Okay – not really everything. Just a lot of stuff. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster around here for the last week. If you read last week’s post – you’ll know it started there. I’m hoping it’s nearing the end of the ride for the week.

After last week’s post and the unfriending, there was family drama, anticipating a short week at work where I hammered out 5 days of work in 2.5 (I was damn proud of myself for that) – but it was stressful. There was a pleasant aside of an “European Lunch” with Tall Dark and Swedish and my coworker, Agent K. For the uninitiated, a “European Lunch” is where you leave work for lunch and take half a day because you’re eating, drinking wine (or whatever) and trying to solve the worlds problems. In this case, Agent K is single so Tall Dark and Swedish thought it’d be fun to take her speed-dating; since Tall Dark and Swedish and I are married (not to each other), we were having great fun with the idea. We googled questions to ask at a speed-dating event and subjected Agent K to our sheer delight of asking her the questions. Agent K is a good sport. Also, Agent K and I were avoiding the company Christmas party – 6 hours of forced participation in things neither of us enjoy.

Now, back to everything going to shit. The weather here in Wisconsin is too damn warm which means that the honeybees are too active and have to be fed so they don’t eat all of their honey. The garlic I planted may sprout because of the warmth and the sour cherry tree’s buds are starting to swell up – not good at this time of year. Perennials like my irises are sending up new shoots and others that just never really died back are thinking we’re not really going to have a winter at all – so they’re still growing. Also, my phone ran some updates and I lost all cell service at my house. Awesome.

And then last night I noticed one of my goats not acting like her normal self. But it was late and I decided to leave things until morning – which was today. So, I brought the Divine Miss M into the barn and saw that her left ear was drooping, her head was tilted to the left and she couldn’t walk in a straight line. Having had dogs that have had strokes in the past – it was basically all the classic signs of a stroke – for a dog at any rate. For a goat? Do goats even get strokes? So, I got her into a stall, took her temperature (high) and gave her an aspirin, set her up with food and water and came inside to call the vet.

Oh yeah – no cell service. Enter Google Voice – so I try calling the vet from Google Voice and the poor receptionist kept thinking I was cutting out. I had to explain that I was calling from my computer as I had no cell service, briefly said what was going on and got confirmation that the vet would come out to see the goat.

At this moment I thought, “Now would be a good time to have a landline phone…”

But, I don’t have one. So, then I began the process of resetting my phone – as I’d been in email discussion with the provider help desk people for the last two days.

While my phone processed away doing what it was supposed to do to reset to factory settings, I busied myself with filling birdfeeders, checking on the goat, and doing some housecleaning. I emailed phone support again with screenshots of the latest failure to get the phone to work right. And then the vet came out.

Divine Miss M was tested for Caprine Arthritic Encephalitis (CAE) earlier this year and she tested positive. CAE can cause no problems at all, or it can cause arthritis or… death. It’s really a crap-shoot, and this poor goat has now had two major issues due to CAE. The first was developing a fibrous udder when she freshened (gave birth) in the spring, so her baby had to nurse from my other two does. That fibrous udder is a pain in the ass, and she looks like she has a permanently full udder all the time.

This recent round of illness appears, at first blush, to be an infection that is in her brain. So, after getting her weight and temperature, dosing her up proper with a heavy-duty antibiotic and a steroid, we get to sit and wait. Oh, and I also get to stick her Saturday and Sunday with more drugs and take her temperature. And the antibiotic? It stings.

The best case scenario is that it’s an infection and we caught it early and her neurological symptoms will go away. Less than ideal scenario is that she has developed encephalitis but the damage will be minimal and she’ll just be a little brain damaged. Worst case scenario is that she has encephalitis and it doesn’t resolve and she dies.

So, that’s my last week. Despite trying to stay positive about everything, it certainly feels like everything has gone to shit for the time being.

Oh, and my phone… still not working.

Bonus Note: I did, however, have a small victory today – just as I was about to finish up this post, one of the cats began their “I’m going to puke” ritual and I rescued the carpet from being the canvas onto which the vomit would land. I’ll consider that a “win”.

How do you deal with those weeks where it feels like everything has gone to shit?