A Dud

We live on a fairly steep hill and over the years we've watched our back yard erode. We brought in a couple loads of topsoil and had it spread around and then we built some  little retaining walls to hold the soil in place, but still the combination of summer drought and torrential rains washed the soil down the hill. Then a few years ago I got the idea to plant clover to hold the soil in place. I know some people go ballistic if they see a single clover in their perfect lawn, but if your perfect lawn decides to move to another neighborhood on it's own, you might change your mind.

I bought three varieties of clover seeds, mixed them together and spread them all around the yard. At first it didn't look like anything was happening, but now we have large areas that are thick with clover and lots of tiny little flowers in the spring. The remaining soil seems to be staying put. Last week as I walked thru the yard with the dogs, something caught my eye.

I picked it and brought it inside hoping it would bring that famous  good luck along with it. It was a dud.

Last week we got the results of Fudge's follow up culture on his e-coli infection. It's still there. The vet said that the antibiotic he took for two weeks seemed to have cleared up the infection in the bladder, but he also has the infection in his prostate and that has reinfected the bladder. We needed a stronger drug to clear the infection in both areas.

He gave me two awful options. Option A was the drug that Morgan had reacted to that almost killed her.

Option B was a drug called Chloramphenicol. He said it would penetrate the barrier into the prostate and kill the infection. That was the good news. The bad news is that it could also kill me if I touched it. While safe for the dog, if I got it on my skin it could cause bone marrow suppression. I would need to wear gloves to give it to Fudge three times a day for ten days. Good choices, right?

Well, I chose option B, but first I looked it up online. It's really strong and is used for, get this, meningitis, plague, cholera and typhoid fever.  And it also warned that side effects include bone marrow suppression leading to death. Yikes!

So three times a day Fudge and I go off by ourselves, I don gloves and carefully feed him three yellow tablets. Please cross your paws that this stuff wipes out his infection.

Then as if that stupid clover hadn't done enough damage, on Monday morning Noah woke up and both eyes were so full of goop that he could hardly open them. I put warm compresses on and got them open but they were red and goopy. I gave him some Benedryl and put drops in his eyes several times during the day but they were only slightly better the next morning, so off to visit with Dr B.

He looked at Noah's eyes, then did Schirmer tear tests in both eyes. Noah has suffered with dry eye in his left eye since reacting to a sulpha drug a few years ago. He gets  doggy Restasis, called Optimmune, in his left eye each morning. A perfect score is 12 and last time we tested, in February, his right eye was 11 and his left was 16. This time his right was 10 and his left was only 4. Oh oh!

Noah also has conjunctivitis in both eyes. Dr B thinks he's either reacting to a new drug he started taking a couple weeks ago or he may have some seasonal allergies causing his eyes to react. So now Noah is getting steroid ointment in both eyes twice a day and Optimmune at bedtime. In a week he'll start getting Optimmune in both eyes twice a day until he can produce his own tears again. We'll also have to do testing any time he starts taking any new medications.

The moral of my story is, if you see a big fat four leaf clover waving to you in the field, walk away as fast as you can.