This isn't grumpy, but I don't know where else to put it.
Went to east Tennessee to the Smokies last week for vacation. Used to be a favorite haunt for my family's vacations growing up, but I hadn't been in over 20 years. We rented a fantastic Airbnb in the mountains with an incredible view. Had some things planned, we were gonna see how much I could actually do with my busted-ass feet, but it was okay, the wife was happy to go somewhere she'd never been and look at gorgeous scenery.
On the winding and steep mountain road into town, me and another guy hit each other just about head on, though at very slow speeds. Nobody was hurt, thank goodness. It was the craziest thing, and it still has me rattled. I hit the guy before I saw him, and I didn't think that was possible. I don't think it was my fault, but I didn't think it was his either. Those mountain roads can be nuts. They're narrow, and this happened at a spot where a large-party cabin was, and the road winds directly around it almost in a U-turn. To boot, the road steeply inclines on both sides up to that cabin. So at this "curve," you're not only losing visibility because you're on an incline (I've driven mountain roads plenty in my life, but never had the visibility problems I had on this particular mountain), but also you're losing visibility with the drastic road curvature. Then the icing on the cake--the real culprit, imo--was this rental party had a big delivery type truck parked out on the road, obstructing half of it. Only way to get out of there was to go around it, and the other guy was parked in one of the cabin's normal parking spots (which are also on an incline) and was trying to go around it the other way. He didn't see me and I didn't see him. We just.....hit each other.
I thought the damage was purely cosmetic, but after a while it turned out not to be. Some sensors on my front end were damaged, and the intake grill was apparently crushed behind what was visible to me, and the fan eventually started running extremely high. I need to leave out a lot of detail for brevity's sake, but I had a hell of a time finding anyone to work on it in a timely manner. Got passed around from business to business, either they wouldn't work on it or wouldn't have worked on it til sometime this week. I was afraid for a minute I was going to have to get my wife to Knoxville and get her a plane ticket back home, because she absolutely can't miss any more work, and start burning my leftover vacation and sick time to stay there and wait for it to be fixed. 900 miles from home, where I don't know anyone to help and don't know the reputable mechanics, and not knowing when I'd get home, and having a sick dog we had to get back to (more on that later)....my stress pinged off the meter.
I finally got the Ram dealership to work on it enough to where they thought it was road-worthy to drive home, though for a complete repair it would've been sometime this week while they waited on parts, etc. The drive home went fine, the engine never over-heated (which was the primary concern), but the fan was still crazy. Even though they told me it would do that until it's properly fixed and that they thought I should be okay to make it back to TX, I drove home with one eye on the temperature gauge and a big ball of stress in my neck and shoulders. It took two full days to get that much done, which killed most of the 3.5 days we actually had there. So we got very little sight-seeing or tourist attractions in, but did manage some epic stress headaches.
Then we get home, pick up our dog who a few months ago developed an auto-immune disorder called ITP. We considered canceling the trip, but she'd been responding well to the treatment and the vet swore to us she'd be fine. She was adopted from a foster pet place, and we left her with the lady we got her from, which was a way better deal than typical businesses that kennel pets and keep them in a cage for most of the day. I'm confident this lady administered her medication properly, but the massive steroid dose she's been on for the past few months is just a bad deal. Yesterday my wife noticed her heavy breathing (I wouldn't have thought anything of it, to me, dogs pant and I don't think anything about it) and her medical radar pinged and she knew something wasn't right, knowing the consequences, potential complications of long-term steroid use, etc. We took her to a pet ER and--more truncation for attempted brevity's sake--it's not good. Her liver is severely screwed because of the steroids. But she can't stop them because that's a recipe for the ITP to come roaring back. She has a lot of other complications as well due to the steroids, and everything that fixes one thing screws with another thing in some way.
I can't believe that after we lost our last dog to epilepsy at just 3 years old, we got another dog and this happens. What are the chances? It's not yet clear that she needs to be put down, but we can't deal with a lot more than what we've already dealt with, with her. Neither of us are home in the daytime, we don't have the money for the continuous vet visits and then especially that ER visit last night, and there's no guarantees that after we continue to shell out big $ that she'll pull through all this. And even if she does, the ITP will always be a possibility to return at any time. otoh, I'm not in the mood for putting another pet down so soon, and it's also a possibility that with a long, hard road, she might be okay. I just don't know if either of us are up for that.
So here I am, back at work, trying to catch up on the bazillion emails and requests I missed, looking to leave early again today to get my truck into a repair shop and shell out more $ for a rental (due to other details of the fender-bender I left out, I am not eligible for insurance covering my rental in this case). All the while still trying to figure out what's the right thing to do with the dog.
It's just a lot.
My vacation needs a vacation.
