Tuesday, May 23, 2006, 18:17
More of the Sneezin' Season
I have decided that perhaps I ought to tie a bucket under my nose when I go outside to mow the lawn.
Sunday afternoon, seeing as Randy had gone with a friend of his to deliver a tractor three hours north of here, I figured I might as well work on mowing the lawn.
The tree pollen is horrendous this year. The whole time I was out there pushing the mower, my nose dripped constantly, my eyes were watery and itchy and my throat felt scratchy. And this was in spite of taking antihistamines and using eye drops and nose spray before I went outside.
The night before, we could actually *see* how bad the tree pollen was when Randy stood on the porch and looked to the north.
"Come out here and look at this," he said through the open window in the storm door.
I went out on the porch, and the air was filled with little fuzzy white floating bits of fluff from the aspen and birch trees. And the air, toward the horizon, was yellow with the haze of tree pollen.
Maybe I would have been better off NOT seeing all of the tree pollen in the air. Because -- what you don't know can't hurt you, right?
Except that in this case, whether or not I know it's there, the tree pollen is there. It would really help if it would rain. Not just a few drops -- but RAIN. When we had the stretch of cloudy, rainy/sleety, cold weather for a week, it rained every day. But it really didn't rain all that much. After a week, we had accumulated less than an inch of rain all together.
Sunday evening, much to her disappointment, I gave Pixie another bath with flea and tick shampoo. I try to bathe her every couple of weeks to help keep the wood ticks and deer ticks from embedding in her skin. The flea and tick shampoo works fairly well for the ticks. So far this year, she's only had a couple that got into her skin. Doesn't stop them from crawling on her fur, though, and Pixie hates that. I know right away when she has a tick crawling on her because she bites at it and licks at it and shakes her head and keeps fretting until I look, find the tick and dispose of it.
I have always wondered how dogs can feel ticks crawling with all of that hair. But they can.
Our Springer Spaniel, Charlie, has had lots of ticks this year. He goes in more places where there are ticks than Pixie does. But I have other things to worry about with Charlie than ticks just now.
Over the weekend, Randy clipped Charlie (gave him a flea and tick bath, too!), and when he was finished clipping, we could clearly see that Charlie has a large lump on one shoulder. With all of his winter hair, you couldn't see the lump. But now you can. It looks like an extra-extra-extra-large egg underneath the skin. I can move it around it and push it back and forth. He doesn't seem to act like it hurts when I do that. I made an appointment at the vet clinic for Charlie on Wednesday morning so one of the vets can look at the lump.
As for Juliette, the antibiotic does not seem to be helping my kitty cat's urinary tract infection very much. She's still in and out of the litter box every few minutes. If her symptoms are not a lot better by the time I take Charlie into the vet clinic Wednesday, I will have to see about getting a different antibiotic for her.Poor little Juliette is going to wear herself out running back and forth to the litter box all the time if the antibiotic doesn't start helping pretty soon.
LeAnn R. Ralph
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Monday, May 22, 2006, 19:53
The Answer to a Prayer?
"You're not treating the thyroid condition because you can't get pills down her?" the vet said to a lady standing at the counter just as I walked in the vet clinic this morning and sat down to wait.
"No, I'm not treating the thyroid," replied the lady, who looked worried and anxious.
"I think you can get the Tapazole mixed up in a liquid with a flavor in it," the vet said. "Want me to call the pharmacy and find out?"
I stood up and stepped forward.
"You can mix it up yourself, you know," I said.
The vet, the vet tech and the lady with the sick cat all turned to look at me.
"Oh, that's right," the vet said. "That's how you do it, isn't it."
"You've done that for a long time, haven't you," the vet tech said.
"And it really works?" the lady said.
"Yes, it works," I said. "And it will be more cost-effective if you mix it up yourself rather than have the pharmacy mix it."
"Tell me exactly how you mix it up," the vet said.
So I told her. She wrote it down. And the vet tech wrote it down.
When I was finished, the lady with the sick cat looked somewhat relieved.
"Do you think this will work?" she asked. "My kitty has lost so much weight, and I don't know what to do for her. I've tried pills, but she spits them out."
"I know," I said. "I had that problem, too."
I described how I give the thyroid medication drops to my kitty, Winifred. Dogs tend to have low thyroid problems, while cats tend to have high thyroid problems.
"What about food? Could I mix it with food?" the lady asked.
"Sure," I said. "I used to do that for one of my other cats. What does she like?"
"Tuna juice," she said. "I buy the cheapest cans of tuna I can find, and she loves it."
"Try that," I said. "Put the tuna juice on a plate, count out the drops, mix it in, and with any luck, she won't know the difference."
"Is this the kind of bottle you use?" asked the vet tech, holding out a small brown bottle for my inspection.
"Yes, it's one like that," I said.
A few minutes later, the lady picked up the kitty carrier with her cat inside. The cat was a lovely long-haired black and white cat.
"Bring her back in three or four weeks so we can check the thyroid again," the vet said.
"By then, you'll probably see that she has gained some weight back, too," I said.
The lady, who looked happier and not nearly as worried as when I first came in the vet clinic, went out the door with her cat.
The reason I was at the vet clinic, incidentally, is because my little black kitty cat Juliette, one that I raised from a newborn two years ago, has a urinary tract infection. She has been in and out of the litter box every time she turns around but only passes a few drops of urine at a time. It's a classic symptom of urinary tract infection. So I figured I'd better get some amoxicillan for her. Juliette willingly takes medicine when she needs it, so the amoxi-drops ought to work out well.
But here's the really strange part about the morning.
All the way home, I could not shake the feeling that I was *supposed* to be at the vet clinic at that precise moment. I could not shake the feeling that I was "the answer to a prayer." That happened this morning, and now hours later this afternoon, I still have that strong feeling that I was *supposed* to be at the vet clinic this morning.
So who knows? Maybe I was.
LeAnn R. Ralph
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