Good day? Are you kidding!
That's a photograph of Riley, our toy male poodle, shortly after he'd been neutered, earlier this year. He's wearing a baby sleeper to keep him from scratching or licking his post-operative wound. Truth to tell, during the cold months of winter he likes to wear garments usually reserved for infants, like a little undershirt to keep him warm. He's sensitive to the cold.
Back to the rather 'different' day we had today. Last night Irving noticed that Riley was behaving oddly. He kept yawning, yet wasn't settling down to sleep, despite the fact that he couldn't seem to keep his eyes open, just kept closing them to a slit. In other respects he appeared normal enough. But Irving has a special feel for things like this and he was convinced despite my assurances to the contrary, that something was wrong with little Riley. When our daughter arrived this morning with her daughter in tow, she lifted Riley briefly to look more carefully at his eyes and remarked to us that she could see very small amounts of a whitish liquid at the corner of his slitted eyes (he seemed sensitive to the sun streaming through the opened front door) and his condition was confirmed; an eye infection. She should know; with her seven dogs she is constantly undergoing the stress of one medical condition or another with them. So we made an appointment at the veterinarian clinic for later that morning, and not too long after breakfast Irving set off with Riley and Angelyne, while I opted to stay at home with Button, who detests to the point of making herself ill, going to the vet's.
At the animal hospital the vet explained to Irving that it's not that common for both eyes to be affected with an eye infection, so she decided to put the little guy through a battery of tests designed to rule out the presence of a number of more serious eye conditions. She also checked his heart, lungs, other indicators of possible trouble. She explained that because of the prohibitive acquisition cost of a small hand-held device which she briefly passed over his eyes, the cost of that particular test would be $60 alone. Riley was patient and well behaved, unlike Button under similar circumstances. And Angelyne was just a regular little pain in the arse this very particular day, behaving in a rather obnoxious manner, all of which combined to ensure that Irving experienced a fairly stressful hour.
Meanwhile, I was living it up with Button, relaxed in the still-early warm sun, doing a little dead-heading in the gardens, admiring the beauty of the full-headed Zinnia blooms, the fragrant Phlox, the Fairy rose, the lace-cap Hydrangea, the begonias and the tiger lilies, the Delphiniums and the tumbling petunias. Button was happy sitting at the edge of the lawn, close to the road, where she could more closely monitor traffic, awaiting the imminent return of her lord and master.
On their return, the first dose of the eyedrops were administered to our brave little doggy-tyke. Then it was my turn. That spider bite that had first manifested its presence on my midriff several weeks ago had undergone so many configurations while I awaited its natural diminishment and final disappearance that I was more than a little disgusted (and decidedly uncomfortable at its ongoing pressure and occasional pain) to see it finally metamorphize as an angry red blob about the size of a Loonie, with (get this) a nipple which grew in size gradually and day by day until by the third day it really did look like a displaced nipple. Only this thing was white, situated above the red blob, and we knew it would have to be lanced and drained. Go to our family doctor? Nope. I wanted to go instead to the local family walk-in clinic, and so that's what happened. No wait, unlike our regular overworked family physician. The young doctor who confirmed our diagnosis kindly relieved my skin of its unwelcome guest, lancing and aspirating the pus out of the nipple. He gave me a ten-day prescription for anti-biotic and told me to change the dressing often, as I would continue to experience draining for the next several days. So much for that.
Later, while Angelyne was having her lunch, I looked up in the breakfast room at the sliding glass doors leading to the deck and saw there an odd apparition. Looked like a dark-haired slender young woman. What was she doing there? Why was she wearing that dark uniform? Why was she trying to slide open our doors? Why was she wearing a bullet-proof vest? Oops. We've had our alarm system for about fourteen years. First false alarm. We didn't even know the alarm had gone off, but soon realized what had happened. When Irving had left the house to pick me up at the plaza, he set the alarm as per usual. But what he hadn't realized at the time was that our weighted door-to-garage hadn't completely closed; it always requires an extra little shove. In his absence the alarm went off, the alarm company tried to contact us (initially when the alarm goes off the telephone lines are inaccessible) and in our absence contacted one of our neighbours (who keeps one of our house keys), and then the police.
What a day. As though that wasn't enough, our family doctor's office called soon afterward to inform Irving that the laboratory had sent back results from his urine sample of last week. Their conclusion was that there was no bladder infection. Figure that one out: our doctor, on the basis of his own office urine-strip test which indicated a serious bladder infection had prescribed antibiotic, which treatment had the effect over the next week of treatment, of clearing up the urine to a nice clear liquid, freeing up his bladder to issue a nice respectable stream, permitting him to sleep longer during the night before having to arise to urinate, and gradually restoring him to a condition more like his own self, although he is still feeling rather lethargic. The result of this call: Irving has another appointment to see our doctor tomorrow afternoon. That in itself guaranteed to make him feel particularly grumpy with anticipation.
Dinner was nice. Quiet. Afterward we went out to sit on the glider in the deck. We love the sound of crickets. Riley sat with us, then decided to trundle down off the deck to the lawn and gardens. Curious, we checked on him. He was nibbling grass, which means an upset stomach or he'd eaten too much; effect and cause. Oh, dammit, what was that? Ech, a pool of vomit. What's that? Two more. Riley divesting himself of dinner.
Tomorrow has got to be better.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, August 17, 2005
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