Sending me so far away

I’m still worrying about Jez – we still haven’t had a referral to a specialist. It turns out that that is because her previous vet is incapable of putting her XRays in the post to her new vet. It’s ironic really, they are all digital now, but they can’t email them as the file sizes are huge. I spoke to her new vet, Duncan, yesterday and he was hoping to get them today. I said to let me know if not and I’d go round there and transport them myself.

In the conversation with Duncan he told me that he’s decided against referring her to the specialist in Ringwood. He said that although they would do an excellent job, they would aim for perfection, which might not necessarily be in Jez’s best interest and would be extremely expensive. Instead he’s referring her to another orthopaedic specialist who he mentioned when we first saw him, who he uses a lot. The good news is that this guy will be cheaper (whilst still being extremely well qualified) and the insurance may cover it. The bad news is that he is in Devizes, which is nearly 60 miles away. I told him that I had been worrying about the extent to which her knee is fixable now, but he said this guy should be able to sort her out pretty well, although her arthritis in later life will be worse than it would have been. Ironically the reason we had the operation done so quickly in the first place was to lessen the damage to her knee and therefore the amount of arthritis she will suffer in later life. Duncan used an interesting phrase when talking about the new vet: he said he uses him a lot to sort out dogs that have been ‘buggered up by other vets’. I think that says it all.

Anyway, Jez hasn’t been too bad this week. Although she’s not quite so good to day, she was limping a lot less, so we’ve put the in the car and taken her to the Country Park for a change. We’ve only walked her a very short distance there, but it’s been something different for her after 2 months of only seeing the area close to the house. Only problem was that Tubs has put on so much weight her car harness won’t fit her any more (and we’re not putting her in the back of the car as she has to jump to get in there, which doesn’t do her let any good). So I had to go out and buy her a new, Extra Large to fit Rottie, Labs etc, car harness.

We’ve also let her up on the sofa in my room, although we’ve provided her with a plastic box to use as a step. But she’s discovered that she can go from the sofa, to the arm, to the top of her crate, to the window ledge in the bay window, where she now spends a lot of her time. She sits there and gets worked up over the neighbours cats, generally watches the world go by, and suns herself. You can see her route in this first photo…



But she’s scratching the sill badly so Chris put an old quilt up there for her to lie on…



In other news I was due to meet Val for supper on Wednesday, but she called off at the last minute (Wednesday afternoon) as she had to go to the doctor. So I’m hoping to see her sometime next week. I also went to the hairdresser on Wednesday, who decided to dry my hair differently for a change (as those of you on Facebook will have seen).



Otherwise I have written all my Christmas cards this week, and I’ve wrapped the presents! So, I’m all ready for Christmas now. Dad and Pat are off to Spain for Christmas in a couple of weeks, so they are coming here to dinner on Sunday. I’m planning to do prawn cocktail, Roast Beef etc, and Cheesecake. Oh, that reminds me. I tried out a new Indian recipe on Tuesday: chicken with spinach. It was really good. Chris and I are both eating too much at the moment though, and have both put on weight.