Dispatches from the Vet

Guest Blogger:
Mr. ParkHopper

So, after a night of fitful sleep on my part, our journey all to familiar to us down highways 27 and 50 began at around 10:15 this morning. For those who haven't been near our place in a while, 27 has endured quite possibly the longest road reconstruction project, other than the never ending I-4 debacle, known to man. Well, they decided to do a switch over yesterday, so now there are about 4 lanes of un-used space in the middle of the road between north and south bound lanes. Well… while exiting our complex this morning, turning left onto 27, and in the left turn lane with the left green turn arrow… imagine our surprise when we decided to play chicken with one of the early morning Wally World fuddy duddies. That's right, they apparently either A) Didn't take the turn lanes into consideration when the geniuses at the DOT planned out their "temporary fix" traffic pattern, or B) moron couldn't drive. Really, either is possible. But as WWFD blared his horn, I did escape and evasion techniques so we wouldn't get hit, and Jamie "waved hello."

The rest of the drive was uneventful. Our usual 40 minute drive to the vet, followed by 10-15 minutes in the waiting room, where we met Zoe the beagle, and then… The doctor. We haven't really talked about the vet himself. He is a very nice Hispanic gentleman. He's very soft spoken, but he's good. I believe Jamie said it best when she said that if we ever had need to take our cats to a vet, we would bypass the ones closest to us and go to him.

Well… The nice assistant came out and took our little girl back to the dreaded exam room. Jamie told me to just leave her our credit card, and go wait in the car. You see… when they put the staple in… that was rough. In case you didn't know, Zoepig will voice her displeasure at lots of things. But when she is in pain… that is a sound. I don't handle that sound very well. So, Jamie tried to save me the pain of hearing this sound. But I knew that Jamie needed support on this one, so I stayed firmly planted in the chair, bracing for the screams… That never came… ??? Literally 30 seconds to a minute after taking her back, the vet came out with a smile on his face, and a staple in his hand. He clapped his hands and said "Let's have a party!" Waaahhh?! That's it? It's over? Did I black out? Wow, good times! That's right folks, it appears the ordeal is over! Zoepig has no more metal in her head, only a small scab. And let's all knock on wood, find four leaved clovers, hang up horse shoes, toss salt, WHATEVER, that she will not scratch and open that sucker back up. Really though, it's been healing for a week and half without her doing anything to it, so I think we are okay!

After our 40 minute ride back home on the nicely new paved section of the road, Zoepig went back into her nice new play area, with fresh food, towels, and veggies, and promptly went to the chube, where she stayed at least until I came to work. I put some of her parsley in the chube with her as a peace offering, and she ate it all, so she's fine, just maybe a bit traumatized as usual with her dad's driving abilities. And thus, hopefully, ends yet another of life's little adventures. :o) If any of you need a good vet, and don't mind the LONG drive, just ask. :o) And now back to the resident blogger in the family.

Iced Tea

I went out to dinner with Cat tonight and had four and one half glasses of iced tea. I have peed six times since I got home (about three hours ago).

This is the first time I've had caffeine since... well, since Scott and I went to Outback for our early V-Day dinner last week. But I don't remember our server being so quick with the refills that time.

This is also the second post I've written in the past twenty minutes. However, the CHIA update will have to wait until Blogger sees fit to allow me to once again publish photos. :-P

Since I'm here, I thought I'd mention that ZoePig has left her staple alone all week long, and has acquiesced to a certain amount of holding. "Holding" in her case means laying on the bed and letting her sit on my chest or my lap and eat carrots while I pet her (not near the head). That has absolutely got to be the silver lining in this whole head wound debacle - we had really given up on socializing with her when she was little, but three solid weeks of being forced to hold (and clean and, to a certain extent, torture) her has actually somehow made her less skittish and made me more inclined to hang out with her for a half hour a day.

We go back to the vet tomorrow, and I'm curious to see what he says. I'm just worried that he'll take the staple out, and that the scab is still fully formed under the two pieces of skin that were pulled together, and that we'll be back to square one. But even if that's the case (the worst case?), she will have still kept the same scab in place for over a week (it last came off on Saturday the third).

Wish us luck!

A Whole New World

ZoePig is getting a new home. It's going to be home-made and will add about 4 square feet to her current area, without that pesky "double-wide" divider in the way. We haven't yet acquired the plastic used to make the bottom of the tray, but we did get a set of storage cubes at Target today (on sale for $12) and I had a fun afternoon playing with them. And once I played with them, I couldn't wait to transform the little pig's cage.

(here's a reminder of what it looked like before)

As you can see, the design is open at the top. That's the biggest change so far. And I had no idea how much she wasn't looking through the white bars until I saw her gaze at the vast environment around her tonight. There's about 2" at the top of the picture and 2" that you can't see in the foreground that are currently stuffed with an old rolled up mattress pad because the cage is bigger than the two existing trays.

The other bonus to the new cage is its height. I had enough left over cube sections to make a basement of sorts to store all of the pig-related paraphernalia.

ZoePig also digs the height. I think being up high has made her a little less skittish about us - we're over a foot shorter than we were this morning!

Of course, this is definitely a work in progress. But this cage is plenty big for ZoePig and her hypothetical sibling.

I'm really excited about the way it's looking so far. I can't wait to finish the project.

Staple Update: It's still in after over 36 hours. Good sign? Too early to say. But we're still keeping our fingers crossed.

Eye Eye Eye!

Scalzi's Monday Photo Shoot: Get a really really really close shot of someone's eyes. Try not to use the flash. Or, you know, poke them with the camera. Some judicious cropping will do the job too.

Oh what fun! Finally a chance to show a little bit of my darling husband's evil genius side. The one-eyebrow-up trick is something I totally envy. I just can't do it! Not to mention, it really does make him look just a bit evil!

Milo and Kilo have the same color eyes, which is surprising because they look so different otherwise.
And the last picture is poor little ZoePig. She's got the big bug eyes of a rodent who has been terrorized.

After today's vet visit, she's sporting a hot little staple across her head (that horizontal line between her ears isn't just another white stripe of fur! The vet suggested stitches, but we ultimately ruled that out because if she scratched at them she would end up having an even bigger wound. So he pulled the skin together and stapled it. And next week we'll be spending yet another morning at the office following up. I really hope that she'll not scratch it anymore. One good week is probably all she needs to get past the big scab phase.

Ahh...Blessed Sleep...

I got almost 9 hours of sleep last night. Sound extreme? Please don't judge. The night before I figure I probably got less than 5.

Yep, piggie parenthood caused yet another restless night. ZoePig decided about 5 am yesterday to scratch her scab off - again - and then be upset about how much it hurt. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEK WHEEK WHEEK WHEEK WHEEEEEEEK. She'd stop squeaking long enough to run a lap around her cage, shake her head, and start all over again.

So we took her out of the cage, and Scott held her and pet her for a while before I pulled out the medieval torture ointment. I wish this cut was anywhere but her head - she hates having anything at all near her face and her ears.

After we finished cleaning and dressing the wound, we put her back in the cage, but she continued to squeak the low sad squeaks of one who has just had enough of life's troubles. By about 6, we couldn't take it anymore and took our pillows and blankets and camped out on the living room floor. I got maybe an hour's worth of sleep, tossing and turning and dealing with Kilo trying to crack my ribs and then meowing when I wouldn't let him.

Work yesterday ended up being 10 hours of me shaking my own head violently trying to get the cobwebs out.

ZoePig was better last night. She let us hold her for a while, and didn't give me too much trouble when I dressed the wound. Let's just hope this lasts. I like sleep, and would prefer to not live without it!

Happy February!

I flipped over the calendar this morning and was greeted by four medical appointments and a jury duty. Would anyone mind if we just skipped to March this year? Would anyone notice? I mean it's just February...

Anyway, the first of the four appointments is today for ZoePig. She had to reschedule her appointment from Tuesday because Scott got scheduled for a last-minute dental appointment. Sadly, the only time we could get was 11:30, and since I work at noon Scott has to go do this on his own. He's not thrilled.

We're a little worried about what the vet is going to say. She's gotten in the habit of scratching the scab off of her wound every other day. But I think it's healing regardless. We need to find out if she's got mites, since she seems to spend an awful lot of time scratching. And we're also worried about her ears, since after all this time she still seems to be shaking her head. And I don't want to end up spending $500 on a rodent. It's a fine line.

And when we're done with the current head wound issue, we might revisit the idea of getting her a companion. A female one, of course! And a new cage without the divider in the middle. Like this one. But first, the vet visit. We'll just have to take this step by step.

Darn Pig

Zoe scratched open her head wound again in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Last night it was much less shiny and oozy, but just the same we decided to change out the litter in her cage for towels ($1.50 each at wal mart). My theory was that the towels have less dust and other particles to settle onto her head. Of course, the little poops are also WAY more visible, but since she's not entered into any housekeeping competitions, I think that's ok.

I just wonder what the vet is going to do now. I'm pretty sure he ruled out staples because the cut was too wide. Don't they have some kind of liquid bandage for animal cuts? We're obviously not going to be able to stick her in one of those anti-scratching-satellite-dish-collars. Not only is her head the wrong shape, but if she could wear one, she'd just walk around like a tiny shovel scooping up litter from her cage.

Oh well, I guess we'll find out on Tuesday. Unless she's looking bad tomorrow and they can actually see her.

Baby's Got a Buzz Cut

They shaved my baby's head! Thankfully, they let me wait in the waiting room, but boy oh boy did we hear her!

At first, the vet was talking about staples and needing to use gas to knock her out and all sorts of stuff, but once they shaved her head they realized the cut was wide but shallow. Of course, this means she still has an open wound. Open wounds require daily washing and lots of attention and a return visit next week, but as long as she's eating normally that's all they require.

As you can imagine, she's SO not speaking to me right now, since I'm the one who took her out of her cage and manhandled her in and out of the cat carrier. The vet put some sort of powder on her cut to coagulate it a little bit, which just looks like an extension of her white streak. But the buzz cut (he said, "she'll look like a monk.") just looks silly. And I feel guilty for laughing at her.

But the baby is going to be fine. And she's definitely getting all the carrots she wants for the next week. This isn't going to be easy for either of us, that's for sure!

On a side note, I think I like this vet. I definitely like his office staff. Of course, there's three other vets between here and there, so I'm not sure whether I'd take my cats to him or not. Milo, I believe, would prefer to avoid any vet! The mere mention of the d-o-c-t-o-r just seems to annoy him. Wouldn't you agree?

A Crisis and the Dentist

A Post in Two Acts

ZoePig has a gaping head wound. (which, thankfully, you can't see in this picture) I'm not quite sure what happened to her, but Scott and I were absolutely heart-broken last night when I found it.

She's been squeaking a lot recently, shaking her head and scratching, so I did a bunch of internet research. It seems she may have ear mites (though who knows how that would've happened?) or an ear infection. The short-term cure was to apply a little mineral oil to her ears with a q-tip. Since we already had her out and in a secure death grip, it seemed a good time to clip her toenails as well. (not something that was covered in my original guinea pig primer... and she had grown curly old man toenails) And for the past few days, she hadn't been squeaking or scratching as much and we thought we had solved the problem.

Then last night as we were getting ready for bed, she started absolutely freaking out and when I went over to see what was going on, I saw this big spot (ok, "big" in this case equals slightly smaller than a dime) on the top of her head that was completely fur-less and all bloody. I don't know if she was scratching and one of her newly-trimmed nails was cut ragged and sharp, or if she banged it against the edge of her rainbow tunnel. We took her out and gave her a bath (her mantra for the event was "don't touch my head"), blow-dried her, and spent some quality time on the bathroom floor. When she went back to her cage, we gave her some carrots. She was eating and drinking normally, so we decided to call around to vets first thing this morning.

Note: guinea pigs are considered "exotics" and not seen by most vets. The one vet that was recommended by all of the other "small animal" vets in the area was in emergency surgery this morning and they were already rescheduling their clients who already had appointments.

So after a half dozen phone calls, I gave up. Ultimately, Scott took over phone duties and found a vet down on 50 who could see her tomorrow. Her head looks much better today. I really think that whatever she did had just happened when I noticed it. She's been quiet today, but still eating and drinking a lot. I think she's fine, but she obviously still needs to go to the doctor.

As for the dentist, he numbed up both sides of my mouth, which resulted in tons of fun saying tongue twisters (and having a Frosty for lunch because I was afraid to chew). He put a crown on my root canal tooth (#2 - upper right) and a temporary filling on the molar that's been throbbing for the past few days (#19 - lower left). If the filling stops the pain, he'll just do a regular filling. But it's close enough to the root that he wants to make sure I don't need a root canal. So I go back in two weeks to have fillings done on #18 and (hopefully) 19 (coincidentally, the same ones that Scott just had done) and also on #14. After that, just one more crown on a previously root canal-ed tooth and I'm done with my original treatment plan.

So in case you were wondering what I have planned for the next few weeks, Zoe's appointment tomorrow, then Scott has various dentist appointments and consultations this Wednesday and next Tuesday, then my appointment Feb 5, then he has two others on the 6th and 7th, and then I have jury duty on the 12th. I bet everyone on earth is jealous of the fun and excitement in store for me!!!