May 6

.

All things considered, the 6th could have been a lot worse.

In the morning I opened a relationship with a new-to-us auto-repair outfit (the dealership has ticked us off for the last time).  I'd been complaining about car repair (and specifically about the dealership) before yoga class, and one of my classmates recommended Main Street Motors as a place she's trusted for decades.  Main Street Motors also has the advantage of being in walking distance from my house, which makes a huge difference to me.

I took the car to get an oil change, first thing in the morning on the 6th.  So far, so good.

Gotta love a car-repair place with Wired and Scientific American on the magazine rack!

I took the car home after its checkup ("Looks great; all is well."), and my better half took it to work.  As he was coming home from work on the expressway, he ran over an unavoidable very large piece of tire.  It made a serious dent in the front bumper, and broke the plastic liner-thingie under/inside one fender, and we weren't sure what other damage might have been done under the car.

I called Main Street Motors, and asked if we could bring the car by to have them look at it and see if it was safe to drive.

I started by saying "Remember that red Versa, that you changed the oil in, this morning?"  I could feel them cringe, over the line, and then relax when I explained what I needed.  The person who answered the phone relayed what I was saying to the person who could actually agree that they could check the car, (who also cringed, and then relaxed, I could feel it over the telephone line).  I heard him answer "For her, anything."

:-)

I'm sure they say that to all the girls, and to all the boys, too, but it left me with a very positive feeling!



The parallel story (simultaneous in time) is that I have been pretty sure, for a while, that the dog had something wrong in his mouth.  He was making the same sort of smacking noise he made when he had the abscessed tooth.  And it seemed to be getting worse.

I was pretty sure he wasn't going to be letting anyone look in his mouth (ever since the abscessed tooth last fall he's been pretty sure letting anyone look in his mouth is NOT a good idea....), so I wasn't sure how to address the whole situation.

My better half dropped me and Burt at the vet and took the car to the mechanics to have them take a look at the damage done by the stray piece of tire on the highway.

Burt had his annual checkup (and declined to have our vet look at his mouth).  So we arranged that he would have a dental cleaning the next day, and while he was knocked out, they would have a look.  She said he was fine, otherwise, and in great shape for 15.5.

By then the mechanic had pronounced the car safe to drive but in need of body work (for its health and safety; we don't care about cosmetics).  The mechanic was amazed that the car sustained the damage it did, and yet the radiator is fine.....

I called home to say we were done at the vet, and Burt and I went outside to wait, as it was a beautiful day.

Look at the sky!

I don't often wish I had a wide-angle capability, but for this sky.............  I wished. 

See the moon, about a third of the way from the left, in a dark blue patch about a third of the way from the top?  You can tell from the tiny moon that this are BIG cloud marks, stretching across a LOT of sky...............

Wow.

And that was the 6th.


I didn't take any pics on the 7th, so I'll just tell you about it.  Burt and I were dropped at the vet just after 8:00 in the morning (my better half was off to see his dad about some banking business).  I left B at the vet and walked home (love having places I need be within a mile or so of home!!!).

Burt's teeth were fine, but she found a sore place she didn't like the look of in the back of his mouth.  She removed the icky bit and sent it off for biopsy.  She said she thought the tissue beneath it looked normal.

A day when they take a biopsy is not the best day............  I am working on assuming the best, rather than the worst ("five business days" to get a report back from the lab).



Last fall, after Burt had the abscessed tooth, he was really weird when I got him home.  His behavior and demeanor were unrecognizable.  So I was expecting something of the sort this time, too.

He was pretty weird this time, but, I think, in a different way.  He just could not settle.  He was restless and agitated.  For about 2.5 days.................  Panting heavily, intermittently.  His dental was on Wednesday.  He came home with Clindamycin and Rimadyl (the doggy version of ibuprofen).  He'd had Rimadyl before, but not Clindamycin.  He was also squeaking/screaming for a moment at different times (5 or 6 times a day?).

On Thursday morning I asked the vet for Tramadol (a narcotic pain-killer), as Burt had had Rimadyl *and* Tramadol after the abscessed tooth.  The restlessness continued unabated, as did the panting.  He was also coughing.  He coughs anyway (general head/chest congestion, all the time, off and on), but this was worse.............

On Friday afternoon I called and talked to the vet.  She said we would try switching him to Baytril (a different antibiotic, which he's had before, lots of times, which "would also be good for something in the lungs"), and a different narcotic (that was also a cough supressor).

I think just talking to our vet may have worked some magic -- Burt settled down and slept in the afternoon.

After my better half got home from work, he dropped me at the vet to pick up the new meds, and went to get Chinese for dinner.

Since I'm actually writing this post about the 6th on the 11th, I can peer into the 6th's future and tell you that Burt seemed better on the 10th, and actually slept through the night between the 9th and the 10th.  Which is good.  I don't sleep that well when left to my own devices, and anyone walking around, walking around, walking around, in the middle of the night, is not improving my ambience.  It is now 10:22 am on the 11th, and I haven't heard any squeaking/screaming since just before it was time for him to have his Rimadyl with his supper last night.  Whew.

So that's the current story of the car, and the dog, until we get the estimate from a body shop, and the results of the biopsy.

We've had better days, but, all things considered, the 6th could have been a lot worse than it was.

.