George had Surgery Today

I've been unsuccessfully trying to cut down on prednisone for George. He has to come down off of the steroids because his liver and kidneys are indicating trouble. Everytime I cut back a little, he becomes so itchy it sounds like he's beating on a big bass drum as he scratches non-stop. Unhappily, he scratched his ear so much he caused a hematoma. Sometimes you'll see a dog or a cat who has gone through having an ear hematoma - they look like someone skrunkled their ear up like a piece of lettuce. I held him all one evening with a bag of frozen peas trying to cool his ear down. I didn't want poor George to have the irritation or the disfigurement of a crumpled ear, so we made an appointment and I was to take George to his vet's this morning. I got him there about nine o'clock and knew I could stay around for a while because my mother was sound asleep at home. Our vet has her clinic open only Mondays, Fridays, and Saturday morning, but she works only as needed on other days. Thursday mornings she has a puppy class. Several people bring their puppies to the clinic to socialize while their human companions have a lesson on some kind of puppy development. What a huge treat to watch the puppies - all about six months old - greet each other and then play wildly. One lady brought her children as well as her puppy and one very charming little boy got right into the middle of the puppy play, so all of them, big and little puppies and little boy rolled and tumbled and ran around in circles and up and down the hallway - I couldn't watch fast enough!

Suddenly it was noon and I knew I had to leave George and go home to feed Mother. George had his surgery, had the hematoma cleaned out and his ear stitched back together with tidy little knotted stitches - so now his ear looks like a very small quilt - the tied kind.

When George arrived home, the drain in his ear was still dripping quite a bit and poor George was a little car sick and still staggering around. I left him outside so the other dogs wouldn't bother him and he just collapsed on the wooden wheelchair ramp. After about an hour, he got up and staggered over to his swimming pool. He waded around in the water, sat down for a minute, had a drink, and came out all recovered. I feel so sorry for him.

All of the time I've been writing about George, he's been hugging my leg and his draining ear has made a red puddle on the carpet. Sometimes it's nice to have forty year old carpet.