Remember VH1’s Best Week ever series? Well, I present to you, Nicole & Joe’s Worst Week Ever. More like worst two weeks ever. Here’s a timeline for you:
Sunday, February 23rd – we purchase a baby rat from Petco
Monday, February 24th – Nougat dies out of the blue
Saturday, March 1st – we go to the Shedd Aquarium but it wasn’t as fun as expected
Sunday, March 2nd – Joe gets into a car accident while driving E home in the morning
Sunday, March 2nd – Hershey starts breathing heavily
Monday, March 3rd – Hershey dies
Tuesday, March 4th – the sink starts leaking
Thursday, March 6th – we find out E has to have an MRI
Can it please stop now?
So the bad news is the driver who caused the accident wasn’t insured so we are responsible for the $1000 deductible to have Joe’s SUV fixed. Even though they were going relatively slowly on the expressway (coming out of a tollbooth), the airbags deployed and the whole front end of the SUV was damaged because the guy who lost control flew into Joe’s lane and he couldn’t stop in time to avoid hitting him. Luckily they didn’t total out the car (and damn, based on what it’s going to fix the SUV, I think it came really close) or we’d really be screwed. We don’t want, nor need, to add car payments to our monthly bills right now. We’re the type of people who drive our cars until there’s no drive left in them. We just paid off the SUV in January 2013 so we were looking forward to at least five, if not ten years of life out of the vehicle. I still have my 2000 Jetta for goodness sakes! So that’s a relief.
As far as E is concerned, we aren’t sure what’s going on but the doctor might just be acting overly cautious. We hope to hear more by this weekend but we don’t think it as serious as having an MRI implies.
As for the pet situation, I am very angry with myself. I feel guilty as hell for Hershey’s death. I took Nougat and Hershey with me to the vet who examined the new baby rat. He felt that Nougat’s passing was a coincidence, but said that Hershey likely caught a respiratory infection from the new rat that was a new strain he hadn’t been exposed to and it just took him down fast (no vet was open on Sunday so I had planned to take him in on Monday but he passed away overnight). Basically I inadvertently killed Hershey due to my own ignorance. And here I was trying to help him by getting him a buddy!
RIP Hershey
Apparently I should have quarantined the new rat better by keeping him in an entirely different room on the opposite side of the house for at least two weeks before putting him anywhere near Hershey. It didn’t occur to me how easily these infections could get into the air supply. I wonder if perhaps Winston would have lived longer had I not brought Hershey home almost eight months ago. Ugh. Poor Hershey didn’t even get to see his first birthday. He was the first rat I raised from a baby. He was so scared/shy when I first got him and so friendly before he passed. He’d sit in the corner of the room when out of his cage, but if I turned around to make eye contact with him he’d come running over and hop on my lap. I’m going to miss him. :(
Oh, and don’t get me started on how expensive it is to take a pocket pet to the vet. My bill was $175!!! The breakdown was: $19 to cremate Nougat, $19 to cremate Hershey, $58 for the baby rat to be examined, and $79 for medicine for the baby rat. I cannot believe it. I knew it was going to be a pretty penny but I was thinking closer to $100, not almost $200!!! Ugh. This has been a very expensive two weeks, let me tell you.
This past work week was tough, too, since we only have one car. Joe dropped me off at 6:15 am and I’d work until he came and got me at 4:15, only taking a half hour break during the day. Sure, we could use that extra money, but I noticed by 2 pm I felt exhausted. It really isn’t healthy to work so many hours in one day regardless of what you do (and my job is easy).
As for the sink, it will be an easy fix. It was just another thing in the long line of misfortunes this week. I’m only hoping we’re done with the bad luck and will get a run of good luck next. We could use it with Joe’s impending layoff looming on the horizon.
P.S. I’ll write a separate post soon about our Shedd Aquarium visit.