Coping mechanisms. And vomit.

I'm here to share a very important message with you. And that message is this:

It's never to early for wine.

I came to this conclusion after days of trying to get Lady Labradoodle to eat. She hadn't eaten since Saturday morning. No food = No meds.

Yesterday, I took her to the emergency vet, where a very patient tech suctioned out my girl's nose and then shoved 2 pain pills down her throat. Literally. Lady Doodle was not having it, and she bit the pills, which are bitter. This then made her foam at the mouth and hyperventilate. In the waiting room. Like she had rabies.

A rather scary Daniel Day-Lewis lookalike watched the entire episode in abject horror. What? Do copious amounts of dog saliva not fit with your method-acting ways?

Three more valiant attempts from the tech and the pain meds were in the pissed-off doodle. I think this is the reason why I was able to trick her into eating this morning. When everybody got a treat for coming in the house, and she actually ate her treat? I just kept the treats coming. Psych! And by "treats," I mean "pieces of stale prescription kibble leftover from the Geriatric Poodle that I now pass off as treats because I can't waste them and really, we're talking about dogs anyway."

Lady Doodle ate the food! Yay!

Except by this afternoon, it was clearly time for another pain pill. But she wouldn't eat. And she wouldn't have anything to do with the pain pill. Which I learned when she put it in her mouth and promptly spat it across the room ... into Foxie Doxie's waiting maw.

My dachshund ate a painkiller designed for a dog that outweighs him by 65 pounds.

So, Foxie and I locked ourselves in the bathroom. I rolled up the rug and syringed hydrogen peroxide down his throat. Then, we waited.

Lady Doodle has chondrosarcoma, a cancer of the cartilage in her palate. She won't eat, she's a general mess, and we are just starting to investigate our options. My husband is a wreck. I am trying to hold it together. And sometimes, holding it together involves camping out in a bathroom, waiting for your dachshund to throw up.

It was then, sitting on the toilet that's always running because we live in an old house where everything is just a tiny bit shitty, that I had an epiphany.

Wine. Is good. Now. Right now.

And then Foxie ralphed up frothy, voluminous barf, and I cleaned it up. Then, I poured a glass of Riesling.