get home from work, I set out everyone's evening round of meds so I wouldn't forget to give them. Fortunately, both of the dogs are good medicine takers: a Mighty Dog meatball and just about any pill goes down in a gulp. So I made Bryon his meatball with the blue and white antibiotic capsule, fed it to him, turned back to the counter and realized I'd given him one of Sam's Depakote (also a blue and white capsule!). Frantically, I called the vet; their office had already closed for the evening. Their message referred me to a 24-hour animal hospital, which I then dialed. After being put on hold for about 10 minutes (all the while hyperventilating while watching Bryon to see if he was going to keel over foaming at the mouth), they referred me to the Animal Poison Control Center. After being on hold with them for another 5 minutes (and still no sign of immenent violent death in Byron) a very nice vet, Dr. Yousef, talked me down off the ceiling. Turns out the amount of Depakote for a dog Byron's size wasn't even enough to give him a buzz. Dr. Yousef said he would've had to ingest 5-6 Depakote capsules before he'd be worried. Whew. That'll be $55, please. Visa or Mastercard?

At any rate, I was relived tonight when Byron gulped down his last antibiotic to finish the course. Now I only have to worry about Sam's and Coco's meds, and I don't think I'll confuse those; Coco's has a picture of a doggy on the bottle.