Robin and Rue and Tigger too!: Illness and Heartache, Cousins, and the Fourth of July

Gracie with Meanie at Dr Sullivans office in Las Vegas

Gracie's BELOVED tortoise Meanie was sick. (She got the name Meanie because she is so dang stinking mean! Tortoises challenge each other by bobbing their heads at one another. Meanie stalks the yard bobbing her head at everyone. Even our huge 80 lbs Sulcata tortoise-- gets challenged and chased by Meanie. )

Meanie stopped eating and was hiding in her burrow. When we finally got her out she looked terrible. It was so sad. We rushed her to our vet here locally and she said it was beyond her scope and to take her to Vegas.

These are the results of Meanies x-ray. It shows stones and intestinal blockage. The only treatment involves surgical removal of the stones. Surgery on tortoises is difficult and must be done by a specialist--because it requires sedation on a reptile and cutting into the bottom of the shell.

After consulting with the specialist, we had 2 options. Putting her down, or trying the surgery. Of course we had to try surgery. How could we tell Gracie we wouldn't give it a try? If we were broke and still in school, then surgery wouldn't have been an option and I would have had the surgeon just tell her she needed to be put down.

I was so grateful that Ryan's brother was in town for the 4th of July with his 5 girls. It was a good distraction to alleviate the stress of the impeding surgery. Gracie and Aubrey are very close. They were born 4 days apart, and she went with Gracie and I to Vegas to comfort her--as we knew the news would be surgery or euthanasia.

So, with our tortoise delivered to the specialist on Friday, and surgery scheduled for Monday, we spent the weekend doing fun things like making tie die shirts and going on truck rides.

We also set off our own fireworks in the backyard.

With beautiful blue Lake Havasu in our backyard, we had rented a large pontoon boat for Monday.

It was so fun driving around the lake on a hot day--only 115 degrees --feeling the wind on our faces and riding the tube. That pontoon boat could get up to 45 mph, so the tube was perfect and fun!!

Everyone got multiple turns.

But I was a nervous wreck. We knew surgery would start around 10:00 our time. Which was 9 am in Vegas.

So we tubed and waited for the news if Dr Sullivan was able to remove the stones and save Meanie's life.

The call came, and the vet talked to Ryan. He said the bowel was completely perforated and not repairable. He said he could not save her and was asking permission to stop the surgery and euthanize her. Of course we had to agree.

It was pretty heart wrenching to see Gracie go through that pain. At that moment I was sooo grateful that her little Charlie dog had just joined our family in May on her 11th birthday.