Diaries I Read:
Today has been a weird day so far. I�ve been feeling frustrated and defensive all day long. I feel like I keep working on things that never get finished. I feel like I keep putting time and energy into things and it just goes to waste. I feel like my projects aren�t important to anybody else but me. I feel like I need to be more assertive, more aggressive, and then when I try to be, it doesn�t work and I just end up feeling like a fool. That�s how I feel today. But I don�t want to talk about that stuff here, so I�ll tell you about last Wednesday night.
We went to my parents� house for dinner and took D with us. She played and ran around and ate a shoe and basically did her thing all evening. We headed home around 10:15, and she fell asleep in the car, and we figured she was just tired out from playing all night with my parents� dog.
We got home and I wanted to take her for her walk immediately because I was tired, so I called her and she just stood there in the other room looking at me. Usually she comes running right over to the door when I say the word �walk,� but this time she didn�t. So I got her leash and headed toward the door, figuring she�d come then, but still she just stood there in the other room.
So I went over to her and put her leash on her, and then she came with me on the walk. She seemed fine. Maybe she wasn�t quite as hyper as usual, but it was nothing alarming. When we got back from the walk, I got ready for bed, and we were lying there trying to watch TV and D was just standing there in the middle of the bed. B tried to get her to move, and she still just stood there. It was then that we took a closer look at her and noticed that she looked really weird. She had this strange expression on her face and weird posture, and her back legs were sort of shaking.
So I picked her up to look at her closer, and it looked like she was kinda foaming at the mouth. Not like foamy foam, but thick saliva. It looked like she was going to throw up, so we rushed her over and put her in the bathtub. But she didn�t throw up; she just stood there shaking and looking up at us with these sad, confused eyes.
We started getting worried that she�d gotten into something at my parents� house, so I called and asked my dad, but he couldn�t think of anything. EXCEPT that he�s been spraying in the backyard for bees, and he thought maybe she could�ve gotten into some of the bee poison.
At that, we examined her a little more and then decided that we HAD to take her to a vet. We weren�t sure if we were overreacting or not, but you can�t really take a chance with these things, you know?
So we loaded into the car and headed back down south, past my parents� house, to the only 24-hour emergency vet that we knew of. It seemed like it took absolutely FOREVER to get there, and as we drove, I started panicking more and more. At first, she was breathing with this little squeaky sigh, but then she got real quiet. I think she just fell asleep, but I was really afraid that maybe she�d die on us. I kept asking B, �Is she sill breathing?!�
We finally got there and they didn�t seem all that alarmed at her condition. They took their time having us fill out paperwork and stuff. There was this other dog there � one of those bulldogs that snorts like a pig � and he was just pacing around the room doing this horrible coughing gasping snorting thing. At first I wasn�t sure if that was why he was there, since those dogs make unusual sounds as it is, but apparently that wasn�t normal. They didn�t know what was up with this dog. Poor D, though � this dog was running all around making these noises, and she just lay there in my arms looking at him with her sad eyes. Usually, she�d be going crazy and chasing him and barking at him, but not this time. She was not feeling very hot.
They finally looked at her and did the whole thermometer up the butt thing (which I couldn�t watch) and her temperature was fine. Then they started feeling for her lymph nodes, and when the vet touched her throat, she cried. As it turns out, they think she got stung by a bee. I was a little suspicious about jumping to such a simple conclusion, but it made sense. She was sensitive in that area, the area felt hot, and there were bees in the backyard (and she loves chasing bees). So they gave her a shot of antibiotics and a shot of Benadryl and we hung out there for a while and then we gave them $125 and took her home.
We didn�t end up getting home and in bed until after 1:00 am. And I had already been tired to begin with. But at least she�s OK. She was groggy and subdued all night and most of the next day, but then all of a sudden she perked up and kicked back into high gear and we�ve got our crazy puppy back!
I know I�ve said this before, but I think I�m going to be a wreck when I have actual real-live human kids. It just kills me to see my dog suffering; I don�t know how I�m going to deal with kids.
Working at home - Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004
Toronto - Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004
On the way to Toronto... - Tuesday, Nov. 09, 2004
A Good Day - Monday, Nov. 08, 2004
Another letter - Thursday, Nov. 04, 2004