Archer was in the garage using the litter box and I didn't know he was
there.  I was on my way out to the pharmacy to fill a prescription and hit
the "door open" button to open the garage door.  The noise scared Archer so
bad he shot out of the garage at light speed.  He must have hit his left
rear leg on the door sill.  Ben said he got to the first landing on the
stairs and collapsed.

It was 6:30 and our vet stays open until 7:00, *however* they turn off their
phones at 6:30.  We put Archer in his Sherpa bag and I sped to the vet's
office.  We got there at 6:45, but the vet was already in emergency surgery
so they told us we had to go to the emergency vet.  We piled back in the
truck and drove umpteen miles to the emergency vet.

The emergency vet gave him morphine and took x-rays and found that is tibia
was broken, but wasn't displaced so he won't have to have bone surgery.
They splinted the leg and sent him home with muscle relaxers, pain pills and
a copy of the x-rays to bring to our regular vet on Saturday.  We have to
keep him confined in a place where he can't jump up on anything or the
simple break could turn into a  compound fracture.  While I was waiting at
the vet for them to get done, Ben drove to PetsMart and bought a very large
dog cage that we can put litterbox, food, and a bed in for when we're at
work.

Here's poor Archer in his cast:
http://www.possibleplaces.com/CatNipped/Broken/ - I'll take more pictures
once we've assembled the cage.

What a depressing night this was because while we were there a man, his
wife, and their two children brought in a poodle that was hit by a car, a
man and his pregnant wife brought in a dog that was fatally shot (it was a
pit bull that kept escaping so a neighbor shot it), and a man and his wife
brought in a cat that was hit by a car - after all that we felt lucky that
Archer wasn't hurt worse than he is.

But on another note, while we were waiting I decided to call my mom and it
went something like this...

Me:  "How's everybody doing?"

Mom:  "Fine, Annie (my sister-in-law) had her first chemotherapy."

Me:  "WHAT??!!!"

Mom:  "Oh, didn't I tell you she had breast cancer?"

Me:  "Um, NO!!!"

Mom:  "Yeah, she has stage three cancer that spread to her lymph nodes and
they're giving her 'red hot' chemotherapy (my mom didn't know what it's
really called, just that it's so strong it makes your hair fall out after
just one treatment and turns your urine red).  And Tanya (my niece) is
worse - her depression is so bad now that she had to quit work."

Me:  "WHAT???!!!"

Mom:  "Oh, didn't I tell you that she went into a deep depression after
Katrina?"

And so the conversation went!

Gads, what a really, really depressing night this has been!!!  :<