A Hard Life-Lesson

There are some events that we wished never happened, and, if time travel were allowed, we would turn back time.  Unfortunately, we lived through one Labor Day Sunday.

William and Judson came to visit for the Labor Day weekend, and they brought the four-wheelers and the dogs--Harley Earl and Zoey Lou, their Miniature Schnauzers.  They didn't arrive until late Friday night, so we didn't see them until Saturday. 

William and Judson had all kinds of four-wheeler adventures, riding for miles all over the place and packing the cooler.  Oh, they had fun.  William planned a riding adventure with his friend Johnny on Sunday.  We ate together, rode four-wheelers, and just relaxed.  That evening, Cody set up his telescope and we star-gazed for hours, seeing Jupiter, Mars, Venus, galaxies; it was great fun.

Sunday, I awoke early, enjoyed a bowl of cereal, watched a little t.v., and then went back to bed.  Around 9:30, I awoke to Judson banging and screaming on the front door, and when I couldn't get to the door fast enough, he was banging on the side doors.  I found him, and he was hysterically crying and screaming that Zoey had been hit by a car.  I saw Mom's car at the end of their driveway, and then, I saw Mom in her nightgown bent over Zoey.  A car passed by slowly.  So I ran over to where they were, and Zoey was alive and not bleeding.  We briefly talked about what to do, and I ran back to my house, grabbed some towels, flip-flops, and ran back to Mom, all the while Judson is running with me stride-for-stride.  No hug and no words could offer him any comfort, and he kept talking about the stupid leash and the accident was his fault.  Harley was still running around unleashed.  We caught him, and took him in to my house.  Judson asked Cody if he would look after Harley for Judson while we took care of Zoey.  Cody dog-sat Harley.

We put Zoey on a beach towel, Judson and Mom got in her car, and I put Zoey in Mom's lap.  I hopped in the driver's side, and met Cody who brought me my purse, and off we went to our vet in Ennis.  Mom told me Dad was supposed to be calling the emergency number.  I phoned Dad, who said he couldn't find the number, hung up with him, and phoned Cody to ask him to find the number.  It didn't exist in print.  Meanwhile, Mom is telling Judson the accident was not his fault, and Zoey is breathing laboriously.  Cody phones and says he can't find an emergency number.  I did phone the regular number in the hope that it would give me an emergency number--no such luck.

We reached the Vet's office, and there were no phone numbers on the door or on the closed for Labor Day sign.  Zoey was still breathing, Mom was cradling her, and Judson was relatively calm.  I pulled under the shade and left the car running, walked around as much of the clinic as possible looking for a phone number of some kind.  Dad pulls up at the clinic, and says he phoned William, who was driving to meet Johnny to go four-wheeling.  Dad located a business card that had a second number.  I dialed it frantically, and it went to voicemail, and I left a desperate message for help.  Dad had also dialed the number and left a message.

At one time, Mom had shown me what she thought was Dr. Boyd's home, so Dad and I drove over to it, but it was not his home, afterall.  Meanwhile, William began using his phone to find another vet.  Cody was doing the same thing at home with the Internet.  Evidently, we live in an emergency vortex, because no one was finding any emergency clinic in our area.  Cody found one at 75 & I-635.  A Midlothian vet left a holiday message saying there was a 24-hour clinic in, and after much searching, William found a 24-hour vet in Arlington at Little Rd. & I-20.  Still no word from our vet, who we knew was in church this Sunday morning, but none of us knew where.  I would have gone inside and asked for Dr. Mac Boyd, if I had known where he went to church.

Having few options left and not having heard from our vet, we make the decision to go to Arlington.  I made the decision to turn on the emergency blinkers and drive 20 mph over the posted speed limit.  Gratefully, people moved over, and we made to Arlington in about 30 minutes from Ennis.  We had phoned the clinic for specific directions, and they were waiting on us.  They take Zoey, and we begin the long wait.  Dr. Boyd phoned not long after we arrived.  He was in church and had his phone on silent.

The vet speaks with us and Zoey is critical.  She has air building on the outside of her chest cavity and her lungs are collapsed.  The vet tells us what they are going to do and we'll have to see what happens.  I don't really care for the vet, because she doesn't tell us directly what is happening, and she has trouble articulating what will happen.  We are told Zoey is still critical.

Mom and Judson, who had no shoes on throughout the whole mess, are waiting in the car.  I give them an update, and when I come in, we are having to pay for services rendered so far, and the bill is astronomical.  For every ounce, every mm of tubing, every inch of gauze, we must pay.  Oh, I how regret that Dr. Boyd had his phone on silent for many reasons.  We pay the $700.00 + bill, and we are still thinking that Zoey might pull through.  Afterall, she had tried to get up two different times while we were in the car.

We meet with the vet again, who tells us Zoey's lungs did inflate some and some air has been removed from her chest cavity, but that she is in critical condition and the suffereing she is in was not leading to her getting better.  The vet did not know whether there was a tear or pull in her esophagus, her lung, or a lung lobe, and keeping Zoey on oxygen for two days would be around $3,000., and then we would have to send her to a specialist to have the surgery, if she survived.

William made the decision to put her to sleep.  We mourned.  William and Judson rode back with us, and Judson ran through the gammit of not ever wanting another dog, to why didn't they go to Austin, to wanting to get another dog, to hating the leash, to just crying.

William and Judson went home Sunday afternoon and had to tell Penni and Makenzie.

I can not get Judson's hysterical banging on the doors and crying out of my mind.  We had not received any rain and the ground had huge cracks in it.  I am amazed that he didn't trip and fall or have his foot slip in the crack and break his foot.  Judson relieves the events and talks about them in vivid detail with Penni.

Harley and Zoey were staying on Mom and Dad's screened-in porch during the day.  William had left to go meet Johnny.  Judson was on the front porch gathering all his fishing gear, because we were supposed to go to Athens that afternoon.  Harley somehow got out and was running around.  Judson got a leash and put Zoey on it to try to get Harley to come back.  It was Harley's leash, and he bites at it sometimes when he's on it.  Judson was walking up Mom and Dad's driveway, barefooted, when Zoey saw Harley, and she lunged.  The dog leash broke and Zoey ran up the driveway and out in to the road where she was struck.  Judson ran back and got Granny, who drove to the end of the driveway, and then he ran across the street to get me.  What a horrible, horrible day.