Not a lot of writing for me the past couple of days, but not nothing either. Got the new book up to 18 pages now (almost 6000 words) so that’s not bad. Characters are solidifying a little by now. The “nemesis” is starting to come across as a stick in the mud and my heroine somewhat confrontational. Who’d have thunk it. Hah.
So let’s start with the big news. Yesterday, after a long day (I’ll get to that later) I came home, rushed to the bathroom in my cabin, and by the time I got back out, stopped dead in my tracks to stare at the large amount of blood on one of my chairs. Dax was on top of it, licking it up as fast as he could manage it, looking unharmed. “Who the heck’s bleeding?” I muttered, looking from the Beagle to Chaos (no gushing ears, or anything) and the two labs. Nothing wrong there. Like Dax they’re licking at the blood that (so I discovered then) is also all over the floor. “Jeez! Sitabah where--“ She’s on the second chair, licking the spray of blood that’s on the clothes chest in the center of the room. Nothing with her either. Knight…
“Knight where are you. I--“ that’s when I see it. His problem paw (chronic wound that has been refusing to heal properly for three years now ever since our previous vet thought it a good idea to check if there was anything in the swollen appendage. Bad idea.) the one he is always licking, is stretched out on my bed, gushing, spraying and fountaining, while Knight is almost lazily licking up the blood.
I swear in several language, call for big brother while I reach in my upper storage for my first aid kit. I’m so lucky I came across it the day before when I was looking for something else, and start ripping out the contents with one hand, while with the other I call grandpa because I know that big brother won’t be able to hear me outside.
“Knight’s gushing blood. Tell big brother to get the car out and then come and help me get this stupid dog up.” And then, while telling Knight he’s an idiot to his face, I dig into the bloody sheets for his paw, and quickly start wrapping it around the spritzing wound.
Big brother arrives while I hear Cousin Ed take out the Land Rover for us, looks down with a shake of his head and says, “What did he try to do, amputate his foot?”
“Looks like it,” I mutter, fighting a wave of nausea as I tighten the bandage a bit more around Knight’s paw. He’s watching me with interest all the while, not helping much by letting me pull his paw higher, but I soon have the friggin’ wound covered with two tight bandages that are still showing blood through the many, many layers.
I don’t care. At least it’s not spritzing by then. I walk him up, into the car and we’re off, some odd fifteen minutes before opening time (siesta time is still normal round these parts. Smalls stores, and the vet hospital, are closed from two to five). No sense in breaking the speed limit on our way to the village. The bleeding appears under control and no one will be there anyway.
By the time we arrive so’s the nurse who opens the door for me and then heads to the back to do some preparations.
I sit down, Knight in my lap because he’s insecure away from home and decides it’s a good idea to attach himself to me. We wait some odd twenty minutes, seeing as there are other patients and then the new vet gestures me to come to the back so he can do the preliminary examination.
I am forced to inform him that Knight has trouble with men (always had, ever since I rescued him from the pound at six months) meaning that the poor man is doubly cautious (not to mention sick as a dog) and makes as little startling movements as possible. Between the two of us, with me holding Knight’s head tight against my shoulder, we get the sedation into this vein, and less than half a minute later Knight starts to sag to the floor. Poor darling went down like a log.
What followed was a discussion of how to handle the problem. The bandage was removed and blood oozed out again, so here’s what the vet said: Either they cauterized the wounds, bound it all up ad we’d have to keep the lot clean and bandaged for a solid month and a half, hoping it would heal. Or she cut everything open, took out the dead flesh, cauterized the veins and then sewed him up, meaning that with a little luck he’d be rid of his stitches within two weeks.
Though it took some thought, seeing as I don’t like putting him through surgery, I went for the last option.
Big brother arrived, and I helped him lift Knight onto the small exam table (OR was in use for another three hours, they told me, so we had to do it the old-fashioned way) where the vet and nurse started to do their thing. They opted to go for light sedation, me basically lying on top of his head kept him quiet for some reason, and local anesthetic on the foot itself. More blood gushed while she put the needle in over and over again, and then, using scissors of all things, she started cutting away the old nerveless flesh that wouldn’t allow for them to stitch him up.
They took out round disk of flesh half an inch thick and about a couple of inches in diameter, while I squatted at the dog’s head and whispered softly in his ear because that kept him from moving around. The few times I HAD to move, his head would lurch up so he would be able to find me. *sigh*
Here are some pix of the ordeal.
Cutting out callous-like material so they would have enough skin to close it. Utterly gross. I couldn't help but watch.
Cauterizing the wound, which filled the room with the faint scent of burning flesh.
My poor darling at home, tired and shivering, pressing his head onto my knee. Isn't he sweet? *rolls eyes*
But anyway, about two hours later, Knight’s paw bandaged up, we were back on our way home, where mom made a denim “sock” which we could pull over the bandage so he wouldn’t be able to touch the wound the way he will so much like to do in the near future.
No collar cone for the Knight. Remember the tail debacle? The foot when it first started? Gawd between those two occasions, I think he wrecked more than eight of the blasted things. At one point he discovered that if he slammed them against a wall corner, or a doorpost, it would just break. *sigh* I don’t even want to know through how much duct tape I went back then.
But anyway, on to other stuff.
Been doing some experimenting with burning patterns into leather for the Tika art bags, and so far it appears to be working. Got some nice patterns at the moment, two of which have already been used in purses.
My eye was half shut yesterday morning (this morning too for that matter), and caused me one heck of a headache through most of the day. Jeez. It got so bad even that while we were jogging, later in the evening, I chucked up my supper. *sigh* Stupid stomach. The jog was nice though, regardless of the cold…temps have been dropping drastically these past few days. Low sixties during the night, I tell ya.
There were the normal stuff, ya know. Laundry, feeding the dogs, cutting dog food and all that jazz, but I’m happy to announce that we did manage to work on Sally’s roof, finishing it. Good thing too since the weather channel is announcing lotsa rain this weekend. Who knows, I might even get a reprieve from the market thing because of that. No one’s going to turn up at a 2nd hand market on a rainy day. Hah.
Yesterday morning was spent in the town, where we had to wait for our regular mechanic to turn up so he could check up on the Opel. I’ve still been catching the occasional scent of fumes in the back, but since he couldn’t find any leaks, he thinks that it is most likely just the valve that allows gasses to drift from the fuel tank. *Phew* Big relief there. Nothing too serious. Good thing too, seeing as we have an appointment for the Land Rover tomorrow. And an appointment at the vet. And a charity pick up. *quadruple sigh*
There were a couple of cooking sessions. Plenty of food to go round. Yesterday fresh cauliflower with baked macaroni and baked panneer. It was delicious. Today, on the other hand, with tenant’s help since she cut most of everything, I made mashed potato and carrots for supper today. To me today went down better. Love the taste of this meal.
Added to working on the roof of Sally’s cabin, I also spent some time by the sawing machine, cutting more than thirty slats for the beautiful boxes I am repairing. They’re covered with a hard Chinese/Japanese painting layers, meaning it is going to take some work to get them the way I want them. Have decided to use red hardwood, which isn’t as easy to work with as I’d like.
Well, time for bed for me. It’s been a long day and I’ve just about had it.
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