Ghillie, Frank and Update

A MUTUAL SYMPATHY SOCIETY FOR TWO OF THE MEN IN MY LIFE

Life has been a little hectic of late. I promised various people that I would write a catch-up blog last week. Unfortunately, trouble and strife reared its head again before I could put pen to paper- or fingers to keyboard. Not wanting it to seem as if I only write when doom and gloom are in the ascendancy, and not wanting it to seem as if I only write when I want sympathy, I decided to postpone 'catch-up' until I at least had some good news to report. This is not to say that the fantastic messages and good wishes that I received from everybody both at Xmas and again this week have not been truely inspirational. I cannot begin to say how much they help, and what they have meant to me and Frank. I have actually kept all of them.
      I seriously considered quitting my O.U. course when I fell so far behind. However encouraged by friends and tutor, who extended the deadlines for assignments, I did continue and caught up. Incredibly, I got a really good mark for a Science Fiction short story that I submitted for the assignment. I was very pleased as it was my first attempt at that genre. Furthermore, there was lots of scope within the story for a possible return and expansion into something bigger in the future. I have now left the fiction writing part of the course behind and am into the poetry section- not my favourite and a bit of a struggle. I love writing and reading poetry but hate the technical aspects of it. I also have to admit to finding a lot of modern poetry extremely pretentious- a bit like modern art, which I have never really got to grips with.
    Quite apart from the O.U. stuff. I have been asked to produce a potted history of the establishment of the Large Munsterlanders in the UK., (about which I know a bit) and a wee bit about working trials, (about which I know less). Both pieces are for the new handbook being produced by The Large Munsterlander Club. The articles are wanted by the end of the month, so, no pressure there!!! Trouble is trying to reduce what I know to the required word count...I always talk too much!!!
    Well, I guess being stuck in a car wash, the other week, with the windows going up and down kinda gets relegated to a minor incident compared with this weeks mayhem.....
    It all started on Sunday morning when Frank decided to take Flyn for a walk. I got a phone call to say he had had a bad fall on one of the wooden bridges in Strathclyde Park and could I fetch him. I got him home, elevated and slapped ice on a rapidly swelling ankle and left him watching football while I went to play silly games on the computer. I really didn't like the look of  it a couple of hours later, and decided that he had to go to A & E to get it checked out. We arrived at Wishaw A & E AT 4.15pm and were told to expect a 3 hour wait. As it turned out, they were really in a state following a big accident earlier in the day. We didn't get home until 9.45pm after X-Rays showed Frank had a fractured fibula and he had been duly plastered. I had had to leave him there at 7pm to dash home and feed the dogs who must have been thinking they had been abandonned.


Not a pretty sight!


   I thought that having to nurse Frank and cope with my writing was enough to be going on with. But, on Wednesday morning, Ghillie was violently sick. I had to take Frank to the fracture clinic in the afternoon, run the dogs, (Ghillie seemed much better), and then drive to Glasgow to take Frank to the chiropractor. We didn't get home until after 6pm and then Ghillie started having diarrhoea. It continued all evening getting worse and more bloody and at 10.30pm phoned Vets Now and charged off into Glasgow with him. They checked him over, thought he was over the worst of it, charged me £120 and sent me home. Overnight he vomitted and passed more blood and ended up at my own vets on a drip on Thursday When I went to pick him up on Thursday afternoon, he was howling the place down. He had now been starved for 2 days. He was really poorly still on Thursday night and after 5 more episodes of passing fluid and blood was back at the vets on Friday morning. By Friday night blood results confirmed that it was definitely pancreatitis and cholitis, but he was much brighter and had had no more diarrhoea or vomitting. He was now being fed chicken breast fillet and brown rice hourly.  In view of his blood results, the vet changed his drug regime and I picked up fresh drugs this morning. He is as bright as a button, thinks he is in heaven with the ongoing hourly feeds of chicken breast and brown rice...(we are having Shepherd's Pie for dinner).
   I am totally knackered; never have I known hours go by so fast and Ghillie dogs my every step. When I am not running round after him, I am feeding Frank, watering Frank... allowing Frank total control of the remote- nothing new there!! It's actually quite relaxing to escape to the computer and write this. But, I still had to break off to feed Ghillie. I think, I had better stop now as I guess it is also time to feed Frank......

My Boy