It's A Good Thing ...

... that I adopted the new practice of refusing to worry about anything, because it served me well last night.

Though Tyler's surgery went well, his eye is still very fragile, and will be for several weeks. That's why he has to wear the E-collar (Elizabethan, that big plastic cone thing) and at all costs be kept from rubbing his eye on anything, or pawing at it. In the worst case scenario (unrestrained access to his eye), he could rip the graft loose, and cause irreparable damage.

But, as long as I had the crate and the E-collar, I assumed he'd be fine - those things are there specifically to keep him safe, despite how badly he hates them.

Last night I put him in the crate when Greg went to bed, to see how he was going to do, and sat and watched him for about 20 minutes. He paced and bounced his collar into each of the four walls in turn, over and over and over, and whined incessantly. But he couldn't hurt himself, so I knew though the discomfort was hard to watch, he was safe.

I wasn't ready for bed (I should have been, as I'd gotten no sleep the night before, but I was a little too wired to sleep yet) so I went out into the dining room. Tyler would take breaks from his pacing and whining, maybe 20 minutes when he'd lay down and rest, then he'd resume the pacing and whining, and when I'd hear him, I'd go check, but he was still okay - just pissed off.

I finally went to bed about 12:30. About half an hour later he started again, and I was going to ignore it, knowing I'd already checked him multiple times, and he was fine. But he sounded a little more yappy this time, and actually woke Greg up, who did get up to check him.

Good thing. He'd gotten his collar off. I had no idea how long it had been off, but I knew damned well in whatever time it was off he'd have been rubbing and pawing at his eye. I had no idea what kind of damage he might have done.

I took him out of the crate and out into the dining room. At first his eye looked normal, but about 10 minutes later when I checked again the stitches looked funny to me, there was some swelling, and his eye was stuck shut. I couldn't open it at all. I got concerned. I tried calling the emergency number they'd given me, but it turns out it's like a vet call center, and the vet I spoke to was in Illinois, and couldn't tell me anything. Lovely. Very useful. I decided I'd wait till morning and have him back at the eye clinic when they opened at 8:00 a.m., as the only way to know for sure whether he'd done any damage to his graft was to have the doctor look at him.

But, I maintained my new philosophy and decided I wasn't going to worry about it, one way or the other. And I didn't. Which was fine because I had other things to occupy my angst, but more on that later.

That turned out to be the right decision, because after thoroughly checking him, the doctor said no, he was fine, no damage. And we got a better collar, one he can't get out of.

But, as I mentioned, new and unexpected things arose to blindside me. I mentioned I'd gotten no sleep Monday night because, though I was in bed about 4 or 5 hours, that was the night we first discovered the hole in Tyler's eye, and it was important then, too, that he not rub it or paw at it. But then I had no crate or collar, so had no way to protect him during the night. I decided to put him in the bed between me and Greg, with my hand on him, knowing that if he even flinched I'd wake up instantly, and be able to keep him from hurting his eye in the night.

What I hadn't known was that instead of eventually falling asleep and just sleeping through the night, which I expected, he'd get all fidgety and start trying to scratch his eye about every 20 minutes, all night long. So the 4 or 5 hours I spent in bed was spent dozing for 15 or 20 minutes, and waking up and calming Tyler down, and repeating the process all. Night. Long. I think I finally got up about 4:00 or 5:00 a.m.

But, I thought for sure Tuesday night I'd be able to sleep, because he'd have the crate and the collar, I thought he'd be exhausted, and sleep okay. Even if he got up sometimes and paced a bit or whined, like I said earlier, I knew (or thought I knew) that he'd be safe so I could sleep and not worry about it.

So much for that. I got the half-hour of sleep before he woke me up. Then I sat up with him till 3:00 a.m., not knowing what to do - I couldn't put him back in his crate with that collar on, as he'd just get it off again. By 3:00 I was so tired I was delirious, so I resorted to putting some blankets and pillows on the floor in front of his dog bed (where I'd moved him, in the dining room), and slept there from 3:00 till about 5:30 a.m. with my hand on Tyler, to wake me up at the slightest stir so I could keep him from pulling his collar off again, on the same schedule as the night before - about every 15 or 20 minutes Tyler would suddenly start thrashing about and whining, and I'd have to calm him down, then doze off again for another 15 or 20 minutes.

By this morning I was feeling zombified. I even had a brief hallucination - I was sitting in the dining room with Tyler, and could have sworn I saw someone standing in the kitchen. But I blinked a couple times, and it was gone.

Then I had to drive him to Akron in that condition (lots of coffee helped. a little.), about 7:00 a.m., to be there by 8:00 when the clinic opened. Had the examine, drove back home, and by that time (about 10:00 this morning) I was pretty sure if I didn't do something I was going to involuntarily just pass out. So I had another couple hours of the 20-minute interval naps by laying in front of the crate with the door open and my hand inside on Tyler, to wake up the minute he started thrashing about again. Which he did on schedule, about every 15 or 20 minutes the entire three hours I was laying there.

The icing on that cupcake? When I 'woke up' from this 20-minute-interval nap, I'd developed a good strong sinus infection. Feeling absolutely miserably sick right now.

And Tyler's not really doing well. Oh, as far as the surgical procedure itself he's doing fine, no problems with that. But recovery's an issue. He won't open his eyes, which he should have started doing by now; he won't eat, and hasn't eaten since Monday; he also hasn't gotten his oral meds since Monday, the thyroid medicine he needs and the Anipryl for his alleged, potential cognitive dysfunction, because I can't get him to take any pills (even when I think he's swallowed it, some time later I'll find it spit out somewhere), and I usually put them in his food, but he's not eating, so he's not getting those; he won't drink water; every time I put him in the cage he thrashes around in a panic, bouncing off the walls and almost howling.

My boss is losing patience with the amount of time I'm missing work, especially with being supposed to be on vacation next week. I missed two days last week, and two days now so far this week. I told him I'd be in today, but obviously I couldn't go. The only reason I can go tomorrow is because Greg arranged his schedule so he can work at home tomorrow, so he can stay here with Tyler.

The one speck of light in regards to that is, with the collar I know he can't get out of, I should be able to put him in his crate and actually get a whole night's sleep, so that I actually can go to work and function tomorrow.

The synopsis is that I'm about a fine copper wire's breadth from a nervous breakdown, and there's no end in sight. I'm not at all sure that the NC trip is even a good idea at this point, if he's going to be like this. The only problem is, staying home by myself would be worse, as I'd have no one to help me with anything. At least there if I needed some help with him, I'd have it. But it's certainly going to make the trip stressful as hell. Well -if he won't start eating and drinking before then, I certainly can't go, because he's certainly going to have to go back to the clinic to have something done with him. He can't go much longer without food and water, he was already losing weight before this surgery, and I was trying to get him to gain a little back. He's so bony now it's frightening.

I'm tempted to ask the eye clinic if they'd consider a medical boarding, where they keep him and give him his meds and make sure he gets food and water, by IV if necessary, instead of taking him to NC with me. But ... that seems cruel, it's really not his fault, and he'd be even more panicked and miserable stuck in one of their cages for ten days. So I guess that's not a fair option.

I'm about to go try to spoon-feed him some food. And if necessary, force some water down him by eye dropper. I'm determined to get some sustenance and hydration into him at whatever cost - maybe once I can get it started, he'll pick it up.

If not, then ... I don't know. The only thing I do know right now is that this is not going well. Maybe his age wasn't a factor in how he managed the surgery, but maybe he's too old to handle the recovery process. But I couldn't have done anything different, based on what I knew when I made the decision. And there's certainly nothing I can do now except try to get through this.

Five minutes at a time.