My Dog Has Superpowers

Gather around friends, and I'll tell you a tale of a dog with superpowers.

About a week ago, Dexter the Mutant Chihuahua started to throw up.  He would eat his breakfast and fwapp...up it would come, thirty seconds later.  Other than the vomiting, he was his usual normal self.  After two days of random upchucking I, being the concerned chihuahua mama that I am, took him to the vet.

Because he walked into the vet clinic looking superfly and acting like the world was his oyster, we went with the conservative approach.  A little sulcrate to soothe his stomach and some low fat easy-to-digest soft food.  Another day of vomiting and back to the vet Dexter goes.

Diagnoses are thrown around.  Pancreatitis?  No...he'd be acting and looking like death.  But to be sure the vet presses and pushes and digs around his abdomen.  If it was his pancreas he'd be whimpering and showing signs of pain.  After five minutes of investigation, Dexter is cool as a cucumber, although certainly curious as to why the vet keeps pushing on his belly.

Pancreatitis ruled out.  Blockage perhaps?  Dexter is known to eat whatever he can get his mouth around so that's certainly feasible.  Based on his symptoms of throwing up almost immediately after he eats, the vet (the extraordinary Dr. Kathy) suggests that it indicates strongly towards blockage and we do an x-ray.  The x-ray appears clean but there is a suspicious looking bit in his stomach so I take Dexter home and starve him for 24 hours.

The next day another x-ray is taken and it reveals the mysterious bit is gone.  We're 90% sure he isn't blocked.  I take him home feeling hopeful but the vomiting continues Friday night.  Curiouser and curiouser...

Saturday morning, it's back to the vet for another examination and this time blood is drawn.  It`s sent to the lab and first thing this morning Dr. Kathy phoned me.  Turns out that Dexter has a roaring case of pancreatitis.  His pancreas levels are so high, it`s on the verge of mutiny.  Dexter should be in an incredible amount of pain, he should be refusing to eat, he should be vomiting much more than he is and he most certainly should not be chasing Hannah around the yard trying to get her to play.  Normal pancreas levels are between 0 and 200.  Dexter`s pancreas level is a thousand.

For a week, his pancreas has been trying to murder him and he's been all, "Shut up pancreas.  I'll show you who's boss."

Dexter weighs 15 pounds and I'm pretty sure 10 pounds of that are his giant, balls of steel.  Now that we know the problem, we've started to treat it and hopefully in the next few days he'll be back to normal.

My dog's superpower?  Ignoring crippling, soul-crushing pancreatitis that would bring a Great Dane to his knees.