Happy New Year From the Emergency Vet!

With the car finally in for repairs, the work week finished and the rental (a blue HHR the color of midnight) full of catnip for Hobbes, Dingo bones and dehydrated chicken for the fuzzy minions and cheap champagne and orange juice for me, I pulled into the driveway and stepped out of the driver’s side door for the first time in days, disappointing the neighbors who had been waiting in lawn chairs for me to do my contortionist act again.

Home at last!

While Noel and Biscuit took care of business in the backyard I unloaded groceries and then slipped into something more comfortable.  All there was left to do was feed everyone, after that it would be mimosas and chocolate cake on the couch, peppered with small bouts of conjolling the dogs when the neighbors set off another round of fireworks. 

It was going to be glorious!

Cue the Bumpus hounds…

Sometimes, at the height of our revelries, when our joy is at its zenith, when all is most right with the world, the most unspeakable disasters descend upon us.

~A Christmas Story

I didn’t see the empty bag of chocolates until I was crossing the room to let the minions back in the house.  Swearing and trying to figure out how much they’d eaten, since it’s not often I leave survivors when I raid a chocolate village, I noticed Biscuit had something in her mouth.  She’d wanted me to see it and was waiting for me to yell “DROP IT!” a dozen times before she obliged and walked away. 

That’s when I saw it.  An inch wide, solid strip of blood running from her ass!

PANIC!!!!

Five minutes later I was speeding toward the emergency vet’s office, the back seat covered in sheets to keep the blood streaming from Biscuit’s backside from getting on the seats of the rental.  I wondered what the penalty was for violating their “no pets” policy, because this was about as bad as you can break it!  The HHR’s wheels screeched as I whipped into the empty parking lot of the Emergency Vet’s office.

The calm woman behind the front desk took both of them back immediately and left me to watch an endless stream of horror for the next 4 hours.  A four-month old chocolate lab with a giant, rusty fish-hook stuck in his lip AND his paw.  A two-week old puppy named Lucky with seizures who was the lone survivor of a first-time mom who laid on the other 12 of her litter.  A dachshund who came in from outside with lacerations all over the sides of his torso.  A bulldog who couldn’t breathe because of an allergic reaction to a firecracker he attempted to eat.  An older couple covered in blood and carrying a four pound Pomeranian mix named Mickey who they heard yelping from inside the house and found him bloody and barely moving in the middle of the street.  They thought he’d been hit by a car but the doctor’s would tell them later he’d been bitten and shaken by a much bigger dog. 

It was too much.  I could feel my soul cracking from the weight.  Every time the tears would stop someone else would show up, pounding frantically on the glass door to be buzzed in.

I thought about going outside and calling someone, but it was New Year’s eve.  Everyone was out celebrating, MadamBob was (and still is) in Holland and calling my family would have just made me cry more. 

At 11:00 when I finally got to see the doctor, she said “Is it just you?”  I’m sorry, what?  “You’re going it alone tonight?  No one’s with you?”  “Always,” is what blurted out, followed by a fresh wave of tears.

Did I mention it was the height of the worst PMS eva?  As if you couldn’t tell.

Noel could go home, as she wasn’t showing any signs of being sick.  Biscuit, on the other hand, was going to have to stay and have meds and fluids pushed to her via IV for the night, then transfer to our vet in the morning. 

Between the worry and the fireworks going off like World War III it was impossible to sleep.  Not to mention the chocolates, mushed up and still in their wrappers from Noel’s failed attempts to eat them, that she had hidden in the sheets of the bed to keep from Biscuit so she could NOT eat them later too.

I don’t remember the drive at 7am, but Biscuit, one arm shaved, the other wrapped in a turquoise bandage to keep the IV cath in place, was ecstatic to see me.  Our vet gave her the once over, removed the IV and sent us home with a six-pack of easy-on-the-stomach canned food, a list of instructions a mile long and three prescriptions, all of which have to be taken exclusively of one another. 

It’s  a mess, but whatever it takes.  We’re home and thank Morgan Freeman Biscuit doesn’t carry a grudge because it’s all my fault she’s going through this.  If I’d have gone back to the diet like I promised and not extended the “weekend” through New Year’s there wouldn’t have been chocolate in the house for me to leave on the arm of the couch!  Then she wouldn’t have eaten it and wouldn’t have been sick and wouldn’t have both arms shaved to look like she’s got Wonder Woman bracelets on!

All.  My.  Fault.

At least furry, four-legged children forgive and forget almost instantly.  If this had been a human child the therapy bills would be staggering!

I’ve decided to look at this like Morgan Freeman gave me giblets just long enough to kick me in them so the rest of the year, it’s going to be fantastic!

And would you look at that?  It’s time for pill #3 and another nap!

Happy New Year everyone!