Worst Week Ever? Yep.

If there is an award for worst week ever we most certainly were in the running last week. All four of us shed an unbelievable amount of tears - daily.The best way to explain everything that happened is to give a day-by-day account. Monday: It was my first day back to work after being on maternity leave for 12 weeks. This also meant that it was Molly's first day at Montessori school. I prepped and prepared for several days but honestly you can never really prepare yourself for dropping your baby off on the first day. Molly was content when I dropped her off. I started crying before I was even out of the door and cried the whole way to work. I called to check up on her at lunch and she was doing pretty good and when I picked her up she was happy. She ate well all day but didn't sleep AT ALL. This made for one tired baby that night! Tuesday: The day started off well. I got the girls up and off to school and somehow managed to get to work at a reasonable time. My day went good and so did the girls'. Molly slept for a couple of hours which was a huge improvement! Little did we know that things were about to get significantly worse. When we got home I noticed that Zoe was sprawled out on the ground seemingly unable to get up and had urinated all of herself. She looked like she was watching an imaginary ping pong match too. I tried to get her up but she couldn't move. I called Matt who was on his way home and told him to hurry because Zoe needed to go to the vet ASAP. When Matt got home he carried her outside thinking that she just needed some fresh air but as soon as he put her down she fell down, unable to stand. We clearly had no idea what was going on but knew it wasn't good. We quickly Googled an emergency vet and Matt was on his way. Thinking that Zoe wasn't coming back, I explained to Bonnie what was happening. Cue the tears. Well, Zoe did come back home. The vet diagnosed her with idiopathic vestibular disease. It's a condition that affects the inner ear thus making the dog experience extreme vertigo. They gave her some medicine and told Matt that she should start improving over the next 48 hours. As Matt is explaining all of this to me Bonnie coughs and says "I have a bad cough." I dismissed the idea that she was getting sick since she had no symptoms - big mistake. That night was pretty awful. Bonnie coughed all night, waking herself up which led to her crying uncontrollably. That, of course, woke Molly up who would start crying. This happened over and over again. As soon as I calmed Bonnie down and she fell asleep she would start coughing and the whole cycle would start again. It was at about 3am that I knew she couldn't go to school. Being that I had just gotten back from maternity leave I had very little leave left, so I informed Matt at 5:30 that he had to stay home with Bonnie. This did not go over well considering Matt had an important project he was working on that was due, you guessed it, that week. Wednesday: Long story short, Matt stayed home with Bonnie and Zoe and I took Molly to school in an attempt to quarantine her from whatever Bonnie had. Zoe showed little improvement during the day, and neither did Bonnie. Being my own Google doctor, I've now diagnosed Bonnie with croup. Great. By the time I leave work and pick up Molly (who hasn't shown any symptoms yet) it's 5:30pm. By 5:45pm Matt has briefed me on Bonnie and Zoe's condition and where they both stood on medication and he was off to work. Thursday: It's my turn to stay home with everyone. We are all tired since Bonnie was up coughing/crying all night. Zoe is still having trouble walking and hasn't eaten anything or had any water since Tuesday. I left her downstairs and kept the girls upstairs in an attempt to keep Zoe calm. We spent a lot of our day alternating between taking showers and sitting in a makeshift steamroom. Bonnie still has a low-grade fever and her cough is not improving. Molly is still symptom free. It's now been 48 hours since Zoe went to the vet and there has been very little improvement. We are all fearing the worst at this point. Friday: I get volunteered to stay home again. Everyone is about the same. Matt gets home about 7pm that night and notices that there has been some improvement in Zoe. She can now walk, albeit sideways and unsteady, and drank a little water. Matt decides that he wants to give her one more day to see how much improvement she makes. Bonnie actually sleeps much better and only wakes up 3 times at night. Saturday: Bonnie is back to her old self during the day, despite us attempting to keep her calm. Zoe eats a little chicken and rice but is now not very interested in drinking water. She is still walking the same and is unable to walk up or down stairs. We spend a quiet uneventful day at home. Daisy has started to show signs of distress. She's eating non-edible things, like trash bags, and is generally moping around. Bonnie's temperature finally breaks! Sunday: The decision is made to put Zoe to sleep since she has shown little improvement over the past several days. Matt took her in and I again explained (tried to explain, really) what was happening. Cue tears from everyone. We were back on our schedule come Monday but it just isn't the same around the house without Zoe. She was 12 1/2, which in lab years is very very old. She was a great dog and will be missed dearly. No one ever wants to have to make the decision to euthanize a pet, but we knew it was the right choice. Bonnie still has a cough but generally is back to normal. Molly never even had a sniffle, which is pretty amazing. Here's hoping that we don't have another one of those weeks for a LONG time!