. . . . just go home!

Seriously. You know when you have one of those days? The kind of day that is just ridiculous from beginning to end? The kind of day that makes you just want to go back home, crawl in bed, and start all over again tomorrow? No? Well, let me enlighten you. That way, when you think you are having a day like that, you can remember mine and realize yours isn’t so bad. Then again, maybe yours was worse. I’m sorry.

On a Tuesday I was at work. Not my usual work, but an extra job for this one week that were long days. My youngest son, A, calls me and says that his dog, Jake, got out. When Jake came back home his face was swollen on the left and he wouldn’t open his eye. My son was worried, naturally. But hey, I work 3 jobs to keep us afloat. I don’t have money for a dog. Still, this is Jake we are talking about. So I tell my son to keep an eye on him. There’s not much we can do, we’ll just see what it looks like in the morning and decide then. Now, I thought about the dog, don’t get me wrong. My husband, B, thought that Jake may have a concussion. We assumed that when he got out he probably had been kicked by a horse or cow and that we should just monitor him. Thinking about the dog and being willing to run him up to the vet are two different things, though. What money I have goes to more important things.

On Wednesday, the swelling in Jake’s face had gone down, though he still wouldn’t open the left eye. He whined a bit, but really, he seemed to be his usual snarly self. So I left it alone and said let’s wait a little more.

Then Thursday hit. My oldest son, Z, had a few extra dollars and I convinced him to put his car in the shop to see why it was having trouble starting. I had him take me to my extra job. When he got back home, he found his dad had gone to the ER. (My husband has lupus and this is just life.) Meanwhile, I had called the vet, who, of course, wanted to physically look at Jake and decide what needed to be done. So I called my oldest son and asked him to go get Jake and take him to the vet, not realizing my husband was still in the ER. I got a phone call around 3 p.m. from a stranger telling me that Z had flipped my car. I could hear him sobbing in the background. Now I’m frantic. I let my husband know what happened and tried to get to the scene. When I get there, he is standing upright, talking to my mom and laughing (albeit a little hysterically). I don’t care. I’m thrilled there is no blood.

Side note: Y’all! God had his hand on that boy and that accident! He wasn’t speeding, or texting. He DIDN’T slow down for the curve, and accelerated when the tire slipped onto the shoulder. But my tires were bad and one blew, then another. It sent him into a tailspin which then flipped my car. I drive up to the scene and the boy is standing there, the car is loaded on a tow truck, there isn’t any broken glass, or exceedingly visible damage other than a broken headlight. There have been so many things to be thankful for. I’m thankful that I thought the night before to take the loose 12×12 tiles out of my back seat. I’m thankful he had the accident in my car and not his. I’m thankful that the hand of God was on that boy. The car flipped, landed on the driver’s side, and skidded into a mound of dirt that had been recently delivered for the homeowners to work on their driveway-right where he wrecked. He tells of climbing out of the passenger side (vertically, mind you) and coming down off the car to see the driver’s side mirror holding the car up. A minor dent in the fender of the driver’s side front tire and some very small minimal scratches is all there is to show for it.

So, I come up on the scene and he is okay. I sent him straight to the family doctor, anyway. I work out things with the tow truck driver, believing my insurance is adequate, and speak to Officer Payne (nicest guy there ever was!). Once the major points are settled, I head back to work. Literally nothing that I can do at this point, so I just go back to work.

On the way back to work, I get a phone call from the vet. Jake has a ruptured eye and it will have to be removed. I’m not lying – I laughed. Then I said, “wow, I guess the hoof just caught his eye and nothing else?” The lady on the phone says “I don’t think Jake was kicked. He’s such a small dog that if he had been kicked, it would have broken bones in his face.”

“Well, how – ”

“The vet thinks, because of all the stickers and mattes in his fur, that he probably was rolling in the grass and took a stick to the eye.”

“He rolled in the grass? And. Poked. Out. His. Own. Eye?!” No way. Just, no way. I had a bit of a hysterical fit of laughter. She tells me he’ll have to have surgery and that they will keep him for the night and do the surgery first thing in the morning. Ok. I’m too stunned to think through the ramifications of that.

Then I get a message from my husband. They are keeping him. His oxygen levels are up and down and they can’t get a handle on what might be the problem. He’ll be spending the night at least.

I end my “Thursday from the enemy” at the hospital, spending the night with my husband in his room.

Friday morning, I find out my insurance is not what I thought and that I owe an astronomical amount to the wrecker service for the tow and the impound and all that. Not only that, but it has two flat tires. I’m not driving it anywhere. So, I set to work, while at work, on how to get the car back to my house. My first instinct is to get my church ladies praying but also to ask if anyone has a car hauler. In the middle of trying to figure out how to get the car, one friend asks if I mind if she shares it on Facebook. Sure, I say. Maybe someone will have a car hauler there and I will see what I can figure out about the finances while we wait on an answer. Unknown to me, that friend had posted that I needed help, financial and otherwise. Within half an hour, I had the funds to get the car out of impound, have it delivered to a tire shop, get 4 tires put on it, and get my dog out of the vet, with money to spare. I was overwhelmingly blessed and amazed. I was humbled. With all the crazy going on, money was the one thing I didn’t have to think about. God is so good! It was such a blessing to not worry about the money end of things. But I still had my husband in the hospital. And Z was having back spasms.

Saturday morning I went to get the car out of impound, have it towed to the tire shop, and get Jake out of the vet. Poor Jake. He looked worse than my car. Although, once it had tires on it and I needed to drive it home, it was very apparent there was much more wrong than met the eye. Still, I got it home. And went to work. I was thanking Jesus all day for the good that had come out of so much bad. I was able to come up with “Thank you Jesus” nearly every minute it seemed. When it was time to go home, my youngest, A, showed up. I told him I wanted to go see Dad as soon as I finished up, before we went home. To which he responded, “Well, Z is at the Vet ER with Sadie. We probably need to get him.”

“What?! Now what?”

“Sadie found Jake’s medicine on the counter, pulled it down, chewed through the bottle and ate 9 of the 10 pain pills he had. Z got one of the pills out of her mouth at home, but since she ate the other 8 we were worried. So Z said to take her to the vet ER.”

“You have to be kidding me.” We called Z. They had Sadie in the back, it might be a bit. So we run up to the hospital and see Dad, then head over to the vet ER to see how Sadie is doing. When we get there, Z is hanging out in the front, waiting on us and Sadie. I go to check her out and the story is that they induced vomiting and got 3 of the 8 pills out of her, but she had already ingested 5 of them. So they gave her a shot to counter act the pills she had ingested. Y’all. That dog was higher than a kite. Drunker than a skunk.

She comes out from the back and she is so HAPPY! That tail is going 90 miles an hour and its leading her rear end all over the place. But you can tell her head is having a hard time keeping up. She couldn’t walk a straight line to save her life. We manage to get her in the car, but she’s so happy she can’t sit still. We just sit in the car and we are dying laughing. The week has been crazy. We have a one-eyed Jake. We are down to one car. We have a suicidal, drunk dog. We have 1,000 things to be thankful for. But, right then, it was just funny. I said, “If we can keep Rascal safe, we’ll be okay. One dog left. Let’s keep him safe.” Z starts laughing harder. I’m just looking at him.

“2 out of 3 dogs. 2 out of 3 cars. Mom.”

A practically yells “That’s not a good percentage!”

“What are you talking about?”

“2/3 is 66.6%! That’s just the devil!”

We all roar with laughter then. I think part of it was that we were just punch drunk and oversensitive. But part of it was funny too. No matter what was intended, it was all taken care of. That “money to spare” I talked about earlier? It covered Sadie’s ER vet bill. It also covered 3 months of oxygen service for my husband when he was finally released from the hospital the following Wednesday.

We are in the middle of a study at our church called Daring Faith. The memory verse for the lesson the following week after these events was Romans 8:28. “But we know that all things work to the good for those that love Him and who are called according to His purpose.” I know I’m called according to His purpose. Even if the purpose is just to love others with His love. And I KNOW I love Him. So all these things that the enemy meant for evil, were made ok. I don’t know why. I don’t have to know why. I only have to trust God. Trusting God is our lifeline. Well, and humor. Humor helps.