The Boy

Is going to have surgery first thing tomorrow morning. I, for obvious reasons, won't be on the computer. The Boy is having a toe removed - one that started a while ago with an infected toe nail - and to this day I still do not know how he injured himself to begin with. The infection has come and gone - mostly, though, it has not gone. It moved into his bone. He has been on a course of antibiotics for too long and the infection will not clear up. Time to eliminate the problem.

A while back - around Christmas time - The Kids got into a scuffle over a toy. My fault. I only got one toy out when I should have gotten two. What the heck was I thinking?!? Actually, but for The Baby climbing up on a box in the hallway closet and then on to the top of my sewing machine case, I would not have gotten any toys out. They had plenty of new toys in their toy box collection that they were enjoying from our most recent trip to the States. I was wrapping presents - furry pig and camel golf head covers - The Baby was convinced they were toys for them - they really did look like Kid toys - minus squeakers. There was a toy high up in the closet irresistibly calling to her. I had left the closet door open and The Baby had just enough time to get in there and do a little climbing to get to the toy she saw perched on a shelf. Another few seconds and she would have been able to get it herself, although she probably would have ended up falling and getting injured in the process. I was busy. Said, "oh what the heck - here you go." A second later The Boy came racing out to the kitchen where The Baby had a new squeaky toy and the two got in a "brotherly-sisterly" fight. I took the toy away, sent them both to their rooms [their crates] and the toy got put away - high, high up out of reach to either of them.

A couple days later, I noticed The Boy's chest looked puffy - it was, quite. There was a little lump. I immediately called the vet. We went for a visit - I posted on this a month or so ago - and not only was there a "puncture wound" along with the lump but quite a bit of edema [swelling], as well. The vet assured me that the antibiotics would tackle whatever infection might be lurking there - and questioned me as to how there was a puncture wound that was NOT a bug bite. Ahh... His little Sister, maybe? In a scuffle over a toy? No worries. Well now we are worried. The swelling did not go down. The lump is bigger. Tomorrow, along with having the infected toe removed, the lump will be removed as well. A few days ago when I took The Boy in to be rechecked for the toe and the lump and the swelling - when the decision was made to remove the toe and the lump - the vet said, "If it was just infection the antibiotics he has been on would have been taken care of it." Sometimes "mass somethingorothers cause edema and we want to have a look and send whatever we find out for a biopsy." Okay. I asked the vet to write down on a piece of paper what he said when he said "mass somethingorothers" and he started to - and then turned to me and said, "Let's wait and see what we find when we go in. Otherwise I know you are going to go home and get on the computer and..." He's right. I would have done exactly that.

We have gone through this once before. Seargeant, our Rottweiler, Baby Sarge as we affectionately called him - or "Little Pooh Bear" [as in Winnie the Pooh] - passed away on March 4, 2003, after having been diagnosed some nine or ten months previously with "triple cell carcinoma." I cannot go into it. It is still too much to bear sometimes. He was our "first" four-legged canine child. It was heartbreaking for both of us - me and DH.

I'll be back after The Boy is home tomorrow and resting on his cushions and blankets depending on what happens and whether or not I get the opportunity. Being a nurse to The Boy will take priority over EVERYTHING! I am taking his crate apart because if he gets in it with his "hood" on, then he can't get out of it. His crate is his haven. His safety and his bed. The door is always wide open and he is used to just going in or coming out on his own free will. He will NOT be happy that the crate is apart - I will leave the bottom half for him - but take the top off and put it in my closet for a few days. And I will take The Baby's crate out to the garage. If The Boy can't get in his crate - he'll squeeze himself into her's, and that isn't going to work, either. I hate to have to keep the "hood" on him, but he won't leave his stitches alone - we've been through this with him before - so not taking any chances this time. Hood will be on when he is not in the room with me where I can't keep both eyes on him. It is pitiful, really. To see this little Great Dane with big, sad brown eyes staring at you with a hood on. He won't lay down with it on, he won't eat with it on, he won't get on the bed or the couch with it on... He will just stand - staring at me - blaming me for whatever because I am always the bad Mom who takes him to the doctor and he does not like it there. Blogging - either writing or reading - will be at the very bottom of my list... We will have to wait and see how things go.