This is a picture of James shortly before his surgery...  The brown spots on the carpeting is where he vomited and I couldn't quite get it out.  I took this picture because he was in such desperate shape that I was afraid that it would be my last picture of him!

James came down with a mysterious illness with a temperature at 105F!  He had my local vet and I puzzled because we couldn't figure out what was wrong. His temp came back down to a high normal and we just monitored his condition and waited for tests to come back. He didn't eat for almost a week, and didn't have a bowel movement for about 5 days.  I was force feeding him and watering him and giving him antibiotics to try to help get him better.  Sunday, July 18, James took a dramatic downturn with his temp back up to 104F and climbing, he also began vomiting severely at this point.  I took James to the emergency vet and they did an x-ray and apparently he swallowed a rock causing a bowel obstruction.  He also had aspiration pneumonia and peritonitis. If you would like to see his x-rays, click here... He underwent surgery at about 2 AM on Monday morning 7/19/04 and came out around 3 AM.  He came through the surgery just fine and fortunately didn't lose any of his bowel or bowel function.  There is a very good chance that if I hadn't brought James in when I did, he wouldn't have made it another day. He  Surgery costs & ICU care came to about $3120 which is a LOT more than I have!  Add to that the continued medication I need to get to finish clearing up his pneumonia, his follow-up x-rays, the $200 that it originally cost for the first set of tests I had done (long before going to the emergency vet!) and all told I will have way too much into this boy in vet bills when I am done! Fortunately I was able to apply for CareCredit which covered everything, now I just have to figure out how to pay it back!

UPDATE 3/26/2005:
James has since made a complete recovery and has since earned his CGC (Canine Good Citizen), TDI (Therapy Dog) and RN (Rally Novice) titles.