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So Weaver, where the hell have you been?
Feb. 12th, 2021 01:53 pmThe last 12 days have been especially aggravating. The end of each month is pill time for our furry brood. The girls are easy to medicate. The heart worm preventative is a chewable that they like and they have never been difficult to pill. They can be challenges in other ways, but that has not been one of them. Arjuna, not so much.
He is old and crotchety. He's a big boy and at 12 1/2 showing his age. He's arthritic. His sight is going, and I suspect his hearing as well. He's had chronic nasal congestion for ever, so his sense of smell is shot and has been for a very long time, a real loss for a nose brain as his species is. The large number of people afflicted by Covid related anosmia is raising awareness how central the sense of smell is for humans. I cannot fathom what a loss it is for a canine. His congestion means he also snores and we're often treated to the canine version of an old man clearing his throat. But he's family and my husband and I adore him and so we but up with the noise and all his idiosyncrasies.
Anyway, pilling Arjuna is generally something that I do, but as I was busy with something, LJ decided to go ahead and do it himself, or at least try to. The girls went without a hitch. Arjuna took his heartworm tab and then dropped it on the floor. LJ tried again with the same result. "Hon, would you please...", was enough to make me stop what I was doing and take over.
Had I been smart, I would have gone for the cream cheese, which has always gotten him to take his meds without too much trouble, but the tab was already wet and somewhat slimy. Given that Arjuna has always been better with me and meds anyway, I simply offered it and again he took it and dropped it at my feet. Again I picked it up, and offered, Again he took it and dropped it. I decided to retrieve it and would go for the cream cheese with it, but did not get the chance. When I reached for the tab on the floor, Arjuna grabbed my hand and bit down. I saw stars.
I looked down at the back of my right hand to see a deep gash across the 4th and 5th rays, an inch shy of my knuckles and just before the blood welled up hiding everything from sight, I saw at least two of my extensor tendons. Not good. Not good at all. The gash was about an inch and a half long and away from my joints, but it was clearly something that needed much more attention than I could provide myself at home. After avoiding any healthcare settings since the onset of the pandemic, other than the pharmacy, I cleaned the wound with peroxide, wound on a pressure bandage, and drove myself to the ER on the other side of the county, as required by my insurer.
No, I did not get my husband to drive. First of all, the sight of blood gets him light headed and given that, I certainly did not want him behind the wheel. Moreover, he is very much NOT a healthcare person, and every thing one needs to do to enter a place of potential covid transmission does not come to him easily. I have settled for keeping him at home and away from anyone else as much as possible. We have been successful doing that in this rural part of our county. I've been doing the marketing for just about everything, hand sanitizer, gloves when needed, heavy duty face masks, and even protective eye wear when venturing out of the house and off of the property. The thought of him sitting in the ER waiting room was not tenable risk for me. Besides, I'm left handed. My dominant hand was not decommissioned.
Just over an hour after my injury I was at the ER. Three hours later I was taken in to be seen. Once I was in the business part of the ER, things went much more quickly. The ER doc was wonderful and adept. I was numbed up effectively and cleaned out. Tendons had been exposed, but not torn. My strength was good in all my fingers. Xrays were negative for any fracture, as well as other ominous signs like air in any joints. A few sutures were expertly done closing the wound, I got a tetanus booster and then we discussed preventative antibiotics. The literature on antibiotics post dog bite is not without controversy. Some authorities recommend it, others don't. Given my medical history, I was unwilling to leave without it, and to my relief the doc was very amenable, even agreeing with my thoughts on which antibiotic to use. I asked for my first two doses, one to take there and the other in the morning at home, so I could wait until late in the day to hit the pharmacy for the remainder. I also asked for a single dose of something strong for pain, knowing the Epivicaine would wear off in a few hours. Unfortunately, while the care of the ER staff was fast, it took another hour waiting for the hospital pharmacy to cough up 3 tablets for me to depart with.
I had figured half of the pain pill before bed and the other half in the morning and thereafter an anti inflammatory should be enough. Wrong. The anti inflammatory was decidedly not enough by itself. Fortunately, a text to my primary provider was enough to get him to call in 10 more of that pain reliever. I continued to take it, 1/2 a tab at a time, usually twice a day for the next week.
The sutures came out last night, and while I'm significantly more comfortable than I was last week, I'm going to have symptoms continue for a while. The wound itself is healed at least superficially. I'm still swollen, though less so, and it is still achy and stiff, though I have full range of motion and good strength. What's annoying is the inner aspect of my pinky is numb. There's a strip a 1/4" wide from the web at the base of the finger up past the first knuckle that's numb. The delineation is sharp; the palmar side and dorsum are fully normal. Add to it I'm getting shocks of pain over the past week, with certain movements and at times when there is pressure placed over the healing wound on the back of my hand. I'm taking the shocks as a positive sign, that the numbness is temporary, not a disruption of a sensory nerve, but a contusion of it. We'll see how this evolves over time.
The injury is annoying. It certainly could have been very easily, significantly worse and so I'm truly grateful it was not. However, it has left me out of sorts and less tolerant of the bullshit we're still having to put up with. I'll deal with that in my next post.
He is old and crotchety. He's a big boy and at 12 1/2 showing his age. He's arthritic. His sight is going, and I suspect his hearing as well. He's had chronic nasal congestion for ever, so his sense of smell is shot and has been for a very long time, a real loss for a nose brain as his species is. The large number of people afflicted by Covid related anosmia is raising awareness how central the sense of smell is for humans. I cannot fathom what a loss it is for a canine. His congestion means he also snores and we're often treated to the canine version of an old man clearing his throat. But he's family and my husband and I adore him and so we but up with the noise and all his idiosyncrasies.
Anyway, pilling Arjuna is generally something that I do, but as I was busy with something, LJ decided to go ahead and do it himself, or at least try to. The girls went without a hitch. Arjuna took his heartworm tab and then dropped it on the floor. LJ tried again with the same result. "Hon, would you please...", was enough to make me stop what I was doing and take over.
Had I been smart, I would have gone for the cream cheese, which has always gotten him to take his meds without too much trouble, but the tab was already wet and somewhat slimy. Given that Arjuna has always been better with me and meds anyway, I simply offered it and again he took it and dropped it at my feet. Again I picked it up, and offered, Again he took it and dropped it. I decided to retrieve it and would go for the cream cheese with it, but did not get the chance. When I reached for the tab on the floor, Arjuna grabbed my hand and bit down. I saw stars.
I looked down at the back of my right hand to see a deep gash across the 4th and 5th rays, an inch shy of my knuckles and just before the blood welled up hiding everything from sight, I saw at least two of my extensor tendons. Not good. Not good at all. The gash was about an inch and a half long and away from my joints, but it was clearly something that needed much more attention than I could provide myself at home. After avoiding any healthcare settings since the onset of the pandemic, other than the pharmacy, I cleaned the wound with peroxide, wound on a pressure bandage, and drove myself to the ER on the other side of the county, as required by my insurer.
No, I did not get my husband to drive. First of all, the sight of blood gets him light headed and given that, I certainly did not want him behind the wheel. Moreover, he is very much NOT a healthcare person, and every thing one needs to do to enter a place of potential covid transmission does not come to him easily. I have settled for keeping him at home and away from anyone else as much as possible. We have been successful doing that in this rural part of our county. I've been doing the marketing for just about everything, hand sanitizer, gloves when needed, heavy duty face masks, and even protective eye wear when venturing out of the house and off of the property. The thought of him sitting in the ER waiting room was not tenable risk for me. Besides, I'm left handed. My dominant hand was not decommissioned.
Just over an hour after my injury I was at the ER. Three hours later I was taken in to be seen. Once I was in the business part of the ER, things went much more quickly. The ER doc was wonderful and adept. I was numbed up effectively and cleaned out. Tendons had been exposed, but not torn. My strength was good in all my fingers. Xrays were negative for any fracture, as well as other ominous signs like air in any joints. A few sutures were expertly done closing the wound, I got a tetanus booster and then we discussed preventative antibiotics. The literature on antibiotics post dog bite is not without controversy. Some authorities recommend it, others don't. Given my medical history, I was unwilling to leave without it, and to my relief the doc was very amenable, even agreeing with my thoughts on which antibiotic to use. I asked for my first two doses, one to take there and the other in the morning at home, so I could wait until late in the day to hit the pharmacy for the remainder. I also asked for a single dose of something strong for pain, knowing the Epivicaine would wear off in a few hours. Unfortunately, while the care of the ER staff was fast, it took another hour waiting for the hospital pharmacy to cough up 3 tablets for me to depart with.
I had figured half of the pain pill before bed and the other half in the morning and thereafter an anti inflammatory should be enough. Wrong. The anti inflammatory was decidedly not enough by itself. Fortunately, a text to my primary provider was enough to get him to call in 10 more of that pain reliever. I continued to take it, 1/2 a tab at a time, usually twice a day for the next week.
The sutures came out last night, and while I'm significantly more comfortable than I was last week, I'm going to have symptoms continue for a while. The wound itself is healed at least superficially. I'm still swollen, though less so, and it is still achy and stiff, though I have full range of motion and good strength. What's annoying is the inner aspect of my pinky is numb. There's a strip a 1/4" wide from the web at the base of the finger up past the first knuckle that's numb. The delineation is sharp; the palmar side and dorsum are fully normal. Add to it I'm getting shocks of pain over the past week, with certain movements and at times when there is pressure placed over the healing wound on the back of my hand. I'm taking the shocks as a positive sign, that the numbness is temporary, not a disruption of a sensory nerve, but a contusion of it. We'll see how this evolves over time.
The injury is annoying. It certainly could have been very easily, significantly worse and so I'm truly grateful it was not. However, it has left me out of sorts and less tolerant of the bullshit we're still having to put up with. I'll deal with that in my next post.
