Maybe I Should Have Named Her Bronco

I took the puppy to the vet today because she's been doing this weird periodic cough thing. Sometimes right when I come home from work, sometimes when she runs around a lot, and like, all the time when she pulls when on her leash there's the little gagging cough.

The doctor diagnosed her with tracheobronchitis which is basically kennel cough. Awesome. She got some pills and he said she'd be feeling better in 3-5 days and it was good I bought her in because it wasn't deep in her lungs yet and she didn't have pneumonia. She got her temperature taken (which she really did not care for as it was rectally) and a rabies shot and some flea and tick meds and a delicious heartworm chewy.

This dog doesn't seem sick at all. The pamphlet they gave me said to limit her exercise, but that's damn near impossible. She's so crazy. So, I'm not following that recommendation because the only way to do it would be to drug her with some alcohol or something.

Anyway, the doc said that it's not uncommon with the weather being how it is and he's seen a lot of it. Although, he didn't seem to worried about Remy catching it, so I guess that's good. I'm just to keep an eye on them both.

Meanwhile, she's due for more shots for distemper and the like on the 15th and Remy is going to get some shots and a heartworm test and I'm getting them to trim her toenails at the same time too. So, she'll probably hate me... more. The next trip will be pricey, so luckily they didn't charge me for an office visit today - just the meds which were only $14.00. The best part about it is that River totally just ate the pill all by itself. Let's see how long that lasts...

I leave you with the River picture of the day. This is where she decided to go after the doctor took her temp and gave her a shot - under a countertop in a cubbyhole where they keep the trash. Seems about right... poor girl. Here's to a speedy recovery!



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Flesh Eating Face Bacteria

I have decided that I am five years old, and I'll tell you why.

I had what I thought was a pimple under my left nostril sometime around Monday night or Tuesday morning. And, being me, I couldn't leave it alone. So, I somehow got it infected. The sore got bigger and even with an over the counter antibacterial ointment, I couldn't seem to get better. On Saturday morning, I woke up to gross clear-yellow crustiness, so I figured it best to go see someone about it. I went to the Minute Clinic at CVS because I knew I'd be able to see them on a Saturday morning. The nurse practitioner there told me that I had impetigo.

Awesome. Impetigo. In case you don't know what that is, because I didn't until Saturday, it's a Staph infection that little children between 2 and 6 usually get. I suppose we all know that I am a child, but I didn't need this sort of confirmation of the fact. Someone could have just bought me a box of Legos and it would have proven the same point. (In other news, I bought myself Lego Batman for PS2 to make me feel better.)

I can't tell you how sick I am of not being well. I thought I had beaten the whole back pain thing, and now I have to deal with a super awesome infection to boot. Apparently it's highly contagious, which must be true because I spread it from the spot under my nose to my forehead before I got medications. Hooray!

Speaking of medications, I'm on a oral antibiotic three times a day for ten days, and I have an antibiotic ointment that I am also supposed to use three times a day. I'm hoping it all clears up really soon.

By the way, not only does this infection make me five years old, but it also makes me a rockstar because if you google image search impetigo (which is not recommended because it's way grosser than what I actually have on my face) you come back with a bunch of pictures of Amy Winehouse.

So... like... don't let your opinion of me match your opinion of Amy Winehouse. I'd rather you think of me as five years old and buy me a big box of Legos for Christmas.


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Ant-EYE-biotics

My right eye has been bugging me for about a week or so and since Martin Luther King Jr. gave me the day off today, I figured I'd finally go and figure out what was causing the annoyingly excessive tearing and sneezing. Just because my eye was rather swollen this morning and had bothered me all night, doesn't mean that I wasn't planning on having someone look at it today anyway. Although, I totally wasn't.


Doesn't my eye look perfectly healthy and normal to you?

Well, it seems that my optometrist thinks that I have a low grade viral infection in my eye, which was determined by putting a fluorescent dye in my eye and looking at it with a blue light that was similar to the ALS I use at work all the time. Although, he says, it might be accompanied by bacteria as well... and since I'm in discomfort, I might as well have a prescription for some eye drop antibiotics and use them four times a day. Peachy.

I'm not sure if anyone knows this other than my mother (remember that time I had pink eye?), but... I simply can't do eye drops. The whole thing is beyond me. I could stick my finger in my eye if I had to, but dropping liquid from a bottle is just completely beyond my technical abilities. I can't see the drop, so I don't know when it's going to fall, and those drops just hang on the end of the bottle forever, now, don't they? Actually managing to get it inside my eye and not somewhere on my cheek or eyelid is impossible.

Imagine my surprise when I got the first dose in properly on the first try. I hope the rest of the applications go as smoothly, because I really have no faith in my ability to conquer the complexity that is eye drops. Cross your fingers (or your eyes) for me. I can only hope that this will clear up whatever's been going on in there the past few days. Especially since it cost me $45 for the eye exam and antibiotics.


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