Up The Farway Tree

'The Look' for 2007

Do you see what my owner has done to me?! She says "high collars are all the rage for spring 2007" and that "orange is so your colour sweetie" but I think she is lying. I suspect she is making fun of me again. The fact she keeps taking photos on her mobile and sending them to people is a bit of a give away.




As you can see, Seb has been at the vets again. He has "conjunctivitis" and a "periorbital dermatitis", which in laymans terms means he has an infected eye which is itchy, so he has scratched all the skin around the eye until its red raw. Hence the large orange collar. I have to administer eye drops four times daily, plus some oral antibiotics for the skin. For those who have been reading my blog long enough to remember the last time he had eye drops, you will appreciate the trauma of the week that lies ahead. I shall have to be sly, assertive, nimble, devious and inventive in my approach. Stealth will be my weapon, cheese will be the bait, and patience the virtue (I have yet to discover).

Amongst the stress of the situation, I can at least find comedic value in the large collar. Don't get me wrong, I do feel terrible making him wear it, but you have to see the funny side of life. He has been bumbling about the house, knocking into things and failing to realise that his head now takes up twice as much room. He even tried to squeeze his head through the bannisters again, and could not understand why it would not fit. This morning at 6am Andrew thought there was a burglar in the house - it was in fact Seb wandering about the kitchen, knocking into things with his giant cone head. However despite this apparent lack of cone awareness, he then refused to go for a walk whilst wearing it (even though it's probably orange coloured with road safety in mind). I imagine he thought the other dogs might laugh at him. He is probably right.



Other than Seb's eye, life has been fairly quiet. I have continued with the weekly physio appointments for exercise, and I am managing to achieve more by using the oxygen during the exercise. I'm hopefully getting a cylinder to keep at home, so I can continue the exercise programme in my own time as well. No excuses now then. Hopefully if I can keep this up I will slowly increase my fitness, or at the very least, maintain what level I do have.

I also had my port flushed last week, so my weight and lung function were checked, both of which were stable. I was really pleased with this, especially since this was 4 weeks after IV's. I think the extra weight might be helping to keep things more stable. I have been continuing with the milk and carrot cake programme, but having now sampled carrot cake from every known supermarket, I may need to branch out into other varieties. Maybe sponge cake. Maybe chocolate cake. Live a little, you know?