Tag Archives: vet

Vetted…

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Just once I’d like to walk away from the vet with them telling me that everything is great and it’s $128.00 for the exam and yearly battery of shots. Such an idea is silly, though, as pet care is big business… an environment not aided by the fact that any perceived threat to one of my pups will be met with massive and overwhelming force and a willingness to bring every modern veterinary miracle to bear on even the smallest issue. Even so, I guess I got away easy this morning. Maggie got a relatively clean bill of health, but I still ended up walking away with a bag full of flea, tick, and heart worm preventative for the kids as well as a refill of Winston’s regular joint supplements and “special” food. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop being surprised (horrified?) at the expense we’ll got to to keep animals more or less healthy.

Dogs have been part of the human story since the first caveman tossed a scrap of meat to the great furry beast sitting at the edge of the village. It seems they’ve gotten along pretty well. Man’s life and dog’s have been infinitely improved by our happy coexistence. I can’t imagine a time when my home won’t include at least one of the little fuzzballs. Still, part of me wonders if we all weren’t better off when dogs were just dogs and not fur covered adopted children. Now that they are, I don’t think there’s any going back… but sweet baby Jesus, it would be nice to spend less on their healthcare than I spend on my own.

Seven weeks along…

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So if the flood of facebook posts, emails, junk mail, and phone calls going on are to be believed, there’s an election happening tomorrow. Another rant here about politics would be the usual go-to for this time of year, but instead, I’m going to bring you up to speed on something important: Winston is (believe it or not), returned from his seven week post-surgical round of poking’s, prodding’s, and x-rays, and has been pronounced approximately 70% healed from his TPLO experience. The pins and plates are holding up well, there’s no infection, and aside from the expected muscle loss from 7 weeks of mostly doing nothing, the surgeon blessed him as “within normal limits.” I learned a long time ago that when it comes to bulldogs and health, within normal limits is pretty much the best report you can hope for, so overall I’m pleased with the current state of things.

The next six weeks look like they should be more of the same. He’ll stay in his expended pen, get three or four 15 minute walks a day, and otherwise be prohibited from doing anything that might approximate having fun. That’s going to make our yearly Thanksgiving trip to the menagerie something of an experience, as running, jumping, and interacting with other animals is going to be frowned upon. The good news is that by Christmas, the worst of the restrictions should be lifted. This is a good thing, because I wasn’t looking forward to toting and hauling his exercise pen, two crates, and gross of baby gates with me to Western Maryland for the holidays.

So yeah, I’m pretty pleased with how things went today… and maybe now I can be slightly less paranoid every time he moves. I’ll always be haunted by the prospect of him doing the same thing to the other leg, but at the moment, I’m all about the good news so let’s just leave that for a separate discussion.

P.S. Yes, there is an election tomorrow… and despite what Facebook tells you, it does matter who you vote for. It does matter that you make informed decisions. And it does matter that you exercise the right that makes all the other rights possible. So please, for the good of the Republic, spend some time tonight boning up on the issues and then get to the polls tomorrow.

Plans unplanned…

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I took today off because I was supposed to have Winston’s 6 week follow-up visit with the vet as well as my own annual eye exam later in the day. We all know I like it when days off are productive days. Sure, this is a theoretical “once in a lifetime storm event,” but I can’t be the only one sitting around annoyed that nature is dinking around with things I need to get done. I’ll do my best to remind myself that this is officially now a “free” day off and I’ll be able to rescheduled my leave to another day… so if nothing else, it’s a two-fer in terms of getting out of the office. That perspective makes using one of them to do nothing other than sit around the house today much more tolerable. Happy hurricane-ing.

Three week update…

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Sitting here after scarfing up entirely too much dinner, I remembered that I promised an update on how Winston is making out in his third week post-surgery. The short version: after three weeks and three days, you wouldn’t know that he just had his leg broken in two places and a respectable size chunk of steel jammed in there. He’s not limping, and has once again started pulling hard when we’re out on the leash. So far he’s tolerated his old puppy pen set up in the middle of the living room, but judging from the amount of snorting and general malcontentery, it’s only a matter of time before he puts his shoulder into it and drags the whole pen to whatever part of the room he wants to be in at any given time. I’m not sure exactly how we’re going to address that when the time comes.

As of right now, the way ahead looks alot like the past three weeks: Strict confinement for the next nine weeks at a minimum, no steps, no running, no playing, no time off leash, and three to four 15 minute walks every day to keep up as mush muscle mass as possible. He’s due back at the surgeon’s office at the end of the month for his six week checkup and x-rays, but unless something blows up between now and then, I’m expecting a good report. So far, everything has been good news, but because every cloud has a lead lining, I’m going to spend the rest of his natural life worrying myself sick that he’s going to blow out the other one or do something to undo what’s already been fixed.

Being a single father of two is damned hard work.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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By this time on Thursday, I like to imagine the internet is clamoring to know what annoys me this week. As much as I would have been happy not sitting here at the table dredging through my head for the stuff that I forgot to write down for the last six days, I’d feel bad disappointing the two or three of you who always notice when I don’t get around to posting. So since you’re already here, here’s what annoys Jeff this week…

1. Lack of proper planning. I was off today because I live 40 minutes from work and the vet I needed to go see has an office 30 minutes in the opposite direction. Adding at least an hour to my commute and then only working for a couple of hours seemed like a patently bad idea. What I didn’t take into account when I took the day off is that tomorrow is the Friday before a three day weekend. Why on earth I didn’t think of that in advance and go ahead and make this a five-day-weekend is simply beyond me. I feel a little bit like I failed somehow.

2. Parking lot walkers. The people who walk (slowly) two abreast down the dead center of the travel lane in a big box store parking lot. Either walk like you have something to do, develop some kind of awareness of your surroundings, or don’t act surprised and indignant when I sneak up on you in my 5,250 pound red pick up truck and lay on the horn three feet from your fat asses. On a positive note, I’m grudgingly impressed with how fast you two can move when you’re given the proper motivation. Keep up the good work.

3. On leash walks. It’s great that Winston is feeling better and is healing well. It sucks that his three no-more-than-five-minute bathroom breaks per day are now supposed to be 10-15 minute walks across as many different kinds of flora and fauna as I have available. The walking itself isn’t so much the issue. It’s the fact that when two of those walks are supposed to take place (before work and before bed) it’s pitch effing black here in the backwoods of Ceciltucky. Yeah, this guy is going to be real thrilled tomorrow to be schlepping around the yard for 15 minutes an hour before the crack of dawn tomorrow… and every day for the next two months.

In summary, that is what annoys Jeff this week. Thank you for your attention.

Recovery, Day 4…

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Intellectually, I know that the only thing Winston did today was hang out in his crate, chew his Kong a bit, and maybe shift from one side to the other a few times. He physically can’t bend enough to bother his stitches and nothing from the last three days gives me any indication that he will have any problems today. Knowing full well that he’d be fine when I got home, didn’t diminish my feelings of monumental guilt about leaving him to go to work this morning. I’m a worrier like that.

It’s day four following TPLO surgery and my boy is almost exactly where they surgeon said he would be… his leg is swollen, there’s fluid buildup around the ankle, meal times are still a little hit or miss, and the meds are keeping him a little out of sorts. His fentanyl patch comes off tonight, so I’m expecting a little more pain starting tomorrow morning. He’s tolerating the ice packs three times a day, but clearly is not a fan. According to the doc, I’m also supposed to be doing “passive range of motion” exercises with him several times a day. As far as I can tell from the instruction sheet, it’s more or less amateur physical therapy and Winston absolutely won’t have any of it. Any attempt to put him on his side to do the exercises results in a wildly flailing bulldog and I figure that’s doing more harm than good. It’s one of the only times in recorded history I’ve wished there was a second set of hands around this place on a regular basis.

I have to remind myself that just like us, for him recovering from surgery is a game of inches, not one of leaps and bounds. It’s going to be a long twelve weeks, but at this point I’ll be happy just to get the all clear to stop using the belly sling when he gets his five minute supervised excursions outside. I just wish I had more than a halfassed idea about what “normal” was supposed to look like. Guess I should have ditched the whole history thing and got to vet school instead.

Prep time…

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I don’t see any real in depth blog posts happening in the near future. I spent most of tonight dragging out old baby gates and trying to “slip-proof” as much of the kitchen as I could manage. I’m working on the assumption that Winston will go to surgery tomorrow afternoon after our morning consultation. Sure I’ll have all afternoon and evening tomorrow to do that, but I think I’m just trying to say busy. I hate the thought of my my boy needing to more than likely go under the knife, but that’s the tomorrow I’m trying to mentally prepare for… Plus, there’s a new iOS downloading on my iPad at the moment and I’m going to need to stop trying to write and go check that out in a minute.

Of dogs and frogs…

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With Winston limping around in the ranks of the walking wounded, yesterday was about as low key a Sunday as you can get. Given the ridiculous amount of joint medication, arthritis medication, steroids, and pain meds coursing through his 70 pound system, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he seems to be making out much better than I expected. His left, rear ACL is definitely blown, though so now it’s a matter of making some hard decisions about what standard of care makes sense for a slightly overweight, middle aged bulldog. I’m going to schedule a consultation with the local orthopedic vet to get a better read on what my options are at this point. Knowing that he’s a surgeon, I’m well aware that when your primary tool is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail. I’ve done more reading about animal physiology in the last three days than I have in the last 30 years. Let’s just say that the camps are pretty evenly split on what is a “reasonable” course of treatment. I’m struggling to find the fine line between “heroic” and “fiduciarily irresponsible.”

While we’re on the topic of pets, if there’s anyone out there thinking about becoming the proud owner of tree frogs, you should think long and hard about that decision. I’m pet sitting a pair of the little buggers this week and let’s just say that for something about the size of a matchbox car that live in an aquarium, they’re an inordinate amount of work. To be fair, I have to admit, the real issue isn’t the frogs. They’re actually pretty fun to watch as long as you don’t mind laying out a nightly cricket buffet. Dialing in the automatic mister on the other hand has left me puzzled, perplexed, and occasionally saturated when I open the eclosure door at precisely the wrong moment. Even at the lowest settings, the damned thing seems to blow though a gallon of water every few hours… Which doesn’t sound like much until you remember that the tank isn’t very big and there’s nowhere for the water to go once it’s been sprayed. I now own a turkey baster for the first time in my life… Although after sucking up several gallons of frog water, I don’t think this one is destined to live in the drawer with my other kitchen gadgets.

For the record, the baster method of water removal isn’t particularly efficient, I think with a little know how and the right length of plastic tubing, I might be able to rig a siphon to at least get the job done a little faster. Or I can just give in and pick up a spray bottle if I want to go all low tech about it. Come on, tell me that doesn’t sound like an entertaining Monday night.

More Joys of Bulldog Ownership

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Well, I hope to be leaving the vet soon with a bag full of anti-inflammatory and pain meds, a few steroids, and a referral to a veterinary orthopedic surgeon over at the University of Delaware. Currently $500 worth of diagnosis seems to indicate that Winston has a torn ACL and pretty much has to have surgery to correct it.

Honest to God the only thing keeping me from launching into an incredibly violent stream of curses is that rather fetching blonde receptionist sitting on the other side of the room. I’d really just like to find a nice solid surface and bash my head against it repeatedly at this point.

Any feedback from you dog people out there who have done the ACL surgery is very, very welcome.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. The first few seconds after the alarm goes off. Yeah, I’m a morning person by force of habit, but lately that alarm clock has been annoying me more than usual. If I didn’t know that a much louder and more powerful alarm clock on the other side of the room was going to go off five minutes after the first one, I’d be sorely tempted to heave it into the wall and go back to sleep. Maybe I could just stab myself in the ear with something pointy.

2. A three day holiday weekend is a glorious thing to behold. Having a day off in the middle of the week is more or less just a tease. A tease that gives you the illusion of a weekend, kicks you in the junk, and sends you back to work. In the future I’m going to need someone to remind me to schedule a few days of leave and make the random mid-week holiday a more worthwhile endeavor. On second thought, scratch that. I’m pretty sure no reminder will be necessary.

3. Veterinary medicine. After five visits to the vet in the last two months and what seems like a ridiculous number of tests, the vet has finally struck on what she thinks is the “root cause” of Winston’s skin infections and irritation: a drug resistant staph infection. This, of course, now requires a new round of treatment with new and interesting medication. If I’m not mistaken, the pills I picked up this afternoon are also used to treat malaria in, you know, actual people. Yep, the canine version of MRSA is right here in my very own house. So, yeah, feel free to stop by and tar a big “X” on my front door, because there be plague here. At least it’s not the skin sloughing, oozy kind of plague. That’s something, right?