Anything worth having is a lot of trouble

In the last four months, I spent $8771.26 on animal veterinary and behavioral treatments.

That included $2500 for Cash's overdose of vetprofen, $1000 for Mollie's vertigo, pain meds, hospice, and cremation, $500 for Kitterson's thyroid meds, blood work, and follow up visits, and a mere $250 for Stella's adoption, spaying, and check-up at our regular vet.

The most unsettling expense, however, was for Rufus. Rufus is a Lhasa Apso who lives about two blocks away from us. Back in July, when the HVAC guys were here, I went out to run an errand. Cash slipped out and jumped Rufus on the street. My HVAC tech Courtney deserves a medal for sprinting after Cash and pulling him off Rufus within seconds. Seriously, that man went above and beyond the call of duty in every sense.

Needless to say, Rufus' owners were distraught. Rufus had been attacked by another dog once before, and his owners felt like it just wasn't safe to walk their dog, which has to be so infuriating. The owners left several terse voicemails for me. I had to meet with animal control. There was a risk that Cash could be labeled as a dangerous dog and have to be muzzled in public forever. Tensions were high.

Rufus first went to Animal Eye Care. That's when I first learned about the veterinary shortage because the ER vet turned them away. I paid $1961 for a corneal laceration repair. When Rufus went for a follow-up two weeks later, they learned they would have to take his eye. That prompted another terse voicemail. "My dog is losing an eye while your dog is free."

I paid for the subsequent surgery and learned that they didn't take Rufus' eye but instead gave him a silicone implant. Doggo has a fake eye like Columbo! The vet heavily discounted that surgery, so it was only $399.42. He had his final surgical follow-up this week and seems to be doing well. Because the outside of his eyeball is still there, you won't even be able to tell that he's blind in that eye unless you sneak up on him.

Since this is not the first time Cash has acted super reactive to a dog in front of our house, I needed to pull out the big guns to see if we could correct the behavior. I hired a guy named "Mountain," a 12 year Marine veteran who worked with dogs in Afghanistan to clear main supply routes and marketplaces. This dude is legit. He also has about 25 dogs under his care currently. He is the perfect person to bring dogs who know how to act right and help teach Cash that not all dogs are here to kill his family.

In the meantime, we adopted Stella. Mountain admitted that when he first learned that I was getting Stella, he thought, "This lady is crazy. She already has one asshole dog, and now she's getting another one??" Once he met her, though, he was and is smitten with her.

The unique thing about Mountain is that we aren't going through a generic training program. Mountain is tailoring our sessions to Cash's needs. It's also $1800 for eight sessions. Honestly, that's cheaper than another corneal laceration repair, so I just did it. And since Cash is responding well, we will get some guidance for Stella as well.

It's been a costly summer for me. My credit card is pretty full. And I did my best to do right by all the animals, both in my home and neighborhood.

We did some work today with an e-collar for Cash and a long tie-out while Mountain paraded his Malinois dogs around my front yard, just looking all tempting and threatening. Cash did so well that we're not sure how to correct his behavior. That dog is a mystery sometimes.

The next plan is to get Cash accustomed to the e-collar for corrections, and then Mountain will bring a dozen dogs, park down the street and bring them down the road one by one to see what happens. He's also bringing assistants to help him so Cash won't recognize Mountain as "safe". It's a whole production. Depending on how that goes, we'll meet at Lowe's and see how Cash does running into random dogs in the aisles there. Believe me, I'm getting my money's worth out of all this.

I do feel awful about Rufus. I'm sure his owners feel frustrated too. But I'm hopeful that Cash can get the therapy he needs to be a well-socialized dog after years of neglect. And we might also get Stella to be slightly less of a doofus too.

Happy National Dog Day! It's been a wild ride, but still seems worth it

Mountain bringing one of his Malinois out to provoke Cash

Good night sleep tight

I came downstairs for work on Monday and noticed that Ian was asleep in my office (which also has our guest bed). The HVAC repairman was coming to fix the AC upstairs, so I assumed he just got hot. I went about my morning routine, and Ian woke up around 9:30 am. I asked if he had gotten hot. "No. Bugs were crawling all over me, so I came down here."

What bugs? He'd mentioned seeing some bugs a couple of days before, but when I went to look, I didn't see anything. This time, I brought all four pillows downstairs because he said they were inside them. They were crawling with bugs.

We had bed bugs.

You know what you don't need in addition to a pandemic, learning in place, economic uncertainty, city-wide curfews, and riots? Bed bugs.

I immediately messaged Bossman and told him I was not going to be doing any more work that day because I had a crisis on my hands. I knew I didn't want to dig too deeply on the Internet at bed bug stories because it would just make me freak out and not help.

I found a plan, and I took action. I did 12 loads of laundry on hot, each load drying in the dryer on high heat for an hour. I found the nest on Ian's box spring, which is thankfully a plastic platform with a removable fabric cover. Everything that could go in the washer/dryer in Ian's room went in black garbage bags for transport to the laundry room. Once they were clean, they were put in smaller white kitchen trash bags and moved to a clean room staging area.

Everything in black trash bags along with diatomaceous earth and the vacuum

Every piece of furniture was disassembled, scrubbed, and dusted. I covered everything in Ian's room in diatomaceous Earth (which I just happened to already have in my house, thank you, Daddy). I was covered in diatomaceous Earth most of Monday. I scrubbed, vacuumed, and rotated every mattress in the house. I dragged furniture away from the walls to clean behind them. I have done more physical exercise this week that an entire CrossFit gym. Forget flipping tires, try putting a king size mattress in a full encasement by yourself. I washed both dogs and all their dog beds.

Wednesday, the more potent bug killer (Cimexa) came from Amazon, and I added that all around Ian's room. It kills bed bugs within three days versus the 14 that diatomaceous Earth takes. It's also $16 for four ounces.

This may be the most unflattering photo I’ve ever posted of myself, but it’s how things were going this week. Headlamp to illuminate crevices of furniture, hair in tiny top knot, covered in sweat and insecticide.

I am so tired.

But I think I have done everything I could possibly do to remove these pests during a pandemic. All of our furniture is leather, but I've vacuumed and dusted the crevices. I've vacuumed the entire house multiple times over. I've encased every mattress and pillow in the house in bed bug proof cases. I spent $500 at Bed Bath & Beyond. I took two days off work to tear my house apart and put it back together.

Ian’s freshly dusted headboard. I’ve never been so grateful for his plastic box spring platform in my life.

I may have inadvertently contained the infestation all along. Since sheltering at home, I have insisted Ian put on fresh clothes each morning, so he wasn't taking the shirt he slept in and wearing it all over the house. He's spent most of his time in his room versus downstairs. Because we have two dogs that shed a lot, I vacuum the entire house twice a week. I change the sheets on my bed once a week and on Ian's bed every ten days or so.

We can't know for sure that I got them all yet, but I can't think of any other reasonable things that I could do at this point. I'm not buying a $2000 portable oven to put my downstairs furniture in or throwing out all our books. We're not torching the place and moving.

I told my mother that first day (and Shrop said to me that night), to eat an elephant, you must do it one bite at a time. This week I have been eating an elephant, and I've finished the work. I still think of new places I could put the Cimexa insecticide, but they are long shots for potential nests.

The bite marks on Ian's arms are clearing up already. I still have no bites on me. My house is already generally pretty clean, but it is exceptionally so now.

I kept my sanity during it all, but it was touch and go at times. I didn't take any Xanax this week, but I thought about it a few times. Instead, I used the physical exertion of cleaning to wear down the sharp edges of my anxiety. I stuck to the plan. And I didn't sound the alarm on the Internet until I finished the work. I knew that if someone told me "OMG YOU HAVE TO ENCASE THE ENTIRE HOUSE IN PLASTIC AND BAKE IT AT 350 FOR AN HOUR I KNOW A LADY WHO HAD TO SELL EVERYTHING AND MOVE TO THE DESERT THEY CAN LIVE AND TRANSFER ON CLOTH MASKS HIDE YO WIFE HIDE YO KIDS" I would have a panic attack and need to block half my friends on Facebook. That's still a possibility, so comment wisely.

I don't have a thesis statement. I can't make a parallel between the infestation of my house and the current state of affairs in the US. I just wanted to document my week and reassure you that this is survivable. If you ever find bed bugs in your life, I can offer some tips.

Moving the mouse pad

Ian walked into the kitchen yesterday to ask me something while I was making lunch and on the phone. He wanted something from me. I sent him away abruptly. I even started to complain to him that I never see him except when he needs something but paused that thought, which is good because it's not true; it just feels that way.

He had malware on his computer and needed help removing it. I agreed to do it after my lunch call. I removed it pretty easily (it was one of the simpler ones to uninstall) and went back downstairs. As I was sitting at my desk, I heart a weird wailing noise. Ian sent a text, "Can you please come up here?" I assumed he was playing a game and needed more tech support, but I trudged up the stairs.

When I walked into his room, Ian was sobbing. I looked for blood, dead pets, broken windows, anything that might give a hint as to what was wrong. I tried to ask him why he was crying, but the words that came out were unrecognizable. The only thing I could pick out was, " ... I've messed everything all up ..."

I took off my shoes, turned out the lights, and escorted him to the bed. We curled up while he continued to cry into my armpit. I stroked his hair. After several minutes, I managed to learn that all this upset was because when I came upstairs to fix his computer, I moved things so I could type. "It took me a really long time to get the mouse pad where I liked it, and now I can't get it back to how it used to be, and it will never be the same. My headset fell when you were at my desk, and the microphone moved, and I'm not sure I can get it back to where it was. And I accidentally hit a button on the computer, so the lights are no longer rainbow; they're only red."

Whew. I could tell Ian he was acting ridiculous about the computer. But something told me it wasn't about the mouse pad. It's about things never being like they were before, and that honestly feels like a legit reason to lose one's cool for a bit.

I told him that his tear-filled report didn't sound like anything was ruined. We could fix all of that with enough time and effort, possibly even making it better than it was before. We can make a little computer stand to put next to his desk and give him more room but still allow him to see the rainbow colors inside the computer tower. We can rearrange the headset so it won't fall. We can try out some new mousepad scenarios. The first step, though, was for him to manage his emotions so he wouldn't fall apart during the solution portion.

We cuddled and sat for a few more minutes until he was ready. I found the button that changes it back to rainbow colors (you have to press and hold it). We reattached the headset and scooted the monitor an inch or two to the left. The situation improved a bit.

Later that evening, as we were playing badminton, Ian thanked me for helping him. "I was stuck. I needed your help to get unstuck." I'm super proud of my kid for how emotionally honest he is. It's such a gift, particularly during a pandemic.

Honestly, I think many of us get stuck from time to time. My version of stuck is to rotate through the tasks of answering emails, cleaning something, and doing a PT exercise for my knee, trying to will my joint into full recovery. For some, stuck can look like barricading yourself in your room, internalizing everything that isn't perfect as your fault, or consuming endless hours of news. It could also involve throwing yourself into work or projects, sleeping either 4 hours a night or 15 hours a day, snapping at loved ones, or fantasizing about other lives you could have lived that might have been better during this global predicament.

All of those ways of being stuck are normal. We each have to find the best way to get un-stuck, hopefully with a little help from others here and there.