Tuesday noon

Well, I'm at work (lunch time) and Joey is at home by himself for the first time since his surgery last Thursday -- which makes me more than a little bit nervous.  I moved the bedroom furniture around before I left this morning confining him to a space about 10 X 10 with his big bed in the center so he won't have to deal with getting that cone collar stuck on the crate sides and making it possible for him to lay down comfortably all day. 

That huge new 55" crate is due to be delivered on Thursday, I'm told, so it's probably not going to be much of a help with Joey this time around.  I'm not sure how long after it arrives Joey's stitches will come out, but probably not long.  Oh, well, I'm sure eventually we will need a crate again for one reason or another and the bigger the better.  Not to mention the fact that its 45" height will make a FINE nightstand next to our bed at the moment since I currently have TWO mattresses on there that make the bed so high that I have to use a 3-step horse mounting block to get in and out of the thing!  (Go ahead -- laugh.  What can I say.)  I just can't seem to decide whether to donate that extra mattress or what . . . and we haven't got anywhere to store it inside . . . and I don't want to put it out in the garage or some such place, so . . . .  it's under the regular mattress on our bed until I decide.  Of course I've been trying to decide about that for the last several months now!   (Wow!  Wendy and I are apparently more alike in that sense than I thought!)




Joey in his bed instead of his crate - notice that he's laying on the side with the stitches - something he's only begun to do over the last 24 hours or so 
(and yes, that IS a mounting block there in the background)



As for Joe-Joe's progress after surgery, he is still not walking on that leg again yet.  Courtney, the senior vet student who is on this case, gave me a call last night and I told her about the relapse since Sunday's emergency visit.  I'll tell you what, I'm really impressed with her.  She is going to make one FINE vet, let me tell you.  She seems to have an answer to virtually every question (which is more than I can say about some of the actual doctors I've dealt with).  Anyway, she said she was going to check on exactly what went on during his visit Sunday and get back to me later today.  I'm going to check with her then about some additional changes I've noticed if that's still the case this evening.  For one thing, that leg - the whole thing feels warmer than it did.  Not "hot" exactly, just warmer than the other one -- which wasn't the case up until now.  I'll definitely check on that again as soon as I get home this afternoon.  (I'll be leaving work early - again - for sure!)

Fortunately, one of my bosses gave me a looong patent application based on one that was originally filed in Polish and for which the (Polish) inventors provided us with an English translation that is less than straightforward.  I say "fortunately" because I will be able to work on getting it split out into separate English and Polish versions from home so I won't be QUITE as short of hours this week, thankfully.   

It's a good thing because no matter how I try and rearrange Joey's meds, I end up doing SOMETHING in the middle of the night.  That's another thing I need to check with Courtney about today -- do I need to continue to give him that slurry that protects his tummy and intestines an hour before every meal for as long as he continues his meds, even though he's been taken off the ones that created the problem?   Just skipping that step would be a huge help in getting his schedule better arranged since it won't be necessary to wait an entire hour after I get home before feeding him and giving him his other pills -- which inevitably makes the NEXT dose due at something like 1 AM.   Yawn.   After which he has to be taken outside to the bathroom, and then I do his leg exercises to help him settle down again for sleep.  Those exercises seem to work a lot like a massage would.  After the first few, he starts to lay back and take nice deep breaths and sighs like it feels really good to him.  Strange.  But effective.  But by the time we finish up, it's darned near 2 AM.  I am NOT (normally) a night person!  But hey - I guess you can deal with anything for a week, right?  It can't be much longer than that -- I hope.

Okay.  Back to work so I can head out early.