Dog Vomit and Lyme Disease

I hope the title of this blog post has adequately prepared you, because it only gets worse from here.

But there will be lots of beautiful pictures of the mountains, so at least you have that.

First: Lyme Disease

On Friday I noticed a red mark on my skin. Which isn’t unusual, because I’m allergic to everything! Laundry detergents, soaps, pollen, grass, horses, dogs, etc. And I have been having mystery itches ever since we arrived here.

Everyone said it was fine, because Lyme disease rashes always have red rings around them, and mine looked like a starfish (I named it Patrick).

But then the mark didn’t go away, so I went to the doctor on Monday.

The most exciting part about all this to me (as an American) is that I got a same-day appointment with my PCP. She said that it looked a little unusual, but that it was definitely Lyme disease, because that was really the only option for what it could be.

I immediately panicked and wondered whether it would be appropriate to google “Lyme disease” right in front of her. She speaks perfect English but for some reason I thought google would better help me understand what I was up against.

She thought I was being a little dramatic. Apparently it is no big deal here – almost all the ticks carry it, so people get it all the time. All you have to do is take some antibiotics. It cost $35 for the entire 16 day course of antibiotics (they don’t have socialized healthcare here. We have health insurance and it works almost exactly like it works at home).

(Side note: the ticks also carry encephalitis, but they have a vaccine against that, which I’ve already taken)

I took my first doses yesterday. I took my third dose this morning on an empty stomach, and then promptly barfed for half an hour. I checked, and the pills didn’t come with any sort of warning label about making sure you eat before you take them.

Here’s another fun side note: a major part of why the meds you get in the US have those color coded warning labels, and such specific instructions, is because the US is such a diverse country! Many people who take medication in the US can’t read/write/speak English. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a very interesting but also very depressing book about cultural barriers to healthcare, and you should read it if you are curious.

Part Two: Dog Vomit

I consider this to be a hilarious story, but it’s pretty gross, so feel free to just skip through to the next section.

Last week I took Coach on a very long hike (4 hours) with the goal of tiring her out so she would be on her best behavior later in the day when she made some new friends.

It was the most beautiful hike I have done so far, and I would love to do it again.

We worked on some of Coach’s off-leash skills. She is really coming along – she is able to wander around near me, but always check back in, and she even had some zoomies but was able to control herself enough to not run off – she stayed in my field of vision. (Of course, we were all alone and I made sure to only do it in places where I could see a long way off in both directions to make sure we wouldn’t be bothering anyone).

However

There were a couple points on the trail that go through cow pastures. They usually have little sections where you can grab a handle and move the electric wire safely – but there were a couple times when we had to duck under live wire in order to avoid some very curious cows.

And when I say we had to duck, I mean Coach just walked underneath it and I got shocked … three times.

Anyway. While in the cow pasture parts, Coach discovered a really serious fascination with cow manure. Like, I had her leash so tight I was basically dragging her along, and she would still throw her entire body weight down to the ground just to get a sweet sweet mouthful of cow poo.

And since this hike was 4 hours, she had a lot of opportunities.

I thought it was pretty gross, but she washed herself off in a lake on the mountain and I washed her paws again before we got in the car, and I thought that was the end of it.

Incorrect!

I left her in our bedroom while I went to get groceries (I did this because I wanted to make sure she can’t sit in front of the door and bark at people while I’m gone – since we have received noise complaints).

She managed to coat the floor … the bed (including a fuzzy blanket, two comforters! and two duvet covers!) … and even the wall with vomit.

I did not even know where to begin cleaning it up. I took a picture and sent it to Derrick (he was at work) because it’s only fair that if I had to clean it up, he had to look at it. I can’t suffer alone. Also, I didn’t think he would ever believe me if I tried to explain how much barf there was.

I began sweeping the chunks (chunks!) into a dustpan, and then flushing them down the toilet. I quickly realized that it was 4pm, and so I only had 6 hours left to do laundry (because quiet hours), and each wash load takes 2.5 hours, so I could only do 2 loads of laundry that night … but she had gotten it on so many things that it ended up being 4 loads.

I stood in the shower with some of the sheets, rinsing them off so the stain and stink wouldn’t settle in with them. I filled the tub with hot water and laundry soap and soaked the heavier blankets. I postponed our dinner plans to make sure I had a chance to get all the laundry done before quiet hours. I woke up at 6:50am the next morning to make sure I could get the third load in by 7am sharp, so I could do the 4th load before the mid-day quiet hours.

In case you’re wondering, the dog is totally fine – she got it all out and went on to pee on a stranger’s carpet later that evening.

Laundry Update!

We asked the landlord to send a maintenance man because our dryer started leaking water. The maintenance man came and said that it is, indeed, broken. This is good news and bad news – bad because I have to hang dry everything now (although, let’s be honest, I was already hang drying everything after it came out of the dryer because the dryer wasn’t drying), but good because it might get replaced? I would really love if it could get replaced and I could dry my clothes. It would still take a lot longer than I am used to in the US, but it has to be better than the current situation.

Furniture Update!

Last week we got the great news: our furniture had arrived in Germany and could be delivered by Wednesday!

Except, Wednesday is a national holiday in Liechtenstein. So they said they would deliver it Thursday!

I moved all my clients around (Thursday is a workday for me) to accommodate the movers.

And then on Monday, they told us that they were just kidding! Actually our furniture hasn’t cleared customs yet, and they don’t know when that will be! So we just get to wait some more!

It has already been 3 months when they told us it would be 6-8 weeks, so I’m getting a little antsy. I know it’s a first world problem, and I’m grateful for the fact that we have rental furniture provided by Derrick’s company, but I would really like to sleep on my own bed, and eat off of my own table, and watch my own TV.

We have also traveled to Munich since my last post, but it’s almost 2am so I’m done writing for tonight.