Thursday, December 8, 2011
Well, I wanted to touch base on the status of Benjamin’s medical issues. (He signed the HIPAA waiver, so I have permission for those that were concerned about me infringing upon his legal rights.);)
After much back and forth between our usual vet and the eye vet(s), the current diagnosis is a combination of dry eye and allergies. I say eye vets because we have now seen each of the 3 specialists that practice at the AVS location we visit.
Benny is being medicated for seasonal allergies (he pops a human Claritin daily) and he will go the end of this week for one more trip to the eye specialist to get his 6 month treatment plan. His maladies have seemed to have settled down. No face swelling. The licking and scratching have appeared significantly less. The true bonus is that his chest x-rays came back normal.
The unusual thing about the diagnosis of dry eye, is it is the same problem Luna suffers from, but not really the same at all. Benny produces tears. Luna does not produce tears on her own. Benny’s problem is the quality of his tears. Thus, even though he produces tears, his eyes would still be considered dry. Seemed very odd to me at first but I guess I get it now.
So, this is where we are with Baby Benny. I must say that I have also been living up to most of my end of the deal with better upkeep of the ear cleaning and wrinkle cleaning. Toenail trimming, while better is still a sore spot. During his procedure of the anesthetized ear cleaning, the vet saved me some specimens of what he removed.
Funny, even though his ears are clean, he doesn’t seem to listen any better. 
He definitely has very selective hearing, I would say. He is continues to live up to his aging man nickname of Solsey Benny! (Of course this is said the way we used to say Solsey Baby!)
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Well, I always like to preface a long blog with the following: pull up a chair; it’s going to be a doozy. It’s going to be a long story (even though I am trying to make is short).
Before leaving for vacation, Benjamin was experiencing what I considered to be allergies. He had been licking his feet, scratching his ears and rubbing his face into the back of the sofa. We had noticed that one of his lower eyelids was a little droopy and that one of his jowls was a bit puffy and hanging lower than the jowl on the other side of his face. We didn’t think that much about it as initially we thought the face swelling had to do with his dental issue that we tended to before we left on vacation. Then, while in the mountains of North Carolina, Benjamin did not experience any of these things. This furthered my suspicion that Benny has allergies. This suspicion was even greater after we arrived home and his eyes got all goopy and he started squinting. He also had swollen wrinkles, and that eye droop was back. He was in such rough shape that I had to take him to the vet. The vet noticed not one but two ulcers on his corneas. (One on each cornea, that is.) The vet gave us some drops and said to come back in a week if he hadn’t improved; and stressed that if he was worse that could be indicative of a more severe problem.
Benny was better in a week. No worries. Well, about another week the later, the same symptoms start cropping up again. This time, since I already have a trip to the eye specialist for Luna planned, I call and ask if I can tack Benjamin on to the appointment so we can get a better idea of what is going on with him. “Of course,” they share. So, I tote both Benjamin & Luna to the eye specialist (which, as you know is no small jaunt; it’s about 50 miles away).
So, there we are at the eye vet with Benny. He has an ulcer in his left eye. They are of the mind that it is self inflicted. They ask the questions which demonstrate my poor supervisory skills:
- Has he been scratching his face? (Duh, yeah)
- Has he been running his face into the carpet or into furniture to scratch? (Um, of course)
Then embarrassingly, I try to conceal his mile long toe nails on top of it all….
So, the eye specialist loads him up with a variety of drops (3 different ones) and a gel (just one). Shortly after that, though, comes the icing on the cake: the cone! (I guess, I should have said the ice cream came next because the cone would make more sense to go with ice cream than cake.) Well, Benny can barely make it around the house and neighborhood coneless let alone wearing a satellite dish around his neck. Good grief.
Yet, home we go with Benny, the coned dog, and Luna who is just happy as a peach not be the wearer of the cone.
Oh, holy cow. I almost forgot one of the best parts…Benjamin has to go back the next day for a follow up! Really? Hate to sound like a whiney baby that won’t do anything for their kids, but we did just get back from vacation so I have taken a bit of time off work lately…and now I need to take back to back trips to the vet where each round trip is at least 3 hours? Aw geez.
In the meantime, Benjamin had another appointment that afternoon with our regular vet about the droopy/swollen face issue. The eye specialist could not see any link to the squinty/goopy eye to the other maladies. I had updated our primary vet on the status of Benny and shared what the eye vet had to say. After some consideration and an exam, the primary vet, told me to ask the eye vet if she would consider a condition called Horner's Syndrome. Horner's Syndrome is not a disease it is more like a combination of symptoms that when linked together can be indicative of a number of diseases/conditions. So, the most simple is no known cause, to relatively simple such as a middle ear infection or severely problematic of chest or brain tumors.
With that philosophy, the primary vet attempts to examine Ben's ears. Well, lovely, they are filled with impacted fur. So, now this is even more where the "I'm a bad mom" guilt sets in. His ears are filthy. So filthy actually that he needs to be mildly sedated to have them cleaned. So, the ear cleaning is scheduled, as well as a toe nail clipping and a head/chest X-ray.
Here is my promise for the future:
I will be a better mom about cutting his toenails (even though they grow twice as fast as Luna’s & Henry’s); I will be sure he wears the cone when needed so as not have him scratch his face so much that he puts an eye out (for you "Christmas Story" fans, that should raise a giggle) and I will be sure to stay on top of his ear cleaning (even though he is by far the worst at this task---as the primary vet put it during the exam when speaking to Ben, he said, "Boy, you strong. Like bull.")
Friday, November 4, 2011
The boys sharing a sunbeam while we played our morning Scrabble game last Sunday.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The teeth in Benjamin's mouth are packed in such a way that they make an elaborate set of nooks and crannies that make keeping his teeth clean a nightmare. So, today he is going in to get a thorough dental cleaning. Sadly, I know at least two teeth are going to need to be pulled and I am keeping my fingers crossed that no others will need to be extracted.
We picked up some baby food so Benny will have something soft to eat when he gets home this evening. I know he will be anxious to eat once he gets settled back at home. I can't wait to have him home, eating his baby food and resting up on his pile of pillows.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Another reason I think Benjamin loves to sit on his pile of pillows is to be closer to the cat's food. The smell of yummy cat food wafting from the cat's spot on the counter always torments Benny. The pillows bring him closer to the yumminess, but yet he is still so far, far away. Poor Benny!
Have a great weekend everyone! Don't forget to get your photos submitted to the 2012 Calendar Contest by Saturday.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Benjamin has an odd fascination with the pool skimmer. Whenever I take off the cover to clear out the skimmer, Benjamin always comes over and peers inside like it is some special rabbit hole and there is some magical wonderland hidden below.
Monday, September 5, 2011
This shot was taken back when Benny was really Baby Benny. It was taken in April 2003 in Ocean City, MD and Benjamin was just a year old.
We decided to take Benjamin and Henry to the beach (or down the ocean hun if your from Baltimore) in April because it is the off season and dogs are allowed on the beach and the boardwalk.
It was a windy day and as soon as we hit the boardwalk the wind picked up even more. Benny was a bit chilly so we bought two toddler shirts for the boys from one of the few shops that was open and having a clearance sale. Benny got a tough guy muscle shirt and Henry ended up with a peach Ocean City shirt with sleeves. Needless to say, Henry was unhappy with the fact that his shirt had sleeves and actually refused to walk once we put his shirt on him. So off came Henry's shirt. To this day, he refuses to wear a shirt with sleeves.
We walked up and down the boardwalk and down by the water and the pugs had a blast. I vividly remember the pugs' ears blowing straight up in the air from the strong wind. In fact, the strong winds almost delivered the pugs a whole pizza. We stopped for lunch at one of our favorite pizza places and setup a nice place to eat on the boardwalk. Well, a strong gust of wind came along and blew our pizza right down the boardwalk! Luckily, we were able to catch it and no damage was done, but it was kinda funny chasing our pizza down.
