And we thought a newborn baby didn't let you sleep.

Lucy, originally uploaded by MrsBinParis.

We had a potluck last night, at 8 PM, with Dr. B's student group, and since I'd nixed the bowling event they planned a while ago, we were obligated to go to this one. Of course, 8 PM on an Easter Sunday is not exactly my idea of good timing, but what do I know? Before leaving for the shindig, I laid the tinfoil that the jerk chicken legs had baked on down for Lucy, as a little treat.

Anyway, Rowan was a really good girl, both during the long Easter service yesterday morning, and during the after-her-bedtime potluck party. We got home, and Rowan did her new trick of not wanting to sleep unless one of us was with her. I took the shift, since he'd done last night, and crawled into bed with her in the nursery.

At 3 AM, he woke me up. Lucy had woken him up every 15 minutes to go outside, for the past 4 hours. Something was wrong. We tried calling the vet's emergency line, but since they hadn't seen her yet, the answering service would not call the vet on call. Great. Since we still have Madison cell phones, I called the ER Vet there. They were very helpful and kind, but basically said they couldn't do anything for us from there.

Dr. B was upset. Angry. Paranoid. Of course, it was all my fault. It must have been the chicken that made her have to pee. Or the babyfood jars I sometimes let her lick out. Or the chili I made the other night (that HE let her have.)

"And she has a bulbous growth on her head!!!" he shrieked.

Bulbous growth? What? I took a look.

"It's a woodtick," I said, as I yanked it out, gave her an antihistamine, pulled out the bits I could get with a tweezer and applied some Neosporin. "There's nothing more we can do until she sees the vet at 7. I gotta get some sleep," I said, and tried to go back to bed.

Dr. B was still pretty upset, which he made very clear every time he opened and shut the front gate to take her out to pee.


Thump! Jingle jingle jingle. WHAM! ka-chuck ka chuck. (long pause in which I try to fall asleep and fail.) WHAM! ka-chuck ka-chuck. Jingle jingle jingle. Thump!

Fine.

"I'll take the next shift," I said at 4. From 4-5:30, I lay in my coat on the couch and got up to take her outside to pee every 10 minutes. (Note: I used the back door so I wouldn't wake him. Ahem. Yes. Still cranky about this.) At 5:30 I had to nurse Rowan, and his alarm went off, so he got up and started getting ready for the day. I took Lucy out again during his shower, and put a few leftover muffins into his briefcase. After giving me a 20-minute lecture on all the things it could be that he had googled while I was lazily sleeping away, and what horribly bad dog-parents we were because of course it is all our fault and she's probably going to die or need a thousand-dollar surgery, he prepared to take her in to the vet's office before his 8 AM meeting so they could start any tests they needed to do.

I slunk off to bed for a few minutes before Rowan woke up (it was 4 minutes, really), and then got up and got dressed. He came home between meetings, and I grabbed myself a leftover muffin and a cup of coffee and prepared to go drive him to his other meeting across town (the bus to there is too infrequent) and head back to the vet at 9:20. I was already exhausted, and it was only 8:35. He had fallen asleep laying on the floor in Rowan's room, face down in front of her play mat. Before we left, he apologized for yelling at me and being angry. He knew it wasn't the chicken. All the way to his meeting, he was fighting tears and swallowing hard, trying to convince himself that he had done everything he could. (My husband is such a softie.)

The vet was very kind and reassuring. Turns out she has a very wicked Urinary tract infection, and no, it did not come from the jerk chicken (though he got a chuckle out of that). In fact, it was nothing we did wrong. It just happens this way sometimes in older dogs, and they can't be sure where it came from. She was peeing lots of blood, but her drawn bloodwork looked "great for a 10 year old dog", the tick spot looked fine, and nothing else seemed wrong, aside from having a bit of tartar on her teeth (which we're planning on taking care of soon anyway.) The vet didn't see any kidney stones on the Xray, which was a big relief to us. He said it probably "just exploded" and that's why she really hadn't shown signs of a problem before last night. The puking she did at 6 AM was likely just nervousness, and she didn't have Lyme disease.

Of course, it was 300 bucks to find all that out, but at least we know she's going to be OK.

Now I wonder what the bill will be for the shrink for Dr. B. ;)