Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

OK, grab a cup of coffee because this is long...This past Monday, Eddie and I brought Sarge in for his surgery to get his mass cut out. We were hanging plants at the restaurant when the vet called at 2pm to say he was out of surgery, everything was fine but he was breathing heavily, anxious to go home so why don't we come get him early. We got there 24 minutes later and the nurses were all saying how cooperative and such a good boy he was when I heard this noise coming from around the corner. It was Sarge but he was not breathing heavy, HE WAS SUFFOCATING! I told them this is not his normal heavy panting, he can't breathe, he needs oxygen! Help! So we get him on a stretcher and back to the operating room where the oxygen is and his mouth and tongue are now blue just as we get the mask over his snout. The vet and nurses are freaking out and taking his temperature which is now high and she is saying he is hypothermic, get alcohol on his feet pads. She puts him on an IV of fluid to lower his temp and after a while of this craziness, the vet, Dr.Braun, now says we need to put a trachea tube back in. She gives him the Michael Jackson drug propynol to put him out again (he was just under anesthesia for the surgery) and tries to intubate him but it won't fit. His throat is swollen shut so she uses a smaller tube. Now she figures it is an allergic reaction. She starts injecting him with benedryl and other things, unsure what's happening. Next thing we know Sarge is knocked out, won't wake up like he should and Dr.Braun is talking about a tracheotomy to save him and she doesn't know how to do one. Finally after a while she says we have to get him to the emergency vet before he dies here but she's afraid he may die on the way. Poor Sarge is out cold with a trach tube hanging out of his mouth, on and off the oxygen. So she calls the emergency vet who says to give him epinephrine and lasix and send him right away. So we carry Sarge out on the stretcher to our truck and the nurse gets in the back with him. She has an IV bag in one hand and a shot of ephedrine in the other in case he stops breathing. Four pm traffic parted ways for us and we were quickly at the vet hospital where five people were on him trying to save him.
Eddie took the nurse back to the other vet and I waited for the news. Dr. Dean came to me and said he had a systematic allergic reaction and his left lung collapsed and she didn't know if she could save him. She said the next step was to try to wake him and get him off oxygen to see if he could breathe on his own. Eddie got back shortly after and we waited and waited. Finally Dr.Dean came to get us to see him. He had a tube through his nose, was awake and had the trach tube out. He heard Eddie's voice and looked up to kiss him and his tail wagged and we knew things were looking better for him. At nine that night Dr.Dean was mostly confident that he would make it and the next x-ray at midnight showed his lung had reinflated. He was going to be OK.
So I call Tuesday morning to see how he is and they say he is off the nose tube oxygen completely and was doing good but anxious. She asked if we would come to visit and see if he would eat for us. We get there and here comes Sarge with the tube in his nose and a huge plastic cone on his head so he's like a sneezing battering ram but he did eat, so they said we could take him home. By Friday night he was mostly back to his old self. He had a hell of a hangover from all the drugs. Sadly, on Friday we found out the mass was a malignant melanoma with a supposedly "poor" outcome. BUT, his chest x-rays were good and there is a promising new, safe vaccine they use to prevent future melanomas or metastasis. Most importantly, Sarge is a fighter. Of course we will do what is best to help him live happily and pain free. We will know more once we see the oncologist vet. Believe it or not, after seeing what he just went through, I'm more hopeful than before. Love is a powerful thing and Sarge isn't ready to go anywhere yet.