ouch. why does it hurt so much?

a few weeks ago we had a barbecue to celebrate kpr's birthday. he turned 111 years old and we decided to have so friends over to visit. preparing the house, food and buying shit like two liters of soda and then schlepping them back to your apartment on foot is not a good thing to do whilst in your third trimester. i was running around like a madwoman the whole night and when people finally left around 1am i was beyond exhausted and every cell in my body hurt. the next day i didn't move from the couch at all, i couldn't really because i had no strength at all, couldn't even put a toe on the floor, it just hurt too much. luckily, it was mother's day, so technically, i didn't have to squat, even though my child is yet to be born. i figure if i can feel the little sucker kick me in the bladder on an hourly basis, that qualifies me for mother's day dammit and i deserve a rest. kpr was very prepared for mother's day- he brought me a yogurt for breakfast (on the couch) and a bouquet of flowers. oh no, wait, the flowers were from our lovely next door neighbor, so kpr actually just brought me a yogurt for mother's day, a yogurt that i schlepped home on foot to our apartment with the 110 lbs of groceries from whole foods. i hope no one else has the misfortune of marrying someone who was born on mother's day and considers the whole weekend to be 'his birthday weekend' and not warranting any other celebration for any other person- frantic kicks to the bladder and all.

anywho, a few days later, champ got into the trash from the bbq and ate about 8 corn cobs! i was so happy because corn cobs are so great for a terrier's digestive tract- cleansing in fact- they just get stuck in there and don't let anything else in and it is just wonderful! i also loved cleaning up puke for the next 5 days- we just kept telling ourselves it was good preparation for the baby! yes the baby will puke a lot! but if the baby pukes vile, rotten corncobs for five days straight, i am sending him or her back!

i fasted champ for 24 hours and then cooked him some rice and chicken fed him a little of that, gradually working our way back to his regular diet (can you tell we have dealt with this sort of thing a million times before?). he was doing really well for two days back on regular food and then bam! he just started puking like non stop one night and continued to the next day and kpr and i accepted the fact that we had to take him to the vet.

i hate the local vet in our neighborhood and so we have been taking champ and bonnie the the animal medical center uptown because our next door neighbor works there (his mom gave me the flowers) and will come over in the middle of the night if we need him to so that pretty much makes him the best vet ever and so we only want him to treat our dogs. the good and bad of the amc is that it is the premiere animal hospital in the city (which pretty much means it is the best in the country, and well, the world...), located in the chic east 60's and super duper expensive. champ and i walked out of that place feeling better, but about 400 smackers poorer. x rays boo! no intestinal blockage and therefore no emergency surgery, yay! thank goodness we have insurance on champ so we can file a claim and get about $50 back from the insurance company!

this weekend kpr and i were in class all weekend learning how to birth our baby. it was fun and we saw movies with boobies and vaginas and my husband snickered loudly each time and i wondered how i had managed to marry a sixth grader. our cousin walked the dogs yesterday afternoon and left a concerned voicemail telling us that champ's eye was all red and he was acting under the weather. we didn't think much of it because champ has been having trouble with his eyes for the past few months- they have been all bloodshot and stuff and we took him to amc in april to have a opthamologist look at them and now he needs a super steroid drop every day to keep them bright and not all red and stuff.

so we got home last night, exhausted from all the learning about vaginas and babies and stuff and champ was not well. the first thing kpr said was, "i think we have to take him to the vet right now." he was in so much pain and i just wanted to cry along with him because champ really is the champ- never whines or complains, is just totally there with you, even when he was puking one minute he was up and playing the next minute.

he couldn't open his eye and couldn't walk because it hurt so much. we didn't know what was wrong but knew we had to get to the vet pronto. kpr drove and i sat in the passenger seat, just me, the baby in my uterus, champ and bonnie all piled on the one seat together (bonnie gets jealous if champ gets to sit up front). we went to the vet and he has a scratch on his cornea, and edema, not an ulcer, thank goodness, although i don't know the difference between the two. we got some eyedrops to keep his pupil from spasming which causes the pain and some heavy duty antibiotic ointment, he also got some doggie vicodin which knocked him out last night and most of this morning.

i look at his eye now and it hurts me so much to look at it, i can only imagine how it feels. it is so hard to see our tough little guy down and out and i found myself thinking all day today, "if it hurts this much to have my dog in pain, what if my kid falls and skins her/his knee? will i just loose it on the spot?"

we're not done with the amc for now, we have to go for a recheck with the opthamologist next week and also figure out why his eyes are all bloodshot in the first place. so that makes 4 trips to the amc in the past three months.

i think the doggie insurance company is definitely going to drop us....

it's a good think he's so darn cute.