Yesterday I learned from my regular vet, who in general is astonishingly brilliant, that he knew about infected leg and knew it was a pressure sore. For the life of me, I can not understand why he didn’t say anything last week when I took her in for the vaginal infection. If he had pointed it out, a) I wouldn’t have been worried that she had a tumor; b) I could have been treating it with the antibiotic salve he gave me and only yesterday said could be applied to the sore as well as to the nether parts; and c) I could have clued him to the facts that she apparently can’t lie easily on her left side and that she has taken to refusing to lie down on any of the four thick, soft mats that are scattered around the house.

Either of these last two items might have influenced his thinking about her behavior and her treatment.

I also was less than pleased when his assistant told me to clean her underside with a warm, wet rag after he told me to avoid getting the area wet. Can we please make up our minds, folks?

And (LOL!!), sometimes I wonder if those women understand what is meant when a German shepherd takes it into its doggy head to remove your hand at the ankle....

So I made an appointment for today―yes, Sunday!―to see a vet at a veterinary owned by an old friend, whom I haven’t seen in years. I used to have quite a crush on Jerry, having gone a-huntin’ the Mearn’s quail with him and decided he was just the most manly thing ever to stride through the grassy uplands. Jerry is pretty much retired now, having turned his veterinary into something like an HMO. The place is open seven days a week, and even a Sunday visit is only $45. But who you get to see is a pig in a poke―you may never see the same two veterinarians, and it’s unlikely that the person who treats your pet will remember you or the critter from the last visit.

We had another difficult night. We tried to get outside through the shower stall again; when the human closed the bathroom door, we banged into it; and then we doddered in to the other bathroom and got stuck between the toilet and the cabinetry, whence we had to be extricated. I finally managed to get her to stay down by knocking her for a loop with Benadryl and aspirin. These activities caused the human to awake this morning with quite the headache.

By the light of dawn, though, the leg looked less swollen. The stench had almost disappeared. The dog scarfed all her food and busied me throughout my entire attempted breakfast by chasing and retrieving a toy.

The recent $25 bottle of corticosteroids brings this current round of doggy treatment over the $400 mark. Ponying up another $45 to have someone tell me the obvious―the dog has a pressure sore because she spends too much time laying on her right side―did not present itself as an appealing option. So, I decided to spare the dog and my wallet the trauma of hauling her to another vet, and to carry on with the antibiotics (and corticosteroids, and Soloxine, and eye drops, and other eye drops, and Benadryl, and aspirin) to see what happens.

At any rate, this adventure has converted the Month of (not-so-)Extreme Frugality into the Month of the Giant Sucking Sound. Jeez. It’s not even the end of the second week!

categories: pets, budgeting