As some of you know, the day Denise had her accident Eric told me that Tick is terminally ill with kidney problems. I had taken her into the vet the day before because she had blood in her urine. Eric says that she has kidney stones and because of her advanced age he doesn't recommend surgery, and I agree. Basically I am just waiting for her to act like she is in pain, or to stop eating. So far she acts just fine and she is as ravenous for treats as she has always been. He gave me some antibiotics and told me that if she improved on the medication I could just call him for some more when she started bleeding again.
Yesterday when I came home from work I took her for a walk down the block and noticed that the blood in the urine had returned. It was snowing hard and I really didn't want to go out and drive in that mess, but I decided that I didn't want to wait 24 hours to start the antibiotics. I called the office and told them that I was coming to pick up the medicine, packed Tick into the car, and started out. The receptionist at the Vet's office told me that the freeway was shut down in both directions in Layton due to accidents, so I took the back roads.
I left my house at 3:50, and it took me 10 minutes to drive three blocks. It took me 20 minutes to get to Mutton Hollow, and then traffic picked up and I thought that the rest of my drive would be a breeze. I turned onto Antelope Drive at 4:25, and that is where traffic pretty much came to a stop. I still wasn't too worried. The Vet's office closes at 5:30, so I figured that I had an hour to drive about three miles, and surely it couldn't take me that long to get there. As traffic inched along, and the time passed, I began to get worried. At 5:12 I was stuck in front of Lowes, and I knew that there was no way that I would get over the overpass by 5:30. I couldn't bear the thought that this whole ordeal had been in vain, so I pulled my car into the junior high parking lot, and I jumped out and started to run. While stopped at a traffic light I pulled my phone out and called the Vet's office and begged them not to leave before I got there. According to Map Quest my run was approximately one mile, and there were about 4 inches of snow on the ground. I got to the Vet's office at 5:30 exactly, picked up Tick's antibiotics and began the long walk back to my car. By the time I got back to my car 2o minutes later the freeway must have opened, because traffic had thinned out considerably. I got home at about 6:20, so the round trip that should have taken me 20 minutes on a good day took 2 and a half hours.
The good news is that I didn't see any blood in Tick's urine today. The bad news is that working out on the eliptical may be the same motion as running, but running is much harder on the body. My legs are so stiff I can barely move!
