Memorial Day Weekend

Andrew and I spent our entire Memorial Day weekend indoors. What a shame, I know. It was beautiful outside. People were out at the beach, on road trips, BBQ'ing, boating, visiting farmer's markets, being Californians. And we weren't. But that was fine by us. We had an injured baby to take care of. Somewhere during the week leading into Memorial Day weekend, our Maisy-girl got some sort of a bug bite on her tail. It was a little red spot and it bothered her and she gnawed at it a little but we figured it would eventually get better. I mean come on, it's just a bug bite. But this is our Maisy we're talking about. The dog who has, on 3 separate occasions, been stung by a bee and had her face swell up like a balloon. The dog I came home to once, to find a bloody massacre all over our apartment... she had so much blood in her stool, it was everywhere, it looked like someone was killed in our apartment. It was very scary.

Sorry to get graphic. I just have to give you some examples so you know the medical mayhem Maisy can get into. So of course we should have known this wouldn't be a regular ole' bug bite that would heal in a day or two on any other dog. No way, no how, not on Medical Marvel Maisy. The little red spot grew bigger and bigger on her tail and she chewed on it more and more and by Saturday she would no longer let us touch it to look at it or wash it or put neosporin on it (yes, I did that) so we had to take her to the vet. They shaved her little tail and cleaned it and sprayed something on it with alcohol but also a soothing agent, gave her an antibiotic and prednisone to take (YAY, pills in peanut butter... that made her happy) and, much to Maisy's dismay, the latest version of the "cone of shame." Except it's no longer a cone! It's now a "foam of shame." It's this foam donut she wears around her neck like a life preserver so she can't reach and bite at her tail. She looked like she was ready to go boating. Take a look for yourself!

Sitting by the door, waiting for us to pay and leave this horrible place that [GASP] shaved her tail! (We heard her give her desperation bark when they had her in the back, shaving it.)

Blurry, happy face because we're about to leave.

She hated the foam of shame. She tried to pull it off and succeeded several times. We hated it too. She slept with it on the first night. Well, she TRIED to sleep with it on. Not much sleeping was had. Not by anyone! We put her in between us in bed so we could keep an eye on her and she kept waking up and rolling over or turning around and kept hitting us in the face with the foam. No one got much sleep that first night!

As the weekend carried on, we kept her on the couch, close to one of us at all times, with the foam of shame on her head as little as possible. She just couldn't sleep and be comfortable with that thing on! And she needed to sleep and forget about her tail. Andrew and I rented movies and cooked and stayed in the entire weekend. It was kind of nice. It was especially nice because I made some AWESOME food! I'll share with you what I made but not now. I'm tired.

So how has Maisy fared since last weekend? Luckily, she began to heal pretty quickly. The red, fleshy, constantly wet spot turned into a dry, scabby terrain and she no longer tries to furiously chew off her entire tail. She sleeps next to me right now, content and comfortable. YAY! The foam only lasted for that first 2 days. All her medicine is gone so no more peanut butter. BOOO! We are all much happier and even managed to make it to our beloved dog beach this weekend. YAY! But my knee started acting up again at the beach. BOOO! And it's Sunday and the weekend is over. BOOO! But we both have jobs to go to tomorrow so YAY! Also we managed to squeeze in X-Men First Class this weekend so YAY! And the "YAY"s outweigh the "BOOO"s so life is grand. I hope you can say the same for yourself!