Marlowe And His Multiple Visits To The Vets

 

Marlowe has been in disgrace for a few days now.  He says he’s not sorry; he’d do it again under similar circumstances.

For a while now I’d been cleaning Marlowe’s right eye every day.  It’s been a bit mucky and crusty.  Cleaning Marlowe’s eye isn’t the easy job it sounds.  First, one must dampen a clean rag with warm water, and then the fun begins.  As soon as Marlowe sees the rag he takes off, but Marlowe is a good boy, and with lots of coaxing and cajoling he eventually, step by slow step, comes back and accepts his fate.  When I say, “accepts his fate”, don’t for a minute think the battle is over.  Marlowe will stand beside me, but with his head hanging as far down, without actually touching the ground, as he can manage.  Now I have to pick up that huge head and begin the cleaning operation.  Marlowe’s head must weigh a tonne, but the job eventually gets done.

I thought he must have ingrowing eyelashes that were causing the mucky eye, so I rang the vet to have his eye looked at.  We saw the vet on Tuesday, the same day I had my two new ferrets, Atlas and Bram, castrated.  Atlas and Bram were dropped off in the morning for their operations and when I picked them up in the afternoon, Marlowe had his vet appointment.  Our veterinary surgery is undergoing major renovations at the moment.  The entire surgery was pulled down as soon as the new operating section of the new surgery was finished.  Clients then had the choice to sit outside under a large awning or wait in the waiting room of a demountable building until it was their turn to see a vet.  Most of the consultations were actually done in the waiting room or under the awning, because there was only one small consulting room attached to the waiting room.

                              Marlowe before his surgery - note his mucky eye and dapper tuxedo bib.

When I arrived with Marlowe, it was clear I wouldn’t get a choice.  The outside area was populated with a large range of dogs, none of whom looked happy to see my giant puppy come walking down the path.  Discretion begin the better part of valour, I chose to wait in the empty waiting room with Marlowe.  He was wearing his tuxedo bib for the occasion, and was very pleased to be out and about.  The dogs outside were very pleased this overdressed giant wasn’t settling amongst them.

As new clients came in to let the receptionist know they’d arrived Marlowe took the opportunity to make new friends.  That day it seemed that most new patients arriving were small dogs or cats, none of whom wanted anything to do with Marlowe, despite his assuring the cats that he had a good friend at home who was a cat, and telling the little dogs he wasn’t sure what they were but he’d like to be friends anyway.  The owners on the other hand all wanted to pat the big pup and some asked if they could take a photo or even asked to have their photo taken with him.  I’m sure Marlowe began to feel like a rock star.

While we were waiting, Rob, a new vet at the practice who I had not met before, came in to chat with me.  “I’ve been playing with the less bitey of your ferrets”, he began. 

“That would be Atlas”, I replied because there’s no way Bram could ever be described as ‘less bitey’.

Rob then proceeded to ask a lot of questions about ferrets.  From his questions, I’m pretty sure Atlas had won him over and Rob was now thinking about owning ferrets himself.  I did all I could for ferret PR, assuring him that if a ferret was properly raised and socialised they made wonderful pets.  I also mentioned that Bram was still a work in progress, but I was confident that he too would be a lot less bitey in the near future.

While Rob was talking to me, he was patting Marlowe and rubbing Marlowe’s ears (one of Marlowe’s very favourite way of being patted).  Rob, looked down at Marlowe, and then said more to himself than to me, “I wonder who is treating him today?  I’ll just go find out, because I’d love to treat him.”  And with that Rob left the waiting room.

He returned a short time later, following Georgina, Marlowe’s vet for the day.  While Georgina examined Marlowe and discussed the problem of ingrowing eyelashes with me, Rob continued to pat Marlowe and tell him he was a good boy.  He then went back to the new building to retrieve my ferrets for me.  I paid their bill and made an early morning appointment for Marlowe to return the next day to have surgery on his eye.

                             Atlas (sitting up) and Bram (not his best angle) recovering from surgery.  

As I was leaving, a vet nurse rushed out to ask if I’d give my permission for them to publish a photo Rob took of the ferrets post op recovery on their Facebook page.  I gave permission and we headed home.  Graeme was resigned to another two trips there and back to the vets’ the next day and Marlowe settled down next to Cleo, who had joined him for his car ride into town.

Wednesday morning, I was up early ready for the 45 minute trip back into town.  Cleo and Marlowe were loaded into the car and off we set.  On arrival, I once again sat in the waiting room until Georgina, with Rob still in tow, came to collect by gorgeous puppy.  Then it was back home to wait for the phone call to say we could pick him up. 

The call came and we headed back into Wagga yet again.  Rob was there to tell me how well behaved Marlowe had been and a short time later Marlowe himself arrived with Georgina.  I was given instructions for postoperative care, including the need for Marlowe to wear a cone, and an appointment was made for ten days later to remove the stitches.  Marlowe’s blood tests had shown an abnormal liver reading, so Marlowe was to have another blood test then as well.  I paid the hefty surgery bill and we headed home.

This is where Marlowe ended up in our bad books.  Once home I put the plastic cone on Marlowe and endured quite few bashes to my legs or hips as Marlowe refused to take the extra length added to his front end by the cone.  Marlowe spent the rest of the afternoon banging into walls, fences, Cleo, Venus and me.  I was glad when nighttime arrived and he settled down for sleep.  Little did I suspect what would await me in the morning.

Marlowe met me at the back door without his collar and some of the stitches under his eye torn out.  The collar was still intact, he’d just managed to remove it during the night and had a good scratch at the stitches before settling down to sleep.

I took gory, close-up photos of Marlowe’s eye and sent them to Georgina, asking if he’d need the stitches re-done.  Georgina said she’d really have to see him in person to gauge the damage done.  To say Graeme was unhappy about this decision is to understate his feelings enormously.  We headed back to the vets’ for trips number five and six.  Cleo was not invited this time, Graeme’s patience was being worn thin and I didn’t want to exacerbate it.  On the way into Wagga, Graeme said he wasn’t coming back in on Friday and that was all there was to it.  I pointed out if Marlowe needed surgery we wouldn’t have a choice.  This statement was met with stony silence, so Marlowe and I decided to keep a low profile for the rest of the trip - Marlowe settling down out of sight, and me reading my book.

We had another wait in the waiting room, where Marlowe made more friends.  Rob showed up to commiserate with Marlowe, who was keen to let Rob know that he, Marlowe, had had no choice but to remove the horrible cone and have a good scratch.  Hadn’t we heard that it was illegal to torture poor innocent dogs? Georgina arrived, and she too gave Marlowe lots of pats and sympathy.  Poor Graeme was waiting in the car, thinking of all the farm work that needed doing while he whiled away the time waiting for me to return to the car – Graeme was the one who really needed pats and sympathy.

Unsurprisingly, the only solution to the problem Marlowe had created was surgery.  The remaining stitches needed to be taken out and new ones put in – all under general anaesthetic.  Marlowe couldn’t have the surgery that day because they had a full list of operations for the day.  Marlowe was booked in for the next day and he and I returned to the car to give Graeme the bad news.  Graeme took it stoically and without a word, drove off (once we were in the car – not without us, which I’m sure was a tempting thought for the poor beleaguered farmer).

Friday saw us driving in to Wagga yet again.  Cleo was allowed to come along for the ride, and enjoyed it thoroughly.  I think, out of everyone concerned, Cleo was the one who had the best time of it.  She loves car rides and to get one or two each day for four days was heaven for her.  Marlowe was dropped off and once again, I went home and waited for news that Marlowe could be picked up. 

The call came in the afternoon so off we drove again.  Neither Graeme nor I discussed the cost of this second surgery.  When I was given the bill, I nearly fainted.  It was only slightly less than the original hefty cost of the eye surgery.  I decided not to mention it to Graeme unless he actually asked.  Graeme being very wise did not ask. 

Marlowe came out with a cone already in place.  You have to imagine the size of a plastic cone that will fit a Saint Bernard.  They are huge!  We had to remove it for Marlowe to fit in the back of the car, but as soon as we were home, I put it back on as tightly as I could while still allowing Marlowe to breathe.  I then went online and bought a donut type collar for when the stitches had settled down.  This collar went on about a week later when Marlowe had finally managed to destroy his plastic collar.  All that bumping into things finally took its toll on the collar and it just gave up with a sigh.  Once the soft, donut collar was in place Cleo, Venus, the fences and I were no longer barrelled into by a large dog and hard plastic cone.

The day finally arrived when Marlowe was to have his stitches out.  Thankfully, Graeme had managed to be ten productive days the farm so going back in to Wagga again wasn’t an issue this time.  I waited in the waiting room with Marlowe, which was fast becoming to feel like a home away from home.  We were the only ones in the waiting room this time.  Georgina came to collect Marlowe (Rob was nowhere in sight for once) and take him over to the surgical building to remove the stitches and do the blood test. 

While Marlowe was away, a Border Collie and his owner and a little Terrier type dog with his owner came into the waiting room.  When Marlowe returned, he took one look at the Border Collie, who wasn’t even looking at Marlowe, and decided this dog was scary.  The Border Collie and his owner were both waiting in line to pay their bill and were not paying any attention to Marlowe.  Marlowe still felt that that black and white dog was up to no good and it was all aimed at an innocent young Saint Bernard.  Marlowe began to back up slowly, until he was nearly sitting on my lap.  He refused to take his eyes off the Collie, while backing into my legs.  Marlowe then decided I was not enough protection so he changed course and backed into Georgina’s legs where she sat beside me.  Georgina laughed at Marlowe’s antics, but Marlowe couldn’t see the funny side. 

I had to wait for the owner of the Border Collie to pay his bill and leave the waiting room before I could go up to the desk to pay Marlowe’s bill.  This was when Marlowe spotted the little Terrier.  The Terrier, who had been very nervous ever since he and his owner had arrived, had been pulled out from under his owner’s chair and placed on John, the vets’, knee for his consultation.  The Terrier took one look at Marlowe and decided NO! - he was not doing this, and tried desperately to hide inside the vet’s shirt.  Marlowe on the other hand was entranced.  He didn’t like the Border Collie, but he really, really wanted to be best friends with this tiny little creature.  To this end, Marlowe made a number of attempts to lunge at the Terrier, assuring it he came in peace.  I had other ideas about this and held on to the lead with all my strength.  This made getting my purse out to pay the bill rather difficult.  I asked the receptionist if she could hold the lead while I fished out my purse, but though she tried valiantly to keep Marlowe a respectable distance from the poor little, beleaguered Terrier she was only partly successful.  We then had the problem that, although I had my debit card out, the receptionist needed to set up the payment.  I took Marlowe back, still struggling to keep him from drooling all over the vet and the Terrier.  If it wasn’t for one other client, who I will bless for the rest of my days, I imagine things could have ended with Marlowe disgracing himself and really scaring the poor Terrier.  This wonderful woman saw the problem and began talking to Marlowe, telling him what a handsome fellow he was and how much she loved his big.

Flattery will always get Marlowe’s attention and thankfully, this saint of a woman was across the other side if the waiting room.  Marlowe veered in her direction and forgot all about the Terrier, who I’m sure, had aged a few years in the last few minutes – I know I had.  Marlowe sat in front of the woman, showing her his best manners while I paid the bill.  I thanked her profusely before I left.  “What type of dog is he?” she asked.  “A Saint Bernard”, I answered.  Her reply to that made me laugh, “Well he’s lovely, but I wouldn’t want him sleeping on my bed!”  Neither would I as it happens.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Christmas

 

Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Rosemary and the Menagerie

 

 

   

Tristan

Vale Tristan

Tristan died a few weeks ago.  I miss him dreadfully.

Tristan arrived at Spring Rock in January 2003, as the cutest ginger kitten I’d ever met.  A few months before his arrival I’d mentioned to my friend and neighbour, Aileen, that with all the cats I’d owned in my long history of cat ownership, I’d only ever had one ginger cat and that was when I was a child.  I told her I love ginger cats (well, I love any colour cat, but I was talking about ginger cats at the time) and would love to own another one.  A month or two later Aileen asked if I still wanted a ginger cat.  Graeme was nowhere in sight so I said yes.  Aileen’s daughter’s cat had had an illicit liaison with a feral tomcat and had produced a litter of kittens, one of whom was ginger.

As soon as he was old enough to leave his mum Aileen brought the little ginger scrap over to his new home.  Tristan settled in quickly.  I named him Tristan to fit in with the current Arthurian theme at the time.  Lancelot and Guinevere were my two, now middled aged cats in residence.  Tristan developed a deep affection for Graeme, almost on sight, and wouldn’t take no for an answer when he wanted to sit on Graeme’s knee.  Graeme wasn’t used to feline attention.  Lancelot and Guinevere spent all their spare time on my knee.  After a few false starts, Graeme and Tristan became firm friends and the tiny kitten would curl up on Graeme’s knee while he worked on his computer at night.  As Tristan grew older and larger, and took up more of Graeme’s knee he was told he’d have to find somewhere else to spend his nights as he was now in the way, so Tristan, ever the pragmatist, found a spare spot on my knee and ignored the two older cat’s bad language as he settled in.

Lancelot and Guinevere didn’t ever really accept the new arrival.  Their opinion of this little ginger scrap was decidedly negative.  They felt that the house operated well on a two-cat basis and saw no need to over populate the house with an excess redhead.  Tristan lived on the periphery of their lives and was content to do so.  Very little upset Tristan.  He’d just go with the flow with any situation that arose.  I’m not sure that this laid-back attitude to life didn’t annoy Lancelot and Guinevere more.  No matter what bad language or physical insults they threw at Tristan, he’d just move a little further away, out of striking range, and settle down for his nap, whether on my lap, in front of the heater or in the bathroom on the beds there at night.

After Lancelot and Guinevere were no longer with us, Tristan settled down to enjoy life without cross cats in his life.  He didn’t have long to enjoy the single life before Ambrosia and Nefertiti arrived.  Unlike his two predecessors, Tristan welcomed the two new kittens with open paws and not a claw in sight.  All three cats settled into a warm friendship where there were no fights about lap space, heater privileges or room on the bed.  Strangely, sunny spots on the carpet did cause harsh words from time to time, but I’d just open the curtains further and increase the sunny spot size on the carpet and peace would reign again.

At first Tristan didn’t seem to fit into the Spring Rock menagerie.  He was a totally sane cat.  This was unheard of in the annals of my menagerie.  I mentioned my concerns to Graeme, rather in the manner of expecting trouble to rear its head any time now.  I needn’t have worried; it didn’t take long for the general lunacy among the four-legged Spring Rock population to rub off on him.  After a while, Tristan developed his own little idiosyncrasies.  When he felt unloved or unappreciated, Tristan took to putting his face against the wall and not talking to any of us.  He began channelling Meerkats, sitting upright on his bottom and hind legs for extra height, despite being on the floor so not gaining any advantage with this extra height, and, he began bunny worrying.  

In his younger days, before retirement and a sedentary life inside, Tristan preferred the wide outdoors most of the time.  When hanging around the house yard and house, whichever side of the door Tristan found himself was the wrong side of the door.  The time I spent opening the back door to either let him in or out doesn’t bare thinking about.  

When outside and wanting to come in, Tristan would sit outside the lounge room window and emit little plaintive meows.  It seemed only I could hear these pleas to be let inside.  Graeme remain blissfully impervious to them.  Once inside he’d visit the food bowl and catch up with Ambrosia and Nefertiti for any new gossip (before these two friendly cats’ arrival he ignored Guinevere and Lancelot because all he would have received for his trouble would be a growl or swat), visit the food bowl again and soon begin to think of all the farm he hadn’t yet explored.  His strategy for letting me know his visit has come to an end was to jump on me if I was sitting down, jump down again, walk a little way away from me while looking over his shoulder at me in a significant way, then returning to jump on me again.  Tristan was no lightweight cat.  When you'd been jumped on by Tristan you were left in no doubt that you'd been jumped on.  His landings were often accompanied by an "Ooof!" from me as his paws hit my stomach (I tend to lay back slightly on the lounge with my feet up you see).  If I was standing up he wound his way around my legs, doing his best to trip me up (so he could jump on me I imagine).  He then headed door-wards while throwing me that significant look once again and returned to wind himself around me again if I still hadn’t figured his message out.

Tristan would disappear for days on end – on two separate occasions he was gone for over two weeks!  When he returned his ears would be covered in rabbit fleas.  We believed the only way he could acquire such a large number of fleas - his ears would be black with them - was to actually go down the rabbit holes in search of bunnies.  Rabbit fleas behave more like ticks than fleas.  They burrowed into Tristan’s ears and stayed put.  We haven’t had a flea on any of our pets since we moved to Spring Rock which is wonderful, and the only fleas we had to deal with stayed in the one spot on Tristan making de-fleaing a very easy process - Graeme and I simply used tweezers to de-flea Tristan on his return home.  If Tristan came home without us noticing the fleas, he would make sure to sit on my lap, give me a significant look and rub his ears on my shirt.  I soon got the message and Tristan was soon flea free again.

As he grew older, Tristan became more and more a homebody, choosing the inside option more and more until eventually he didn’t go outside at all.  When he first settled into old age Tristan would stand at the front door until I opened it so he could go outside and sit on either the front steps or just meander onto the front porch.  That was enough outside for him for a couple of years.  Then when he reached 18 he would ask for the front door to be opened, look out onto the porch and garden, ignoring the door I’d opened for him, then walk back to his comfortable bed, secure in the knowledge that should he ever wish to go on adventures the outside was still there waiting for him.  Eventually even checking the door still led to outside stopped and Tristan reached full retirement.

At 18 Tristan started having infrequent, but terrifying seizures.  His visit to the vets during the pandemic, along with Cleo and Aslan who also needed vet treatment, was not his idea of how an elderly gentleman should be treated.  Dreadful threats and bad language emanated from the cat carrier - even Cleo and Aslan looked concerned at the threats.  Once at the vets’ (we had two vets treating the three pets) Tristan quietened down and bided his time while the larger patients were seen to.  When Tristan’s turn came, I warned Jen, the vet, that he was in a bad mood and now felt that one of the privileges of old age was to be irascible and say it with tooth and claw when really ticked off.  Jen approached the cat carrier with caution, saying that most elderly gentlemen could be problems. 

Tristan decided to hold no grudges against Jen.  It wasn’t her fault he had been treated so abominably in the last hour or so, and he gave her is best purr while rubbing his face along her hand.  Jen was a devoted fan from that moment.  She complimented me on his excellent condition, despite his age.  I told her I hadn’t done much to contribute towards that condition - I’d bought him a heating pad for cold winter weather and called out to Tristan each time I encountered a very elderly cat on the internet, telling him the cat’s age and letting Tristan know this was the new number we were aiming for.  After a number of tests Jen told me, the seizures were not a big problem as long as they remained spaced about a month or more apart.  Should they get closer together we would have to review Tristan’s quality of life and make hard decisions.  Thankfully, they never occurred closer than a month apart, so Tristan and I just dealt with them as they occurred.  He was always able to recover relatively quickly - I think he was over the seizure before I was.

He enjoyed a “mushed” egg each day when eggs were plentiful or a small helping of butter off the end of my knife as I made my lunch when they weren’t.  Tristan began having a mushed egg because he refused to eat the egg white, gobbling up the yolk and ignoring the rest of his egg.  I whisked it to combine the two and Tristan polished off the lot, so that became his treat.  One time I had put the egg in his bowl when the phone rang.  I answered the phone and then wandered away, forgetting about the unmushed egg.  Tristan was appalled!  He sat there waiting for me to return to my duties, and when I failed to show up, half an hour later, he came and got me, letting me know I needed to return to the kitchen.  As I followed him, his tail straight up in the air to express his disappointment in me, Tristan muttered about how hard it was to get good help these days.  He then sat next to his bowl and looked at me, then the egg, then me again.  I got the message, mushed the egg and all was forgiven.

Tristan had me well trained in the delivering of mushed eggs and in many other ways.  When resting on my lap, if Tristan decided I was non-gainfully occupied with my needlework or reading, he would reach out a paw, hook it around my wrist (no claws involved thankfully) and bring my hand over to the spot that needed patting or scratching.  Once I was gainfully employed, he'd close his eyes and enjoy the attention.  Should I stop patting or scratching him and return to my earlier occupation, Tristan would simply repeat the process that led to his comfort and hook my wrist again and pull it towards him.  There was really no point in trying to sew or read when Tristan wanted attention, so attention Tristan got.

In the end, Tristan lived to two months short of his 21^st birthday.  Tristan had lived with me longer than any of my children had, a fact I pointed out to them often.  Although he began to look like a very elderly cat towards the end, with that scruffy coat older cats usually have, he remained spry enough.  I bought a grooming glove to help with the scruffy look, but there was no denying my beautiful boy was a very old cat.  He had his daily arthritis medicine, which couldn’t have tasted too bad because Tristan would remind me if I forgot to administer it.  He’d stand by the kitchen cupboards near where I kept the medicine on the bench, look at me, and wait for me to catch his message. 

He died on his bed.  In the morning, we found him there in a bad way.  His back legs no longer worked and he’d become incontinent during the night.  He died before we could get him to the vets’ for which I was grateful.  A long car ride in the cat carrier when he was in such a bad way would have been so stressful for my gorgeous old gentleman.  I had time to say goodbye to him and thank him for almost 21 wonderful years of his company.  Sadly, I have no photos of Tristan’s last months to share.  I had a bad run in with technology around that time.  My computer was dead for over five weeks so I didn’t save my phone photos to the computer.  Then, before the computer was repaired, the SD card in my phone died, taking all my recent photos with it.  I have photos of Tristan from the day he arrived until a few months ago and I’ll always have my memories of a life shared with a wonderful red headed fellow.

 

 

 

Recuperating With The Menagerie

I’ve been on the recovery list for a while.  Back in early April, I needed surgery to my left second toe and my right foot.  I had broken my toe a couple of times over the years and it had curled over, making wearing shoes uncomfortable.  I also had an arthritic spur on the top of my right foot making shoes uncomfortable there as well.  The surgery was quick and easy and I was home again that night with orders from the surgeon to keep my feet elevated until she saw me in ten days time to take out the stitches.  The left toe had a rod inserted into it during surgery with a little white bead sticking out of the end of my toe, just waiting to be knocked on something, so I took my keeping my feet up orders very seriously.  This rod had to stay in for six weeks.

I made a long-term nest for myself on the lounge where I had all life’s essentials to hand – my knitting, needlework project, books, laptop and the television remote.  I wasn’t forbidden from putting my feet on the floor so other essentials such as cups of tea were on a get it myself basis.  I was all set to recuperate in comfort.

Nefertiti was the first to discover my semi-prone form and she was all in favour of it.  She settled herself on my stomach, composed a new purr just for the occasion and closed her eyes to enjoy me lying down for long periods of time.  Despite Nefertiti wanting to keep this a secret, word soon got out amongst the other cats.  Tristan and Ambrosia soon began to crowd Nefertiti out and the jockeying for space on Mum soon began in earnest. 

I’ve mentioned before that with the cats it’s the closest to my face who wins, which usually means last one on is the winner.  With my legs lying out straight (albeit on an unusual incline) and my torso semi-flat, there was considerably more space for the taking, but only the very top of my chest was the desired area for all three cats.  When I came out to the lounge room first thing in the morning the battles would commence for the prime piece of property.  Ambrosia was usually first up and she contented herself with the top of my legs, until Nefertiti arrived and chose my stomach.  Tristan, being 20 years old now and a cat of peace, would wander in soon after that and just look for a peaceful, war free zone.  Unfortunately, Ambrosia and Nefertiti fought the Battle for Closest to the Face every morning.  I would do what I could to shield Tristan with one hand and remove both brawling cats one handed. 

Once the two combatants were exiled to the floor, looking very disgruntled and totally innocent Tristan could settle down.  Nefertiti and Ambrosia would sneak back, duly chastened for the time being and I would get on with my sewing, knitting or reading.  Thankfully, Graeme came in to give me the much needed cup of teas and lunch at appropriated times.  

The problem arose when trips to the bathroom were necessary – and believe me, I put them off as long as possible.  I would begin my exit by putting Nefertiti on the floor.  She was the cat who invariably won the War of the Closest to the Face, so the first one I could reach.  Before Nefertiti was able to jump back up again I had to get Ambrosia off my legs, which was nowhere near as straight forward as you’d think.  Ambrosia instantly took on the consistency of that slime children play with.  If I picked up her middle, she’d sort of ooze out of my hand, if I tried using both hands she’d go limp and roll away from the hands.  It took a while to manage to corral the entire cat and by this time, Nerfertiti was up on my chest again, preparing to forgive and forget and settle back to her snooze.  Eventually, both girls were on the floor and I would gently move my legs away from Tristan who always ended up in a little Tristan sized zone between my legs and the back of the lounge.  Both Nefertiti and Ambrosia sat on the floor giving me their most hurt look.  I’d head bathroom way apologising and I went.

Once back on the lounge the whole process began again, with the exception that Tristan usually stayed in his little Tristan Zone of Peace.  Words would be said on my part and ignored on Nefertiti’s and Ambrosia’s part, and eventually we’d reach the stage where everyone involved could live with the arrangement until I had to get up the next time.

In case you are worrying about Venus, she had no interest in joining the other three cats on top of me.  Venus took one look at the scuffling and nasty words being exchanged (the cats’ not mine) and preferred to spend her days with her dog, much to Cleo’s embarrassment.  Venus spent her days catching mice and presenting them as love tokens to Cleo, who did not favour the taste of mice.  Once I was up and around on my feet again, I would watch Cleo roll her eyes at yet another small, dead offering from that strange cat.  If she noticed my presence, Cleo would look at me, clearly appealing that I do something about this, as it was mortifying to be fed mice by a cat.  Marlowe solved the problem each time by ducking in and snatching the mouse, because he had no such prejudices against the taste of mouse.  When Venus came in at night, she’d settle herself on Tristan’s bed on one of the lounge chairs and snooze the night away.

 

 Tristan enjoying his bed before my foot surgery.

The puppies’ roles in my rehabilitation came after I was back on my feet.  Both puppies behaved as if I’d been out of their lives for years rather than only seeing them occasionally for just ten days.  Cleo thankfully has matured into gentle old age.  She contented herself with standing beside me and placing her head under my hand in case pats were available – they always were.  After the pats were administered, Cleo would either follow me around the yard “helping” with whatever I was doing, or retreat to her sunny spot and go back to sleep.  Cleo has become a low maintenance dog if we forget about her very expensive operation a few months ago (I’ll write about that in the future).

Marlowe would bound about me, showing how happy he was to see me and invite me to a game of tug of war or chasing, neither of which I was prepared to join in with my poor toe.  One a couple of occasion Marlowe’s bouncing energy brought him too close to my foot encased in a surgical sandal and the inevitable would happen and I’d have a 75kg Saint Bernard land on the tender toe.  Marlowe and I would exchange a few words about being more careful, I’d eventually get over the pain and life would go on.

Hedwig, the arbiter of shoe fashion, objected very strongly to the surgical sandal.  It wasn’t surprising; she hates my garden clogs and has left beak marks in them from time to time.  The huge, black plastic sandal was just too much!  Hedwig wanted it out of her aviary and wanted it out now!  Feeding Hedwig and Hermes required me to do a little shuffle dance to keep the irate fashionista off my sandal and away from my toe.  I’m not sure the white bead didn’t offend Hedwig’s sensibilities as well, but I was careful to keep it well away from her beak.  Hermes really wasn’t bothered about the sandal, but doesn’t take Hedwig’s tantrums well.  He would sit on one of the perches and offer her verbal encouragement until I’d refilled their feed containers and left.  Hedwig would then return to Hermes, clearly telling him she’d dealt with my latest fashion disaster.

 

Hermes and Hedwig

The chooks and ferrets didn’t notice the change in my footwear.  Graeme fed the chooks and collected the eggs until I was on my feet again, and the ferrets and I communed much as we always had.  Charis and Freya don’t care what I wear as long as I distribute treats and cuddles on a regular basis.

On Monday evening, my toe was giving me a lot of trouble.  It had been slightly painful all day (and it wasn’t one of the days Marlowe stepped on it).  When I had finished all my menagerie feeding chores I opened up the sandal and removed the surgical stocking to find my foot was swollen, the toe an angry red and the redness was covering about half my foot.  When Graeme came in from the paddocks, he took me to our local country hospital.  The doctor on call prescribed IV antibiotics and she’d call my surgeon in the morning, but there were no spare beds at the hospital so I had to come back every eight hours for my next IV.  This meant leaving home at 3.30am for one of the injections.

On Tuesday the surgeon was in surgery all day so uncontactable.  I was told to keep coming back for my eight hourly IVs.  Throughout my numerous visits the little hospital he staff were wonderful and were soon treating me like one of their friends.  Finally late Tuesday an appointment was made for me to see the surgeon and everything is now well on the way to healing.  Wednesday afternoon was my last IV and I’m now taking oral antibiotics so no more hospital visits in the early morning.

I think the trips to the hospital stopped just in time.  Poor Marlowe had felt that it was his responsibility to wave goodbye to us each time we left for the hospital, and to be at the gate to welcome us back home again when we arrived, even the 3.00am departures and subsequent 5.00am returns.  Cleo was happy to assist Marlowe in the goodbyes and welcome homes at decent hours of the day but she put her paw down at getting up in the middle of the night to join Marlowe’s farewell and welcome committee.  It's a good thing the 1.00pm IV was the last one.  Marlowe waved goodbye from the gate as we left, but when we returned home at 3.00 he was snoozing in the sun.  He opened his eyes, gave a short wag of his tail, and told us to welcome ourselves home, he was over it.  He did muster the energy to follow me to the back door, but quickly returned to his sunny spot in the garden.

I have been ordered to keep my foot elevated until the swelling goes down, which, according to the surgeon, could be a few weeks.  Here we go again.

The Farewell/Welcome Home Committee