Sometimes Life Gets in the Way...Again.

I might not have mentioned this before, my wife and I have a $10,000 dog. We didn't pay that for the dog, but that is what the dog has cost us at this point. Well, actually, it's even more than that. More like in the $11k range, but $10k dog sounds better. Imagine someone telling you they have a $10k dog, interested? I thought so.

My wife had Bob (the dog) before I met her. He is about 13 years old now, my wife and I have been together for almost 9 years. He is her baby. I love this dog too. He is totally awesome. Border Collie to the extreme. Anyway, we found out a couple of months ago that Bob has cancer. It was concentrated in the left rear leg to the point that the bone was simply gone. He had started limping and then not using the leg, at which point we took him in to the vet. That makes it sound like we are not good dog owners, but he was always a really active dog and sometimes would over do it. So it wasn't unusual for him to limp at times due to over exhuberant fetching.

So we had the leg removed. This was at a the time when it wasn't known when the Writers Guild strike was going to end and at the time I had been out of work for about 3 months. Anyway, we had the leg removed for $4900. In addition to all the doc visits before that we were up to about $6k at that point. Then chemotherapy and more doc visits, at last check we were up to about $11k. The situation hasn't been getting better since then. There was the part where his spine was messed up from hopping on the back leg. So that was more money. I did mention that I love this dog right?

I was raised to be kind to animals and stuff, but there comes a point when I have to say stop. And I have tried. My wife can't let go. The dog can barely walk, can't climb stairs, and will shit where he sleeps. He has lost about 50% of his body weight from the chemo and just not eating. Now "we" are taking the dog to a Chinese medicine healer for acupuncture. I have stopped asking how much anything costs. On top of all this, I can't get anything on the cars fixed because we are spending it all on the dog. Needless to say, I'm a little stressed about all this and having a hard time sleeping. And with the SAG strike pending, I don't know what the fuck to do.

Good times. Worked on Sarah Connor Chronicles today. I so want to be on the crew of that show. Tons of hours on a hit show. I could pay for the dog and the cars and the house and not worry about any of it. See what happens, I might be working on the show again later this week. I'll keep being the 'shiney penny' that I am and maybe get on the show.