Poor Lucy Goose

This post is dedicated to my poor little dog, Lucy. (sorry, everyone, that it's taken me forever to write! I know at least one of you has been waiting for this post for a while.)

The subject matter of this post is rather funny but Lucy is really not enjoying herself right now (thus the post title).

For those of you who don't know: Lucy is prone to ear infections. She gets them about twice a year in spring and fall. I've been told she most likely has some kind of seasonal allergy. At any rate we have to make vet visits every time she has an ear issue to get a swab and to be prescribed the same cleaning solution and antibiotic ointment.

Cleaning Lucy's ears consists of me sitting on her head and squirting cleaning solution in her ears and then applying some of the antibiotic ointment, while all the time she is trying her darnedest to escape. Between ears I have to flip her over hog-tie style so she can't get away. It's pretty traumatic. Normally when she's got medicine going on for her ears she gets pretty comfortable spending a lot of time under someone's bed (not mine: I have too many things under there) because she feels like I can't find her and thus won't sit on her head; little does she know that I'm under the vet's orders.

Well recently Lucy began her yearly ritual of shaking her head and scratching her ears. I recognized the tell-tale signs of an ear infection and began cleaning them with the solution I'd had leftover from our last vet visit. Things did not improve and I knew I had to make an appointment. A couple days before we were scheduled to go in and get her ears checked out I discovered that Lucy's outer ear (the floppy part of her ear) was all swollen. I wasn't sure what it could be... I looked it up on the internet the night before we were to see the vet. Turns out it's called an aural hematoma. Basically, it's cauliflower ear for dogs and it caused by excessive shaking of the head when the ear canal is already irritated. The website I found told me that hematomas must be drained and treated with steroids in order to heal and if that treatment doesn't work: surgery. Needless to say, I started freaking out about money and poor little Lu (who has enough problems already with her allergies and epilepsy) having to go through all of that.

We went to the vet and got the usual ear stuff out of the way and then addressed the issue of the hematoma. Given that it was not too big or serious we were able to put in a drainage tube that would allow all of the fluid trapped in there to come out and her ear to heal. No surgery required! The only catch to this, the cheaper solution, was that she also had to wear one of those horrible plastic cones to keep her from being able to scratch her ears and remove the tube. And so we come to the amusing part of the story that I'd mentioned above.

Lucy's been wearing her cone since our vet appointment last Thursday and so has been running into things and getting stuck on furniture since last Thursday also. She hates wearing her cone: she can't see very well, she can't sniff the ground (or anything else) when she goes outside, she needs help getting up onto the bed where she sleeps, she can't get any toys out of the toy basket, she can't chew on any bones and worst of all: she can't scratch her ears. On top of the stupid cone (which is not just annoying for Lucy but also for her humans) Lucy must undergo ear treatment as she did before plus take oral antibiotics and aural steroids. This means she starts and ends each day with me sitting on her head and then shoving pills down her throat.

The only upside to this entire situation is that it makes for funny stories of the dog running into things and she had a "cast" for everyone to sign! The signing of the cone was Ashley's idea but I liked it so much that I asked others that came to visit to sign it too and Lucy ended up with 6 whole signatures (one of which was from Lola)!
This is what the signatures said:

• Even though you have a cone on your head you don't look like a conehead. Love, Ashley

• I'll help you get toys! Love, Lola

• I hope you don't bump your head too much! Love, Frances

• Keep your head up, goose! Love, Alexa

• Get well soon, beast! Love, Scott

• Beth's direct quote is currently in my trunk and so she will be quoted later on but it had to do with Lucy getting a lot of time for meditation throughout the cone experience. Whenever Lucy ran into something she would stop and be still and just stand there until someone came to free her. She seemed very reflective.

***Things have changed since I started this post and Lucy is no longer wearing her cone. Her hematoma is healing nicely and her tube was removed last Friday after having it in for only a week! We're all very happy without the cone and things are starting to get back to normal. We now have an arsenal of allergy medication and will hopefully not have to deal with this ear issue anymore.... wouldn't that be wonderful?!***

Please see some photographic evidence of the hilarity that was our cone experience below:
Lola was very supportive throughout the whole ordeal and even put on her own cone to make Lucy feel better... Lucy did not appear very grateful for the gesture.


Also: something funny happened in church 3 Sundays ago:
It was time to listen to the sermon and I asked Kevin to keep our place in the prayer book by bookmarking it with his Sunday bulletin... and this is what I said:
"You wanna put your thing in there?"
Kevin leaned over and whispered:
"That's what she said."
I almost died holding in my laughter.