Friday, June 16, 2006

Did you ever have one of those days?

Well, I had about three of them since I went to bed last night.
I'll preface this with Libby's one little sentence that got the next rediculous 24 hours rolling.

"Mommy, I gave Chumley all of my raisins"

Did you know that raisins (and grapes) are toxic to dogs, just like chocolate?
No, neither did I. But they are really bad. They can cause renal failure.

Chumley started throwing up within two hours or so of the raisin feast. And he continued vomitting nearly constantly through the night (we were therefore up most of the night helping him and cleaning up after him.) Once his dinner and many of the now very plump and grape-like raisins were expelled, he continued to throw up liquid. In enormous amounts. We gated him off in our bathroom, as it has tile floor and would be more easily cleaned than our bedroom carpet for our Open House on Sunday. Each time I heard him throw up (and I obviously had missed a few times) I'd get up and go in by him. And each time there was stomach fluids covering the entire bathroom floor. Granted, it's a very small bathroom, but we are talking pipe-burst, toilet-overflowed flooding. Chumley was covered in vomit and soaking wet. He was miserable. We were miserable.

I got up and cleaned the bathroom again, then got ready for work. As soon as I got to work at eight I called the vet. This is when I was informed that raisins are toxic to dogs. And that I needed to get him in. We scheduled an appointment for 11:30. I would leave work to take him and we would beg the vet to let us pay next week, since we have approximately 25.00 to our name.

About an hour later the realtor called. She just got off the phone with an agent and her clients were 'very interested' in our house. They wanted to see it at 3:30. We generally need a day's notice for a private showing, as with two children, two big dogs, and the two of us, our house is not usually in 'showing' quality. Plus we have to figure out how to get the dogs out of the house for the showing while we are at work. Keep in mind Chumley was throwing up all last night and this morning. I decided to polish it up a bit as quickly as possible after Chumley's appointment and say 'yes' to the showing.

I rode my motorcycle home to get Chumley for his appointment and realized when I got to the door that my keys...house and car...were hanging on the hook inside the door. I could see them. So I call Chris and he says that he'll jump on his motorcycle and be home in 15 minutes to let me in. I call and move the vet appointment back 15 minutes.

Get in the house and Chumley is literally dripping wet with vomit. It's dripping off of his tail and chest and he's leaving paw prints on the floor.

At the vet I am told that Chumley could be very very sick and he'll need to stay overnight and possibly all weekend. He will need IV fluids, medication, and bloodtests. They agree to let us pay next week because they know us.

I get back home and call work saying that I can't come back in and am taking four hours of PTO. I didn't know what was up with Chumley and I had to clean the house and I was a wreck anyway. So I clean.

At three I get Holly, the Black Lab, into the car and we park accross the way in the church parking lot and spy. It's a youngish couple driving a gold colored Focus or Toyota. They are in the house for 25 minutes. That's a pretty long time for one of these things. And they left with papers in their hands.

The only good news of the day came while spying, when the vet called saying that Chumley's kidney test were okay, he's doing well on IV fluids and the meds have made him stop vomitting. I can bring him home tonight if I keep an eye on him and give him meds. Thank God. I was so scared and I love him so much...he's been my most constant companion for 8.5 years.

When the dogs and I get back home we walk up to the door and realize that the realtor has LOCKED ME OUT. We have one lock for which we've never had a key. The lock on the doorknob. So we put green electrical tape on it when we listed the house to make sure that the agents would not lock it from inside and inadvertently lock us out. Well, for whatever reason they seemed to think that the green tape was there for it's beauty and locked it anyway. For the second time of the day, I was locked out of my house. And this time Chris would not be able to come home and save me. There simply was no key. Now we were going to have to spend more money we didn't have on either a locksmith or on fixing the broken window we climbed through.

I tied the dogs up in the backyard and went to pick up our girls from the sitter. I rambled on through the story of my day so far and how I was locked out again...and she somehow knew how to jimmy a door lock. This woman knows everything. Seriously. As I was talking to her, Amelia spit up large amounts of orange food/formula all over my shirt.....twice. and got the sitter's floor.

Went back home and tried her technique on my door, and thank God it worked. I got in, got a swimsuit for Libby and snacks for Amelia and all I needed to give Chumley an outdoor bath. It's about 90 degrees today, so closed the door because the a/c is on. Washed Chumley, played with Libby and started to go in to get some food for Amelia. And realized that once I had broken into my house, I had never unlocked that lock after I'd jimmied it. So, for the third time today I was locked out of my house. Fortunately I managed to break in again and unlock the door.

Finished feeding Amelia and went in the house to put leftovers in the fridge and dropped the jar of baby food on the ceramic tile floor. It shattered everywhere. I now had glass and baby food all over the recently scrubbed back entry of my house and needed to get it all cleaned up before Libby came running in with her bare feet from playing in the water.

Oh, and I came down with a sinus infection yesterday afternoon and by this morning it was treating me to a very sore throat. Should be a nice addition to my 12 mile run tomorrow morning.

So, do you ever have one of those days?

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