Saturday, June 18, 2011

Mol would like to thank her public, the stats dream is over, bubbles and hoverflies.

Mol would like to thank her public for all their good wishes and sympathy.

She has improved quite literally by leaps and bounds in 24 hours, as Emy the vet predicted but as it was hard to believe yesterday when she was sore and woozy and wobbly, though she clattered upstairs to bed energetically enough.  She had a good night's sleep, woke us with a racket as she scooted, bucket and  all, under the bed and out the other side at about 6 am, clattered down the stairs for a pee and then clattered up them again to insist on joining us on the bed for a lie-in, which after the long and gruelling day yesterday we all appreciated.

The bucket is irksome, as it really is a very big one, bigger than was required for her ears since she can't be allowed to get anywhere near the stitches, and she's worked out how she can get to her back paws even so.  She's still amazingly good about it, and after a trip in the car and a short walk in the arboretum this morning, she was allowed to be free of it for a trot down the road this evening, which she enjoyed.  The scar looks a bit alarming and long, Emy took out the neighbouring lymph glands to be on the safe side, but running the length of her body rather than across it, it's not as troublesome as it might be. She really is running and jumping again already, and doesn't seem to be in any pain, just sometimes uncomfortable when she's sitting around, but that might be the bucket, or thirst - she needs to drink a lot, but doesn't always realise that's what she needs - or her insides settling down again.  She's on painkillers and antibiotics, and the stitches out in a fortnight.   She's eating like a horse and I'm quite sure she's enjoying barging the back of our legs with the bucket for attention.  She sometimes needs to flop and sleep in a cool quiet dark place after a burst of being up and about and up for anything.

She had a small drip bandage on her front leg which Emy said we could take off any time, but Mol wouldn't tolerate me getting anywhere near it - she never trusts me around her paws.  This evening she snuggled up next to Tom on the sofa as is her wont, and later when I came by, he held out the bandage, which he had quietly worked off without a murmur from her.

Submitting an animal for surgery is a difficult thing to do.  You can't explain to them why it's happening and what the alternatives are, they can't explain to you how they're feeling.  You have to abandon them for the duration.  We said we wouldn't put her through anything like that again, but when it came to it this seemed like the better choice, and seeing how bravely she's coping with it and how well she's recovering, and how ready she is for a good few years more life, we're confident, fingers crossed, that we've done the right thing.

~~~

Stats are back to normal, a star is not born in me, nor in you, if you're on Blogger and were getting delusions of grandeur.  They finally explained that it was indeed some blogroll widget erroneously registering as pageviews.  The moral is, as we keep saying, do it for the love of it and for your real friends, not for the stats.

~~~

We like the new computer.  We like Windows 7.  We especially like a new screensaver which comes with it which generates a random image of translucent bubbles which bounce around and off each other and change colour, and simply overlay rather than replacing the display below.

~~~


Now for some hoverflies.  The small-, purple-flowered* container plant whose name I have forgotten again seems to be a hoverfly magnet, it is alive with scores of them all the time when it's dry.  Hoverflies are wonder-insects, they pollinate everything, their larvae eat baddies like aphids, they look cute, they don't sting and they don't live in the stonework of your house.  So the more the merrier, I reckon.







* that's a German punctuational trick, that repeated hyphen for two compound words with the same second element, it doesn't really exist in English but it should, so I use it.




15 comments:

Zhoen said...

Good for Mol.

Those are flies? Rather pretty, really. They look very bee-like to me.

HLiza said...

Poor Mol..I do hope she gets well soon!

marja-leena said...

Mol is quite a good girl, all said!

The hover flies are new to me, as flies, and not sure if I recognize them from around here. Must sharpen my eyes out for them.

Glad your new 'puter is sweet!

Rosie said...

so sorry to hear about our mol..reckon you did the right thing, having the surgery....a bit of pain and discomfort, but followed by happiness for all! Porridge sends her love:-)

anna tambour said...

What Mol does know is that she is loved, and that makes living with the bucket bearable, and is a more effective healer than anything a drug co can make. As for those stats, celebrate your select following! These are beautiful pictures, as usual. And that punctuation decision you made is a lesson. I wish we had it in English, too. And the way to have it is to use it, so you started it. Next, go further! Plant a whole post about it, to advocate it, and help organic language grow! I for one will spread manure.

Crafty Green Poet said...

Glad Mol is fdoing better, hope her recovery continues!

Lovely hoverflies, such beautiful patterns!

Glad the stats issue is resolved, my stats are back down too,

Marly Youmans said...

Like those black backgrounds to the flowers and flies--really punches up the color.

Hurrah for Mol. The recuperation power of dogs and children is amazing.

the polish chick said...

good news about mol, glad to hear she's doing well.

loving the german hyphen, makes perfect sense. i think i shall have to adopt it as well.

Jan said...

Poorly animals deserve lots of fussing and I'm sure Mol is in the best place for that.
Good to make contact again and to see your posts are as fine as ever...

zephyr said...

i'm sure you made a good decision for Mol. And i have such a difficult time with the whole problem of not being able to "speak" with our animal family members about all this...though i am convinced they are amazingly adaptable and cope far better than i remember to give them credit for.

Roderick Robinson said...

Oh, wow! I got up early to check the remainder of the blogs I regularly visit and find that virtually all of this “regained” time will be devoted to Box Elder before I rush back to help Mrs BB remake the bed – an act of mutual support which turns a chore into an efficacious solution lasting mere seconds. Not that I’m complaining.

But I am working backwards. Fascinated to see Lucy Mark III, quite different from Mark I (dangling earrings more prominent at the wedding in Brittany where a Jeep played a drive-on part) and the much more recent Mark II, in a ferocious strop and part of a montage. Here we have the whispier – Dare I say fey? No I dare not – persona incapable of disciplining a preterite failure.

I must scroll back. I try to find a French equivalent of the items constituting your pub order list (quiche, jacket potatoes, etc) but fail. How did these educated French people react to a jacket potato reheated in the microwave, its skin all damp and blah-i? Or were they carried away by the Britishnness of it all. Let’s hope they did not blame the prophet of their experience. Thank God for The Bell at Alresford. But then – Good God! – the manager’s French. Ah, that’s cheating. As I would have done in your place.

And now I’m faced with providing sixteen words on the blogger becomes the blog. Certainly Plutarch and I, under the comforting tawdriness of the Retreat, are mere electronic extensions of the two flesh-and-blood entities, one of whom submitted an expenses claim in the seventies and the other who signed it. Goodness, there’s lot’s more scroll-bar still to go.

What influential people you know. Bee in spiritual contact with the sainted Jane. Must be selective as you have had to be. But oh the sudden confusing switches of language. Sainted Genostine! Yah! And within all this a crise d’ordinateur. No, I’m exhausted, I will go back to the most recent post for the sake of my blood pressure.

But even there I am embarrassed with riches although that’s a poor metaphor for Mol’s poorliness. A moment of silence and sympathy then. Time to come to a dignified conclusion. I am absurdly moved that we share the same operating system and you are exploring the delights of the portable toolbar initiated by the right click. Is that suitably gnomic?

Lucy said...

Thanks all. recovery continues but getting comfy at night is bothering her, and therefore us. She's fine lazing about in the day, but her bed seems never to be right. She's coping OK with the car which is a relief as it means I can get out and about more easily (she doesn't care for being left behind too much).

Jan, nice to see you again!

BB - you have been missed!

earlybird said...

Beautiful photos of the hoverflies. Glad to hear Mol is improving...

Rouchswalwe said...

Sending a pat and a fur ruffle for brave Mol and ales for you and Tom! So that hyphen thingie is German?! What a revelation. My teachers here in the States used to mark it in red and take off points! I wonder what the statute of limitations for essays is?

Fire Bird said...

great pictures of hoverflies. Glad to hear Mol doing so well. We have that bubbles screensaver too!