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She ate some Aleve on 1 October(?). I called our vet who told me to contact Pet Poison Control Center after warning me that it would cost $85 to open the case. The Poison Control Center opened the case and told me to take her to an animal emergency hospital an hour and a half away. My vet had already told me that they couldn't handle it.

$800+ later (It was closer to $900 than $800 and I got a military service discount.), we decided to return home with a home care plan instead of having her stay overnight for them to monitor her. The bill for staying overnight was between $7K and 10K; however, what made me decide to take her home was the question about a DNR for the dog. We decided that if it became so bad that they had to put her to sleep, we wanted to be there and make the decision then. We didn't want her to be put to sleep with strangers.

SO, I've spent the past week or so waking up at odd hours to give her meds, try to get urine samples, taking her to our vet (between $200 and $450 per visit when there were labs run and having time with the vets, not the vet techs), then switching her diet to wet (canned) special dog food to not strain/work her kidneys at much and to get multiple subcutaneous injections.

At this point, her stools look better, she's enjoying her new food (at that price, about $4 a can, she'd better love it), and is seemingly back to normal. My big concern was that I'd read that some dogs look like they've rebounded then everything fails about about the fifth to seventh day. We're past that and will probably only need to go in for a few more blood tests in a week or two.

I'm hoping that we can switch her back to her regular diet after we can say with absolute certainty that she's over this.

In other news, while I was at the vet hospital an hour and a half from home and waiting to be taken into the back, I called my contractor for an update. I'd paid him $8K and hadn't heard from him in a little over a month. He sounded confused when he got the call, probably because we hadn't spoken in a while so he didn't recognize my voice or number, then realized who I was and said that everything is on track and they'll be at the house on Tuesday...seven days from the call. I'd asked him for two weeks' notice before we started so I could clear the room and do some prep work. We've been busy shuffling things around, moving stuff out of the room, figuring out how to contain the animals, etc. while dealing with calls and trips to our vet with or without the dog who is giving the other dog a run for my money for the title of "MoneyPit." The contractor called Friday to let me know that one of the guys had COVID, so their previous job is running behind a bit. They'll start Thursday...tomorrow. He called today to say that guy isn't back yet, so they'll probably start next week on Monday. Okay...we have a weekend to do some of the fence work and find another work around if that doesn't work.

Meanwhile, the guy who's supposed to fix my dryer hasn't come to any of the appointments we've set so far. Three times. So, we're hanging clothes out to dry. Everything feels crusty. Not seeing the thrill of line drying. If it isn't one thing, it's another.

Back to the dog. The dog is currently on the special diet, taking an anti-nausea medication, and wondering what the fuss is all about. I just keep saying, "I love my dogs." Still working on clearing the screen room. Hoping someone will pick up the range and microwave oven to sell for me and that someone will either fix the dryer (in the hallway) or take it for me.

Gotta repack some eggs. I bought two five-dozen-packs of eggs at Costco yesterday. I need to transfer them into the dozen cartons, cut the cartons in half, put rubber bands around each half and drop them off at the food bank today. I also need to drop off the candy I got at Costco as part of the Halloween alternative, and drop off the mixer that the people making cookies at the church for the upcoming bazaar. Busy day.