Merry Christmas and Say Some Prayers Please...

I know I've been lax... things here at the 10 canine house have been even more chaotic than they normally are.

Pictures will be posted eventually... right now I need to describe what has taken place since Friday.

Friday night i had to work... Chance was attacked by Meghan when he was trying to get out of his kennel to go outside (I was letting him out at the time)...I thought she was in nursing the puppies.. she came out when she heard the jingle of the kennel and attacked him. I got him free, threw Megan into her kennel and checked Chance over. I thought there were just 2 puncture wounds on his side - cleaned them up and took him outside to do his business.

D came home and coaxed Chance out finally from his kennel. I was wrong... way wrong. I somehow missed the puncture/gashes on his stomach. He called me in a panic and told me to check my email. I did and was horrified. How could I have missed those? Sick to my stomach I told D to call the vet... D did but instead of describing them as gashes he called it a "deep puncture wound" so the vet said to watch it and she'd call us in the morning.

I came home and took one look and knew that he needed to be seen. I paged the vet and she heard my description... apologized profusely and said "I thought about having him bring him in last night but I knew he had to work early in the morning and figured he'd call if it had gotten more significant. I asked if they were gashes and he said - no they were puncture wounds..." D feels awful now too...

So off Chance and I went to the vet. Me with no sleep and we get there... she looks at him and goes - OH NO... we need to clean these and sew them up. So we knock Chance out and 3 hours later he's sewed up - internal and external sutures, a drain and I feel like poop.

The last few days have been awful... I went to work on Saturday night and D took care of Chance. Sunday found my mom showing up and starting to clean the house - me with a migraine and D coming home with a stomach flu. Chance having to go back to the vet for better pain pills/shots and so this is just craziness around here.

Tonight I am back to work. I had hopes of putting up a beautiful photo shopped picture of the whole fam damily - yet I will do that after the holidays. I also spoke to the vet again today as I changed Chance's dressing and well to be honest it smells foul and he's quit eating food - he is taking syringes full of pedialyte as he wouldn't drink water - he probably would take the syringes full of water, but the pedialyte with him not eating gives him some extra electrolytes... Those of you that know Chance know that food is something he LOVES. He's notorious for being found in the middle of a table, counter, whatever in search of food. This is not normal for him. He doesn't miss a meal unless something is wrong. So tomorrow we will be taking Chance back to the vet for IV antibiotics and to be knocked out again and washed out again and cleaned up again in the hopes that our pup will be back to normal and so that we can finally have him on the road to recovery.

Right now we just want the holidays with family visitation over... and thank goodness my mom is cleaning the house or else my in laws would be arriving to a disaster area.

To be honest I don't think I've ever felt this crappy about Christmas... I truly right now just want it over. I can't even smile when I see the tree lit up. I smile with the puppies... I smile when Chance barks at me... I smile when he wags his tail. I smile when Meg acts like a mom rather than trying to abandon them... I smile when Ernie and Lola play around... however I look at the tree and just want all of the craziness to just go away. The added pressure just is a bit too much right now. I know that today is Jesus's birthday and that makes me smile... the trees, the presents, the food, etc not so much.

So my hope for you is that your Christmas has gone much smoother than mine has... and that I never have one like this again... because this years seriously sucked and I don't want a repeat.

Seriously - no repeats of this next year... I think I'd probably lose my mind.

So please say a few prayers that Chance is going to be on the road to recovery and that our vet bill isn't too astronomical and that well that nothing else happens in our house as I'm not sure either of us is up for any more drama. I just want Chance to be fine...

In closing I leave you with my pitiful pooch Chance and then of course a puppy picture and if the internet wasn't so freaking slow I'd include the rest of the kids... but I've got to sleep and work etc...