Difficult to express.
Muddled.
I feel like I run the gamut of the Seven Stages of Grief every single day.
I adopted Ursula in 2003 from the German Shepherd Rescue and Adoptions foundation in NC. She was at least a year old at the time and was a voluntary surrender at an animal shelter near a military base. Due to her age and her general condition she was deemed unfit for adoption and put on the list to be euthanized.
Luckily, someone from the shelter called the GSD rescue and they picked her up two hours later. A few months earlier I'd applied to adopt the so-called worst-case scenario rescues as I've worked with GSDs my entire life and feel that I understand the issues that these dogs often face. So I was sent an email with the above photo and it was basically love at first sight. My second dog, Gabby, is also from the same rescue but with different circumstances. Both dogs exhibited signs of abuse and were deemed unfit for adoption by shelters.
My dogs are now geriatric and the older of the two, Ursula, is approaching 13-years and isn't in the best of health. We moved to the desert in July 2011 and she blew out her CCL sometime in the late fall--she'd already blown the other and had one TPLO surgery in May 2011 and now it looked like she needed another on the other side in Dec and of course I'm kicking myself for not having the doctor just go ahead and do both sides in May. This surgery was difficult and expensive the first time around and so I went to the vet knowing--or at least assuming I knew--what to expect.
Well, according to my regular vet, there's exactly ONE vet here in this godforsaken desert who does this surgery. Unfortunately, he is an absolutely despicable human being. He also knows he can get away with it as he has no competition. He charged twice what the previous surgeon charged and when I questioned this (in fact whenever I questioned anything) he acted like I was somehow a terrible parent for being unwilling to just blindly spend whatever it cost. The man had zero bedside manner and was almost intolerable to deal with. In retrospect, I should have sought out another doctor but my dog was in pain and we'd already started the process of X-rays and examinations, plus since this vet came highly recommended by my regular vet it was (or should have been) easy to share records and consultations. However, my regular vet took some very expensive (and uncomfortable for my dog) X-rays and when I expressed concern about this as I had a feeling the surgeon was just going to retake the images, she assured me that she'd put the films on a disc that I could take to him. Why couldn't she just email the images to him? I will probably never know.
Anyway, the long and short of that snafu is that despite driving across town twice and calling receptionists and vet techs at both hospitals to confirm that I would hand-deliver the disc, the surgeon said he never received the disc and had to retake the X-rays. Basically, I could have just thrown $345 out of my car window. The reality is that I just don't have very much money at all and I should have gone elsewhere. But as I said, it seemed easier to just proceed and hope that this doctor, despite being difficult to deal with, at least knew what he was doing with regard to the TPLO procedure. He was highly recommended by my regular vet. So by the end of it I'd spent around $4500 that I didn't really have to begin with (on top of the $2300 for the earlier surgery) and she's now only at about 80% of her former mobility. But she can walk and she's not in pain.
Then, last year, Ursula contracted Valley Fever, which is an extremely expensive and devastating illness. She's been treated for the Valley Fever for just over a year now and I'm not even sure how much I've spent on that--the test is $105 every 6 months. The medication is roughly $130 for a two month supply. So that's roughly $990 a year. The most recent titer suggests improvement, but she is still VF positive.
Now, she's developed another strange and expensive illness. Part of the problem is that we don't know what she has. What's presenting is an enlarged esophagus and respiratory infection. The fancy name is "megaesophagus" and there are a variety of underlying causes.I don't even want to think about how much money I've spent on vet bills over the past few months.
So yeah, life doesn't seem be giving me a break any time soon. Already stressed and overwhelmed at the beginning of the summer, my AC went out. Kaput. Costing $9300 to replace the system. Luckily, I had some money saved but I'd wanted to use that to repair my bathroom which is in desperate need of repairs. But, nope. That fund was completely eaten up by the new AC installation. I desperately need to repair my bathroom as there's a mold issue and that's bad for my health.
I've spent a great deal of money on vet bills and home repairs and now I'm facing even more of both. I know she's old, but it's difficult not to feel that I'm giving up on her. Coming to terms with this hasn't been easy at all.
Ursula is the best dog I've ever had in my life and I've had GSDs since I was a newborn in the cradle. She was so full of life and joie de vivre when we first moved here, it's completely heartbreaking to watch her health deteriorate since we've been here. A lot of that is the valley fever (which is a direct result of moving here). But now she has this other crazy mystery illness and, combined with my current financial woes, it is really taking its toll on my state of mind. I'm exhausted, stressed, and trying very hard to put things into perspective and find a way to muddle my way through the spontaneous crying fits and bouts of depression.
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