Back to the Grindstone

July 28, 2014happicultrice Leave a comment

Having an eye scraped, nay dremeled, at 9 o’clock on a Monday morning is a crappy way to start the week. No breakfast. Early start. Light sedation. 30 minute op.

I have had another round of the old Corneal Epithelial Debridement. This time to accelerate my already impressive recovery. The opthalmo is pleased with my progress, and last Friday declared my eye free of infection. The cornea is clearing nicely, and he felt that he could hurry things along by performing today’s procedure.

Dallas picked me up at midday and I felt like this…

I have had a bit of a snooze and the odd whimper. Six hours post op and we have just been for a romp in the orchard and I’m starting to feel a lot better. More in focus…

Next appointment isn’t for 3 weeks. I will keep you posted.

I sense a disturbance in the force

July 22, 2014happicultrice 2 Comments

Something’s afoot. A fluctuation in the force.

Jedi Genepi has felt it. Just now her ears were right back. Tail between the legs. Desperate to get out. She’s gone into hiding.

Darth Splodge is also behaving oddly. More hissy and grumpy and sourpuss than ever. If thats possible.

Death Stare

It all started when Dallas came back with a bright orange basket. It smelt odd. Unpleasant. Strange noises. What in the name of Beelzebub is going on?

So, here’s the thing. What do you need if you have two, lively, demanding Border Collies? A kitten. Genius.

She’s not even black and white.

Do I look like I’m from the Dark Side?

She’s actually a feisty, wee thing. Not scared of us at all. Which is wrong. Very affectionate. Ridiculously playful.

By the way, They have called her Mouse.

I think I’m going to like her! She is my Princess Mouse. Am I a Rebel?

Buried Treasure

July 18, 2014happicultrice Leave a comment

Yesterday we were playing, I mean investigating, down at the Fallen Oak.

The Fallen Oak toppled over about 2 years ago. It was a sad moment, because it was a magnificent tree and old. Dallas measured its girth. It came out at 360 cms. Which roughly translates to be about 180 years old. This tree started life at around the time that Queen Victoria ascended to the throne, Chicago became a city, the first steamboats crossed the Atlantic and Lea & Perrins invented Worcester sauce.

The good news is that its not completely dead. One half of it still has leaves. I’m told that they call this a Phoenix Oak.

One of us must have dislodged some earth, because Dallas suddenly noticed a little turquoise coloured box. Sat inside a bigger rusty tin. What could it be? A late Roman lunch box? A Pre French Revolution tin of cookies (Bourbon biscuits)?

Dallas said we should come back, and do an Archaeological Dig. She said Dig. Yippee.

So today we set to. In archaeological terms, the preparation was shabby. Slapdash. No theodolite. No datum. No geofizz. Just a trowel. And the wrong sort of trowel at that.

Im detecting very little but pure iron oxide

Well, Sutton Hoo it wasn’t. No golden doubloons, no exquisite religious relics. Just a handful of old rusty washers, some nails and some random bits of ironwork. What an anticlimax!

Oh well, at least we had fun in the sun.

Spoil sport farmer

July 15, 2014happicultrice Leave a comment

Genepi and I love playing hide and seek. But they’ve only gone and destroyed our favourite field.

Me hiding – can you spot me?

For a few months now, part of our favourite walk has involved this field – if I’m not mistaken its wheat. Its fun to run through, and there’s loads of animal scents to be had. I like to leap up and down like a young gazelle.

Anyway, for some reason, its all been chopped down. A big, yellow, noisy machine came this afternoon, creating clouds of dust. It munched through the stems.

Wanton destruction. There should be a law against it.

I guess we’ll have to invent a new game. Probably one that involves sunflowers.

Neat and Tidy

July 13, 2014happicultrice 1 Comment

The garden is neat and tidy – certainly not me. Boy, have I worked hard this afternoon!

Genepi here. Blog is having a nap, so I’ve hijacked his blog. He’s going to be livid, but hey ho. Wanted to tell you that I just had a smashing time doing one of my All Time Favourite Jobs – strimming. Andy did the swaying from side to side bit, holding the thing, and I did the running around in circles and barking a lot bit.

Andy helping me with the strimming

Hard graft but very satisfying – gardening can be like that, can’t it. Wonder if I’ll ever get clean.

We stopped work briefly because of an Interruption. This baby bird had flown into a window, and was all dazed and confused. Dallas comforted it for about 5 minutes, it came round and flew off. Phew.

we’re thinking that this is a baby blackbird

Looks like Blog is coming round too – best go!

Feeling alot less ruff

July 4, 2014happicultrice 3 Comments

Just back from the ophthalmologist, who was very pleased with my progress. He put a stain in my eye, and could see that the affected area had diminished quite a bit in 3 days.

neon green – on trend, but not really my colour?

So, the Good News is that I am on the mend, and …. drum roll …. I can lose the collar. Hurrah! Andy and Dallas said they found it tiresome that I kept crashing into furniture, misjudging doors and bashing into the backs of their legs.

Huh – THEY found it tiresome – what about me!

Question now is what to do with the hateful lump of plastic. I’d like to destroy it, smash it to smithereens. Brainiac-style. Dallas thinks we might be able to re-purpose it (dreadful expression). But what could it be used for?

Please let me know if you have any eyedeas (thanks Uncle Graham)

Love, Bloggie the Free

My Eye Ordeal : the first six weeks

July 3, 2014happicultrice 2 Comments

Its been a long haul, so I won’t bore you with the details. And we’ll gloss over the gory bits. But its worth noting, as a cautionary tale.

Six weeks ago. A small granule of swimming pool chlorine. A serious chemical burn to the eye. Numerous visits to the vet. The first lot of surgery. Two setbacks, and any number of eyedrops, injections, pills and pomades. And that blessed silly collar.

I was ‘helping’ clean the swimming pool – it needed transforming from a dark, greeny-black duck pond into something clean, transparent and sparkling. It had been well dosed with tablets of strong chlorine, and it was whilst hosing down the filters the following day that a bit of this solid chlorine went into my eye.

We dashed off to the emergency vet as soon as They noticed my eye all red, closed and swollen. Over the phone the vet had told us to do nothing, in case it was a detached retina. But with hindsight, a really, really good dowsing with water immediately may well have been beneficial. The vet checked that it wasn’t a grass seed or other foreign body. Gave me a pain killing injection. Diagnosis : chemical burn.

Setback No 1 : You know that little claw on a dog’s wrist. Think its called a dewclaw. That must have caught in my eye, during a particularly vigorous rubbing. Did even more damage. That’s when the collar came in.

Setback No 2 : To be technical, the corneal epithelium had become detached from the stroma. The cornea is made up of several layers, and these are two of them. Having become unglued, it was healing back all rucked and irregular. An operation under general anaesthetic was needed to to scrape away the affected tissue. Corneal Epithelial Debridement if you care to Google it. Eye sewn shut to help healing. Bloody marvellous.

Thats when I was told to wait 2 weeks, cross my fingers (difficult) and hope that all would heal and be hunk dory… (see preceding post)

Hopes Dashed

July 2, 2014happicultrice 6 Comments

feeling a little ruff

No, No, No! Talk about having my hopes raised, only to be sent hurtling back to Earth. We are back to Square One. Make that Square Minus One Hundred.

That Dallas has been counting down the days – only 4 more Sleeps, only 3 more Sleeps and so on. Counting down until my appointment yesterday morning, when I could not only have my eye unsewn up, but also get rid of this stupid lamp shade that I have been forced to wear for weeks.

Anyway, it was Bad News. I was ever so brave and kept still whilst the stitches holding my eye shut came out. The lady vet frowned. She called in the man vet. He frowned and talked about granulation and degradation. Dallas has a look and saw that my cornea was still ulcerated – purply red and milky. Not a pretty sight. Not for the faint hearted.

An appointment was rapidly made to see a doggie ophthalmologist. We whizzed over there, and he used a more complicated looking contraption to peer into my eye, and thankfully didn’t need the fluorescent eye drops. He said there was a procedure to halt the degradation – he sounded positive.

As I had been nil-by-mouth for almost 24 hours (add starvation to the list of mediaeval tortures I am currently subjected to), he could operate immediately.

So, I have now had Corneal Cross Linking – where riboflavin (vitamin B2) is activated by being illuminated with UV-A light for about 30 minutes. This is to stimulate strengthening of collagen strands in the cornea.

Dallas picked me up a couple of hours later – I was still very woozy from the general anaesthetic. In fact I felt pretty rubbish all evening. The procedure was painless and I have a temporary contact lens. I also get to keep the lamp shade for at least another 3 or 4 days 😦

This morning, I am back to my Bloggie self and had a big bowl of Bloggie Flakes for breakfast. We go back to see my specialist on Friday – I will keep you posted.

At least I’m not alone…

wonder why Peter Gabriel had to wear his collar?

Blog of Blog

a sheepdog's trials and tribulations

Menu

Widgets

Search

Month: July 2014