Poor Lucy

I woke up to Lucy vomiting in our room, which gets me out of bed very quickly! I went to let her outside thinking she had just eaten something that didn't agree with her, but she wouldn't walk. When I tried to get her to come with me, she fell and acted like she didn't have any control over her back legs. I turned on some lights to I could see her better and she looked terrible. She seemed really scared and was shivering and shaking. She had foam around her mouth and couldn't hardly stand up. By this time Robb had gotten up too. I sat with her for a while to try to figure out what was going on, but the shaking didn't improve. We decided to take her to the emergency vet. I carried her out to the car, and I had to carry her in when we got there. They didn't really know what was going on with her just by her symptoms. They suspected that she had eaten some kind of poison. Lucy used to be the dog that got into everything and would eat stuff she wasn't supposed to but in her older age she doesn't do that anymore. I couldn't think of anything that she could have gotten into. They did bloodwork and it came back with her phosphorus level being incredibly low. That was really the only abnormal thing that they could find. They gave her some meds to settle her stomach and stop the nausea. I guess dogs drool and foam at the mouth when they are nauseated. As far as the treatment for the low phosphorus, I felt like I was coming up with the same information they were giving me just by googling it. It was pretty apparent that they had no idea what to do with her. They said that they didn't even have the reversal medication that she would need to reverse a poison that was phosphate binding. They called Omaha and the emergency vet there didn't seem to have much of an idea of what to do either. They wanted me to leave her there with them overnight for fluids and to be monitored. Lucy doesn't do well in kennels or being left without someone she knows. I finally convinced them to just give her some fluids while I waited there and told them I would take her home. I felt really helpless because there was nothing I could do and after hours at the vet we still had not answers. They had looked it up and milk has a lot of phosphorus so at home I tried to syringe feed a dog with an upset stomach milk. Counterproductive! I stayed up and watched her overnight and she did finally sleep. The next morning, I called her vet and told them what had happened. I trust her vet a lot and they recommended that she come in so they could see her. Vondra Vet clinic repeated the lab work, and her phosphorus was low but not terrible. They told us not to do anything different. They actually thought that the lab work from the ER vet may have been incorrect, or their machine may have given an inaccurate result. That was really frustrating to hear. However, they did think that they may have known what she had gotten into. Poison Hemlock is really prevalent in Nebraska this time of year and it grows in many ditches and fields. I didn't find any in our yard, but the ditches close to us had some. If the dog gets it on their paws or fur and licks it off, it binds to the phosphate in their blood causing neurological side effects and can cause death. I'm not sure how many lives dogs get but I feel like Lucy is pushing her luck!