hudson ailments.

Remi is not only the cutest puppy I've ever seen, but she's almost the most accident prone, injured, and scarred up little face puppy I've ever seen. As she has had to grow up with 2 big dogs she's turned into a pretty scrappy pup-she harasses and teases them non stop and they'll get sick of her, growl or bite at her and she'll turn right around and ask for more. As to be expected with behavior like that is has lead to her getting pretty beat up.

I was feeding the dogs one morning and had let them out of the dog run while I dished up their food. Like usual I could hear them jumping up on the back garage door out of excitement. As I went to feed Remi I noticed something sticking out of her leg-I went to look at it more closely and saw it was a piece of wood. I attempted to pull on it and wouldn't budge. As I looked closer it had gone through one side of her leg and out the other. I had to haul her over to Russ's work to have him help me pull it out, luckily it didn't get anything but the skin. We decided she had been jumping up on the door and slide down the door frame, and caught a huge sliver on the way down.

At first it started with a few minor scars (hard to see here with all the grass on her face), but then the last weekend of March we went outside to feed the dogs before bed and found a huge gash on her head. Russ has stitched up lady's wounds with his taxidermy skills but there was no way Rem was going to hold still long enough so we glued it shut to keep it from getting infected.

 April 3 we had an appointment set up for Remi to get spay (no more puppies for us!), and when I went to pick her up the assistant told me all the extra things they added on to her procedure while they had her under. They shaved her head and stapled up her head gash, and pulled some baby teeth that were having a hard time falling out on their own. Poor thing that first night didn't quite know what to think. She was on pain medication for 5 days and antibiotics for 10 days. Because of the staples on her head she had to wear a cone for 10 days, until the staples would come out. It was miserable for all of us! She would run around, crash into things, couldn't eat or drink that great with it on. Finally I couldn't take it and would keep her inside with me all day so I could watch her and put it on her at night.

 Just when we thought she learned her lesson...one month later on May 3 she was harassing Crush while Russ and Kellen were building the dog house and he got her pretty good again. Not as bad this time thank goodness.

Russ and I have had our fair share of ailments lately as well, no head staples or anything but some weird things as well. I've always had a bad lower back thanks to working in the medical field, but it was never anything terrible. One night in March after picking Ash up from the airport from her trip to Spain, it was pretty nice outside so I was raking up the yard a bit. It started aching so I went inside and stretched it out some like I normally do, and went to get in the shower. As I lifted a leg to climb over the tub I got sharp pains that dropped me right to the ground. I suffered through a shower and tried to stretch and walk it out until Russ got home. We relaxed and stubborn me thought I would just rest it and move on by morning. I woke up and went to get out of bed and couldn't move. It was the worst back pain I'd ever felt. I made a phone call to call off of work that night and called and made a Dr. appointment. All I can say is thank goodness for muscle relaxers! I refused an MRI because I didn't want to pay for that right then, and told him if it got worse I'd come back for one. I was placed on steroid medication and muscle relaxers and had two nights off work to help it settle down. Haven't had a problem since and hope I don't have to deal with that again.

On Thursday May 1 I got a text from Russ while he was at work that he had cut his finger pretty good and was debating if he needed stitches or not. With me being 15-20 mins away from his work now, instead of 4 mins, I started to get ready to head up there and take him in. He text me again and said that he'd put his first aid kit to good use, made a splint and the bleeding had stopped so he'd be fine. I saw it that night with a butterfly bandage on and it looked pretty good, until he told me that before he bandaged it up he could see tendons. Crazy man! Anywho, he kept in in a splint, and took good care of it for about a week to keep it from splitting open and/or getting infected. Friday the 2nd of May my right wrist got all swollen with pain radiating down to my elbow (see weird stuff I tell ya). I had been having occasional pain and numbness problems with it lately but nothing quite like that. So I borrowed Jake's wrist brace and took some ibuprofen and my Monday it was better.

Saturday May 3 I was at work, I was working on the Pediatric unit and it was a slower night so we ordered some Café Rio for pick up. As I was eating my salad around 9:30ish I suddenly choked/gagged on a bite. I went to take a drink to rinse it down and suddenly got sharp piercing pains down my throat into my chest, back and arms. The pain continued with every swallow I took. Never experiencing anything like this before I started looking for options of things to make it go away. Feeling like a piece of rice was still stuck in my throat, I even tried hooking myself up to a suction machine in an empty room to see if I could get something out. All that resulted in was gagging :) The chest pain eventually got worse and would come even when I wasn't swallowing. (I had a sinus infection at this same time I was miserable and couldn't breathe even without the chest pain). After waiting 6 hours and talking to my supervisors I ended up going down to the ER a little after 3:30 in the morning to get checked out. I felt so stupid and embarrassed, but afterwards I was SO glad I went. They gave me a GI cocktail-a  drink with lidocaine and antacids to numb my throat, and a couple x-rays. It was determined I had esophageal spasms. The ER doctor understood what I was talking about with my chest pains and told me they get people coming in thinking they are having a heart attack they get so bad with esophageal spasms.  I got put on a soft diet, and a different antacid prescription. I was told if it didn't resolve by Monday then I'd have to see a GI specialist and get scoped. My supervisor sent me home early and told me not to come in that night (Sunday night). I went home and slept, and slept, and slept and slept! I felt like crap, couldn't eat much and was exhausted. I think I was awake for maybe a total of 5 hours that whole day.

The moment where the nurse on duty becomes the patient....

 Needless to say at this moment we are all doing much better! So far 2014 hasn't been good to us health wise but other than feeling like an old lady so far still good!