Saturday, May 10, 2008

Visions of Old Yeller

Well, folks, I think I'm finally ready to give a rundown of the past week and a half.

The following events actually did take place. They were not made up for your reading enjoyment. If you find yourself saying, out loud, "Are you kidding me?", you are not alone.

Tuesday, March 18th - My family, including my mother-in-law, goes down to the local animal shelter to pick out a dog for our son, John. My mother-in-law also finds a dog and we adopt them together. Chloe is our sweet little 4 month old lab/hound mix and Patty is my mil's mild mannered adult border collie. The two dogs are great friends/previous cell mates and spend most of their time together going back and forth from our house to my in laws house across the street. It's beautiful.

Saturday, April 26th - John has his best friend, Kheland, over to spend the night and while E and I go out, my mother-in-law watches them at her house. They spend the evening rolling around the yard with Chloe and Patty and doing boy stuff.

Daily - Chloe, being the puppy that she is, jumps on the kids and licks on them from head to toe, generally terrorizing the girls on a daily basis.

Sunday, May 4th - We get home from church and the girls notice that Chloe is with Patty at their grandmother's house so they are free to run around the yard and play without fear of being jumped on and licked to death. They are happy!

Monday, May 5th - Chloe is gone most of the day, until I get home from picking up the kids from school. She comes up to me as I unload the kids from the van and rests her head on the floorboard and whines. I pet her and ask her what's wrong. She walks over to the bird bath and tries to get a drink. Her full water bowl is where it usually is and when we show it to her, she reluctantly drinks while keeping an eye on all of us. She's acting really weird. And there's a small string of foam dangling from her mouth. Hmmmm.

Tuesday, May 6th - E takes Chloe to the vet around lunch time. They say they will call us to let us know how she's doing. Around 3, they call and tell me that she's worse than before and they think it would be best if they put her down and send her head to Austin to see what was making her sick. [Yes, the vet actually said that to me.]

Wednesday, May 7th - Turned 37. Spent the day helping E out at the studio, had lunch with Brenda, and a little birthday celebration at Caleb and Kelly's.

Thursay, May 8th - My mom comes for a visit to see one of John's baseball games. I am cooking dinner for the Wilson family. Chicken fried steak paraphernalia is strewn about my kitchen when the phone rings. It's the Clyde animal control guy. He tells me that Chloe's test results came back from Austin and they show that Chloe tested positive for Rabies. RABIES!
The conversation goes something like this:
Animal Control guy: I need to know who had exposure to the dog from April 25 thru May 6th.
Me: Well, our whole family had exposure to the dog. It's a family dog.
AC guy: So, there's just the four of you, right?
Me: There's four kids, then there's me and E and his mom and dad and I think one of my son's friends was over during that time.
AC guy: Well, anyone who had exposure to the dog needs to get the Rabies vaccine.
Me: What's considered exposure?
AC guy: Anyone who was bitten, scratched, slobbered on or generally anyone who looked at the dog. [Sarcasm by me]
Me: So who do I need to contact?
AC guy: Your kid's pediatrician and you and your husband's doctor. Remember, Rabies is fatal. It's really important that you get those shots.

Over the course of the next hour, I was on the phone with the animal control guy, the vet, the woman who is over the state health department for this area of the state, the local state health department lady, Debra, in charge of immunizations, the kid's doctor, and I left messages with Trish Trueblood and Andrea Cheek.

Went to Anna's kindergarten graduation and then ate at Los Arcos. The chips and hot sauce were flowin' as were the Rabies jokes. We kept having to shoosh John because he was asking questions, out loud, like, "Are we going to die of Rabies?" and "I just want to know about Rabies before I die!"

Friday, May 9th - My mother-in-law comes over with her big, fat Suburban and she, myself, my mom, E, Autie, April, John and Anna load up and head to Dr. Capra's for our first Rabies vaccination adventure!

Dr. Capra weighs all of us and then writes prescriptions for all of us. He pretty much tells us that anyone who looked at the dog needs to get vaccinated. Rabies is a ground penetrating missile that you don't want to mess around with. He says not to let cost be a factor in our decision. I take the prescriptions and head over to the state health department by KMart and talk to Debra about getting the vaccine. She tells me that Dr. Capra is right, do not let cost be a factor in deciding who should get the vaccine. Then she tells me that Abilene doesn't have enough for all of us. We are probably going to need to go to Cook's or JPS in Ft Worth for all of us to be vaccinated at the same time. Then she tells me the schedule and the cost. We are going to need to be vaccinated on day 0, 3, 7, 14 and 28 and the cost for our whole family for the vaccine alone will come to around $7000! What? I didn't hear you. Did you say $700? No, I said $7000! [That's the conversation that I kept having in my head all day]
Again, don't let cost be a factor in your decision whether or not to get the vaccine.

I go back to Dr. Capra's office, which by this time is closed. The nurse is basically waiting around to give us our shots, which we can't get because there's not enough vaccine. Thankfully, the kids are playing in the courtyard, not in the waiting room of the office. We load up the Suburban again and head to the department of health office to talk to Debra about our options at this point.

My mother-in-law decides to go ahead and get her shots because they have enough for her so we take her to the health department office where they give shots and we head back to Clyde to get ready for our spontaneous trip to Ft Worth.

My mom, thinking that she's not going to get to see John play in his baseball game and knowing that we are going to be going to within a half hour of her house in Arlington, decides to go on home.

We get a call that Cook's and JPS are out of the vaccine so there's no point going to Ft Worth. Debra, tells me that if she combines Brownwood's supply and Abilene's supply of the vaccine, we can get started the next day. She drives to Brownwood to get the vaccine because she doesn't want our family to have to do anymore travelling. [Not in her job description. She's an angel!] I call Dr. J's office and confirm that they are open on Saturday's and that they can administer the vaccine to our whole family in the morning.

John doesn't miss his baseball game, but my mom does. John hits a grand slam and they win the game!

Saturday, May 10th - We load up and meet Debra at Dr. J's office at 9am and start the process of getting our first round of shots. April goes first. One shot in the arm and one in the thigh. She is thoroughly traumatized and her leg hurts enough that she has a little trouble walking.
Next is E. He admits to being a little nervous. One shot in the arm and one in each hip. He says it wasn't bad at all. And on down the line we go. Everyone else gets the same amount of shots and then last, but not least, it's Autie's turn. She wanted to watch everyone else so by now she is pretty freaked out. She gets the one in the arm and is a little shaken, but not too bad. Then she gets one in the side of her butt. That one hurt and she's decided she's going to pass on the third one. She starts screaming and trying to run so Dr. J, the nurse with the English accent and I hold her down and they give her the last shot in her thigh.

Everyone recovers and we go to McDonald's to reward the kids for their bravery.

Tuesday, May 13th - Happy anniversary! E and I have been married for 13 years today and we celebrate by taking all the kids to the health department again for the second round of shots. Everyone did great and the kids got free ice cream coupons for Dairy Queen so that's where we went.

We will be going to the health department again on May 19th, 27th and June 2nd.

Our insurance provider told me that they don't cover these vaccines, but after talking to E, they have assured us that they will be covering some of it. We won't know how much until after they get the claim. Be praying.

The lesson in all of this? Keep your pets indoors at all times? Stay away from animals of every kind? No. The lesson in all of this is, just when you think the enemy is finished messing with your finances, he will, no doubt, come back with a vengeance and pull some outlandish prank to try and set you back several grand. But, my God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and all the Immune globulin and Rabivert you could ever need, for that matter. He's got our back so we can look back at this and laugh. Here's something I found to help with that...
Posted by Pamelotta at 3:35 PM

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow....you should make a movie about this. well, at least a documentary.

9:45 AM
Brandi Wilson said...

That is so crazy!

When I was reading it I totally kept thinking, "Are you kidding me?"

What about your MIL's dog?

5:00 PM
trish said...

I could help a sister out with some video footage. We could do a KLF online public service announcement on the video.

6:23 PM
Anonymous said...

WOW so what happened to the dogs? I am glad you guys are all alright. and Claim that the enemy has to prepay you all back 10 fold...

3:16 PM
Pamelotta said...

If you ask April, "Where's Chloe?" she'll tell you, "Oh, he's dead."

All the other kids are a bit more sensitive about it. They say she's in heaven. We didn't really get a chance to get upset before we were whisked away to the land of rabies vaccinations!

The other dog is fine. She had already been vaccinated.

7:26 AM
Lady Jane Grey said...

I sincerely hope you guys plan on raising holy heck with the animal shelter! this dog should have been vaccinated and tested already and should NEVER have been adopted out. they totally owe you at least the adoption fees back, and SHOULD be covering the cost of your vaccines. you could sue them very easily!

12:52 PM

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