EDIT: solved. Upon further investigation, she doesn't even have a gas hob. She has an electric one. It was a fabrication. Nasty woman.
Hello all. A little while ago I got banned from Reddit because of some VERY mild Israel criticism. Truly, I am in awe that I got a sitewide ban for telling people not to conflate anti Zionism with anti semitism. Every new account I make gets nuked in a matter of hours.
Anyway. My mother is totally mental. She threatens suicide a lot. Attempts it even. But I often doubt what's really happening. My sister cut her off over it.
So last night she says she's really doing it, and she's going to put the gas on in her campervan (shes on holiday in France) and take some sleeping pills and that'll be her life over. She said the dogs will die too. She knows I care for them deeply, and has tried to leverage similar things before. But I figure they've had an excellent and long life each, and carbon monoxide/propane is a pretty good way to go. Sad, of course, but I am so detached at this point that I just have to accept it for what it is.
Anyway, this morning, to no surprise at all, she wakes up alive. As always. And she says the dogs are ill. One woke up but didn't move, the other wouldn't come round til she bathed him in some water. So she says she had to go to the vet. She tells me they gave the dogs an IV drip and some charcoal.
Already suspecting bullshit, that caught my attention. Why would you give charcoal to a gas-poisoned dog? Charcoal is for ingested poisons, is it not? Gas poisoning is blood and oxygen related. Any vet worth their salt would not administer charcoal in that situation, right? Or am I wrong?
So that's the crux of the question. I think she's lying. I mean, how hard is it to gas yourself in a campervan? She's 50 something and frail. And two little older shihtzus? They're gonna easily get gassed out. She never took those dogs to the vet because nothing ever happened.
And would that cost 700 GBP (in euros)? That's what she's saying it cost.
Anyway, save me your messages of condolence and such. I know it's a hard situation. Everyone always tells me so. I've come to terms with all that a long time ago. I just want the truth.
If you don't know the answer, a post on r/veteranarians or whatever the vet sub is would be fantastic help. Many pleases. Many thanks.
I'd say that there's the assumption that she went to the vet and said "I tried to gas my dogs last night and now they aren't walking around" or "I accidentally left the gas on and poisoned my dogs" when she might have just said she found her dogs this way, which is much more likely.
With urgent medical treatment like this vets would have a protocol. Dogs are ridiculous for eating things that cause self-termination and it happens all the time. If you have two dogs presenting with an inability to walk then immediately the vet is going to ask "Wtf did they eat??".
When it comes to medical interventions like this in an urgent setting, I'd hazard a guess that charcoal is routinely administered. If there's any toxin in their digestive tract then it's the best chance of adsorbing it. Activated charcoal will adsorb orally administered medications too but you can hook a dog up to an IV so they can mainline any meds and even if there's a remote chance they ate something bad, charcoal is very cheap and very safe to administer especially if you're only doing it occasionally.
If a vet told me that as a matter of routine whenever a dog presents with any kind of poisoning symptoms, they administer charcoal I'd absolutely believe it. Same goes for doctors in an emergency setting working with young kids and people with intellectual disability.