Terrible afternoon

Joey's rash has gotten horrendously worse in a single day.  Now he is COVERED with sores, half of which seem to have become infected, and his ears and feet have rashes as well. 

Poor little guy is COVERED with sores!

His ears and feet are full of rashes too

Red, red skin on his feet, too.

So I called LSU first thing this morning, but they couldn't see him for 2 weeks unless I brought him in as an emergency.  But if I did that, it wouldn't be a dermatologist who would be dealing with him.  And hey -- their ORDINARY fees are awful -- I was definitely NOT taking him in for an emergency visit! 

So when I got home today at 4:30 I loaded him in the truck and we headed over to AVS (our regular vet clinic).  Now they ARE 18 miles away, but they were going to be open until 7 PM  - 2 1/2 more hours -- so no problem, right?  Ha!  I thought it was bad that it took so long to get from home up to Perkins Road, but that was NOTHING.  I've learned since then that the interstate had closed all but a single lane so everyone trying to get on was backed up on Essen, but you might be interested to hear that it took 67 minutes to get up Essen Lane from Perkins Road to Jefferson Highway -- exactly 1.9 miles for those who are not familiar with it.  Thank God I don't live in town!  If I had to deal with that on a regular basis, well -- I WOULD NOT.  I'd be retiring and maybe even moving!!! 

Oh . . . AND the CD player in my truck broke AGAIN!   It was bad enough that it took over an hour to go 1.9 miles -- but without a book on tape????  Grrrrrr!!!!

We finally made it over there at just after 6:30 so they were still open, but it was close to 7 before we actually got in.  And almost 8 by the time we left! 

As for Joey's exam, what they did was (1) give him a Dexamethasone injection, (2) prescribe Temaril-P AND (3) Keflex, AND (4) change his food over to Royal Canin PD -- "duck and potato" dog food (???) for the next 8 weeks.  

Eight weeks on that food is supposed to determine whether he has a particular food allergy.  I'll tell you what, I sure HOPE that's what it is.  Changing his food would be SO much easier - and so much better for him than those continual antibiotic / cortisone treatments.  Poor guy!

And my back is still a mess.  I had to ask the vet tech to take Joey back to the exam room because him pulling me along was killing me!  I'll tell you what, tomorrow has GOT to be a better day!

Oh - one good thing . . . I DID get a call, finally, from the scheduler for Dr. Cleveland and he will be coming to work with both Lizzie and Duke on Thursday -- definately after 3 and probably after 5 since he's going to be working over in Lafayette earlier in the day.  She said he will give me a call when he leaves there so I'll have a good hour to get home if I'm still at work at the time.  So that will work well.  I hope my back feels better by then.   It probably wouldn't really matter, but still . . .