I'm Back!!!!!

Last night I used my computer for the first time in three months! (The last post I had written on it was Moving Day on August 7th.) It was a sweet reunion. :-)

So, yes, we finally have internet. . .which means I have lots of lives and websites to get caught up on!

Before I write my update (or rather those additions that I mentioned in my last post), I'll give you a quick update on Bella. In Not Quite Yet, I mentioned that she was urinating blood. It turned out that she had a large, sharp-edged stone in her bladder :(

I called the Vet Clinic on Saturday, October 22nd and they were full (since they're only open til noon on Saturdays) but when I mentioned that I'd just moved here, they suddenly made an exception, haha.

I LOVED THE VET CLINIC!!!! Ohmygosh why did I go to my last one for six years?! They are at opposite ends of the spectrum. While our last building was not in the best condition, this place was new and super nice looking. While the last place had like a zillion people working at the front desk (all which were rude and incompetent), this place had just two receptionists and they were some of the nicest I've ever met in my life. There are only two veterinarian so it was a very relaxed, cozy atmosphere compared to my last place always seemed like a zoo. Best of all, the vet we had, Dr. Young, was great and showed me Bella's x-ray, explaining everything to me in detail.

Apparently this is super common in small, female dogs at the age of 6. Ironically, Bella is a small female dog that is 6 (she'll be 7 in January). If they are small stones then they can pass, but sadly this one was too big to pass and would only cause her pain if we let it stay.

So, Bella had surgery on Monday, October 24th. Joe dropped her off between 7 and 8 am, and then they called me at 10:30 am and said everything had gone well and I could pick her up at 3 pm. She was pretty lazy and somber the rest of the day/night (I had to carry her up and down our stairs), but by the next morning she was back to her old happy, tail-wagging self. I gave her a pain pill the first night and the two following just in case, but that was it because she never seemed to be in pain compared to her only other surgery in her life, when she was spayed at 7 months old.

She did mess with the staples a little (unlike Cosmo with his two surgeries), so we put on the cone for 24 hrs that we had from her other surgery since she had messed with them then, too. Thankfully, she healed great and they removed the staples in less than five minutes on Tuesday, November 1st.

Dr. Young had called me herself three different times over that week to check in with me, and they even sent Cosmo a birthday card for his 6th birthday on Halloween, haha. They're only five minutes away so we'll definitely continue to go to them. They provided me with an entire folder of helpful information -- like an after hour's place which I never had at our old place, as well as a few options for groomers here since I still didn't have one.

Bella has to be on a special diet now of soft/wet food called Urinary SO so that she doesn't have this again. Unfortunately, there was also a small stone in her kidneys, but Dr. Young thinks it will pass with no problem. Otherwise, her kidneys and everything were good.

It's hard feeding both my dogs separately now (Cosmo has to be on dry food because of his teeth problems, plus the Urinary food is too expensive to have both dogs on it), but this way I am getting used to not leaving their food dish out 24/7 for when Krissa starts crawling!

SO -- this explained why Bella was peeing in my dad's house! The vet said she might have trouble for awhile longer holding her urine so we've been keeping both dogs in our bathroom with a baby gate when we leave and during the night with potty pads, and sure enough there are almost always accidents. :( I really hope it stops soon because she's either going to ruin the floor (it's still gotten on our tile plenty of times) or we're going to go broke from buying puppy pads for the next however-many-years! :(

Speaking of going broke, so yeah the surgery was over $1400. . .doesn't it always seem like there are unforseen expenses after events like having a baby and moving into a new house?! We thought we might even have to buy a new vehicle because our car has been having problems lately and the last one this week was expected to cost $1,000! Praise God it turned out not to be as serious as first thought and the price was only $200. I am praying the car lasts at least one more year (although two or three would be great) -- it is my 2001 Ford Focus; Joe's 1997 Grand Am died two years ago so we bought a 2009 Hyundai Santa Fe in Jan 2010 so we are not wanting to get another new vehicle yet!!!!