How to put the challenge into your day.

Tuesday morning started out with everything going for it.

Good book, a variety of knitting,
pumpkin spice coffee.  Heaven.

When I schlepped the goober outside for his early morning constitutional, I noticed - to my horror - that his back end was having trouble maneuvering.  As soon as the clock struck 8, I put a call in to my vet and they squeezed us in at 10.  This produced a flurry of emails with my office nobs (one of whom dislikes dogs) wherein I stated confidently that I would be in directly, following the dropping off at home of PB.


Oh, ha.

What a pair we are, waiting
for the neurologist and a couple
of ibuprofens

The vet took one look at PB and declared "you need a neurologist!"  I scooped him up and trotted out in the direction of my car.  Before I reached it, I managed to trip over an uneven patch and had gone headlong - hanging onto PB for dear life until just before impact, when I sort of slid him forward.  I did manage not to injure him further, but my right knee received the brunt of the impact.  As did my best pair of jeans, dammit.  I gimped him to the car and then gimped back into the vet's office to pay.  They took one look at my knee, sat me down and started to work.  If you're going to take a header, it's better to do it in proximity of people with medical knowledge.  We joked about how vet wrap is to vets what duct tape is to farmers.


After taking off the sticky wrap that
was to make sure the vet wrap
didn't slip.  She is nothing if not
thorough

With my knee firmly bandaged, I hobbled back to the car and we headed an hour west to a veterinary specialist.  By the time we pulled into the emergency entrance, the shock had worn off and my knee was throbbing.  And I was getting the little brown stink eye from PB.  Long and painful story short, he was diagnosed with invertebral disc disease and I received an ice pack and two ibuprofens.  And a sizeable bill.  I was happy they didn't charge me for the ice pack or meds.  My only two options, according to them, was to keep PB in strict confinement, on pain meds, for four weeks OR get an MRI done with surgery to follow.  Hmmm.  $168 or $7000+?  Let me think about it - for a nanosecond.  They felt we had caught the problem quickly enough that there was a pretty good chance (65%) that the confinement would work.  By the time we got out of there (after a blow by blow stream of emails to the office, whether they gave a damn or not), we didn't arrive home until 3 o'clock.  We were both exhausted.  I gave PB his pain meds (liquid - citrus flavored.  Why? Why not liver?) which he hates, swaddled him in six fleece blankets and put him in his crate.  I was about to self-medicate, since it was 5 o'clock somewhere, but remembered I had to vote.  This is a small town.  Had I sashayed into the polling place, the Election Ladies would have had their antennae going and the fact that they detected Sauvignon Blanc at 3:30 would have raced through the town like wildfire.


I voted, did my chores and fixed an extra-special doggie dinner.  Then I fixed an extra-special Doggie Mommie dinner that only required one glass.  Sleeping was a little rough, as I kept turning over the fact that I chose the cheaper way out than what may be better for the little guy.  By 2 o'clock, I gave up and got up.  I had pretty much decided that I would find a way to pay for it.  I was not going to have PB end up paralyzed.  He did seem a little, tiny bit more steady this morning, so that gave me a boost.  Then, as I rehashed the day with our office building super (he and his wife have 7 dogs and are super-rescuers), he mentioned laser treatments.  Apparently, there is a third option that has proven highly successful in the treatment of IDD.  At a fraction of the cost, with no meds.  I will be consulting with a third vet tomorrow.  Geezlouise.