The dog and I are falling apart

It's a little ironic that I didn't think I'd have anything to write about today. Our elderly stateshound Sarah has been feeling a bit under the weather lately. About a week and a half ago she was very constipated but when we got all that corrected, we got it corrected all over the living room floor. In amongst all of this, Sarah was drinking water constantly and peeing almost constantly. Needless to say the carpet steam cleaner has been getting a workout this week.

I checked the dog's blood sugar the other night and was relieved that it was only 81 mg/dL despite her thirst and frequent trips to the potty. While we would be one of the best candidates to handle a diabetic dog, I wasn't looking forward to all that maintenance since I have a hard enough time taking care of myself. The vet unfortunately couldn't get a urine sample from her while she was there so we were going to try again this week, but her blood work looked good.

By Sunday she started acting better. She hadn't peed in the house since Friday or so and everything started to seem a bit more normal. We gave the carpet one more good cleaning on Saturday night (that's our wild child-free nightlife; you should be jealous) and set the steam cleaner by the back door to go out to the shed.

After dinner tonight I started to work on some laundry for BlogHer and as I stepped into the laundry room I ran my bare right foot right into the steam cleaner. Hard. Like I yelled and tears came down my face immediately kind of hard. Shortly after that, Sarah pooped on the living room floor. The good news is she's not constipated anymore. Good thing I hadn't put the steam cleaner away yet (did I mention how much my foot hurts?). Within an hour of cleaning that mess up, I hopped back by the living room on my way to the kitchen and noticed she had peed on the floor and there was a significant amount of blood.

I hopped my way over to the scene and took a picture with my iPhone to show the vet (I'll spare you that gem on Flickr). We then debated taking her to the emergency vet at 10:30pm, particularly since I couldn't put any weight on my right foot without it shooting pain up my leg. For peace of mind, we opted to go to the vet.

According to the vet, Sarah has a bladder infection and probably passed a blood clot (who knew you could do that?). She also has the equivalent of a bad back for dogs in that her spinal gaps looks "narrow". So she's on three weeks of antibiotics (for $112.80) and an additional pain killer. The vet said her pain may also be affecting her ability to potty outside when she should if hunching over or walking is hurting her. The poor dog is too creaky to even go to the bathroom.

As for my foot, I don't think I broke my toes, but they sure do hurt like I did. They're not swollen or discolored but it still really hurts to put weight on them at all. I'm icing them as I type this and waiting for my own pain meds to kick in. Apparently Sarah isn't the only one with a bladder infection so I'm rocking the Macrobid and water and hoping I can fall asleep. Oh, and for unknown reasons my blood sugar skyrocketed from 208 to 321 while I was at the vet despite taking insulin. Hooray.

I can hear Sarah going for her fourth trip to get water since I started writing this so I should see if she can pee outside before we call it a night. Maybe I'll set an alarm to get up and let her out again. Or maybe I'll set an alarm and ask Rich nicely to take her out at 4am.

Through all of this, our dog has been a dream. She really has rallied from her pain in the ass beginnings 10 years ago to be such a stellar dog and I'd hate for her to be uncomfortable. I gave her a bath Sunday and while it now takes us about twice as long and she has to lie down for most of it, she's still very accommodating of the whole ordeal and loves the attention. Here's hoping we both feel better in the morning.

Candlesticks make a nice gift

No, we're still not done with the house, but thanks for asking. We have reached the part of construction where nearly nothing gets done and what does get done is about 75% wrong. I haven't been posting many updates about it because honestly it's a little depressing.

In the first week of this project my father and I butted heads a bit. I was trying to let the contractors do their thing and he was following them around for everything with an intensity usually reserved for invading other countries. But as time moved on, I realized that while Dad is a bit rough around the edges, he's usually right about the construction things.

About two weeks ago on the day after the HVAC guys had installed out air handler, our contractor Bill called me to tell me my father had to leave the construction site because he was causing trouble for everyone. I laid into that poor contractor with a fury and earnest that startled him to say the least. Bill picked the absolute wrong time to tell me my father wasn't being helpful.

The night before this phone call we had discovered that the HVAC installers that we had met with and coached on exactly where to install the air handler, duct work and registers had failed to follow simple instructions. They had put the air handler all but in the middle of our walk-in closet and commandeered all of our paltry attic space for their giant distribution box. They also had used two different returns so that our house will have three different air filter sizes when they're done. Their final act of defiance was to make a half-assed attempt to drill for the refrigerant lines and get a 12" screwdriver completely wedged in the floor joists. That was when they called it a day and went home. High fives all around.

My father and I debated all the possible scenarios for how to fix the air handler until about 1am. And then he sent me home and stayed until 4:30am removing their screwdriver from the floor and cutting the space for our HVAC lines. He even left a light on under the house so it would be obvious the holes went through to the crawlspace.

Bill later told me that I have a bright future in cross examination because I let him finish his side of the story and then I went through all my points on how he was wrong and my father was the only one who gave a damn about doing this job right and that none of their workers have done a single thing well despite constant supervision. And I only said motherfuckers once. Miraculously, all the things on our list are getting fixed.

So I'm trying to get over things being wrong like the missing nails in our headers the fact that our porch leaned to the left or that their second attempt at a dormer in the guest room looks like a fun house. I'm just trying to focus on the bright side that we're catching these things before they're done and Bill is straightforward enough to fix them. But I wonder if they'll ever make any money off of this job if they have to keep taking things apart and putting them together again. Maybe the third dormer attempt is the charm.

Rich and I have said we feel like we're all standing out on the pitchers mound in Bull Durham where everyone lists off their problems. The plumber is a sensitive soul who can't take a joke and gets fretful about my father, the electrician is depressed because his wife has been sick, and Bill has had lady-friend troubles and is overwhelmed by the workload. I told my father that we don't give to charity, we just hire wayward contractors. I hear candlesticks make a nice gift.

MAC cremewash

I started using MAC cremewash to clean my face about 18 months ago and have had only about three zits since then. My skin is "combination" in that my cheeks are dry but my chin is oily and it tackles all that like a champ. It's not the cheapest in the world ($19 at Macy's last time I bought it) but a 100mL tube can last me almost 6 months.

I keep the nearly empty tubes around for travel but I should find something small to transfer it into for plane trips without grief from the TSA.

MAC also gets bonus points for not making it smell all flowery or strange. Don't get me started on how Aussie changed all their hair products to make them stink like coconut so I don't use them anymore.