likelydisaster

April was the longest month in the histoy of months. Dan's parents and sister came to visit us for Easter, and his dad had a heart attack Friday night. His dad always stays up late, and we had all gone to bed before him, so when I heard Willow start barking, I assumed that she heard him come upstairs and had been startled. We heard him say something about a heart attack over her barking, and I again assumed that he was saying something like, "Oh you nearly gave me a heart attack." But no, he was having a literal heart attack. Dan's mom was fairly drunk and apparently no help at all, so I'm super thankful Willow heard him yelling for us. As soon as we opened our bedroom door, she stopped barking and l laid back down on her bed. I ended up calling 911 and then hid with Willow in the kitchen, though she did completely lose it while the paramedics were there. The ER confirmed that he had a heart attack and they admitted him until they could do more testing on Monday to see if they could put a stent in or if he'd need open heart surgery. WELP, he needed triple bypass surgery, so he was in the hospital for two weeks total.

I mean, I truly was not terribly surprised that he needed triple bypass surgery because he has a horrible diet. He just kept saying over and over again, "But I work out every day..." as if he couldn't believe that this was happening to him. He eats pizza and wings EVERY Sunday night. He even brought leftover pizza with him so he could have pizza while they were visiting. Most of his diet consists of processed or fried foods (or processed fried foods), so I feel like it was only a matter of time before he had a heart attack. The most frustrating part about all of this is that he basically refused to change his diet. Like WTF? He won't try salmon because his grandmother used to make him salmon patties used canned salmon when he was a kid. Yeah, no shit that those were gross, but salmon filets taste NOTHING like that. He wouldn't eat the asparagus I made because he only eats it with bacon. When Dan told him that wasn't an option any more, he fired back, "The hell it isn't! That's how I eat it!"

It was a very long three weeks. Dan's brother came in to town after their dad was admitted to the hospital, and stayed at a hotel. We had offered him to stay with us, but he didn't want to, which was fine with us. The day he left, he revealed he had maxed out his credit card, so when he came back for the actual surgery, he stayed with us and it was, predictably, a disaster. Of course Willow ADORED him, and he was at least sweet with her. But he secretly drank nearly a quarter of our beer fridge while he was staying with us, so that was super shitty. He started drinking again last year, so it isn't like the stress of the situation made him fall off the wagon or anything like that. Dan's mom tried to deny that he did it (She said, "He only drank two beers with me"), but she did buy us more beer, so hmmmm. He's just such an inconsiderate asshole. Prior to all of this, he pitched a fit that he wasn't invited to Easter, so Dan texted him to give him an opportunity to apologize for how he acted when he visited in 2017 and the shit he's said about us since then, but he ignored Dan's text completely. After this latest debacle, Dan said his brother is never welcome back to our home, so no loss there.

On the plus, I did escape for a night to go my childhood friend Kristen's surprise 40th birthday party! She was genuinuely so surprised by the party and so excited when she realized I drove over! While the venue was kind of strange (there was a super classy wedding taking place behind that wooden divider wall thing), it was really nice to see Kristen and our other friend Jo. I can be really shitty at keeping up with people beyond liking social media posts (pretty sure it's the ADHD), but at least we can chat like the good old days when we do see each other. I spent the night at my parents' house and then headed back home the next day. Dan and I were originally planning to bring Willow and stay for a weekend, but that didn't happen with everything going on, obviously. I did swing by and visit with my grandma for a little bit before I left, and she insulted my tattoos twice, but I left $500 richer, so I'll take that as a net gain.


This past weekend, we had a fairly relaxing break. On Saturday, Dan mowed the lawn and I scrubbed and cleaned our deck and all of our outdoor furniture. I had taken Friday off, so Willow got LOTS of outdoor time, which she enjoyed immensely. It rained so much last week and I think she was starting to get depressed. She loves nothing more than being a potato in the sun.


I bought her this really nice raised outdoor bed that folds all up for easy storage and travel. I like that it keeps her off the ground, so when we go camping or stay in a cabin, she'll be less likely to get ticks than if she were on the ground. Plus, it has to be more comfortable.


And yet, she sometimes still chooses to lay directly ont he ground to soak up more warmth, hahaha.


It's also "does Willow have to potty or does she just want to lay in the sun?" season.

We celebrated a year of Willow on March 6! It seems hard to believe she's been a part of our family for over a year already. She's been doing really well, especially compared to when we first got her. She's still reactive to some dogs while on leash, but we're continuing to work with her on that. In general, she's a lot more calm when she sees other dogs now. When we first started reactivity training with her, we had to pull her up random driveways across the street from other dogs in order to keep her under threshold, and even that didn't always work. Now, she can fairly reliably pass across the street from other dogs, though we're still employing a lot of management techniques to keep her focus on us. A squeeze tube of peanut butter has been amazing for that.


Her annual vet exam was her best vet visit yet! We do a lot of mat/place training with her, so I decided to bring her mat with us to our appointment to see if that helped her. As soon as I got her mat out of her bag, she immediately settled on it, without me even cueing it. I was so proud of her. She also calmly waited on her mat and did some treat pattern games with me until the vet came into the room. When I arrive, I always call to see if we can be put in an exam room immediately rather than waiting in the lobby, and it's been a BIG help. Much less stressful/overstimulating. The vet said that she's really thriving now, and she weights a whopping 43 pounds, up from the 32 pounds she was when we first brought her home!


I had to take her back to the vet at the beginning of April for 2 more vaccines and it was a terrible experience. :( She was super anxious and wouldn't settle from the get-go. We're talking tail between her legs and frantic. I don't know what happened. I had given Willow her two anxiety medications together, which I don't typically do, but it just worked out that I needed to give her the trazodone for it to kick in for her appointment at the same time as I usually give her the prozac. I believe that the two meds given together caused her to have mild serotonin syndrome. By 8:00 pm that night, Willow was acting really strangely, pacing around, completely unable to settle. When I got home from work at 9, she seemed a little better. The trazodone tends to make her hungry, so I thought maybe she was restless because she was still hungry, so I gave her some treats in some food toys and she did finally settle down. When we went to bed around 10:30, she was laying on the couch like usual. Around 11:30, Dan woke up because he thought he heard something. Willow was frantic again. She seemed really unsteady on her feet and wasn't able to come up the stairs. We think she may have woken up, felt weird again, and tried to come upstairs to get us, but fell on the stairs. Dan had to carry her up the stairs. Even once she was with us, it was almost like she wasn't even seeing us. She was pacing around constantly, her pupils were super dilated, and she was wobbly. I called the two ER vets in our area, but they both had wait times of 3+ hours, and I didn't think she would do well in the car in that state. I eventually decided to go downstairs and stay up with her until she hopefully felt better. She finally calmed down and fell asleep around 2:00 in the morning. After talking with our trainer and our vet, we decided to schedule an appointment with the vet behaviorists at Ohio State University to find a better combination of meds that won't have the risk of serotonin syndrome like her current meds do. Our vet advised us to suspend the use of trazodone, which is a bummer, because the other times she's taken in, she's been totally fine and it's been really helpful. I'm not looking forward to driving down to Columbus without her on any kind of situational med, but what can we do? Our appointment isn't until July 10, mostly because of our schedules. I wanted to be able to drive down to Columbus the day before her appointment so that she was less stressed the day of her appointment. Our trainer will be attending the appointment via zoom, which is really awesome of her.

We're heading to Denver with Dan's sister Becky at the end of the month and I am super excited! Denver's a city we've always wanted to visit, so I'm glad we're crossing it off of our list. We're going to celebrate Becky's graduation from her surgical tech program. She's already got a job lined up, so that's awesome. Dan's brother was apparently mad that we didn't invite him to come with us. Yeah, just want we want - to be stuck in another state with someone who is super volatile and complains about literally everything. No thank you! We're renting a car and planning to drive outside the city to do a lot of hiking and then explore the city in the evenings. We'll be there from May 25-31, so we should have time to do most of the things on our spreadsheet!

I've been the worst at LJ. I haven't even been keeping up with anyone's entries, and I really need to get back into doing that. I enjoy writing here, so I'd also like to start regularly journaling again, too. It's so interesting to me how my LJ has evolved over the years. When I first started journaling, I wrote about all the mundane details of my life and now it's kind of become the highlight reel because that's all I have time for these days. I started this entry on Monday and I'm just now finishing it on Wednesday. Sometimes I'd even write MULTIPLE entries per day. Twenty year old Sara had a lot more time on her hands, haha.

I'll end this with that 2022 recap survey that everyone probably did in December/January to help fill in some gaps, I guess. I don't know. Haha.