Ray Ray was in big trouble last week.

We noticed that he wasn't rushing to have dinner as he usually did. We wondered about that, but otherwise he seemed his regular friendly and easygoing self. Turns out that the smallest things can be a portent of the largest problems.

Wednesday night, he acted like he couldn't even hear my calling to him. My first and somewhat catastrophizing thought: oh no, has he gone deaf? Ray was born blind, so losing his hearing could be quite a challenge.

BIG RED FLAG

Oh but it was worse than that. He eventually stood up, and I saw him peeing in little drips and dribbles. DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBINSON. No, seriously, when an animal, esp a male sheep or goat is not peeing with a full stream, there is almost certainly a blockage which is very dangerous and painful.

HUMAN LOSES MIND

My IQ dropped 50 points immediately as I realized how sick he was. I love this sheep beyond all reason and temporarily fell apart.

But this wasn't my first emergency rodeo, so I called the hospital and rushed around to prepare the truck for a trip to University of Pennsylvania vet hospital, losing the truck keys in the process and getting completely kerfuffled. Ray remained calm and sweet as always. Even sick, he is an angel. The two neighbor kids came rushing down and helped load his 225 pounds into the cab of the truck - best kids ever!

ROAD TRIP

He was such a good boy the whole trip. He even wanted to munch on some of my saltines (NEWSFLASH: Ray loves saltines!). We arrived at 9:30 pm and immediately they performed bloodwork and a radiograph, and determined that not only was he partiallly blocked in his urethra with a stone, his bladder was huge and full of nasty stuff.

EMERGENCY SURGERY

I got the call at 2:30 am that the surgery had been successful, but that his bloodwork was scary bad. However, the next morning he was already up and chewing on the various assortments of gourmet hay their catering staff offers.

ON THE MEND

It's now a week later, and his bloodwork is normalizing, and they have been removing the Foley catheter for increasing time periods to test that he can urinate on his own. He will remain in the hospital for at least another week, but I think everyone is cautiously optimistic for his total recovery.

ASKING FOR YOUR HELP

The hospital estimated that the bill will be between $3500 and $3800, so we are asking for your help to cover a third of the costs. Unexpected medical emergencies put a big strain on our budget, especially as we are preparing for winter. You can help Ray Ray with even a small donation!!! And come and visit him once he's back on the farm!

Help Ray Ray get things flowing again