Just shy of two weeks ago, our oldest pup started gimping around a bit. He's old, he does silly stupid E36 M3, figured he hurt himself a bit chasing a squirrel or something. Friday of the Challenge he's now not moving well at all, so we start giving him a baby asprin twice a day. Saturday between the drags and the banquet I went home to grab a shower and check on everyone, my wife is sitting with him next to her and I can see she's been bawling. (he was hers before we got together, helped his momma with his birth etc... HER BABY!) Now we can't touch him without him screaming and yelping like we're killing him. He's obviously in pain. Our vet is closed till monday, I decide to give him another baby asprin, and take him to our backup mobile vet in the morning. Go to the banquet with a heavy heart, and an hour late, but I always enjoy seeing everyone. While I'm there, SWMBO decides to call her mom, borrow a credit card and take him to the emergency vet. I leave the banquet within 15 min of JG wrapping up, and run back home to find no wife, no dog, etc. 
So now I'm sitting around waiting for a phone call, or anything. She's not answering texts, phone calls etc. hour later she comes home. 300$ later we now know it's either cancer or a shoulder/neck injury. Common in smaller dogs with all their bouncing and jumping. 
Bag full of pills and follow up with our vet. 150$ later We've got a 2 month supply of meds, and he's to pretty much be imobilized for the next 6 to 8 weeks. YEAH OH KAY! RIGHT, this is the dog that at 13 years old will sit in front of you and play catch with you for hours at a time. Catch being you toss the ball, he nips/noses it back to you. We were told if we needed to, to use the meds to keep him pretty much sedentary. Carry him outside alone, he's now sleeping alone etc. (his bed buddy checks on him constantly) So far he shows signs of wanting to get up and run and play but every time we let him have a little bit of freedom he goes back to the whimpering/yelping shaking pain look. So it sucks!
While all that was going on, the Saturday of the challenge my dad overslept and was an hour late for his job. Dad does air traffic controll, did it for 23 out of 26 years in the Air Force, went straight into a contract position when he retired, well used up his accrued vacation then retired. In the time I can remember I can recall him being late twice. Once when I was a kid and mom was really sick, and I didn't know about this last one till I showed up last Friday to pick up our dog. (Grandma and Grandpa have been watching him so we can goto work) Dad was supposed to be at work, and he met me on the porch..... Needless to say I was shocked. They were going to terminate his contract for being late once in the 15 years he had been with this company. So he resigned. Needless to say, I was floored. Model employee, set test score records when he was hired that still stand, recieved numerous awards, is THE GOTO guy when it comes to gameday traffic (gainesville, go gators or something like that). Guy is late once, and they terminate his contract?!?!?! Oh well.
Silver lining, is he put his resume out there this weekend to a few places and already has an offer on the table for the NE part of the country. I guess being good at your job has some perks.
