My Worst Week of 2013 so far.....

The old saying goes, "When it rains it pours."  Well this week it absolutely pelted down. It stormed.

The week started well enough.  Then Thursday happened and I noticed my little dog Molly seemed to have a tumour.  Took her to the vet as it seemed larger than the week before.  It wasn't a tumour. She was bleeding internally and she had been poisoned.  Fortunately I was able to ring the vet before 7:00 am as the 'tumour' seemed to be spreading across her back.  I had her into the vet by 8:00 am. Immediate treatment started, blood clotting tests (that she failed) and a whole body pressure wrap- she looked like a little mummy.  Whew- got her in time. Then the vet said to me, "Okay go home and get your other four and bring them in. We need to test their clotting times." 

 I think I was in mini shock.  Off I went and loaded up the other two dogs and the two cats (who are indoor cats and have an enclosure in the back yard).  Brought them in and sure enough all of their clotting times were off.  ALL of them had been poisoned.  My animals are not free range. They don't leave the yard unless on a lead and I am with them. The cats live in enclosures because we have lots of native wildlife, birds and cars near us.

(L-R) Uncle Buck aged 7; Odie aged 2; Molly-Monkey aged 8
and Wally aged 12
We're feeling much better thank you

Rat bait but where did it come from.  We would take care of that later.  All of them were started on immediate Vitamin K and put into cages so they wouldn't bump themselves.  It turned out they had access to the poison a good week or so in advance and their clotting times were affected but we didn't know it until Koko our cat and Molly our little madam silky terrier had a skirmish (as they do) and Molly got whacked with a cat paw that caused her to start bleeding internally.

More clotting tests at end of the day and slowly it was getting back to normal. Then everyone home for the night to be watched carefully.  More medicine and in two weeks time all of them go through clotting time tests again and on it goes until the poison leaves their system. Bad news is there is a severe poison that is on the supermarket shelves now that can stay in their system for up to 150 days.  So more tests coming up without a doubt.  Did I also mention we are up to $1800.00 vet fees?  Luckily they are insured so that will certainly help.

Then the detective work was to begin- along with all of this happening the landscapers I'd hired to do some work in our front yard decided to start work on Friday so lots of noise happening and dogs wanting to bark at them but having to keep them quiet. Then Australia going through a political crisis and I have to watch our new Prime Minister Mr. Rudd challenging and winning the top job from the Prime Minister I really respected, Julia Gillard, our first female Prime Minister.  She has been bullied and treated abominably by both her own party and the opposition because she is a female,  an atheist and lives with a man without the benefit of marriage. I have never seen Australian politics become so dirty. Embarrassing to say the least.  I don't care who people support but when the country is being run on disgusting personal attacks as to debating policy I get really cranky.

Koko aged 8

So have spent the week caring for animals, cursing the television and the media for repeating themselves at least 6 million times on the same story and baking cookies for the landscapers. By the way they are doing a great job and I will have a level area in which to relax in my front yard instead of trying to read in a lounge chair that goes down hill that I slide off of.

I am reading. Started a book today as it is due for my Monday night book group. Fortunately it is only about 150 pages called So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell born 1908, American writer published by Vintage. Lovely cover too. Will do a separate post on it very soon. Will see how book club goes with it before putting up all our reactions to it.

So that was my week. Sometimes life just can't be about sitting under a tree in summertime reading a book. Besides it is winter here but a lovely winter now, quite mild.  I hope everyone else had a much better week than I did.

By the way I did find out that the poison came from the next door neighbours who had rats in their attic and put down bait believing the rats would die in the attic and that would be the end of it.  They had no idea they'd run out of their house and into our yard and cat enclosure for all the animals to dine on.
You can imagine how horrified they were after I spoke with them and told them they'd poisoned all five of our beloved pets and my poor T overseas visiting his ageing mother for her 90th birthday couldn't do anything but worry.  But "all's well that ends well", another quote by my mother. My mother raised us with lots of cliches.  So I am expecting my next post will have photo of a lovely book cover and some thoughts that are more literary than angst.

Whew! What a week.