A surprising weekend--of ups and downs

On Friday, I woke up knowing that this was the day of the first meeting of the AFSCME Retirees subchapter, #68 DuPage County. I was a bit nervous, but also excited. I started to get ready after I got the kids off for school and figured I'd let the dogs out before I took my shower. All 3 dogs ran to the mulberry tree because of a squirrel that had ran up the tree(actually the stupid thing ran past the tree, looked at the dogs, started cussing at them in squirrel language and then just made it back to the tree with Paz and Chelsea very close behind him). I'm watching the dogs and then a train goes by and whistles exactly in front of my yard--that doesn't happen very often and I look up then I spy Pazzy running towards me, which I didn't think anything about because he gets tweaky about loud noises. He lands on the porch next to me and begins to fidget with his front leg so I thought maybe a bee stung him or some type of bug bite. I look closer and he has a gaping hole on the inside of his elbow! No blood, just the the skin torn off, about an inch and a half wide, almost round. So I call the vet, get him in, give him one tranquilizer(yes, we keep them in stock), take a shower. I get to the vet and we have to wrestle with him to let them see it, with him trembling the whole time and being more freaky than usual(not that it isn't understandable). The vet, vet's assistant and I finally get hold of him well enough for her to begin the injection of a sedative, but he jerks away with only about 1/2 of it in, the rest either underneath his fur, or flying into the air(luckily she had hold of enough of his skin where she pulled the needle out before it broke!). He begins to get a bit woozy, they have to put him under to do the stitching(and he couldn't have found a worse place to get hurt), I leave him at the vets and go home to get ready.
I made it to the meeting about 10 minutes early...or so I think. There are about 50 people for the meeting! Now, that's only a small percentage of the people who are already signed up(almost 800), but about 30 more than I expected to see on this cold, rainy day! I think we got alot accomplished and also about 10-15 people that are willing to help set up the chapter, along with the 4 original.
So, I go to the library to do some work since I only have about an hour until I have to pick up Pazzy--although its still raining and warm(60's), the wind is picking up and I can feel the weather cooling off. After an hour in the library, its demonstrably colder...almost 10 degrees. yep, weather in northern Illinois ain't for wimps...specially if you forget a jacket, like I did!
So...run over to the vets. The surgeon wants to speak to me, she tells me that because the flap was gone, she had to make two other incisions to get the skin to cover the area of the wound and used a "relaxed" stitch on it to help it heal. They've also bandaged and packed it from his paw to almost shoulder and then applied a dressing over that to make it harder for him to get to---which looks sort of like a sweater. She tells me that he has to be kept quiet for 14 days. I get the meds(poor dog is gonna need a 12 step program after this) and she tells me she'll meet me around back to give him to me(no stairs in back). I go around the front, walk down the stairs and BAM! I feel a stabbing pain in the back of my left knee--ok, I think, its cold and rainy, could just be arthritis kicking up a bit, but the pain is bad enough for me to have to limp to the back of the vet's office and to the car with Pazzy...who's sort of stumbling around, looking like he's thinking..."Wow man...look at the pretty colors...."all this for under $1000.  WARNING: In the photos below, I have a photo of Pazzy's leg BEFORE surgery--no bones, no real blood, but not for faint hearted.
We get home and husband's already home. He tells me, "The tree fell down in the back." OMG! I limp to the back of the house and see that what he meant was that a big branch(about 40 feet in length) had fallen off and it had some power when it did---the bottom of part of the fence is pushed out, there are parts of branches sticking straight up, forced into the dirt and one small piece of branch has been driven into the garage roof!

All this on the day BEFORE Halloween....as of Halloween, I'm on crutches, the back of my knee is swollen and I can't place much weight on it--and I was feeling so good just Thursday that I was going back to the Y to start working on this weight...damn. What's wrong with it? I dont' know, but since I already had crutches in the house, I figured I'd use them and see if that would help my leg.

Only problem is that I usually dress up for Halloween--I have different costumes, a renassaince woman, a clown, a flapper or gypsy, but none of them are easily worked around crutches...so, I had to hand out candy in just regular clothes...that just sucks in my life, I usually get to tell the kids different stories while I'm enticing them with candy, but no one really cared this Halloween, it being cold(colder than the last 5-6 years) and me just dressed normally! We really didn't have many trick or treaters--usually go through about 4-5 bags of candy and I had a lot left.

Monday, I am feeling good enough to run around without crutches, but I did keep my brace on. I take Pazzy back to get his bandage changed and I end up helping with the whole deal. He refused to allow anyone to take him into the room so I carried the 56 lb. baby to the table. He did pretty well, just thrashing a bit. Of course there were 6 of us holding him, so that may have helped. They also found out that the bandage was rubbing his toes raw so when they re-bandaged the leg, she left his wrist unbandaged and up to the shoulder...I have to take him back on Thursday. Wish me luck!