4th Of July

I thought I might - just might - sleep in a little later yesterday.....like maybe until 7:00 a.m. but Butler saw that didn't happen.  Once I was up I decided I might as well work on things - like loading the pictures from painting the house this past weekend.  Then I headed downstairs to the office to balance the checkbook - something I just l-o-v-e to do...not.  And then worked on thank you cards for those that scraped, taped and painted last Saturday.

Mike and I never made definite plans for holidays like Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day - we played them by ear which was awesome for the two of us but stinks when you are single.  Dad asked if I had anything planned and I told him once I finished the things in the office, I needed to vacuum the car and then wasn't sure what I'd do.

Got the car vacuumed really good and then decided to just drive - which was something Mike and I also loved to do.  Just head out in a direction and see where we ended up.  I decided I wanted to spend a little time on Mike's bench at Raccoon River Park but thought the park might be full of people and parking might be difficult - nope.  Found a spot right off.  The tree they planted by Mike's bench is looking really good - see picture below.

I got emotional sitting there "talking to Mike" saying how it didn't seem possible he'd been gone for two 4th's now and that I really missed him.  I took a little drive after leaving the park and then decided to go to Family Video to rent a DVD and couldn't find anything that sounded good or that I was in the mood for - so I headed for home.

Got settled on the bed with my book and Butler and after a little bit I looked at Butler and realized he had a huge swelling under his jaw on the right side.  I touched it and it started to bleed so I got the "brown bottle" aka peroxide and a bandaid.  I debated a few minutes if I should take him to the emergency animal hospital and decided I better.  Who knew what I'd be facing in the morning and I couldn't deal with taking him to the vet then because of having to go to work.

So......again on a holiday Butler had a boo boo that involved blood and going to the emergency animal hospital and as I plopped him on the back seat of the car on the blanket I put over the seat, I say to him, "really, the day I vacuum the car is the day you have to go to the emergency animal hospital - THE day I vacuum the car?"  Oh well.

We go through check-in and head to a room where they take preliminary information and we wait for the doctor to come in.  I decide Butler might calm down if I sit on the floor with him so I sit with my back against the door to the hall and he finally lays down on the floor next to me with his nose right on the door to the hallway - which is how the doctor sees him when she walks into the exam room.  She's like, "he's ready to leave isn't he?"  She didn't want to sedate him at his age to do a thorough exam/work up of his mouth and all - but what she could see from a very quick peek in his mouth and all was that Butler just had an infection - nothing relating to his mouth.  Now....was it just an infection or was it more?  We wouldn't know for a couple of days until he got some antibiotics on board because if the doctor took a sample of the swollen area she would basically just get white blood cells.  So......if the swelling didn't go down some by Wednesday I was to take him to my vet or the emergency animal hospital for more testing because it was not "just an infection".

I get one pill down Butler - I'm to give him two a day but only one yesterday.  I realize he is not thrilled to have anyone mess with his mouth or try to lift his chin to see how the swelling is doing so I wonder if I can take a black Sharpie marker and draw around the swollen area so if I do get his chin lifted I can check quickly to see if the swelling has gone down or gotten worse.  But I don't want to use a Sharpie on him without checking - so I call the emergency animal hospital and pose my question stipulating that I had marked myself in the past when I had an issue to see if something had gotten worse.  The lady that answered the phone wasn't sure if that would be ok or not and wanted to check with the vet - the vet thought that was a great idea and said to go ahead and mark him up.  Butler was so happy when I did that - not.

Dad got home from visiting Mom and we talked about going to the fireworks and we decided we might but we'd touch base around 8:00 p.m.  I then saw on PBS the Washington D.C. 4th celebration and an hour later on NBC the New York City 4th celebration.  Between me doing things upstairs and Dad talking on the phone downstairs I think we both ended up watching both shows - and that was good enough fireworks for us.

This morning when I got up before pilling Butler I could tell the swelling under his chin had already started to go down.

Poor Mom - Dad told me tonight that now they have found fluid in her lungs and are waiting the results of x-rays today to see if they need to drain the fluid.  To say I'm not happy with her treatment is an understatement......