Last night I had a work meeting / dinner with the 2 owners of the store. I kept my phone on vibrate throughout the dinner. As we were getting ready to leave, I was checking my phone for missed calls and Matt was calling at the same time. He asked me if I had talked to my brother (who was still staying at the house. He had been trying to call me all night and ended up calling Matt about five times because he thought something was wrong with Heap.

He said while he was feeding him a bone, he seemed like he was starting to choke on it and started gagging and coughing. My brother got really worried because he kept gagging for the next hour and a half.

When I got home Heap seemed to be just fine. Every once in a while he would cough, as he had started doing just a bit the night before. My brother said it was like that but worse and swore in the last 6 days he had been at our house he never heard Heap make those kinds of sounds.

I told him I didn't think anything was too wrong because he was walking around, wagging his little nub and eating and drinking normally.

Well, about 4:30 in the morning, right around the time it started POURING (with a little lightning and thunder thrown in, which always makes Heap jump into bed with us), he started the coughing and hacking again. It lasted from about 4:30 til about 7:30 when he finally fell asleep. Of course I had to get up shortly thereafter, but isn't that the way it goes?

The whole time I was getting ready for work, Heap just laid in bed with Matt. But just as I was getting ready to leave, he got up and started coughing again.

Trying to tell myself and everyone else it was probably just allergies (the windows have been open in the house and pollen is on EVERYTHING), my brother wasn't convinced. Matt thought he was ok, but I couldn't tell how worried he was.

I went to work after telling Matt I would call the vet, which I did. I described to her what the symptoms were (really just the cough because everything else seemed normal) and just as I feared, she said it was probably one of two things - allergies (best case) or heartworms (worst case).

I, being the monumental worrier that I am, proceeded to get myself so worked up through out the day I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

I called Matt every thirty minutes or so and decided he should definitely take Heap to the vet ( the vet said we could watch him and see if anything changed or we could bring him in this afternoon and have him tested and checked out).

And wouldn't you know I read every website with any kind of heartworm info on it, getting myself so upset that my boss finally sent me home. (Jokingly, he told me I could be a shitbag at work or I could be a shitbag at home, and home would be much more conducive. He also told me not everyone could be on their A-game all the time like him. All this was said to try to make me laugh and feel a little better)

Within thirty minutes of Matt and Heap being at the vet's, I was in a complete panic. I blamed Matt and I for being terrible pet parents and letting Heap's heartworm medicine lapse. I just knew that it was taking them as long as it did because Matt was being told the procedure for removing the heartworms, how it was going to make us go bankrupt and lose the house because it's so expensive, Heap was going to die and it was going to be on my conscience, etc. You get the idea.

So I did the only thing I could stand doing at that particular moment - I began sweeping the floors.

FINALLY Matt and Heap show back up to the house ( I really wish Matt would have called the instant he walked out of the vet's office instead of waiting the 8 minutes it takes to drive home, but whatever).

I ran out to the truck where Matt proceeded to tell me Heap is 100% healthy. Blood work good, heart and lungs good, weight good. He has kennel cough. The vet gave him some antibiotics and sent him home.

I began bawling. I had been so scared that the flood gates opened up when I heard the good news. Matt had stopped on the way home and bought me a bottle of wine because when he called the shop to tell me the deal, my boss told him how upset I had been. He figured I could use something to calm myself a little.

So, Heap's downstairs resting and I'm up here writing, and Matt stopped over our neighbor's house for a few minutes. I've heard Heap bark a few times when someone walked by and he sounds like he's losing his voice.

I guess he's a dog that's a little ho(a)rse.