The last 24 hours have been quite challenging and I'm going to explain why over the next few pages.
Last night, Lizze and I did end up seeing a movie. It was awesome to get out for a little while. Unfortunately, Lizze wasn't feeling well after the show, so we cut the night short.
No sooner did we get home than I got a call from Elliott saying that while they were visiting family, Emmett got bit by a dog that was there. Elliott was freaking out, Emmett was freaking out and I was trying to piece together what happened. Lizze's mom was trying to explain but Elliott wasn't making it easy.
Long story short, I was pissed the fuck off about the dog. It's family, which complicates things. m Emmett however, is okay and the dog is up to date with shots.
It appears the bite was unprovoked and that bothers me. Emmett was really upset and ended up coming home.
I'm not gonna lie, when I first saw pictures Elliott sent of the bite, I was through the roof. I had to call my Dad and ranted in order to calm myself down before Emmett arrived home. We weren't sure if he would have to be seen and I needed to be centered, in order to be there for him. I didn't want to make anything worse.
Once we saw it, we were very upset that it happened but he was okay and the pictures made it look much worse. The skin wasn't broken and taking him in would have been more trauma for him.
Emmett ended up calming down and going back to Grandma's for the rest of the night. We figured it would be a good distraction for him and he wanted to go back.
As a medic, dog bites were pretty common. This is just the first time one of our kids have been bitten and it's different when it's your own kids.
He's still sore but he's gonna be fine. We simply won't be allowing the kids to return to this particular house, at least as long as that dog exists there.
To be very clear, this had nothing to do with Lizze's parents, who handled things very well and we are of course, absolutely grateful for that. They really did great.
Speaking for myself, I'm not really mad at anyone but I'm mad that it happened. Does that make sense?
After Emmett and Elliott returned to Grandma's house last night, I went to bed. Lizze of course is still battling with Insomnia and didn't fall asleep unit about 4 AM.
I needed to get up early because one of our ferrets was really sick and needed to get into the vet. I was talking about this on Twitter today, so you can see what transpired there of you're interested by clicking *here*. Some of my followers have experience with ferrets and helped me figure some things out.
You might be saying, *well it's just a ferret. *Yes, Zane is a ferret but he, along with his brother and sisters are service animals for the boys. They are very much deeply attached to them, but they are especially close to Zane. He's albino and they're always worried about him.
I went by myself and met with the vet. Zane was in really bad shape and I had to make some very difficult decisions about what to do.
We are not doing so well financially. This year has been challenging. I've lost 2 major sources of income and we can't seem to catch a break.
We have a monster deductible for the storm damage that happened about a week ago, leaving a huge tree next to our house. There's damage to the house, garage, yard and the part of the tree still standing will have to come down.
I'm stressing out right now.
There was no way to know for sure what was wrong with Zane. If we did nothing, he would die and the kids would be devastated. Keep in mind that kids with Autism react much more intensely to things like *loss*. I knew that if Zane died, the boys would seriously struggle. Within the last year, we've lost our dog and cat to cancer and old age.
We had Cleo for about 14 years and Maggie for about 11 years. Maggie basically collapsed on our living room floor and had to be put to sleep. It was awful. The boys struggled and Elliott still sleeps with her collar next to him at night.
I'm serious, these guys don't cope well at all with things like this. There are no *Old Yeller *lessons to be learned here.
The vet gave me two options. One was a more conservative approach. Treating what was believed to be an internal bacterial infection as well as addressing the other symptoms. Zane was severely dehydrated, emaciated, lethargic, not able to walk well and his body temp was pretty low.
I spent the weekend trying to keep fluids in him through a dropper because there isn't an emergency vet for ferrets. It was a long weekend.
The last option included everything above but tacked on about $200 for x-rays and extensive blood work.
I chose option 2, which hurt plenty as it was but at least we did all we could.
Zane would likely stay overnight and if he improved, I could pick him up the next day and treat him from home.
I went home, stressed out, worried and unsure of what to tell the kids.
I called Lizze and told her I'd like to go for a walk and clear my head before the boys come home from Grandma's. Lizze joined me for a walk and we got home in time to receive the kids.
Depression is kicking my ass a bit right now and I'm a bit emotionally volitile, meaning I easily become overwhelmed with emotion.
The kids come home and immediately want to know what's going on with Zane. I tried to explain but Elliott was crying and I just fell apart. Lizze and I explained that we were doing all we could but we don't really know what's going to happen.
We had to get into the fact that this is really expensive and we can only do so much. Emmett reacted by running upstairs to get his jar of money he's been saving. That broke my heart.
I had to explain that I honestly thought Zane was going to be okay. I was upset because I didn't want to let them down.
It was a rough afternoon.
I barely got done with that conversation with the boys and I get a call from my Mom. Apparently, my Grandpa had fallen and I was needed ASAP.
Elliott insisted on coming with me and Lizze thought it would help him because he was feeling helpless in regards to Zane. If he went, he could feel like he was helping my Grandpa.
We headed to my parents house and spent the next couple of hours helping my grandpa make his way back into the house. He's not hurt but was really, really weak. It took some time but we'd do anything for him and used the times in between to just visit and hang out.
We got him back in the house and he had apparently been craving a banana split, so I ran out and got him one.
It's amazing how such a simple gesture like making an ice cream run can have such a positive impact. ☺
While I was helping my Grandpa, I got a call from the vet saying we could pick Zane up because he didn't need to stay overnight.
Elliott and I were supposed to go grocery shopping but now we had to pick up Zane.
We picked him up and found that they had underestimated the costs a bit but we were committed at that point and I needed to get home. On the way to pick up Zane, Lizze called because she was experiencing a panic attack and needed me to get home as soon as possible.
I got home and did what I could to help Lizze before setting up a temporary home for Zane because he's in isolation for a few days.
I then needed to try and get Zane to take his antibiotics, which of course, he wants absolutely nothing to do with. It's not fun and it's a three times a day thing for at least a week.
I'm exhausted. During my adventures, I screwed up my back, aggravating previous major back injury and I'm hurting pretty bad.
.........and that was only Monday.
I'll update you all on Zane in the morning. Until then, I'll be attempting to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. It's not looking to good for sleep tonight.
