Paradise ponders... Well, yesterday didn't work out quite as planned.
First we had a couple of animals who were worryingly sick. Miki refused his banana treat in the morning – something almost unimaginable. Then there was that shivering the night before. We made a vet appointment for him, just before noon. We took along Kama (one of our older cats), because Debbie noted that he was losing weight and that his meow had changed. Miki had signs of an infection, so he's now on a course of antibiotics and he's got a blood panel going. The vet noticed that his tongue was full of cuts, a little swollen, and sort of blue – and said that he'd seen this before, with dogs that had tried hard to bite the burrs out of their fur. That's easy to imagine Miki did that on his walkabout. He's looking much better this morning. He lunged for his banana, apparently afraid a puppy might get it instead. :) The vet didn't see anything obviously off with Kama, but he's doing a senior blood panel to see if that picks anything up. He's suspicious that Kama might be hyperthyroid (common in cats), which the blood panel will check. If so, that's easily treated. He also suggested feeding him so food he really likes, so last night he got a can of food – which he hovered over as he devoured, defending it from all the kittens. We're less worried about both today.
Because of the vet appointment, I didn't make it down to pick up the dishwasher. So I went with Debbie to her physical therapy, instead of staying home installing the new dishwasher as per our original plan. It turns out to be a very good thing I did go with her: during her exercise on the upright bicycle, something happened in her right knee. Excruciating pain, and she lost a lot of range of motion. Her right knee is not the one that was operated on, so this caught everyone by surprise. Our fear, of course, was that she'd had another break. The physical therapists quickly determined that there wasn't anything really bad going on: no big, bad breaks, and no detached ligaments, etc. But we went next door to a private ER facility and had her X-rayed and seen by a doctor, just in case. The X-rays show all the bone looking normal (phew!), in fact quite healthy. They can't tell us anything about soft tissue damage, though. She was still in quite a bit of pain last night, and this morning. The pain medication she can take is limited these days, so we're going to call her surgeon this morning to see if he can prescribe something she's allowed. Meanwhile she's gobbling Tramadol, which help some but are not really strong enough. Her spirits are a bit low right now; she's seeing this as a big setback (which we don't actually know yet, and we have reason to hope that it will not be) and of course it hurts like hell.
New plan: today is the day of the dishwasher. I'll be heading down to Ogden to pick it up this morning, and then back to install it after lunch. I hope...
