No Walk For You!
Monday night we decided to take the dogs for a quick walk. Just the two of us. We were going to run over and pick up something from Starbucks and come right home. Let the dogs stretch their legs.
One thing led to another and a million bad circumstances came together and in a split second Jake was hit by a car. There was nothing we could do. Terry nearly got hit by a car trying to get to him. Jake's feet never stopped moving. He was hit and then ran faster than the wind the three blocks home. We found him in a puddle of blood on our doorstep. His entire back leg a mess. It was absolutely devastating. We couldn't get ahold of our vet. We rushed him to an ER vet. We could not pay. They don't bill you later or take payment plans. I came to understand the absolute heartbreak people go through who can't pay on the spot to keep their pet alive. Our choices were limited. There looked to be nothing left skin, tissue, and muscle wise clear to the bone. At best this wound would have to be cleaned and dressed every few days under sedation and the tissue would have to re-granulate and form new healthy tissue and eventually scar tissue would form to cover it. A skin graft could be done later to try to fix the skin and fur but that would be primarily cosmetic. We didn't care about cosmetics. This is something that would take months to heal and a lot of money. To just clean and dress the wound, start antibiotics, and have an x-ray was all we could come up with the money to do. The doctor gave us some scenarios of what might be wrong and what might have to be done to his leg should there be joint damage or broken bones anywhere. There was talk of a $2500 surgery.
Then when we freaked completely out and didn't know what to tell this doctor to do from this point as we didn't have $2500 in our wallets there was a horrid discussion of what if we have to put him down because we can't pay for anything but that. It was terrible. The kids were horrified. Unfortunately that is something that happens. People come in with a pet with a very bad situation and the cost of what has to be done is so huge that they have no other alternative. It is so horrible.
The vet was so upset at the prospect of us having to put him to sleep for monetary reasons. He said if things were so bad that we could not afford to pay for the operations or the care of the wound for however long it was going to take to heal that he would gladly take him for us as he could care for all of it himself and he loved Boxers and raised Boxers and did not want to see Jake die. We agreed that would do that just to save him if it comes to that. We also don't want Jake to die.
So he did the x-ray. No broken bones. Scenario instantly got better looking. He suggested we could take him home pretty drugged up and stable and rush him to our vet in the morning because it would put us in an easier position and maybe our vet, if they could even take care of a wound of this magnitude, could work with us on the cost. He would but he was not in private practice. He has to follow the rules of the ER hospital. Even with all that he kept taking off the costs of a lot of the things he did for Jake so that we could pay to take him home. We understood. We borrowed the money and took him home. Jake never made a peep even when his meds wore off at about 4a.m. he just looked so pitiful. I cried all night. At 4 I was up trying to find a way to pay for taking him to our vet. We were on our way to our vet before the office even opened.
I had a mini breakdown as we carried him in and told them the whole thing and about the cost and how I don't have any resources left to pay for that big of a bill and how I didn't want to put Jake to sleep. They understood. It is something they see very often I am sure. They helped me apply for a CareCredit account in my name which I was sure I would be denied as I have no job. In the meantime, Jake, upon getting ready to be put in a crate there, could hold it no longer and urinated for the first time and we realized he had actually been holding it as not to soil his crate or our truck. Poor baby! We didn't know if he could even be moved let alone go outside to pee. I had put towels down and everything thinking he would probably pee in the crate and he didn't. That worried us because we weren't sure if he had internal damage. So this was a very good sign. They assured me they would take good care of Jake and we would talk about money after he was seen. Easy for them to say. I signed an estimate paper agreeing to pay not five minutes later. I didn't know how. So we waited. The doctor came out after having read the notes from the night before and decided Jake would have to be sedated to even unwrap the bandage. We agreed. So he sent us home to wait.
We waited on pins and needles all day. After several unsuccessful attempts to call and get an update at 3p.m. they were in there now working on him. They called me back a little later to tell me that I had been approved for the CareCredit account. This helped to relieve my anxiety a bit. I at least had a couple thousand to work with now. It had been a very busy day. A Yorkie had swallowed a sprinkler head and a large breed dog of some sort had swallowed a red ball and the waiting room was sitting full of regular appointments. So we kept waiting.
Finally, at 5:30 I knew they would be closing at 6 so if I was going to get ahold of anyone I had to call back and bug them. I found out Jake had been in surgery and they had actually been able to stretch enough skin from the sides of the leg around and mostly close the wound. He was now dreaming of pink elephants and resting comfortably and doing fine but that we could come and take him home at any time now. This was excellent news. He did very well last night and has been absolutely amazing since. He is even walking on the leg and up and about and wiggling his nubby and eating fine and drinking fine and going outside to potty and is even in pretty good spirits. I am sure the drugs are helping. He is on a lot of meds. We have to take him back in Friday for a dressing change and I don't know how that will go. For now he is home and that is all that matters.
Everyone in our house is now banned from taking a walk.
Posted by gwendolyn on May 25, 2005 at 10:52 AM
Lost: One Headstrong QFU
Beware, this post might be even more rambly than usual simply because it is late and I am ramped up on Starbucks and have a lot on my mind. You have been warned.
Okay. Where to begin. After the chaotic day at the bank I assumed the weekend would be a little brighter. However, due to my perpetual state of never being able to kick that damned football, I woke up last Friday morning to Jake covered in his own bloody vomit and bloody diarrhea. This, of course, made me have yet another very rough couple of days. It began with a very sick, very deathly looking Jake being cleaned up and rushed to the animal hospital/vet and immediately admitted and hooked up to an IV and medicated. They questioned me and were still stumped as to what it might be since tests came back negative for parasites. They assured me this was very common in dogs and cats. I didn't believe it for one second. Being of the experience of having major internal malfunction I concluded that if that were a human a Gastrointestinal doctor would have had a field day. Then they sent us home because there was really nothing we could do but wait to try to find out what was wrong. I spent the next 24 hours scrubbing down the walls and the crate and the carpet where Jake sleeps in his crate because it literally looked like someone had been murdered in there. The smell...CSI has nothing on the smell that was Logan's room that day. It took a full day of cleaning and airing out the house for it to go away. Disgusting isn't a strong enough word for it.
Poor Jake. Poor us. We were very sad around here for a couple days. Jake had to stay over night as there was not a lot of change going on even though they had stabilized him and he was now not barfing every three seconds. Still, he was barfing. The next day they still had nothing to say. Wait. Wait. Wait. Finally, at three I called and they said he seemed better and that he could go home. Yay! We were greeted at the vet by a moderately excited, kidney beaning, nub wagging, jackhammering, goofball. So much different from the Jake that nearly collapsed on me a dozen times in the grass outside the previous morning. We were so happy. He was still not 100% though so special meds and diet followed all weekend and most of this week. Jake is now finally back to normal pending him keeping down his normal food we mixed in with the special easy to digest food they were feeding him while he was recovering and taking meds.
In the meantime, Marley was exhibiting some similar, yet not quite as intense symptoms, and we were really worried she might end up in the same boat. However, she seems fine now and all is well with her except she ate a freaking grasshopper night before last and she keeps trying to eat other dogs poop outside and is making me quite freaked out about it. Damned poop eating dog! I can't even handle that.
So now, back to the current and most important problem of the week, I am quickly getting too fat for my jeans. When I say quickly I mean like ten pounds a week getting fatter. This is a major problem because I caught myself reverting completely to behavior I haven't really exhibited in many years where I just eat all day and not even realize I am doing it. I will wander totally preoccupied with something completely not food related into the kitchen and grab whatever is in the fridge and just eat! eat! eat! When I sat down tonight to explain to Terry why I am not fitting so well into my Calvins, I went over everything I could remember eating today. It was a fucking lot of food. More food than I normally eat in a week, not to mention they are not even remotely items I would ever usually keep in the house! I am so worried about this. The really bad part is that I say to myself every single day that this is going to be the day I go raw again and almost instantly I eat something not raw. What the fuck is that about? Am I comfort eating? Am I punishing myself? Is it nervous eating or stress eating? Maybe it is anger management issues. I am starting to think it is because I feel like I have no control over my life or the choices I keep making and maybe I am trying to either display my need for control by choosing to eat stuff I absolutely wouldn't have been eating otherwise. Anyway, that needs some serious examination. I think it is a destructive self-esteem thing. What is worse, the more I gain and feel horrible about the way I look the worse it gets. Fucking vicious! I will be the first person to tell someone "You just have to make that decision to do what you know is right for your body. Until you make that decision for yourself and commit to it wholeheartedly you are going to continue to fail." I stand by that. Honestly. Yet everyday I say it to myself, and I really believe it and then I go fuck up. So why do I let myself fail? I am stronger than any of this shit and believe me, after the odds I have overcome, I know it. As a matter of fact, I am quite ashamed of myself for letting myself go like this because I worked too fucking hard to be this low right now.
I am considering a water or juice fast for three days or maybe longer if I don't pass out, because, yanno, I have a history of doing that. I know that it is a bad idea for me to do anything extreme due to my finicky system but I have got to break the cycle and I can't seem to find that part of me anymore that is "all or nothing". I keep up this lie that I tell myself. "Eat a little more raw each day and eventually you will get back to it. If you are just eating more than half healthy you will be fine." Um, no. I don't work that way. Also, I am not even eating half healthy anymore. So yeah, I am considering some sort of fast.
The only reason I am up typing any of this is because the very last thing I had this evening was a Mint Mocha Chip Frappawhatchamacallit earlier. Caffeine now owns my ass. It sucks. I am not like normal people (read Terry) who can drink black coffee and fall asleep. I am highly sensitive and the tiniest bit of caffeine will make me awake, twitchy, bitchy,paranoid and panicky for about 48 hours or so. I know it does this so why do I keep drinking it? It is just tastes so fucking good, that is why.
So yeah, water fast. I think I need it. I think I need to clear my body and my mind. When I had been raw for several months I felt so much different than I do now. I felt like I had more mental clarity, more harmony with my body and all it's functions, more grace, more flexibility, more simplicity, all that wonderful hippy shit. I really did. It is an amazing feeling. Also, I felt in control. I felt like I had accomplished something very big and that I was very sure I was doing the right thing. My body was telling me so by how it was functioning properly and starting to look and feel. Except for the scars and telltale signs of motherhood I was starting to look pretty darn good for what I have been through.
The only bad parts of being raw... peer pressure. It is so hard to go somewhere and be with someone who wants you to just have that slice of pizza, or that piece of pie or that cookie with them. That is the hardest part. It is so intimate, food. It is like a bonding issue. Food is how you share with people. It is almost like you don't want to hurt their feelings by staying raw. For a lot of situations it is as if you are seen as passing judgement on other people for how they choose to eat, even when you aren't. I think it makes people feel very uncomfortable around you. Especially if they are battling their own food demons. If you are like me and try really hard to be easy going around people this can lead to problems staying with it. The last thing I want to do is be a spoil sport or an imposition at someone's house or to make someone else feel bad. The reason we fell off the wagon to begin with was because we went to Ohio in December and were around family and friends who don't understand what we are doing. It was hard not to want to just be "normal" while we were there. To bond with everyone. To be part of the group.
Also, if you get sick of a mono diet quickly like I do you spend a lot of your time shopping for and preparing very intricate and costly recipes daily. This is such a hassle. It got to the point where I was spending like six hours a day preparing food for one meal. I cannot do that for long. I burn out. Terry can live on Fuji apples. I can't. The closest I can get to that would be bananas, pineapples, and good avocados. However, I get sick of those things too eventually. I have to have variety. Some days I couldn't even think of looking at a salad and other days I can't stand the thought of eating fruit alone all day. Sometimes both on the same day. Mostly I want prepared foods. Sometimes I just want simplicity. It is a struggle.
We have no friends here, but just being out in a crowded restaurant and stuff like that makes me feel less isolated from the rest of the world. Unfortunately, raw foodists in my area seem to only congregate at the Organic Farmer's Market on Saturdays and even when we do get a chance to go I don't feel like part of the "group". We don't really talk to anyone. It is as if we are invisible. No one talks to us either. We just do our shopping, pay our huge bill, and leave. It is weird because I feel very intimidated by people. I really do need to be part of a small group and some of those people look like they could be really nice to chat with.
It is the same feeling as the homeschooling groups. It is like being on the outside looking in. I like our little tight knit family but having another family or two who are on the same page but whom we could stay very casual with would be quite nice. I am not sure how to cope with not being able to attain that in either realm. It definitely contributes to my urges to eat cooked "comfort foods".
I was raw for six months. That is a long time but not very long at the same time. Strange. I just want to go back. I feel so miserable right now. I can't even walk up fifteen steps without getting winded. It is gross.
I keep trying to remember back when I was not allowed to have anything in the hospital, no food, no drink, not even water. I would walk past the drinking fountain a million times a day and all I could think about was wanting a drink. I wanted a drink so badly. I daydreamed about what a cold drink of water felt like going down and what it tasted like and the silky texture of it. Eventually, I wanted it so badly I would just let the fountain run into my mouth but not swallow any of the water. Being NPO, I am sure I would have gotten into trouble had I gotten caught.
Sidenote: I craved cherry Kool-Aid more than any human craved anything ever in history. I think it was the drugs and maybe because the first thing I saw in ICU through my foggy haze was the red sharps container hanging on the wall that reminded me of a dispenser for cherry Kool-Aid for some reason. Maybe in my morphine bubble I had it confused with a Slurpee machine in a 7 Eleven. Oh god, how I wanted it. I talked about it endlessly once I could talk about anything except excruciating pain. It was the first thing I was going to have when I got out of there. I was going to drink cherry Kool-Aid and drive my Jaguar. Finally, I got to drink some. My mother went out and bought tons of it in the drink pouch things and brought it to the hospital. It sucked so hardcore. It tasted nothing like I thought it would, nothing like I remembered. What is in the drink box is not what we used to make back in the sticks that is for sure. Where was the sugary cherry goodness? What a let down. All those months of working to stay alive and the Kool-Aid was total ass.
Back to my point: I wanted something really badly. So much that I focused on it constantly and made it my mission to get to a point where they would just let me have it. I was very determined. Where has that girl gone? I miss her.
I have started to really feel out of place among the masses here even though I do feel like I am starting to really settle in to South Florida being "home". I want to go to the beach, I want to learn to surf. I want to wear pretty clothes like the other beautiful women here. I keep asking Terry if he ever wishes he had married one of the "beautiful people". Funny thing is, I was at my own ideal "prettiest I am ever going to get" when we dated. So it has only been since we were married that I have really become what I look like now. I have to quit doing that as I think it annoys him to think I am that consumed with how I look, though I am being extremely sincere in my question because it feels so painfully obvious and important since living in this town among the perfectly groomed and barely clad. With all these obviously perfect salon and spa treated women around here I have to stick out like a sore thumb.
Okay, well it is time to go shut my eyes. I should have my ass kicked for not trying sooner as I will be slow moving tomorrow now. Hopefully, the kids will go easy on their poor old haggard mother tomorrow.
Posted by gwendolyn on May 19, 2005 at 02:06 AM
Some Days I Just Freak The Hell Out
At about 11:45 this morning I realized that my checking account was overdrawn. This was purely my fault as I made a huge math mistake in my register last week and then didn't pay attention to the fact that I forgot to write down a purchase this week. I think I have done that twice in 12 years now. So if I wanted to deposit any money into the account to cover any other debits coming in after the overdraft I had to figure something out fast and have it in the bank by noon. That gave me a whole fifteen minutes to come up with a plan. I was now in a panic. I hate being in financial trouble. Especially if it is written down some where in red print with a dash in front of it. This immediately makes me cry.
So I scrounged through the house and borrowed the kids change and came up with just enough money to cover it. Promising to pay them back much larger sums than they loaned me Friday. However, I still came up short so I had to put six fifty cent pieces that had been given to me by mom in various birthday cards, two of which were minted in 1974, the year of my birth. I am not sure but I believe they were given to me in my first birthday card. Being the sap I am, I was crushed. However, I was sure I was a grown woman capable of giving up some childhood gift to now save the proverbial ship from sinking.
I teared up all the way to the bank. I wiped little tears away from my eyes the whole time standing in line. I managed to find a napkin to keep the tears in check while the very nice teller girl counted it all and deposited it. Except in my teary blur I had been short five cents on my deposit. I must have miscounted or dropped a nickel somewhere. As I dumped my wallet into my purse and dug around for any sign of stray coins she took pity on me and got out her purse and put a nickel in for me. I was overwhelmed that much more by her kindness and cried a bit harder despite my efforts to stop. Then I came home and locked myself in the bathroom and cried really hard for fifteen minutes and then called my mother to tell her what I had done.
She tried calming me down and was also sad but said she knew I did what I had to do etc. etc. She said she would find me more coins. It wasn't going to fix it. Then she insisted that I let her wire me money to put into my account. I tried to insist that she not. So, of course, fifteen minutes later she called me with a confirmation number to go pick up the money and told me to take it to the bank and stick it in my account and pretend it wasn't there so this wouldn't ever happen again and to ask the nice teller if she would sell me back my fifty cent pieces. Logic, who knew?
So I called the branch and I don't know who I talked to but there were only like four women working in there while I was in there the first time bawling and so I am sure they all knew I was the crazy girl that was just in there. I explained what I wanted and that the coins were sentimental to me and wanted to know if it was possible for me to buy them back. The woman on the line went "Awwww that is so sad. Of course, hold on." and then came back a second later and said, "Sure, you can come back in and get them".
So I went and picked up the money and ran to the bank and when I got there I was all splotchy and swollen and red-eyed and standing in line and all the ladies at the teller windows kept glancing up at me in line and smiling and I thought they must think I am such a total freak and now the butt of many jokes. When I got back to my original teller's window she slipped the coins to me under the glass and then insisted she had taken care of it and would not take my money for them. I then started blubbering even harder and telling her how amazingly sweet she was and how much it meant to me and how it might seem crazy and she just kept telling me it was okay. Still blubbering, I left.
In my flustered state I forgot to deposit the money mom sent. I feel like a horrible daughter because sometimes I have to wonder if she doesn't actually care because she didn't have to do that for me and sometimes I just think maybe she does do nice shit for me because she might love me. She only told me she loved me like a dozen times while I was hyperventilating and trying to explain to her what I did. Now I want to send something to the girl at the bank for being so sweet to me. I was so embarrassed that I couldn't stop crying that I ended up driving to a different branch to deposit the money in the drive through.
It is goofy to be blubbering over coins, but I can't help it. It wasn't just that though, it was everything, but mostly that. I had carried them around for twenty some years in an old metal Hershey Cocoa tin bank that my mother brought back to me from Hershey, Pennsylvania. She got it when she drove out to New Jersey to see my uncle Fritz graduate from boot camp.
I didn't start feeling emotionally out of control until when she was counting my deposit she mentioned a collector who would be interested in those coins and then it hit me that I was not only in the process of saving my ass, I was using something I had treasured for 29 years to do it. Twenty nine. Even through all the really hard shit I had been through in my life I had never once thought of cashing them in, but the fact was that if I had let the overdraft happen it would have automatically been posted to my credit card account that is set up to catch any overdrafts and that would have been like watching a train wreck.
So now I think the account is fine. My coins are safe back in my hershey tin. I feel like a jackass, but am completely overwhelmed at the kindness of a stranger. I have been here five years and no one has ever been that nice to me. Thank you so much Ava or Ada. I am not sure which but I really wish I did know because it would make sending you something much easier. I was too freaked out today to know your name but know you are greatly appreciated by one insane blonde chick.
I have renewed faith in humanity. That is, unless she reports me as having robbed the bank and it shows footage on the 11:00 news of a crazy girl in the bank and a teller handing her money and stuff with a police sketch of my face.
Posted by gwendolyn on May 11, 2005 at 05:40 PM
Just To See You Smile
Moving right along into the pre-teen years...way too quickly for my heart.
Posted by gwendolyn on May 09, 2005 at 05:09 PM
New Toys
Mother's Day came early around here this year. This weekend I received some pretty cool new gifts. I can't decide which I like better, my new 60GB iPod Photo or my very own Canon Elph. I am definitely in the market for a slightly larger purse with various pockets for such things. Best thing about the Elph, I can slip it down the front of my pants before entering a concert. Best thing about the iPod Photo, I have 3,000 songs and 10,000 pictures of my life in the palm of my hand already and room to spare. That is an absolutely awesome thing.
Until I get a permanent link up here for my Flickr account, here is a link. I am going to try to learn to take good pictures. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime there are some I took within the past week.
Posted by gwendolyn on May 02, 2005 at 12:14 PM