Weekend Update – (unfortunately not the SNL kind where you ocassionally laugh)

As you know, we have been trying to buy a place and well, the pressures relating to that, the fact that our dog has been quite ill, problems with our current living situation, money, taxes, friends’ relationships falling apart, me working the equivalent of two full time jobs (my actual job and the theatre) and a myriad of other small events culminated in Alex winding up in the ER on Saturday morning.

 

He woke up at around 3:00 am having to go to the bathroom.  While in there, he suddenly felt faint, lost all feeling in his extremities other than a sharp, shooting pain in his left arm and what, to him, felt like an elephant sitting on his chest.  

 

He managed to get back to our bedroom and woke me up.  At first, I thought our dog had either had some sort of seizure or he had died in his sleep.  When Alex explained to me what was happening to him, I flew out of bed, gathered him up and took him straight to the ER.  Thank goodness, St. Paul’s hospital is only a couple of blocks away.

 

They checked him in immediately and started him on oxygen.  Just the oxygen alone helped to alleviate his anxiety a lot.  They then started drawing blood.  A lot of blood.  But, they needed it for the all the tests they were about to perform.  Thus began the wait….  We waited for about 2 hours before I had to go home and check up on our dog.  When I got home, Nykie was hiding.  It took me a couple of minutes to find him.  When I did, I took him out for a walk.  He urinated and defecated.  I took him back in to get him settled before I went back to the hospital.  I went into the living room to turn on some lights for him and discovered that sometime after I took Alex to the ER, he had messed in the living room – urine and feces…. AUGH!

 

So, I cleaned that up and got him settled in.  I went back to the hospital where they had moved Alex from the ER to the Acute … something or other.  I can’t remember the place.  But, they had him hooked up to a bunch of monitors.  He had, while I was gone, a couple of x-rays and a few cursory exams by a doctor.  The x-rays were inconclusive but, they were encouraged that Alex’s blood pressure had dropped dramatically since his arrival.

 

I sat with him for about another hour and a half before I had to go back home and retrieve the dog.  We had scheduled a vet appointment with a neurologist and we couldn’t cancel the appointment because we weren’t sure when we would be able to get him in again.  Now Nykie’s back story:

 

 About three weeks ago, Nykie had what we can only describe as a series of strokes.  He is 15 years old, after all and it is not inconceivable that is exactly what happened to him.  He was extremely disoriented, walked with his head leaning to the right, fell over a lot, vomited every 20 minutes and a host of other symptoms.  We took him to a vet as ours was unavailable.  They did a quick once over and felt that Nykie had been either poisoned (again) or he had eaten something that he shouldn’t have – basically the vet hinted that we fed him a bunch of marijuana… So, we shoved a bunch of liquid charcoal into him to absorb any chemicals.  All it did was make him poop charcoal briquettes for three days. They also drew some blood for a bunch of tests. They then sent us home.  That was the last day he ate on his own.

 

The following Saturday, we took him to our vet who diagnosed him with a condition called “old dog syndrome” which is where the optic nerve becomes dysfunctional and causes vertigo, nausea, the wobbly-ness and a host of other symptoms. There is no treatment for this condition other than time.  Most dogs make some sort of recovery from this.  So, we were hopeful.

 

Now fast forward to this past Saturday.  After I left the ER, I went home and gathered up Nykie and took him to the vet’s for his appointment. Once we got there, the vet started to examine Nykie. He prodded and poked and started making some evaluations.  He then suggested that we do a spinal tap, more blood tests, x-rays, EKG and some other stuff.  Well, suddenly, the world started spinning for me.  Good thing I was sitting on the floor with the dog because the next thing I knew, I was sobbing uncontrollably.  I found I couldn’t stop.  

 

I have never felt so alone and so helpless in all my life.  

 

Anyways, after what felt like an eternity, the vet started to examine Nykie more closely.  He reviewed all of Nykie’s medical notes and decided that all of those tests were not going to be necessary…. yet.  Nykie’s reflexes were good, his vision was looking good, his hearing was fine and the vet felt that putting him through all those tests would be at the least, counter productive.  So, Nykie and I sat there for a few more minutes while I pulled myself together.  He wants to see him again on next Saturday for another follow up to see if there is more improvement.  I took him home and got him settled in.

 

I then headed back to the ER to check up on Alex.  When I got there, he was still in the Acute something or other ward.  But, he looked a damn sight more relaxed.  The doctors were waiting for one last test of blood gases to come back.  But, in the meantime, they decided to schedule him for a series of Stress Tests for this week.

 

Eventually, the last battery of tests came back and they were in acceptable parameters.  They didn’t see any major damage to his heart muscles.  They were still a little concerned but, not enough to warrant keeping him in the hospital.  So, they sent him home with me.  And guess what, I started crying… again…. Sheesh, what a wussy I have become.  He is scheduled for a series of Stress Tests on Tuesday morning at which time we will see if there is any damage to his heart.

 

I took Alex home, I made him a cup of tea and we sat there while I explained to him about Nykie and what we needed to do.  I then packed Alex up and we went to the bank to meet with our mortgage broker.  At the bank, we were dealing with a mortgage broker who had zero experience with chattle mortgages and thus, a number of challenges resulted in that.  Every time we felt we had made some headway, another roadblock popped up and threw a monkey wrench into the process.  So, we went to the bank, I sat down and told the guy that this was his last kick at the can.  I advised him that Alex had just come out of the ER, our dog had just come back from the vet’s and I was in no condition to have any more surprises.  So, he should play me very, very carefully.

 

He explained that there were 4 documents that the Scotiabank needed to finalize this deal and they had 3 of them.  The 4th was a lease agreement from the owner of the trailer park.  We showed him the document that we had and he looked it over for what seemed FOREVER before agreeing that this document was the fourth piece of the puzzle. He was sending it off Tuesday morning and we would know by Wednesday afternoon.  So, we shall see.

 

We went home, where I made lunch for Nykie.  He turned his nose at it so we shoved it in a tube and right down his throat.  Not impressed with me after that, as you can well imagine.  I then stripped our bed, did the laundry, vacuumed, dusted, got all the dishes in the dishwasher, fed the fish and took the dog for a walk.  

 

After I finished all that, I sat down on the sofa and stayed there for the rest of the day. I called in sick at the theatre and explained to them what happened.  They understood and found a sub for me.  I was in bed by 9:30 and slept until 8 in the morning when my Mom called and woke us up.

 

Yesterday, Alex was feeling much better and I was able to leave him and dog to go to the theatre for a matinee performance.  When I left the theatre, I stopped and did the grocery shopping.  When I got home, Alex had supper waiting for me and the dog.  We had a very quiet evening at home and crashed around 10:00 pm.

 

So, now the waiting game continues…..  Hopefully, my next entry will be more to my liking because this one sucked!!!!