Weekly Wrap-Up #221 – April 27th, 2025

I’m connecting once again with Kimberly at Caffeinated Reviewer.

So, it’s been a week. Last Sunday, early in the morning, Dora all of a sudden yelped several times and acted really scared and started shivering. I took her to the 24 hour emergency vet. Of course while she was there she played her usual strong, silent self and didn’t react to anything when they tried to do the exam to figure out was wrong. The offered x-rays or bloodwork, $1300 at least. They also said though, I could just take the pain reliever meds and keep an eye on her. The rest of Sunday she seemed about the same but I was very careful with her. I went to Easter dinner at my aunt’s house, and when I got home she seemed like she was feeling better. Again I was very careful still with her. However early Monday morning it happened again, even though I’d left her in the cage to sleep, it was the smallest cage, and I think trying to turn around or dig in the blankets to get comfortable, she hurt herself. We went back to the same place and this time she definitely let them know it was her neck. So now they’re worried it might be a slipped/herniated disc or IVDD. This time they sent home a steroid as well to help with inflammation. I took her home, went to work, and when I came home she was seeming like she felt better again. It wasn’t long though, I had her sitting on a couch, and I think she went to dig into the blankets again and it was again several horrible yelps and several times like she kept doing something. I got my mom to drive me with her to the emergency vet one more time. This time they said it probably was one of those two things, but to tell for sure we’d have to do an MRI, which was like $5000. This time they sent me home with a muscle relaxer as well.

I was really emotionally drained, and physically exhausted from two nights of not being able to sleep at that point. The stress of knowing that Dora is 14, and to me, it’s not worth probably putting her through the physical aspects of that or surgery, not to mention that the surgery itself could be anywhere close to possibly $10,000. So I was scared to death I might have to put her to sleep. And she’s been so healthy otherwise for the most part. I also had planned to start seeing a new vet this summer, one closer to where I live, and also the same one we took our dogs to when I was a kid and where my mom had started going again. So Tuesday I went into work in the morning, but took a half day to meet up with the new to us vet. He said he thought what we were doing was probably good and he would go with the same things the emergency vet had said. But now I have someone close by to look at her if needed sooner, obviously during regular hours.

We got home from the vet. I put her in her cage and took a nap. She was also mostly sleepy from all the meds and stress herself I’m sure. So finally after that I began to at least not be so physically tired.

The rest of the week I was a mess most of the days at work, but I have a camera in my house that is just to check on my dogs in their kennels/cages when I’m at work. Normally they share a large cage, but I was too worried Argyle might accidentally step or jump on her, so Dora got her own cage for now. Being able to watch her at work was nice. Although I would find myself checking the camera every 20-30 minutes the first day. It slowed down a bit each day, as I was busier or feeling she was doing a little better.

Thursday when I checked the camera right before leaving work, I saw her rolling around on her back like she was feeling just fine, like she does to itch her back sometimes. So that was frustrating. Knowing that if she’s thinking she’s better because either she is getting better and/or the meds take away the pain, she’s going to do what she wants, of course makes it harder for me to make her stay in the cage when I’m home. But I’ve got a routine for sleeping for now. And I’m going to continue to be strict, either me holding her or her right by me when she is not in the cage.

Friday she again seemed like she feels like she is back to normal, but I’m not falling for it. The meds the emergency vet had given me were running out, so I called my new vet and he said he’d get some ready of the steroid and muscle relaxer ready for me to pick up on Saturday. I went up to the public library again to do stuff on my computer – pay bills since I got paid on Friday, and also some blogging.

Work was the usual. Although I did have one teacher that decided to come sit with me in the library for a few of her classes a few days this week while they were preparing for their end of course exams for next week. So it was nice to have someone in the library with me to talk with and help keep my mind off of Dora (kind of). I actually would open up ChatGPT while I was alone in the library at times and just put in my thoughts and let it give me answers about things or just reassure me I was doing what I could. I know, I know, weird, but it helped! My own placebo I think.

My eating suffered, while I was hungry, my stomach growling, the first part of the week whenever I tried to really eat, I could sometimes barely chew or swallow food without feeling like I would be sick. I did go to dinner with my mom Thursday night, which helped a bit. I also sat at her dining room table to work on this that night too.

My reading suffered a bit as I couldn’t concentrate much on the audiobooks in the car because my brain would spiral about worrying about Dora and if I was going to have to make a horrible decision. And I had a physical ARC I was trying to read, and with having Dora on my lap it made it hard to read much. I did end up going to the public library one night for a Zoom meeting I had and to do a little bit of blogging.

Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day and I got to help my author friend with her table at one of the IBDs in Kansas City, she had a really great day!

Books Finished

First was an e-galley for an author’s review team. The review for it was posted on Friday. Second was the audiobook I started on my way back from my conference last week. I really liked it and my review should be in my L-L-L Reviews for April this coming week.

I was glad I didn’t have a ton of things planned to post with the way the week went. I did also post a book blitz with an author interview on Saturday.

New Additions to My Library

ARCs:

Got this surprise box on Monday. Two I won’t get to because one comes out this month – and that one is a sequel to a book I haven’t read, and the other one comes out next month, and it’s a big thick book I know I can’t fit in. The other two I can’t wait to read!

Audiobooks:

none

Bookish Stuff:

none

E-galleys:

Free e-books:

There was supposed to be a bunch on sale this week, but I just didn’t have time to mess with it as I was dealing with Dora and not having time to sit at my desk much for the week because I felt bad leaving her in her cage while I was in the other room. Especially with Argyle being out loose. I did find the two above free on Bookbub when I was posting my review of Hot Shot.

Physical books:

So it’s so hard not to buy books at a book event! And I like to support the other indie authors when I’m there with my friend. There were only 4 authors at this bookstore, because there were other authors at other stores throughout the city. I bought from two of the other others, the other one didn’t have anything like what I might read. So I bought one Urban fantasy which had some cute art with it, a regency romance which sounded good, and also bought some stickers from a vendor.

What I’m Watching

Same as always. Not as much because of being worried about Dora, putting on my comfort show, Outlander, was about all my brain could handle most of the week. I did almost finish The Bondsman, one more episode left of the only season there is.

What’s Coming Up Next Week

First is the ARC I got from Entangled that I picked up and fell in love with! It’s just so long and my reading time has been cut a bit with all the craziness this week. The next two are e-galleys from publisher. I had one book I posted in last week’s Sunday post but decided since I hadn’t actually downloaded it off of Netgalley so it didn’t count against my percentage I would skip it instead of trying to fit it in. The last one hasn’t grabbed me when I picked it up to start, so I may not get to it. We’ll see!

My April DNF and L-L-L-Little Reviews posts should be up, as well as my April end of month post, which I haven’t started yet like I usually probably would have by now.

Final Thoughts

May starts this week. All I can say is my Aprils the last few years have sucked. May sucked last year too. So I’m hopeful that maybe May will be better this year? Oh yeah, our school board did vote for a raise, so right now I’m getting a little raise. If I sign up to take a really good deal on a class that gives me 12 graduate hours too this summer, then I can bump that raise up even more!

Send lots of good vibes for Dora. Hoping that maybe after 2 weeks I can start cutting back on some restrictions with her. But for now I’m keeping it up because I don’t want her to get worse, and hopefully if it was anything as bad as they’d said it could be, she’ll get more healing time, no matter how much she thinks she is back to normal.

I hope you all had a good week, and I hope to start getting around more to other blogs soon!