It Doesn't Rain, but It Pours

It doesn’t rain, but it pours! I took Mary to three doctors this week: eye doctor, podiatrist, and family doctor. The upshot is that she’s got an eye infection, an ingrown toenail, and a urinary tract infection! So my schedule of treatment combined with my regular schedule of medications is this:

• Morning: round of pills one hour before she gets up, wipe eyes with special toilette and rinse; remove toe bandage, clean, put on Neosporin, put on new bandage; administer shot for osteoporosis; eye drop and pills plus potassium in cranberry juice after breakfast. (I also give her a “breathing toy” from the hospital to get her lungs going before she gets out of bed.)


• Afternoon: eye drop after lunch, antibiotic mid-afternoon.


• Evening: eye drop and antacid after dinner; round of pills before bedtime; wipe eyes with toilette, rinse, apply ointment; change toe bandage; apply vaseline to outside creases of nose and chin (otherwise it gets very dry and cracked--petroleum jelly is the only thing I've found to work).

I’ve had to cut out her vitamins and minerals because I couldn’t figure out how to get them in with the antibiotic, which needs to be taken four hours before or eight hours after any vitamins/minerals or antacids. I have also cut out her breathing treatments because it didn’t seem to be helping and her doctor said the antibiotic would take care of anything causing the cough, if there was anything there, although she didn’t hear anything bad going on.

Another interesting event is that I saw that dog from January wandering around the other day and took her in to keep her from getting hit. When the owner called, she said that the dog (that they had renamed Bella) kept digging her way out of the yard and they were fed up and didn’t want it anymore. She agreed that we could keep the dog for a few days to see if we wanted to keep her. The cat doesn’t like her at all, but Mary and I think she’s really sweet. She gets up on the couch but gets back down when I yell at her. She only dug in the yard once where a chipmunk had been digging. She sat out on the porch with Mary while I worked in the yard and didn’t get down. I took her outside while Mom was here and she took off when she heard a dog barking in the distance. I had to chase her half-way down the street. I took her for a walk yesterday and she did really well. She rarely barks. However, she’s shedding like crazy. I’ll have to vacuum every day. But that’s good exercise. We’ll see.