Not My Week

This is probably one of the worst weeks I have ever had. I'm not trying to be melodramatic, because seriously, I'm just barely hanging on.

Matt has been gone only for a week and a half, but man it feels like longer. And stuff like this only seems to happen when Matt is not around. Figures.

Monday at 0945, Jack had a routine check up, got two vaccines and a fecal exam, everything came back normal. Nothing to worry about.

Tuesday, movers show up at 9:30. I woke up at 5 am to run to get them food. Jack seems to be acting fine, but I did notice a bump on his hip. Didn't seem to bother him, though.

Through the whole day, I started noticing that he didn't want to sit down, or lie down, he would only stand. He was able to walk normal, though. He ate, drank, and eliminated normally. Other than the no sitting, he was acting his normal self, just more subdued, he still loved greeting the movers and did not protest to going outside for walks, but he did walk slower. Towards the even, I noticed his swelling was worse, and he was so tired but still refused to sit.

My friend Jessica came over, and noticed that if you lifted his tail he absolutely shrieked. On to the vet we go at 11 pm. The emergency vet is about 35 miles away. I didn't get there for an hour because I got pulled over by security forces (apparently I rolled through a stop sign, I don't even remember that part of the drive, to be honest). They were super nice, though, only gave me a warning. In fact, I didn't mention I was running him to the emergency vet until after they brought my license back. They even said "Ma'am, why didn't you tell us that first?!" Well, because coasting through a stop sign is still not ok no matter what the excuse is. It's actually kind of a good thing they pulled me over, it was a reminder of "Sara! You can't get Jack safely to the vet if you are driving distracted."

Of course, I also had no gas, so I had to quickly stop for some. Naturally.

Then I got lost. The emergency vet is on the college campuses, and no campus I know of is straight forward to drive on. Also, the street was not in my GPS. Naturally. So I had to call the vet again and be talked in, because the directions my friend gave me from Google didn't work, either.

After two hours in the waiting room, I was told they discovered the abscess and it had burst on their table. It was well hidden, too, because they didn't even notice it until they shaved him about an hour or so into the examination. So I feel a little less guilty knowing that they didn't automatically find it. All the preliminary tests, though, were fine and he had no blockages in this digestive tract they could find, and the only other thing is that he had a fever.

I had to leave him over night because they wanted a surgeon to look through all the infected tissue and if they found any dead tissue, they would need to remove it. He also needed some heavy duty antibiotics. When I called at around 11 (since nobody there had called me), they told me he hadn't had his surgery yet, but they don't expect any complications from it. They are basically going to do a heavy duty cleaning of the abscess and go from there. Depending on how early they can get to him, and how badly the wound is, they might need to keep him overnight again.

Of course, I didn't sleep well, only about 4 hours. After being up for 22 hours, that's not a lot. I'm exhausted and distracted, so naturally when I went into PetSmart this morning to get hugs from my former co-workers (who are great friends), I locked my keys in the Jeep. Yup. It's been an expensive 48 hours, so hopefully they don't need to keep him over night.

We are about to spend a lot on our move, and this vet bill just last night was $775 (a 75% deposit of the estimated cost for the medication and the morning procedure). Hopefully I don't have to shell out too much more. The move itself will cost around $2000 moving out there, and we won't get reimbursed for that until after. We also have to pay our first months rent and a security deposit once we get out there. We are quickly becoming very poor. Just within 48 hours.

Life sucks sometimes. It really does. But God won't give me anything I can't handle. I know I can, it just doesn't feel like it right now. I'm determined, though, to make the most of this situation. I have somehow managed to stay calm at times when I needed to the most (driving, talking to the vet, getting directions, even when I got pulled over I didn't cry), but let me tell you I've lost it a few times. But everything will be ok, I just need to remember that.

I wish I could take a nap, though, but I'm terrified of missing the call from the vet. Oh, well. At least this is an excuse to just sit back on the couch and watch Big Bang Theory and do nothing productive.