I got up rather early this morning. I’ve been going to bed early and getting up early the last several days since returning from Germany. Liesl was up early today too and we got some time to hang out before I started work pretty close to eight. Oreo had decided to join us in bed this morning when Liesl got up which he never does. Normally he leaves when she comes to bed and he hides in our closet on his bed that we keep in there. It was a little chilly this morning so we bundled him up and when I went to work he stayed in bed.
Around nine thirty Dominica called down the stairs to me that something was wrong with Oreo. I ran upstairs and found our little doggy with a very swollen face on his left side. He was so swollen that he did not even look like himself. It was very sad. We called the vet straight away and got Oreo scheduled for eleven to see his doctor.
I jumped in the shower and got ready to go and then worked as quickly as I could to prevent a backlog of work from happening before being able to get back. Liesl has a doctor’s appointment today too (just her normal one) so it is a busy day of running errands for the kids.
I got caught up and the team covered for me so that I could head out. Dominica and Liesl came to the vet’s office with us and just hung out in the waiting room while I went in with our poor little boy. We are very convinced that he has an abscessed tooth. That will not be fun for him nor will it be cheap at all.
Oreo’s vet looked at him and was not convinced that the swelling was tooth related although he agreed that externally it really, really looked like that. But Oreo had no visible pain in that area and there was nothing visibly wrong which his teeth. In fact, his teeth looked really good. So the vet is guessing that it is more of an acute allergic reaction rather than being tooth related. Possibly related to his grass allergy or something like a bee sting.
So Oreo got a shot of a strong steroid to get his swelling down right away and to stop his itching. He has been in really had shape ever since spending a week in Frankfort. He appears to be extra allergic to the grass up there compared to the grass that we have here in Peekskill. A second vet took a look at him as well and agreed that it did not appear to be a tooth problem.
While we were there Oreo got his eyes and tail checked. His eyes, while having pretty severe cataracts, are doing just fine. He can see some, just foggy, and is under no medical concern with them. He could have surgery for them but the surgery introduces its own risks and he is functioning just fine as he is so it is a weighing of the cost and danger compared to the ability for him to see more clearly. The vet recommended against it and with Oreo’s health concerns none of us want to risk any unnecessary procedures. The vet does not even want to remove Oreo’s skin tag unless he is convinced that we can do it with a local anesthetic rather than putting Oreo under. After having lost Lady, my childhood dog, when she went under for a minor surgery I am definitely gun shy about any unnecessary procedure.
Oreo has a glaucoma test and everything was fine there as well. Overall he is really doing extremely well. The issue with his tail turns out to be relatively well known in his and related breeds and we have a special, topical steroidal cream to apply to it twice a day now. Oreo will be very relieved to know that we can do something for his poor tail.
The vet gave us some steroids to give Oreo for the week to bring down the swelling and some anti-biotic medicine just to be safe in case they are wrong about what is going on with his face. Oreo was scared at the vet but it was a painless visit with the worst bit being having his temperature taken (dogs don’t get to put the thermometer under their tongues, you know.)
We were out of the vet’s office by noon and Liesl’s appointment was at one thirty right across the street. So we decided that it would be pointless to go back home and then come right back out again so we went to Pastel’s in the Beach Shopping Center and got lunch there. Liesl misses her friends there if we don’t got there on a regular basis.
After lunch we stopped by at the GameStop next door. Originally we had been waiting on getting Dominica her birthday present, Beatles Rock Band, until after we moved to Texas because it takes up a lot of space and she will not have very much chance to play it until we get there. But as I thought about it, it could be a very, very long time before we are in Texas and even longer before we actually have a house and not just a small apartment there. So I decided that we just needed to go ahead and get the game anyway. Dominica decided to just get the guitar rather than buying the bass, drumset and whatever else there is. We already have a microphone or two that will work with the system anyway. So we stopped in and picked up her birthday present.
Then we were off to Liesl’s doctor’s appointment. That went very well. She got another shot as she does every month. Her progress is still going really well. She has not gained much weight since her last visit but that is expected as she is crawling now and burning a lot of calories as she is quite active. There were no concerns from the meeting so we are very happy.
My afternoon was quite busy as I had to do a whole day’s work in a half a day. So I was stuck in the basement for the rest of the day. Dominica and Liesl went out grocery shopping late this afternoon. Our cupboards have been bare ever since we were away for a week. We had worked hard to eat through what we had had in the house and when we returned there was nothing here. So this was her first “stocking back up” trip since we got back.
Dominica spent the evening playing Beatle Rock Band whenever she got time until her wrist was soar and she needed to take a break until tomorrow. I’ve never liked the Beatles but hearing all of their music together and not just little bits here and there really drives home just how bad they were and how every single bit of their music was nothing but some gibbering from a group of junkies. Until you hear their music altogether you don’t realize just what high losers these were. There was nothing to them except for the drugs. They were completely consumed by them. And the music reflects that. It’s quite a statement on the 1960s that this music could even make it onto the radio let alone be popular. I mean serious, play this music without knowing that it is from some famous band and it sounds like high school students baked out of their minds. It is completely amateur and sad. You can tell that Paul was at least a little bit normal before they started becoming famous and had written a few, kiddy-pop tunes (I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Twist and Shout) before they could afford all of the drugs but that stuff is just any random, silly one hit wonder kind of stuff for little kids and then everything else is just gibberish.