I adopted Lenox from a shelter in Florida in 2000. He was a puppy, probably under a year old, and he was first dog that I picked out. He's the most handsome dog in the world.
My father has always said he's the ugliest dog on the planet, but I know he says that so as not to show favorites to his other "grand dogs."
Lenox is ALWAYS by my side, except when it's time to eat. At that point, he likes Thomas for those few minutes.
A week ago, he peed in the house...twice. Now, he's done this before, but in a spiteful way, mostly to show Holly (our new dog) who's boss. Once, while we were all playing on the floor, he became jealous that I was petting Holly, and he peed on me. I suppose I should be flattered, that he was marking me as his territory, but I was pissed (no pun intended) instead.
Worried that he had a bladder infection, I took him to the vet. Turns out that he had a bladder stone and would require surgery. Now, he's no spring chicken, but he's in remarkably good health for a dog his age. We decided that while he was under, he'd get a cyst removed from his eye. They asked us if we wanted a dental, but let's be honest...look at that face!! He's actually lost two bottom teeth recently, and we were afraid he'd lose more.
We take Lenox to the vet on Thursday morning, and hand the poor shaking puppy over. I'm just as traumatized as he is, but we leave since I have to run to the dentist.
Thomas takes the kids home to play outside, since it has finally stopped raining. I'm not home for ten minutes, when Sydney comes into the house to proclaim, "Dylan is hurt-again." Dylan comes in crying. I go to see him, and he's holding his arm. I tell him that we have to take his long-sleeved t-shirt off so I can see, and he SCREAMS! I get the shirt off (carefully) and notice a strange angle to his elbow, at which point I turn to Thomas and say, "I guess we're breaking in the new insurance cards today." (we just switched insurance THREE days prior). Turns out that while kicking the soccer ball on our street, a street that desperately needs to be re-paved (AND we'd already mentioned it to the HOA in previous meetings) Dylan slipped on loose gravel, went backwards, and tried to catch himself...on his elbow.
I take Dylan to the Emergency Room, telling Thomas and Sydney that I'd be in touch. As soon as the nurse at the ER sees Dylan's arm, she comes around with a sling, rushes through vitals and gets us back to X-ray. This was NOT Dylan's favorite part. Once that was done, they wheeled him into the waiting room, where spent, he fell asleep.
Thomas and Sydney showed up a few minutes later with juice and a snack for Dylan, who was looking mighty pale. As Dylan sipped his Capri-Sun, Thomas filled me in on Lenox. He had come through surgery really well, and could be picked up that afternoon. Something told me that Thomas was holding back, and when pressed, he finally came clean, "They did the dental. His bottom teeth are now gone." I start to cry.
At that VERY moment, the Physicians Assistant comes out and says to me, "May I please speak with you in here?" I follow her into a consultation room, where she tells me, "Your son has fractured his elbow and will need to have surgery." DAMMIT! Then, she says, "When is the last time he ate?"
SHIT. "Thirty seconds ago?" is my meek response.
"Shit," she says.
"Shit!" I say, "I am SO sorry! I wasn't even thinking it could be something this bad."
So, we get put into an ER room and Dylan gets started on Morphine. Morphine and The Cartoon Network. I can only imagine how triply THAT experience was. I sent Thomas and Sydney home wit ha list of things to bring back. Thomas goes home and packs, comes back to the hospital, drops stuff off, leaves with Sydney to go pick Lenox up from the vet, take Sydney to rehearsal, take the dog home and deal with him, then come back to the hospital.
He gets back, and we are finally in a ped's room, waiting for his surgery. We have this hilarious nurse who is trying to joke with Dylan, who merely stares at her as if she was a speaking cat.
At 8:30, we are taken to pre-op, in this brand new state-of-the-art hospital. While the input nurse is typing on the computer, she says, "Call in-house pharmacy." I get up, confused, and start looking around for a phone, when her shoulder talks back, "Calling in-house pharmacy." The radio/phone thingie she is talking to confirms some stuff, and moments later we hear a crash. The whole place is wired with those bank vacuum-things that suck stuff all over the place. It was delivering Dylan's medication. SO COOL!
They take a VERY loopy Dylan to surgery at 9pm, and my midnight we are back in his room, and he is trying to climb out of bed. He finally settles down and sleeps.
Of course, sleeping in the hospital is like sleeping on an airplane...impossible. Every 35 minutes, Dylan's IV would beep, a nurse would come in, or Dylan would try to turn over, causing me to leap from the parent bed/couch thingie provided to make sure that he's not flinging this incredibly heavy armpit to finger soft cast that he is now sporting.
The next morning brought me a ravenous and still loopy little boy who wanted, "toasty-toast-toast" and "eggy-egg-eggs" while watching Green Lantern cartoons. The doctor comes in and says that because he has pins sticking OUT OF HIS ARM (cue gagging sounds from me), he has to be careful of bumping into anything. Once the arm has healed, they will PULL THE %&*$ING PINS OUT THROUGH HIS SKIN (more gagging) and put a hard cast on...for up to a few MONTHS!!! dfdlkhsdkjasdlasdlkfhsadlfhasdlkfhasnxcmai (that's pretty much what I said) as I realized that this athletic, very energetic boy has to sit on his keister for two months. No soccer this season, no swim team until the summer, no tetherball........again- dfhsdaldkfhalsdkjfsldkfjasdlkfjas. Oh yeah, and he can't go to school this week...the first week back from Christmas Break....which means Mama can't go back to work...which means that rehearsals have to be dealt with, and by the time I go back, I'll have been off for a MONTH.
We are home and learning all sorts of new things. How to cut shirts so they fit, how to dress in pants that you can get off to go to the bathroom by yourself, how to prop up your arm with pillow, how to watch Treasure Buddies for the 47th time without wanting to slam our head against a hard surface.
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