A Most Hideous Week

My hideous week started two Monday nights ago. It was POURING rain and there was a slight chance of hail during the night so I decided to put Barney in the garage. He has a big doghouse, but I imagined that since it was raining so hard he was getting splashback in there. As I was carrying him in I thought he had a small wet leaf on his coat. When I got him into the garage, I saw he had a hole in his side. It was about the size of a penny and really gross. It seemed like I was looking at his muscle in there. I'm very queasy about stuff like that.
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When I woke up on Tuesday I called the vet and took him in. They said it was a bite and had abscessed. They explained that an underskin had pulled way down and it had to be pulled up and stitched. And they would also put in drainage tubes. I left him there and drove down to Chili's to eat some lunch and drink some beers and wait for their call. I waited there until they called and then went to pick him up. He was all droopy and pathetic. I left him in his carrier and then grabbed his doghouse and dried it and put it in the garage with a giant clean towel inside. I set up his food and water and a litter box and let him out. He was all druggy and woozy and running into stuff with his "bonnet."

I had some pain medicine that you inject into his mouth and 20 (TWENTY) pills to give him over 10 days. (Pilling a cat is not pleasant. It was easy the first few days when he was sick, but now it's a bitch.) I stayed up with him way too long Tuesday night so I called Meals on Wheels and left a message explaining the situation and told them to get a sub for me.

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My original plan for Wednesday had been to do MOW and then visit Bill because I had not seen him in over a week. When I woke up, I checked on Barney and decided he would be okay to leave for a few hours to visit Bill that afternoon. Except I couldn't leave the house. I tried three times. I haven't had an anxiety attack like that in AGES so it was very disheartening. Each time I thought, "Okay, I'm ready now" and head toward the door and start to shake and feel sick. I couldn't post about any of this at the time because it was all overwhelming.

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On Thursday, I was able to make it to the hospital. I had a nice long visit and happened to be there when the heart doctor came in. He has the bedside manner of Darth Vader. I hadn't thought of the expression "whithering glance" for years until that doctor gave me one when I asked a question. I was so pissed at his response, I said, "Hey! I had to ask." I wanted to throw something at his head. Anyway what he said at the time (to Bill) was, "I'll pencil you in for Tuesday afternoon to go back in if your lung has not healed by then." Well it didn't and they did. It was at 2:00 this (Tuesday) afternoon and it reportedly went very well. They opened him up, found the hole in his lung, did two quick stitches and closed him back up. I'm going to visit after MOW today.

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On Saturday, I took Barney to get his tubes out. He gets his stiches out this coming Saturday.

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Sunday we had a nice visit with Bill at the hospital.

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I hope MOW and my errands go well today. A funny thing that happened was that in phone calls, Mom was getting Barney and Bill confused with each other. She thought Bill had tubes taken out on Saturday. I still don't know what exactly caused the panic attack but I hope I don't have another one. Those things suck.