Mommy’s No Good Very Bummer Summer

It’s Wednesday morning and my girls have officially been on Summer break for a week; 7 days. I was very excited for summer break, sleeping in, lazy days, spending quality time with my much more relaxed children who were happy and free from the shackles of homework and obligations. May was murder on all us. We literally ran from start to finish. May is lovingly referred to by all of us as “Hell Month” and of course, it wouldn’t be May if it didn’t eek in just a couple last-minute helacious curve balls.

School ended Wednesday; the dog went into heat on the same day and we had swimming pretests that same night on the other side of town. I’m still fairly new to town so  I obviously should not be allowed to choose events without a map and first consulting my husband ( who grew up in this city). After a swim test that had my 6-year-old in hysterics and proclaiming to everyone in the natatorium, “You want me to drown? You hate my life, don’t you?” We had to head out on a search and rescue mission for doggie diapers and pads and we hadn’t even had dinner yet. The next morning, the dog started vomiting.

I felt bad for her. Honestly, I felt compassion and sympathy. I am prone to vomiting during ovulation and menstruation too. I’m doing it right now. Hormones and I don’t get along. Talk about adding insult to injury. Then she kept on vomiting. That was Thursday, the first official day of no school. So of course, the girls began to beg for me to take them to our neighborhood pool; never mind the fact that it was overcast and 65 out. I said no, reiterating the fact that we had a hemorrhaging dog that was now projectile vomiting. My house pungently smelled like shit and vomit, I had no time to detail the house (clean to my satisfaction) because of end of the month deadlines (my own fault for being a perpetual procrastinator) and the girls are serenading me in stereo phonics with a chorus of , “But you pinky promised you’d take us to the pool when school got out!” Which, first, I did not and secondly, my 8-year-old is onto my mommy brain and is now in the habit of telling me that I said shit that I didn’t. Sneaky little mouse. All the while, the dog is still puking up the most vile smell I have ever had the misfortune of smelling. I made an appointment to take her into the veterinarian the following day; she had to be getting dehydrated.

Friday, I awoke to the putrid smell of more vomit.My husband asked me to team effort clean the dog and kennel. One second in the hot box kennel sent me bolting straight for the bathroom to do a little involuntary purging of my own. I immediately gave the dog vomit dipped puppy a bath.My girls woke up, put on their bikinis and said, “We’re ready to go to the pool, Mommy!” It was 60 degrees and raining. Deflated, the girls sat in their swimming gear and fed ice chips to their puppy for two hours. The dog didn’t vomit for about 5 hours.I called the vet and they cancelled the appointment. I did. 5 minutes later, the dog projectile vomited black tar that smelled of death and asshole.I called them back. 1 hour later, we were in the veterinarian’s office. What we thought would be a simple case of hormone triggered nausea treated by an anti-nausea medication turned out to be the vet giving us the “Oh shit!” face as she examined our puppy’s ( yes, our daughter’s Christmas gift. The very same) stomach. “It’s an obstruction!” The dog promptly farted in her face, nearly gassing us all out. Next thing we know, she is swooping our puppy up in true emergency vet fashion and headed for an x-ray.  I blame the gas. I believe she was disoriented. There was no consultation, ask of permission or discussion of cost. It was happening.

This was Friday though not a 13th like one might suspect from the events of the day. She returned with our puke smelling puppy, x-ray’s in one hand and exhilaration in her eyes.”Here, your dog has an obstruction. We need to do surgery immediately!” She proceeded to show us an x-ray of what was an undefinable obstruction in Lola’s stomach.It had to be surgically removed because it wasn’t passing and the dog could die. Did I mention that our dog of 13 years just passed away last August? I’m pretty sure that losing another dog so soon may traumatize my girls forever. Not on my watch. And just like that the dog was being prepped for surgery and we were looking into financing dog surgery because who the fuck has insurance on a puppy?

Our choices were to cut our loses and have a puppy that we are still paying on die and irrevocably scar our daughters or beg, borrow and steal to pay for dog surgery. So there we were on a Friday afternoon, dog being prepped for surgery and 3 days to figure out how the hell to pay for it.Oh and did I mention, it was the last day of the month and I had about 30 things that needed to be in a queue somewhere? I did.

We get in the car to drive the long drive home. The car still wreaking of dog vomit, all of us sad and worried and then from the backseat I hear;

“Mommy, NOW can we go to the pool?????”

**The dog is fine. We picked her up Monday. She is still in staples and wearing a lampshade. She is ridiculously cute and annoyed. Her surgery was more invasive than an anticipated ( chaChing) and not only was her stomach filled with an unrecognizable mass of human hair and fibers, there was a string woven through her intestines and at the end of that , you guessed it, another mass forming. It’s all out now and the vet’s office said it is the strangest thing they have ever pulled out of a dog’s stomach. They asked me if the dog could have eaten the contents of the Dyson. I think not. Anyways, she’s home and resting comfortably on pain meds and today, after gymnastics and before dinner, I am taking the girls to the pool.

***Update: My husband just called from the side of the road. A truck carrying bricks in front of him was dropping them all over the interstate. He ran over one and now is stranded an hour and a half away with a flat tire and the nearest place to have it fixed is 20 miles away. I have a killer hormone headache. He’s traveling this weekend and this month’s not looking much better than last month:(

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