Thursday, August 16, 2007

As of Today

As of today, my sister, Jan is still alive.

As of today, the Agency on Aging may have found a solution to caring for my mother in her home for as long as that is possible, until her Alzheimer's renders her incapable of living outside a nursing facility.

As of today, I feel better. I had a scary bout of panic at about 4 am, but it subsided with prayer. The rest of the day I felt well enough to do laundry and clean up the kitchen -- especially after my son-in-law, the saintly John, went with me to administer my horse's medicines.

Hell, he didn't "go with me" -- he was the one who smoothly took the horse's head in hand and gave him the two antibiotic salves in the affected eye and the oral paste anti-inflammatory. He did it quicker than the vet did. Far frickin' quicker than it took me and Kathy the Mad Horsewoman to give the horse first aid on Tuesday, when we found that Dink the Stink had rubbed his irritated "fly-eye" into a full-blown crisis.

Oh, yeah, I needed more stress.

Yesterday, Mad Kathy called and told me that the ranch manager had strongly suggested I call a vet to look at Dink's eye. I did so, and Pioneer Equine Hospital amazingly sent a vet to see Dink within two hours!

Dr. Luke Bass examined Dink thoroughly, for all that he (the vet) seemed to be only about 12 years old (perspective, perspective) and prescribed two antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory for the old pony.

Last evening, Dink tossed me around while Alex held his head as best she could to administer the medicines. This morning, and this evening, my son-in-law (may his name be engraved in gilt forever) did the administering, and made it look like magic. Dink didn't toss him around, and the procedures took only seconds.

At one point, and I am not exaggerating, Dink was flinging his head about, refusing to let the second course of antibiotic salves be put in his eye. John calmly tucked Dink's nose into his armpit, and then proceeded to apply the salve. Presto, hey, it was done!

Maybe John needs a new deodorant.

Or maybe I need to nominate my son-in-law for sainthood.

I do know that Dink's eye looked better this evening than it did this morning, and better this morning than it did last evening.

There is no reward great enough to pay John back for the stress reduction of today. God is going to have to pile that one on him, and may He do it speedily and sumptuously.

As of today, I felt like I might be able to function normally again one of these days.

1 comment:

Alex said...

On the outside, John is an ill-behaved, trash-talkin, potty-mouthed troublemaker. But on the inside, he is an ill-behaved, trash-talkin, potty-mouthed paladin and just a damned good friend to have your back in a pinch. (Or, in my case, to pinch my backside.) And despite the fact that he once fed Dink a tomato (which did not work out well for either of them), he knows a lot about horses. Including, probably, several recipes for cooking them.