Yeah, so... since my big "this is going to be the best year evah!" post, The Universe has been crapping on my parade. It has been one thing after another and I haven't been dealing with it very well. My poor husband has been riding a roller coaster and not knowing if he was going to get the "It's all going to be okay"-me or the "OMG! The Universe hates me!"-me.
Backtrack.
Shortly after my birthday we were slated to begin our kitchen remodel. As expected, we hit a few snags and got a bit delayed. We finally began the process with the removal of our cabinetry on October 1st. All in all, we are doing quite well with this whole thing. Once again, there have been a few snags. But we are doing a lot of the work ourselves (with help from my parents) and I'm so darn proud of us! Granted, even with things running relatively smoothly it's still stressful. We have a microwave in our office. A refrigerator in our living room. I'm washing dishes in our bathroom sink, while filling our water pitcher from the tub. We've been eating takeout pretty much every night. Some people may find that fun, but I don't. So it's been... a challenge.
Then, one day I came home to find that our precious pooch had eaten her leash. All 6 feet of her leather leash, devoured. Like, I found the clip from the leash still attached to her harness AND the clicker that is normally looped around the handle, but not a single scrap/piece/molecule of the leash, devoured. I took her to the vet that night and because we didn't know how long ago she had eaten it, they didn't want to induce vomiting. So, because she's a big girl, we were told to feed her Wonderbread and vaseline sandwiches and hope that it would pass. Yum. She loved them. She was doing well for several days... things were still moving, so to speak. Then three days after her big snack, she vomited breakfast. Not good. Back to the vet for more Xrays and an intended barium series. This was not in Lita's plan though because despite the fact that three people were assisting, she would not take the barium. One regular Xray taken before trying the barium clearly showed "stuff" in her stomach. Knowing that our dog definitely had eaten something and that it was the something that causing the issue, we opted for surgery. This was an extremely stressful situation for both my husband and myself. Now I have worked in this very animal hospital. I know that gastronomies, while not super-common, do happen and usual have good outcomes if the dogs are seen early enough. None of that mattered because it had never been my dog in the situation before! I was a wreck. But we signed the papers, refused a quote (it didn't matter to us what it cost at that point) and left our big furbaby in capable hands. After an agonizing 5 hour wait (thanks to an emergency spleen-ectomy), we finally heard that the surgery was finished and Lita Loo was in recovery. They removed MANY 3-4 inch pieces of leash from her stomach and the rest of her system was clear. And, oh yeah, they also spayed her while they were in there (refer to early posts for info on her mystery cycles--she was supposedly spayed when we adopted)! Oh boy, a 2-fer! She spent a night in the hospital and it pained me to think of her there, alone and scared. And probably stressed out simply due to the presence of other dogs. She did well the next day though. Ate in the late afternoon and kept her food down, so the doctor agreed to release her. When we picked her up we could tell that she was out of it, spacey, didn't even seem to recognize us. Poor girl! The first night she was home she cried the whole night. This is quite normal for dogs coming home from surgery, but it broke my heart and I cried right along with her. Thankfully, things improved quickly from there. She ate her liquidy food quite well. By the third day she was even playful and we had to try to keep her calm since she had about 25 stitches in her belly. Now, 15 days post-op, her stitches are out. She had a minor infection at the incision site and is still on antibiotics. Other than that though, she is eating well and is back to her regular self. The one major change is that she is now crated during the day when we aren't home. We hope to transition her back to her regular kitchen corner once that area isn't a construction zone anymore and realize that it is probably the destruction of her "bedroom" that stressed her out enough to eat her leash in the first place.
Meanwhile, I was dealing with a health issue of my own. I have known for awhile that my wisdom teeth were coming in and have been trying to ignore them if I'm being honest. But they would not be ignored for awhile there... For several days I was in severe pain, pain that would even wake me up at night. I had to suck it up and visit my dentist. From the Xray she said that I may have a cyst in my jaw that the tooth was pushing on as it was emerging from the gum. And it was partially impacted as well. Both of these are factors that indicated that it needed to be removed. And why not remove the others at the same time??? Gee, thanks! So I went to an oral surgeon recently to schedule the surgery. The good news is that I don't actually have a cyst, but that tooth has still got to go. It's not sideways or anything, but there's just not enough room for it so it will never entirely break the surface of my gum. It's still causing me some pain too. So, yeah. I get to have my first surgery too. I'm a chicken and am not looking forward to it at all. I'm not so much worried about the pain afterward because I'm pretty sure I can handle it. It's the actual anesthesia that has me freaked.
Since I started having issues, I've been trying to get this taken care of asap though. Since, as I've indicated, we have been fully intending on starting to expand our family in the near future... The surgeon's first available appointment is another month away. The Monday before Thanksgiving! ha! :) There may be no big dinner for me this year. So we are delayed another month. Which is NOT that big of a deal really. But this news on TOP of all the other stress... sent me into a bit of a tailspin that I have been fighting to pull out of.
Slowly, but surely.
The kitchen is looking awesome. And the tiles go down this weekend so I am super-excited about that. As I said, Lita is doing well and is returning to her walking schedule... AND although I can see we've lost A LOT of ground in her training during her time off, we are starting a new class next week that I am so thrilled to be taking--nosework! AND... well, I don't really have anything good to say on the wisdom tooth subject... other than it will be taken care of. :)
So, that's where I've been. I'm hoping that this year will now balance itself out and I'll have tons of goodness (or at least LESS STRESS) coming my way soon. We'll see!
