But of course.

It seems like one of our pets gets very sick every time Tyler leaves for the summer. Last summer, it was our chinchilla Humphrey-- one of his teeth got infected, which made his eye infected, which made him stop eating, which made his GI tract quit working, which made him need to stay at the vet for a week while they tried to fix it all. They told me he would probably die, but somehow he pulled through and has been fine ever since.

This time, it's our cat Simba. He got diagnosed with feline asthma last year, but it's seasonal and usually one shot of steroids per year takes care of it. Well, he got that shot about a month ago and it worked for awhile, but then it got worse again and I had to start giving him an inhaler twice a day. This is just as ridiculous as you would imagine:

That's not Simba (thank you Google image search), but you get the idea. Anyway, the inhaler stopped working too and I had to rush him to the vet yesterday because he was having these constant wheezing fits. To make a long story short (too late?), I now have to give him subcutaneous prednisone shots once a day for 5 days every time he gets like this.

First of all, I hate sticking him with a needle. Sticking strangers in the mouth? No problem. Sticking my poor little wheezing cat? Huge problem. I practically threw a temper tantrum when the vet told me I'd have to do that (I'm sure he thought I was insane, since I just finished telling him that I was a dental student). Second of all, why do things like this always happen when Tyler is gone? I'm terrified that his asthma will keep getting worse and worse, since it's gone downhill pretty rapidly this year. I'm scared he won't live as long as he should because of this. I hate leaving the house because I'm worried he won't be able to breathe and I won't be there, but I'm not allowed to miss a single hour of dental summer.

And to top it all off, Tyler called last night and I was so relieved to be able to talk to him about it, but he said immediately "I can't talk, some people from England just got in and I have to take them out into the field, but can you do me a favor?" And I said, "yes, no problem, but I have to tell you about Simba really quick, he's gotten really sick" and he interrupted me and said "not now, I need you to do this for me, I'm really busy today." I freaked out and yelled "I am constantly doing you favors while you're gone and all you ever do is leave me alone while you run off to dig your dinosaurs, and now you can't even listen to me for 30 seconds when I have had the worst day ever with our poor sick cat! You've never even met our vet, and I've been there at least 30 times this year! You can take care of your own sh!t!!" and hung up the phone like I was in middle school. Awesome.

He kept calling back but I just didn't pick up. I was too upset, and when I get upset, Simba gets upset, which makes him have another wheezing fit. Sigh. I always try to be supportive of Tyler's stuff because I know it is his passion, but sometimes I have needs too, and I just couldn't deal with it right then. All I wanted was for him to at least listen to me for a minute and tell me he was sorry for me. I can't believe I hung up on him, how old am I, 12?

Ugh. This is a bad day.