Not the day we expected 2

Today was not the day we expected, doubly! The original plan was to go out to brunch with Sabrina and Russ after their doctor appointment. We were just getting ready to leave when they had to cancel. No big deal, we had a backup plan in mind.

We spent the day watching wheelchair rugby, and at 3:30 we headed out. Our plan was to drop Hestia’s prescription off at Walmart, go to agility class, and finally get to celebrate my birthday with a date at Everbowl (one of our favorite local restaurants). On the way home, we’d stop by Walmart and pick up Hestia’s prescription and our grocery pickup order. Sounded like a solid plan!

We dropped Hestia’s prescription off at Walmart and headed to agility class. Before class started, I took Felix out in the tall grass to poop. He yelped and jumped, but I didn’t think much of it at the moment as it was tall grass and I thought maybe he stepped on something uncomfortable.

I took him back inside and put him in a crate and he was obsessively chewing on his paw like it was hurting him. So I took him out, we looked at his paw and felt it, and he started screaming! He screamed anytime anyone got close to touching his paw again! He wouldn’t stop screaming, so we left agility class. He screamed for about 5 minutes and wouldn’t put any weight on his paw and was obsessively chewing at it. So I thought maybe he’d gotten bit by a snake or something.

We called our awesome vet, who thankfully was open and had an available last appointment of the day for us to rush to! We were about 30 minutes away, so we started driving over. I decided to hold him instead of putting him in his sleepy pod so that I could keep him from chewing his foot raw.

For the first 5 minutes he was screaming. Then he just wouldn’t put weight on his foot, but would allow me to touch it gently. He gradually got better as we got closer to the vet. By the time we were 5 minutes away from the vet (so about 30 minutes after it happened), he was putting weight on it, but was still shaking a bit. And by the time we arrived at the vet, he was acting totally fine.

We still took him in because I wanted to make sure he was OK. They took him in the back and examined all four feet and legs with the surgical light, and all his joints and range of motion of all his feet and legs. He came back with a totally clear bill of health.

The vet suspected either he got into some stinging nettles or he stepped on a thorn that subsequent foot chewing dislodged. $77 later (which is much cheaper than the emergency vet!!!! And much better service!) we were free to go with a healthy dog.

We decided that my birthday dinner money all got spent at the vet, so I just won’t get my birthday date with Brad this year. Instead Brad’s gift to me is healthy dogs LOL! But we still had to head to Walmart to pick up groceries and Hestia’s prescription.

I had forgotten when I placed the order that we’d have both wheelchairs with us, so there was nowhere to put the groceries except around Brad’s chair. My chair was on top of all the reusable grocery bags, too, and we had requested that they bag our groceries in our own bags. So we had to ask them to go inside and grab plastic bags to bag our groceries.

I also forgot to ask Brad to go inside to get Hestia’s prescription before I checked in to get our pickup order. So Brad couldn’t take his wheelchair out because groceries were all around it.

I didn’t feel like Felix was up for a trip inside Walmart, and I didn’t want to get my chair out, so I walked into Walmart (their drive through was closed). I had to wait for three people in front of me to go before my turn. Luckily there was a chair there! It was SO HARD in Walmart with all these people and noises and everything and no Felix to help me. Plus I had just had the traumatic experience of him being injured. Plus I forgot to take my Valium today at 2PM. So it was very very hard.

But I made it, and we finally made it back home. Felix is sleeping happily now, none the worse for wear. But I feel like a truck ran over me. Oh and I developed a migraine while at Walmart, too.

So today definitely didn’t end up like we expected it to!

Below is a picture of Felix and me at the vet’s office. Neither of us look very happy. He is a sable and white Japanese Chin and I am wearing a purple dress. He is on my lap.