Friday, March 11, 2011
Expensive Hoodlum
This has been an expensive day for me. Joy.
Yesterday, I came home and the hoodlums did their usual routine of jumping all over me, following me around non stop, nipping at me, etc. One minute, Sakari was jumping on me and the next minute she was whining and holding her right front paw up in the air.
What the hell?
What the hell just happened here?
She favored her paw for awhile and then she would walk on it, jump up once or twice again, whine again, walk on it again, whine again....W.T.F!
I decided to see if a little bit of time would fix things and took her out to conduct her business. I have steps at my house and she was unable to go down them without crying out in pain. Ah, crap. So I had to carry her to her bathroom area. She stood there, then sat there, then stood again, staring at me. She didn’t want to walk. Eventually, after quite some time and the mosquitoes had drained about a pint of blood out of me, she did her business. I carried her back to the house, up the steps and inside.
We went to bed early last night because I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. I picked her up and put her on the bed on her little towel and told her to stay there. Eventually I fell asleep hoping that a bit of rest would fix the problem.
I woke up to screaming and whining this morning at about 6am because at some point in the night, she had jumped off the bed and couldn’t get back up. I have pet stairs at the end of the bed for my older cat, (who hardly uses them anymore thanks to raw feeding....she prefers to pull herself up the side of the bed instead), but climbing up and down steps was causing Sakari a lot of pain.
Fuck.
What the hell am I going to do? I have to take her to the vet but I don’t get a day off for another three days. Fuck!!!
I went in to work early because I didn’t know what else to do and called the vet to see what their hours were. Turns out they were open early and I asked days of operation and what time they close. I was asked what the problem was, I told them, they said I should come in, it sounds serious, I said I would try but didn’t know if I was going to be granted that time. (It depends on who you are around work. Some people, “NO PROBLEM! My precious little worker bee, you go on ahead and take the week off to go to the concert/hunting/recover from your hangover/whatever. You do what you need to do and we hope to see you soon!!” I’m surprised they don’t hug them and give them a peck on the cheek before they go. Others? “No you cannot have the day off you fucking loser slacker useless shit. I can’t believe you would even ask to take care of something in your private life. These are work hours, you are scheduled to work, I don’t give a fuck what your issue is. You fucking idiot.”
Yes. There are two camps. The special favored kids and the “fucking idiot” kids. What’s great? The “fucking idiot” kids are the ones who have been here the longest. Hows that for gratitude?
Anyway, I never know what camp I’m in. Some days I am treated kindly and other days I’m treated like I’m a “fucking idiot”. It depends on the mood of the people there. Most of the time they are in shitty ass moods because their lives suck completely so more often than not, I’m in the “you fucking idiot” crowd.
I was sure I was not getting any time off.
Suddenly, Bitch asks me what is wrong. I was a little upset that my puppy was at home, in pain, and I didn’t know what was wrong, what to do about it and the thought of her being in pain for three more days was disturbing. Sure, there are emergency vets but she was walking on it a little, I didn’t think it was broken and I’m not sure I have that kind of money. Emergency vets are fucking expensive. It’s about $200 just to walk in the door.
I told Bitch that something was wrong with my dog’s leg, I don’t know what, I explained what happened the day before and that time and resting didn’t fix it, when I took her out this morning she was whining even more and I really didn’t need some cold, heartless asshole telling me I couldn’t take my dog to the vet.
That’s exactly what I said.
Clearly I was upset so Bitch turned on her, “care” face and said that we could call someone in to cover for me, someone who had the day off. So, she did that. And of course the person didn’t want to come in. I do NOT blame them at all. I don’t like having to come in on my day off either. I do get that. This, however, was different. I wasn’t asking someone to cover for me because I was hung over or came in late and didn’t get any sleep or whatever other lame ass excuse people use. The only time anyone has ever had to cover for me was when I got that heat injury last June, one other day when I was sick and today. In the almost four years I’ve been here, three times. Some people here have been here less than a year and someone has had to cover for them no less than 5 times already. So yes, I understand not wanting to come in, I really do but I NEVER FUCKING ASK FOR IT so please, just do it, please!
It was The Martyr. And surprisingly, the Martyr was nice about it. He did indeed remember that I’ve done favors for him in the past and he told me that he was going to say no, remembered that I have done things for him and that if it had been anyone else, he would have still said no but because it was me, he said yes. I felt bad because he had stayed up all night watching the news about the earthquake in Japan. I thanked him a thousand times and he said one thank you was enough. I told him he doesn’t know, I really appreciate it. Apparently he did know.
ANYway. Took the dog in and had to wait awhile, which I understand, while the other appointments were being seen. Eventually got in to a room and two techs plus a tech in training were there doing the usual weighing, temp and questions. The dog’s doc came in, looked over the record and started examining Sakari. I told him that she is a bit of a drama queen so I never know what’s real and what’s overdramatized. I said that something is going on, don’t know how bad but something is going on.
He took her good paw, pressed on it, moved it around, did that all the way up the leg, no pain. Then he took her bad leg, pressed on her foot, touched her toes, nothing. He got to the wrist. Put it in a slight bend....
“YIPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (font size = 6000)
She screamed so loud that the two vet techs, the one in training AND myself all jumped. I even uttered, “Jesus Christ!” before I could catch myself. The vet continued up the leg to look for other problem areas and found none. So he went back to the wrist and was getting ready to bend again. “Oh God, please don’t do that again!” (That was me.) He bent it, “YIPE!” (still font size = 6000 but we didn’t jump because this time we were all prepared for it.)
They took her back to x-ray and I went outside and chain smoked two cigarettes because you do NOT want to hear your dog yipe like that. Eventually it was time to come look at the x-rays.
No bones were broken, whew! The vet explained bone plates and plate guards, (I think), and growth and deformities and early closures and things like that. I think he must be part Irish because he explained all of this, I’m thinking, while looking at the x-rays, “They don’t look closed but why is he telling me all of this unless they are and does this mean my dog has a deformity and what the hell does this mean for the rest of her life....” and he concludes with, “But you don’t have to worry about that, her bones are fine.”
Typically Irish.
He tells me that it’s soft tissue damage, it won’t come up on x-ray so I will have to restrict her activity, no running, no jumping, no acting the fool and I have to give her anti-inflammatory and pain pills. They even gave her her very own day of the week pill box. I don’t even have one of those.
I decided to get her nails trimmed while we were there because they are solid black and even though I do have clippers, I have had a dog before who had black nails and it’s a fricken wrestling match and a painful, exhausting experience for all involved, (I even wrote about it...one of my very first posts), unless they are experienced like a vet. Took them about 1 minute. Takes me one minute just to get the dog to give me their fricken paw. The first time.
So, $291 later, she’s home, resting, (sort of), and I gave her the first pill. I also got the entire day off because I didn’t get done until almost 11:30. Oh well. So that was a loss of money.
Oh, and on the way to the vet, on a two lane road, one of those construction trucks filled with gravel passed by me going the other way and a huge rock came flying out of the back, smashed in to my windshield just at the wipers and now I have to get a new fucking windshield.
GOODY!
Something always happens and yes, when it rains, it DOES pour.
Sigh.
At least my dog will be ok. May take about a week or so but she’ll be ok.
