The same day of my last post Matt sent word from home that (TMI alert) Ozzie's poo was less than solid and that I should monitor it as the day progressed. By the time Matt got home that night Ozzie had had 3 major, disgusting accidents in our apartment. I called our vet, asking for any home remedies they could suggest to help settle his tummy, and of course their immediate response was to bring him in to the vet. Knowing that we rarely leave the vet spending less than $100 (which we unfortunately don't have at this time) I decided to try to wait till the next day to see if he got better. We tried plain white rice, a "bland diet" home remedy. Note: Ozzie apparently doesn't like plain white rice. So I put him in his crate, hoping he'd be okay for a few hours, and went to work.
Unfortunately and as per usual he did not feel any better as time went on. He woke us several times overnight, whining incessantly and quite forcefully, and we got up and took him outside to find more of the same problems. Additionally he woke us up at one point overnight (TMI alert, again) vomiting. So, we decided to take him to the vet.
So we started out the New Year sitting in a vet's office, spending nearly $100 to find that Ozzie had a case of colitis, an inflammation of the colon caused by a bacterial infection. We were ordered to give him some medicine and put him on a bland diet food for a week or so, and he received a dose of subcutaneous fluids in his shoulders for dehydration. We had been through this before with Mirabelle back in 2008 (she was much worse off though, needing much more fluids and a stay at the vet's overnight for monitoring) but Ozzie's case seemed to be quite a bit less severe, thank goodness. We took him home and drugged him up, then proceeded with our New Year's plans.
We spent the afternoon cleaning our apartment (which desperately needed it) and ran to the grocery store for snack food for our Winter Classic party. The party turned out to be quite a success, as many of our friends braved the single-digit temperatures and ventured to our apartment. It was so nice to see everyone again, and I can't wait to have another get-together... hopefully sooner rather than later. I'm sure we'll talk about a Stanley Cup party!
The following day we were happy to see that Ozzie was feeling better... things were more solid, at least! But, just like with kids, Mirabelle started exhibiting the same symptoms Ozzie had been suffering. Hoping to avoid another $100 vet bill I called, hoping they'd simply double the prescriptions for Ozzie... but no, of course, they wanted us to bring Mirabelle in as well. Not having another $100 to give them, we started Mirabelle on the bland diet and have been splitting Ozzie's prescription with her... which thankfully seems to be helping. It means Ozzie will be out well before the 10 days they'd planned for him, but I can just hope that the infection will be gone by the time they run out of meds. Mirabelle is doing better now, too, so we'll just have to wait and see.
The biggest, hardest hit came Monday, regarding the Subaru (again, as per usual). As previously mentioned, it started running hot, indicating it was time to reseal the gaskets. Our mechanic told us earlier that day that they wouldn't be able to take it till Friday, so Matt planned to drive it only to and from the train station (about a mile each way) till then. However, upon driving it home that night, the temperature gauge shot up into the red very quickly. No heat was coming from the vents, and it was running very hard. We decided to park it at the condo until Friday, and will probably have it towed to our mechanic's instead of driving it five miles. It's frustrating because it's just another big expense to deal with, even though we knew it was coming.
It's just become another round of "What next? How is life going to screw us this time?" and it's getting really old really fast. We're trying to hang on till my excess money from school hits but are just panicked we'll be in the hole we were in a few months ago. We just want things to improve sooner rather than later because we're tired of hitting a brick wall every time we turn around. As Matt described the other day, it'd be nice to walk into a bookstore or Target or somewhere else and see something we want, like a book or a DVD, and be able to purchase it without wondering "Huh, will this $20 purchase keep me from eating later this week?"
It's just become another round of "What next? How is life going to screw us this time?" and it's getting really old really fast. We're trying to hang on till my excess money from school hits but are just panicked we'll be in the hole we were in a few months ago. We just want things to improve sooner rather than later because we're tired of hitting a brick wall every time we turn around. As Matt described the other day, it'd be nice to walk into a bookstore or Target or somewhere else and see something we want, like a book or a DVD, and be able to purchase it without wondering "Huh, will this $20 purchase keep me from eating later this week?"
At the same time it's scary to put so much faith in grad school and the loan money coming in. I knew taking out the loans that it'd be more to pay back later, but I also knew that Matt and I couldn't continue on being flat ass broke and only buying groceries once every six weeks. I took more out in loans this first semester than I probably should have, but it did mean that, for the first time in nearly 5 years, Matt and I would have a cushion in case something went wrong. It's also so scary thinking that, by getting this Masters that I will suddenly be super successful and get a $60K/year career after I graduate. What if I don't, and we have so much more debt after I graduate that we're just back in this hole we're in now? It's a lot of pressure on me to be successful before I've even begun this academic journey, and I'm absolutely terrified.
Another major downer has come in the form of the condo Matt and I visited just before Christmas. We were so excited after seeing the unit, especially considering it was a quick 6-minute bus ride to the light rail station. Sure, there were some issues with it like the very small and outdated kitchen, but we knew that the location was going to make up for any issues it may have had. Additionally, it was the only place within our price range that was close enough to a light rail station. All other places in our price range were at least a 15-20 minute bus ride to a station, then another 35-40 minutes on the rail to get downtown for class. Anyway, I spoke with the landlord and he told me that he wanted to rent it out within the next few weeks and had someone set up to look at it, and that if this other guy could move in right away that he'd "have to rent it out" to him. It's so frustrating because the whole reason we'd specified moving the first week of February was so we could give our current landlord 30 days notice, because we were trying to be good, responsible tenants, and this new landlord essentially punished us for it. I haven't heard anything from him in about a week, so I'm assuming I won't hear from him and we'll have to start looking again.
It just seems like everything in life right now is too good to be true, and that every time something good happens something equally bad happens. We were so positive about the condo, then it all fell through. We were doing well financially during the holidays and now I'm working just a couple days a week and will be hit hard again with a mechanic's and vet's bills. It's so frustrating and we have a hard time relaxing because any time anything relatively good happens we feel like we have to brace for the next hit, the next problem, the next blow.
For now we just sit and wait, and hope that too much doesn't fall on us. And we hope that each Up doesn't lead to another Down. And I just hope that, after spending another $15-$20 thousand on a master's degree that we will finally have some stability and good luck in our lives.
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