Hell night and other odds and ends...

[brandtrn]

Long time, no post. I was happily on vacation for a couple of weeks and, once returning, getting settled back into my work routine and taking care of other necessary things. Our vacation, lovely though it was, is now but a seemingly distant memory. How long we plan for, save for, and look forward to such a happy time in life, and how QUICKLY it's all over and done with! As most of you who know me are well aware, my big, beautiful Dobermans are complete sissies when it comes to road trips. They HATE the car (both of them do!), and the trip South is usually fraught with anxiety for ALL of us! For Lucy and Ricky, because they've left their "comfort zone" (although they DO seem happy, once out of the car and have settled into our destination of choice!), and for Yury and me, because one never knows what they're going to do when they're all riled up!

The trip initially began as "usual"...with Ricky whining and crying for the first 45 minutes or so before falling into a fitful sleep, and Lucy tearing down the "barricade" that Yury always constructs between the front and back seats, ever inching forward and trying like Hell to crawl into somebody's lap (honestly, I don't even know WHY he bothers with this, anymore!)...this, when she wasn't growling at Ricky for stepping on her! This sort of stuff is NOTHING -- happens every single trip, and if this was ALL that ever happened, I'd be grateful! But things got interesting just before we hit Indianapolis. I was driving, and Yury was trying to mind the babies, when Ricky started to squeal. I remember saying to Yury, "we'd probably better stop. Ricky needs something." Yury turned around, petted him, and said "no, Cindy, I think he just wants some attention." Since Ricky quieted down in response to the cuddling and snuggling that Yury was offering, we continued on. About 20 minutes later, the squealing began again, in earnest, and there was NO comforting him! The squeal developed into a howl, which turned into an outright SCREAM, as Ricky tried to scramble over the back seat and into the wagon section of our station wagon, where all of our luggage was stored. As I'm looking in the rear view mirror, I see poor Ricky's bottom working, and I said to Yury, "this is some serious s**t, Honey. He's about to take a power dump!" Mind you, we're in the middle of all kinds of traffic with few grassy areas to be seen at this point but luckily, we hadn't yet made it to the interstate and there were a few side roads where I could turn off, so I maneuvered through the traffic, turned down the side road and pulled over ASAP. Once we had the dogs leashed and out of the car, Ricky didn't go three steps before he had some seriously explosive, NASTY diarrhea!! Poor baby! Never mind the fact that we had pottied both of our babies just before we left, less than two and one-half hours previously. I still remember thanking my lucky stars that : a) the hysterical episode DIDN'T occur while we were on the interstate and several miles from the nearest exit, and b) that he didn't, in his urgency, poo all over the back seat! If he had done so, we probably would have had to have hosed down BOTH dogs by the time we arrived at our first vacation rental, and ourselves, as well, before being able to enter the property!

After our first bit of real "drama," we traveled on rather peacefully until just after we passed Louisville, Kentucky. Again, Ricky started in with the squealing. At this point, we were in heavy traffic again and I had NO opportunity whatsoever to pull over at the moment, but I had my eyes peeled for the nearest exit. Again, this was LESS than three hours since our LAST "potty break," and our babies (and we) can USUALLY last for nearly four hours before we have to get out and do our "necessary" things. Nevertheless, this was a BAD day for Ricky. His anxiety apparently sent his digestive system into overdrive, and, before I was able to find an exit, he became hysterical, screaming and howling again, this time, lunging forward into the front seat, just barely missing the gear shift! WTF??!!?? Yes, he very nearly got us ALL killed before I could get us off the highway and tend to his potty needs that time! 110 pounds' worth of charging Doberman is AWFULLY hard to stop in mid-lunge! And again, once we managed to pull over, not only did he have the nasty diarrhea poo again, but THIS time, he managed to slip out of his collar and run towards the traffic on the road! OMG! I REALLY thought we were going to LOSE him that day! Happily, we managed to capture him, get him and Lucy back into the car, and somehow made it (with multiple further stops and drama) to our "halfway" house which we'd rented in Franklin, Tennessee, where we planned to stay for a couple of nights to "regroup" from the nightmare road trip before continuing on to the Alabama Gulf coast.

Imagine my surprise when, once we FINALLY arrived at the rental property I'd reserved and I was looking for the lockbox where the key was kept, and there was NO lockbox on the front door, as the instructions I received said there'd be! There we were, in a strange town, with darkness about to fall, and we had NO WAY to get into that house! I made multiple calls to the owner who'd rented to us (and who HAD our money!), and kept getting his voicemail. In the meantime, since the back yard of the property was fenced, I DID manage to open the gate, let the dogs off their leashes, and give them a chance to run while I was waiting for a return call from the guy who had our money. It took about 20 minutes before I received a return call from the owner, who was all apologies. Apparently, the VRBO (the website through which I rent vacation homes) application that he had screwed up, and he wasn't expecting us until the following day, for whatever reason! Anyway, he called his housekeeper, who came and let us in (since he was in Memphis at the time and couldn't do it) and, while we were eating our supper, she did the cleanup of the house, since the house hadn't yet been cleaned since the previous renters had left. Sure, I could have been an ass about it, but I've been living in the real world long enough to understand that things happen, mistakes get made, but life goes on, anyway. I was happy enough to be safely off the road and in a comfortable home -- and NOT having to worry about the usual crap that I have to deal with in your average "pet friendly" hotel, i.e., nasty little dogs barking at MY babies and getting them riled up, MY dogs going crazy and barking their asses off every single time somebody passes by our room, etc. It also helped that Dyana (the housekeeper) was so pleasant about having been called away from HER activities in order to accommodate us (at the time Jimmy called her, she was on her way out to dinner with her mother to celebrate her birthday!). She also made fast friends with both of our babies, who absolutely loved her, and she positively refused my offering of $50.00 to help pay for her birthday supper, as a partial compensation for the inconvenience that our arrival had caused to her plans. Anyway, our host (Jimmy, the owner of the house) showed up the next day, offered us his apologies (and a bit of Tennessee moonshine) and refunded the ENTIRE amount we'd paid for our two-day visit to his house! Yeah, you heard me right...we were only inconvenienced for about a half-hour while we waited to get INTO the house, and for maybe another couple of hours while it was being cleaned, but he INSISTED upon refunding us for our entire two days' stay, even though I told him that this was ridiculous. I rented the house, we were comfortable there, and I expected to PAY for what I had received! The house was lovely, very cozy, and had a HUGE fenced back yard...I felt guilty as Hell about staying in that place for two nights while paying NOTHING, but he insisted, saying that he was hoping we'd give his place a good review in spite of the initial difficulties we'd had. Well, THAT was a no-brainer! Loved his house, loved his hospitality, loved his moonshine and enjoyed drinking with him! We're looking forward to seeing him NEXT year, when we rent that lovely place again as our "halfway house" between our home and our Alabama beach rental!

The final part of our road trip was much the same as the first (except that Ricky's digestive system had settled down a bit), so I won't bore you with the details. The only difference was that we managed to check into our beach rental without incident, and managed to spend a beautiful 12 nights there on the coast, eating awesome seafood every day, walking on the beach with the babies, and otherwise enjoying life before we had to head on back to the "real" world. Since Jimmy's place was booked solid on our way back, we stayed at a lovely little cottage in Franklin which we also enjoyed very much, unfortunately, for ONE NIGHT only before heading back home, since I had to be back at work that Saturday night! Next year, I'll plan a bit better. Since we'd never done house rentals in mid-trip before, I initially hesitated to rent Jimmy's place for our trip both ways (hey, it's possible that we might NOT have liked the house at all!), and while I DID try to book it once we were actually in the place and knew that we liked it, apparently it's a popular place to stay in Franklin, and he was booked solid during the days of our return trip! Obviously, next year, we'll be renting the place for two days EACH way! It IS such a lovely place to rest and re-group...in any case I am DONE with those so-called "pet friendly" hotels, many of which discriminate against certain dog breeds, and have people coming and going at all hours, riling up my babies, thus assuring that I get NO sleep whatsoever!

Anyway, my first week back at work was quite pleasant...was happy to see my co-workers again, happy to be busy, and, after spending more than two solid weeks with the husband, ready for a vacation from my vacation! But THIS week has practically killed me! We've had a full house of patients, but NOT a full house of staff! We've also got a bunch of newbies on staff who seem to have been thrown to the wolves, because they're scrambling to cover for staff members who've been fired, suspended, etc. My last two nights have been so crazy that I have to wonder if they're trying to get rid of me, too...our manager has, for the past two nights I worked, assigned ALL of the effing spinal patients to me (one of whom had an ileus and another who, last night, needed a blood transfusion!), assigned charge nurse duties to me, and last night, for good measure, assigned me a last-minute urological patient who WAS scheduled as an outpatient, but ended up bleeding and requiring every half-hour manual bladder irrigations! This bastard surgeon ALWAYS ends up having his patients bleed excessively -- why he doesn't insert a 3-way catheter (which facilitates continuous bladder irrigations) BEFORE he does his butchering is beyond me! I've given a new nickname to my most hated urological surgeon: Edward Scissorhands. Thanks to Dr. Scissorhands, and the patient in room 202 who just COULDN'T stay off his call light last night, I had a night of Hell...spent more than 13 hours ON MY FEET NONSTOP, with only ONE "potty break" about nine hours into the shift! To make matters worse, I got a call at 11 p.m. from the IT department letting me know that I had 15 minutes before they shut our system down for our monthly downtime. Monthly downtime??!!?? We normally get an e-mail several days beforehand when this happens, and pharmacy prints out our MARS (medication administration records) ahead of time so that we can stay on track with our meds during the downtime! Didn't happen this month...so, I scrambled like Hell to print out MARS on ALL of the unit's patients before they shut our computers down, and ended up staying two hours after my shift had ended just so that I could get all of the documentation done that I COULDN'T do during my shift! I ended up hobbling into my house just before 9 a.m. -- and my shift is SUPPOSED to end at 6:30 a.m.! My right knee was killing me, and my left ankle (which usually compensates for the bad right leg) was even worse...I was SO exhausted and SO unmotivated to climb the stairs to my bedroom that I ended up sleeping on the futon in my living room! Next week's surgery schedule is also crazy, so I have yet ANOTHER week from Hell (at least!) to look forward to. Hey, the end of the year is coming, and folks have gotta use up all of the $$ in their flexible spending accounts before next year. Heaven help me, but I have ALL kinds of insanity to look forward to before I finally tell that place "goodbye" in December!

[yogi]

I've been hearing good things about Franklin, TN, from people who are retired down there or considering doing so in the near future. It's not surprising at all to learn that you would have such a good experience. On a recent trip to Colorado we sent our fluff ball of a dog to a dogie resort. It only took a week to get her digestive system back in shape after we returned, but otherwise she seemed to have a good time.

At my age I know way too much about the health care system around here. We've had to use it way too often over the past several years. It's a blessing that miracles are so readily available, but it's frightening to think that some of the major players may have competency issues. A time or two my life depended on perfect performance of medical personnel, and it's quite sobering to contemplate that the people I entrusted with my life are mere mortals after all. I can't imagine you to be the kind of person who wants a rest from all the high pressure, but you do deserve to work in a better environment than you are in now. Your star shines bright, I'm sure, but it would be dazzling if you can use your full potential in a less stressful situation. May 2016 be a much improved year for you.

[pilvikki]

well, that was some trip! yikes! i'm thinking you need a) a harness for them babies or b) cage in the back and luggage in the middle - or on top. we bought one of those luggage carriers (in Latvia, lol) and it made a HUGE difference.

as for that hell hole you work in... i'd have told them sayonara, as they obviously don't know, nor care about their staff. absolutely unforgivable.



jimmy sounds awesome!

[brandtrn]

Jimmy is, in fact, an awesome dude...he's the personification of "southern hospitality." I did positively NOTHING during those nights we stayed there except to prepare supper, play with the dogs, and drink wine while lazing around in that heavenly jetted tub in the master bath. Yury was FAR busier, checking out the historic downtown Franklin area and scoping out all of the shops -- he IS such a shopaholic, and Franklin's close proximity to Nashville assured that there was plenty of shopping to be had!

I agree with you re: the cage. As a matter of fact, I told Yury that it's going to be his job, now that he's retired, to crate-train both of our babies prior to our next road trip, since he's the one who's so determined to take them with us! Don't get me wrong...I LOVE our babies, but on occasion, I'd adore having a vacation with NO responsibilities whatsoever! In any case, as crazy as they can be while on the road (and there isn't a veterinary-prescribed tranquilizer out there that even TOUCHES their anxiety during road trips!), I'm going to refuse to drive unless the babies are crated. And, since I'm the one who does the majority of the driving during these long trips (my old fart has the unfortunate tendency to doze at the wheel during long drives), that means that HE'LL be going nowhere, too! It'll either be the crate or they'll be boarded at the kennel from this day forward...and I'm seriously hoping for the crate, because the babies are wonderful company once we've settled in to our destination of choice, I miss them when we're away from them and, most importantly, if we don't have the babies with us, we have no justification for renting these lovely homes if it's just the two of us! A hotel room while on the road and a small condo once we've arrived would serve us quite nicely if we were sans pets.

And yes, it is on my agenda to tell my current workplace "sayonara," and I'd have done it by now, except that my clinical instructor job at the nursing school doesn't begin until the winter semester. I'm counting the days, though, while looking forward to being able to influence the next generation of nurses :-)

[pilvikki]

splendid!

tell him he might end up in one, too, if he doesn't see the light.

it's not just that they fidget and jump around, if you were to be rear-ended, they could literally fly over the backs of the seats and kill you.

the restraints did no work on my wolf X very well, he'd wind it all up into a knot, no matter how I tried arranging it all. the cage would be much better.

smokie loved, loved, loved the car, but wouldn't sit still, there was so much to see!

[Icey]

We have something like this, Cindy. Our dogs travel very well these days, but it wasn't always the case.



One of the sweet little girls who we lost last year, used to leap all over the back seat, which was very dangerous, and she'd yowl and cry just having to go 5 miles down the road. In the end, we had the gates fitted in the cars, and she had was given some medication from the vet. Dogs can suffer from car sickness just as much as humans can, which results in cranky behaviour, sickness and/or diarrhoea, and they cry because they're uncomfortable or feeling unwell.

We let the animals get used to sitting behind the gates, by encouraging them into the vehicles when they were stationary. We'd leave them there for maybe 5 minutes, then return and tell them how good they'd been. After a few repeats, we tried out short journeys. It was still a bit of a bother at first, because Blaze, the GS, used to block the rear view mirror, but in the end, they all settled down, and we never go too far without a toilet stop for them. We sometimes still harness them though, because they can bark and get anxious at seeing certain other dogs.

However, we tend not to take them in the car at ALL much now, because they're getting old and might not be able to "hold themselves" for as long as they once could. Luckily, we can leave them at home with plenty of people to look after them well. I've missed them at first, but after a while, the freedom of not having to take pets away with us was a relief to both parties. The animals missed us, too, of course, but soon got used to it because they were left in familiar surroundings. Just ONCE, we had them kennelled, and never again! I couldn't rest in case they weren't being treated properly. They were fine when we went to collect them, but overjoyed to see us, so I said no, they'd either stay with us, or remain at home, which they now do.

I don't know what your vet's offered in the way of antihistamines or sedatives, but we used to use Cerenia (if that's the right spelling. I forget now). It works very well, and, as we were told, if that DOESN'T work, then the animals needed to go back and be checked over for other problems which they might've had, but they were great with it.

[brandtrn]

Thank you, Icey, for all of your helpful suggestions. You may be assured that I will take them to heart, because I just CAN'T go through one more road trip like the last one.

[Icey]

You're welcome. Everyone has a different view about taking their pets away, and because I love animals, it was a wrench when we had to leave ours, but going back a few years, we were often travelling abroad, so sometimes it was impossible to take them along on trips like that. I could never rest properly though, and were usually lucky enough to have relatives come to house sit for the children and pets. I'd never let just anyone do this, but it's not always possible for folk to be able to have people in and know that they'd look after them well, is it?

The trip didn't sound very good because of how your dogs were, but the place you stayed at sounded lovely! I DO hope that your vet may be able to help with some medication next time. There are a lot of things they can try, not just sedatives, and for both your dogs and yourselves, it'd be great if they hit on something which worked.