TEETH!

So, I had a dentist appointment last night at 5:15 to re-attach my crown, and an hour and a half later, it's back. It's not exactly in the same position as before, but pretty close (I think it's a little bit lower than before, but not that noticeable). Only I would be able to tell that, I think.

Anyway, the tooth "post" did break off, so he had to remove that piece from the crown, then clean up the remaining tooth. Because there was not much surface to grab on to the crown, he had to build up a fake post with epoxy or what ever it's called, reshape it to fit the hole in the crown, then cement it back in when everything fit snug. what a pain in the butt.

He thinks that because that tooth is so damaged and it has been worked on so much, if it falls out again, he thinks I should go with a surgical implant for more permanence. This is when they pull out the tooth completely, drill a screw into your jaw bone, then attach a crown to that. This is the most permanent/strongest option, and is also a minimum of 5-6 months from start to finish (extract, heal, screw implant, heal, crown). I would have to wear a removable denture between extraction and crown if I didn't want a big gap for that time.
The other option that he doesn't think is practical for me, is to do something similar, but instead of drilling the post into the jaw, it's put into the stump of the tooth. He doesn't think my tooth would be up for the task because there's not much left of it.
An estimate of the extraction/implant is $3000. He recommended that I consider getting both front teeth done. Not all at once, but because the other crown may eventually suffer the same fate and to basically "plan for it" before it happens again.

So, here's hoping that these crowns last for another few years. I suppose I should start setting aside some $$$ for this purpose for the future.. Dental insurance doesn't cover "cosmetic", or surgical implants. Who knows, maybe if the dentist wrote a letter saying that this was necessary because the other, cheaper, methods wouldn't work.... It does cover dentures, however, and possibly the crown portions again. If I do end up going this route, I may as well go the whole nine yards, and go for a zoom whitening as well. If I'm getting more fake teeth, they better be white! Why not?!

So what's the lesson here? TAKE CARE OF YOUR TEETH!

We're Back

Well, we're back from the West Coast, and had another great time. We didn't do very much, as planned, so got to spend a lot of time with the Asbury's. Unfortunately, Den had to spend most of the week in Victoria, so our visit with him was shorter than expected. We had planned to spend a lot of the week over there, but the weather was really not good and didn't want to spend the whole week indoors at a hotel -- it's much more fun to spend it indoors "at home", so that's what we did.
Apparently Ontario was having great weather while we were gone. Ah well, you can't win them all!
Violet was a hit (as usual), and was really great on both flights and at their house. I don't think she was bothered by the time change all that much. If she was, we didn't notice. In fact, she popped a tooth without any of us noticing, other than being very sleepy the day before. We attributed it to the travelling (cue the "she gained a tooth and I lost one" jokes).

Madison loving the snuggles

Speaking of, I'm heading to the Dentist on Monday to figure out what they're going to do. I should NOT have lost this crown already...

Violet and I showing off our new, or missing, teef

Marn and I were talking about the highlights of the trip, and to be honest, there wasn't really one key thing to mention that stands out as REALLY fun or interesting, other than the complimentary upgrade to Executive First Class on the flight out (but that's been written about already)!! We tried to go to the Aquarium as we've never been and surely that would have been a "high", but the lines were very, very long and there were many, many people - the perils of Spring Break that we didn't plan for.

Yes, we did go to the Aquarium - the front door, anyway!

So that trip didn't happen. We decided to go to Granville Island instead for the afternoon which was fun. Marn and I both bought new hiking shoes (50% off!), and then a new collar, leash and doggie boots for Echo. There was nothing special about the prices of those, but we did need to get that stuff. The other fun thing we did was take the kids to a swimming pool. Violet's first! They had a beach entrance to a warm pool and it was really fun having her in the water with us and the kids. I think we were in the water for over an hour.

Swimming group shot

Vi splashing

checking out the surroundings

with Daddy (after being told not to smile too large)

The rest of the week, we pretty much sat at visited, hot tubbed, or played Wii with the kids (or drumming in Rock Band by myself!). It was exactly what we planned, and to be honest, the week flew by! Granted it was a shorter visit then "normal", but it still seemed to be a very short 7 days.

Aunt A taking in her smell

Story time, yum!

Madison was "all over" Violet as soon as we got there. She was very eager to do everything and anything for her. It was really cute to see how much she loved having her there for a visit. Everyone knows that Violet is a smiler, and as soon as Maddy figured that out, it's all she wanted to get her to do. We're definitely going to miss hanging out with everyone, and seeing Madison interact with her. Parker on the other hand had little interest. He'd come over the odd time if Madison was, but other than that, indifferent. He'd actually move to another spot if we came and sat Vi down beside or near him or if Vi tried to reach out and grab him (I didn't mention this to Adrienne, so not sure if she saw that too). It was pretty funny!

Maddie getting in some more cuddles

Friday while driving home, we called Mom to let her know when we were going to arrive and to tell her that we were going to get some take out and ask what she wanted. She told us that she was making dinner for us - Pizza and Salad. Nice! Now, there is a long standing joke that when Mom's cooking, the fire alarms go off from the smoke. In her defence, her kitchen does not have a hood fan over the stove, but never fail, during every large meal get together, that alarm goes off... In nearly 5 years in this house, we have never set them off. But Mom did! lol She didn't have the hood fan on (why would she, what is that?) and some cheese fell to the bottom of the stove. Cue the smoke, cue the alarms. Repeatedly. I laughed out loud because it just wouldn't be Mom cooking without the alarms going off! lol Did I mention that we have NEVER set them off??

I thought your cheeks were red last night...

Violet has a tooth! It broke last night. Before bed, Vi was sitting with Adrienne and had really red cheeks, she was also sucking/chewing on her blanket (so cute), we thought nothing of it. She's tired, we travelled across the country, her hours are all mixed up. At around 9pm she went to sleep, slept until 5:30, ate, back to sleep until 8ish. WOOHOO! Andrew went to get her when she awoke, brought her to the bed and said 'I think she has a tooth', I rushed to the light to check! Yes, bottom right side, Violet cut her first tooth! So exciting and yet soooo sad. It is an exciting milestone but it makes me feel like my little new born is getting bigger! No! Not yet! No major pains at the breast yet (can't wait for that). Speaking of major pains and teeth, Andrew's front tooth fell out today. He has two crowns on his two front teeth, placed there only 3.5 years ago. He was holding the sleeve of his jacket in his mouth and his tooth fell out. BOO. Luckily Adrienne had some polydent (who has polydent laying around? Apparently she lost half a tooth a few years ago) and Andrew pushed it back in, not too sturdy, as it still falls out occasionally much to the horror of Madison. I guess he will call his dentist on Monday and find out if it should be fixed here or at home. I am sure it is really cheap to fix a broken crown....

Have kid - will travel

BC is great, it is always great to see family (even if it is the Rolt side LOL) and spend time visiting but I think the best part of this trip happened on the way here. Andrew, Vi and I were running late at the airport, we stopped on the way in for Starbucks (I am in love with the new tea latte) then had to throw them out to go through customs (BOO) we got to the gate and needed to check in at the counter for our seats to be assigned. As a special surprise, we were upgraded to executive class! I asked Andrew what that meant on the flight and he said 'probably bigger seats'...was he ever right! Pod seating to be exact!

Vi's first flight was in style. Seriously executive class is the lap of luxury. Full breakfast (fruit plate, hot plate choice of eggs benny or omelet, whole wheat or cinnamon bread stick, coffee, tea and juice). Then a pod style seat that can lay totally flat into a bed, personal T.V.'s, you can pick your programming, hot towel for your face, then later a snack. Cookies, mousse style gelato, any other drink you may desire and peace and quiet except for someone with a crying baby on board. Oh wait, that was me. Just kidding, Vi just fussed a little bit when she was trying to fall asleep (2-3 minutes) then had a 3 hour nap! What a great flight! We decided she was our lucky charm for the upgrade...it will proove true or false on the flight back next week.

Echo Again

We thought Echo was OK after my last post. He did well on Friday and over the weekend, but by Sunday night he started to act up again with the runs, and Monday morning he barfed on the deck. What the heck...
So we called the vet again and booked an appt. for that afternoon. Marn took him in and left him there. We decided to get x-rays done to check for bloat on the very strong advice from the vet, and thankfully he was all clear. They think he may have picked up some kind of bug which they likened to the human flu virus, but not a virus. $300 later, after exam, drugs, radiology, etc, and he seems to be getting better again. This morning he had another solid poop, for those keeping track!! lol (this is a big deal, first in 2 days...). The pills I had to pick up at the human pharmasist because the vet didn't have the correct dosage for the beast. lol
The vet, as I've mentioned in previous blog entries, absolutely loves Echo and mentioned how great he was while they checked him out. They all had a laugh at trying to get him on the table (and laugh everytime they see him because of his size), because it took 3 of them to do so. Their x-ray table is a little small and the machine itself is kind of "weak" for his size. She said even after turning up the machine to Maximum, it still didn't penetrate him as much as she'd like... hahaha. Anyway, she said he just layed there on the table for them, didn't fight them at all. They were all really surprised at how well he let them handle him into whatever position they needed. He was also weighed again, and he's up to 180 lbs, but we think she did the conversion incorrectly (the scale is in KG). 180 lbs! He's almost as heavy as me!

Hopefully all of this clears up today or tomorrow so that Mom doesn't have to deal with any of this crap. Literally. I mean, she's already doing us a HUGE favour by coming to watch him, that's the last thing she should have to deal with.
Thankfully, for Mom, all of the ice is gone off the back deck as well, since he loves to break it apart and eat the chunks; this this the result of that nonsense.

Echo

I think this dog has a death wish. Is his life that bad, really?

Tuesday afternoon Echo started getting sick in the house. We're not sure why, and still not 100% sure why. Now, dog puke is gross enough, but Great Dane puke (like everything!) is MUCH bigger, and much grosser. Poor Marn had to clean it up as I was at work. From Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday night, he puked tree times on the carpet downstairs, 2 or 3 times outside, once upstairs, and many other times when nothing much else was coming up -- just lovely slimy watery spit. Oh, and don't forget the "loose bowels" - thankfully all of that was outside. Yes, I told you this is gross. If you have any experience with a small to medium sized dog, multiply your "experience" by 5, minimum. (keep in mind that a "large breed" dog is a LAB, and echo TOWERS over labs!)

So yesterday I gave him 1 cup of food for breakfast which came back up an hour later when I was at work. We were really starting to worry about him now as I thought it would have passed over the night, but didn't. It didn't look like Bloat, which is the first thing you need to think of when Dane's are not feeling well. I noticed on Tues. night that one of our bushes was "gone". It was a rather anaemic Rhododendron that we've been trying to grow for 3+ years, but just hasn't taken off. Marn and I also noticed that Echo kept going straight for a "stick" every time he went outside - you know, as soon as he was done puking or crapping himself. We suspect that this stick is the remnants of our Rhododendron bush that Echo had eaten pretty much to the ground. A quick search on Google will tell you that this particular plant is quite poisonous to dogs.... putting 1 and 2 together, we suspect this is what was causing his sickness. Just a little plant poisoning! It's only been 2 months since the last time he tried to "off" himself with boxes if chocolate, so why not with a bush that's been there for the past 3 years?!

We had called the vet to voice our concerns about this and what we suspected, and although she gave us some choices on what to do, she also said that if it was poisoning, there's not much you can do other than to "wait it out" and treat the symptoms. She was worried about bloat, a blockage from eating a toy possibly, or some other things that I can't remember and her choice of "treatment" was to come in for an x-ray and blood work to determine what it is if he didn't seem to be getting any better. We decided to wait out the evening and call in this morning if he didn't look better, since he was "acting" a little more normal by the time I got home. We fed him 1.5 cups of dinner last night which he kept down over night, so that was a good sign. This morning I gave him 2.5 cups of food and he gobbled it up. He must have been starving since we were withholding food for all of Tues night and Wednesday. I haven't checked in at home yet to see if did actually keep it down so far - Marn was heading out for a bit this morning as well, so who knows. There may be a little surprise waiting for her. If he did ok, she was going to give him another cup or two before I get home for dinner.

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In all of the "rush" to find flights for the short notice of going to BC for spring break, we forgot about finding a boarding spot for Echo. Nearly everything was booked since it's spring break for everyone. *smacks head* There were spots open at places that only boarded the dog - no play time or interaction with other dogs and we didn't like or want that, so we were really scrambling for something.
So we asked Mom if she would feel comfortable with staying at our house to watch him, even if it was just for mornings and nights - she doesn't need to be there during the day all the time as we normally aren't either. She agreed and saved our butts! I mean he's pretty easy to take care of, but when you're not used to it, I suppose it could be a little much, especially with him. She's been coming over almost every week to watch Violet when Marn goes to Physio, so he doesn't get as wound up anymore, and settles fairly quickly. I think he'll be fine with her. Thank you Mom!!!

Less than a week and we're in BC already! Normally these trips are weeks/months away, but this one was booked only 2 weeks before we were to leave. So quick and looking forward to it!