Waiting and working

Nelly is at the vet's today, getting her teeth cleaned. I know, that probably sounds like overkill, but turns out dogs and cats suffer from tartar and gingivitis just like us, and their teeth rot and have to be pulled, and that's worse than just cleaning them in the first place. It doesn't have to be done every year or anything - a couple cleanings per lifetime is sufficient.

However, teeth-cleaning does require general anesthesia, and in keeping with her generally high-maintenance personality, Nelly does VERY VERY badly on general anesthesia. After she comes out of it, she spends a full 48 hours in a state that I would describe as "inconsolable distress," and the vet describes more succinctly as "psychosis." In comparison, when Toby has to go under the happy gas he just stumbles around like a funny drunk for a couple of hours afterwards, and then he's fine.

But not Nelly, no. So the vet is once again jiggering with the pharmacalogical cocktail in search of something easier on Nelly's system. Her latest theory is maybe opiates cause the psychosis, so she's omitting the opiates. But the one other time Nelly got her teeth cleaned, she was in the hospital five days later with an infection in her pancreas. Throw in the fact that she's nearly 9 years old, and I have some anxiety about this whole decision and what it's going to do to her furry little body. I'll be happy to get her home and get a sense of what we're in for this time around.

Toby, meanwhile, is shockingly unconcerned about his sister's absence, as you can see. I should probably take a page from his book.