Colds, Dentists, and Vets

We've had a busy weekend that is still going.

I took Ozzy to the vet on Saturday. He's been limping a lot lately and we've been meaning to take him back in, so I finally did it. All the workers who were in the waiting room were commenting on how he walks funny and holds his legs funny and all that. They weighed him and he was 104, which is 3 pounds lighter than he was a year ago. He should be going the other direction in weight. When we got into the examination room and the vet came to look at him, she pointed out how straight he keeps his legs from his ankles down. Usually there's more of a bend there, but he holds his pretty straight. As she was moving the legs while he was lying down, she said that he has more extension there than he's supposed to. Most of her moving his legs around didn't seem to bother Ozzy until she moved his legs outward. She said that especially in a dog as young as he is, that makes her think that it's hip dysplasia. So we scheduled to take Ozzy in on Monday morning for x-rays to see what the problem was. Yep, he has hip dysplasia. The vet (a different one this time) suggested giving Ozzy glucosamine and gave us some Rimadyl for the pain and we'll take him back next Monday to see how he's been doing on the Rimadyl. On a side note, when they weighed him when I dropped him off on Monday morning, he was at 107 again.

Sunday night, Daniel started showing signs of a cold. He didn't look like he felt well, had a runny nose, and was hot when I put him in his high chair for dinner, so I took his temperature. It was 103. I told Bryce about it, then went downstairs where I told the kids that no one else was allowed to be sick. Alex answered by running towards the bathroom and throwing up on the floor just outside the door, then making it to the toilet for the third heave. Luckily, he didn't throw up again after that and has been fine since then. Daniel has been slowly improving each day, so hopefully will be all the way better by tomorrow.

Today I got to go get a crown lengthening. What's a crown lengthening, you ask? Well, a crown lengthening is where you have a tooth that's too short or damaged to be able to put a crown on it, so they go in and cut away the gum around the base of the tooth to expose more tooth so they can do a crown. In my case, my tooth had broken off below the gum line, so I had to have it done. After they cut away the gums, they put in a couple (I got 3) stitches, give you a prescription for pain medication and a mouth rinse that supposedly tastes like black licorice (and the pharmacist said not to drink anything for at least a half hour after because it makes the flavor worse) and send you home. They do offer to sedate you for the procedure if you wish. I opted just for the local anesthesia. For the rest of the day today I'm supposed to ice my jaw (20 minutes on, 5-10 off, 20 minutes on, and so on)and watch for bleeding. I can take the Vicodin they prescribed today if I want, but I'm supposed to wait until tomorrow for the mouth wash. The whole thing took just over an hour (they said it would take an hour and a half). You always know it's a bad sign though when the dentist says, "Boy, you really did a number on this tooth." After all this pain and time at the dentist, I'm almost wishing I had just had it pulled.