Um, About That Plague of Locusts

Dudes.

I was kidding, okay? I was kidding about the Plague of Locusts. I would like to go on record as saying I was just doing my normal over-the-top exaggeration. Seriously.

For those of you new to the show, I'll just recap our past few months, shall I?

I had three screws installed in my foot and some malformed bone removed at the end of March. The recovery from this has been way, way longer than from any other surgery I've ever had, and I still have this funny hitch in my get-along. (Meaning: I have a limp and I can't tell if it's psychosomatic or what.)

This recovery coincided with massive rains in Central Texas that produced flooding of Biblical proportions and kept us chained inside our house for much of the summer. Which helped me gain fifteen pounds and helped produce the conditions that made my old dog Sydney develop a staph infection that required treatment almost weekly from our good vet.

In August, our cat Edward developed some sort of bowel obstruction and went missing for two days. I'm convinced he had gone away to die but then my husband found him and Dr. Wyatt came out on a Friday night and helped us load him up and take him to an Emergency Facility. He recovered and is back to his normal furry self (meaning: hilarious.)

Last week, Jane (6) stuck a B.B. in her ear and had to be rushed to the doctor to have it removed.

Also last week, our old dog Sydney had a stroke or some other event in her brain which left her with the Old Dog Vestibular Disease, which presents itself a lot like an inner ear imbalance. Meaning: she falls down a lot and has to be helped up and down stairs and she kind of moves like a crab, sort of catty-whompus. And my foot began to feel almost normal for the first time since my surgery so I mowed the lawn and threw my back out, because I am old and out of shape and my back wanted me to know that I couldn't just sneak up on it and start doing yard work without a little warning. Message received. My back is feeling better and I actually thought this morning that I might be able to start walking the kids to school again soon. It's been since January.

This morning, my husband walked the kids to school and then took our young dog Scout on a run. I went back to bed because I have a cold (of course I do) and didn't sleep very well last night. I heard him come back from his run and then take the dogs out back to play a little fetch. (Now that Sydney can't run with him, he always tries to make it up to her by taking her out into the woods behind our house to play fetch. Here's a video so that you can picture it. This was taken after Syd's stroke, so you can see how she's running a little crooked.)

[Editor's note: I can see the video just fine in the preview but it's not showing up on-line. I'll keep trying.]

Anyway, suddenly, I heard him say, "Barb? I need your help."

I got downstairs as fast as I could, adrenaline starting to pump. He met me in the hallway.

"I don't think we need to panic," he began. (Why do those words always make me begin to panic?) "But Sydney got into some kind of bees nest in the woods. She was covered in bees and they were stinging her like crazy. I saw her start sort of start freaking out. At first I thought she was having another seizure but then I saw the bees sort of boiling up from the ground. I waded into them to get her out of there and I got stung and I think I swallowed a bee."

I was just staring at him in disbelief. Honestly.

I just. Could. Not. Believe. It.

Because he is always the calmest, most rational person in any crisis, he had already looked up first aid for dogs who have tangled with an angry nest of bees and he had a list of things we were to watch for because once an animal goes into shock, you have 20 minutes to get medical attention or it potentially fatal. We gave Syd a Benedryl and brushed her gently and removed two more bees from her and then I sat with her for about an hour. It's clear she was stung in her ear because she keeps shaking her head like crazy and she's got a big lump rising on her face by her eye but I think she's okay.

I spoke with Dr. Wyatt just now and she talked me through increasing Syd's medication for the rest of today and tonight to try to keep her comfortable.

It's just...

I don't know... enough already. Poor old dog.

Frankly, it's a little hard to know what to make of these bizarre series of events. I mean, did one of us break a mirror or something? Did I anger the gods by putting the Flying Spaghetti Monster emblem on my car? Because I was just joking.

At this point though, if the Plague of Locusts really does show up I would not even be surprised. (Meaning: I have stocked up Flying Insect Killer and I'm keeping the dog inside.)