I just looked at my last post and realized it’s been over a month since I updated. Ooops! I vaguely remember saying “I don’t feel like it” while being busy around the holidays and then that’s where it stopped.

Here’s some of what happened since. Since Miss Butterfly had covid in November, we felt pretty safe sending her to spend a couple weeks with my parents. It was nice for her to be doing something else other than trying to be safe at home after so many months. We had a lovely little holiday with just my cousin who has also been very careful. We chose to make lasagna and garlic bread instead of a traditional christmas feast. It was extremely well received!

At the time we still had our little foster dog who came in extremely terrified. She had totally opened up and became a fairly confident dog. It was my first situation where the first home she was scheduled for didn’t work out, but her second home did. Her second home also adopted her brother. He is still struggling with some medical issues so he’s not with her yet, but her home anxiously awaits for him to join them. Here she is on her adoption day:

She will be forever in my heart as our biggest transformation dog-coming in almost too scared to know what to do with, but then totally changing her tune and gaining confidence! I really really loved this foster.

Somewhere in there I got some knitting done, I knit another honey cowl out of Miss Marja’s handspun yarn.

About a week after our little foster went to her new home, we received another foster! While the little dog above was the biggest mental transformation, our current foster has the most dramatic story and is going through the biggest medical transformation.

As you may be able to see, there’s something wrong with one of her eyes. We knew this when we committed to her. She had been found full of buckshot, she’d been shot many times. She’s got buckshot all over her head, ears, back, legs, all down one side. But despite this, she remains the absolute sweetest and good-est dog you’d ever meet. Just an absolute gem of a dog. But, the thing about buckshot is that it moves. Her body tries to reject it, bringing it to the surface. And there’s buckshot in her eye cavity. The rescue that she was with before she came to our rescue treated her eye, trying to save it. They felt she was responding to light so they hoped to save as much as possible of her sight. When she came to us, it was clear the eye was still hurting her despite the treatment given, but also, I could tell she was not seeing out of it very well. She would turn her head all around to get a fix on me when I spoke to her. When outdoors on a leash, she’d make a flying leap doing a 180 in the air in order to see me if she lost sight of me on the bad side. I had this inkling that the eye needed to go and wasn’t sure how to approach our rescue about the surgery. I told a rescue friend “If she were my personal dog, the first thing I’d do is take her to the eye vet specialist and ask what the options were.”

Well, within 48 hours of her arrival at our place, I no longer had to wonder how to ask. On a monday morning when I was working from home, I noticed that her eye had turned a bit red, I took the above photo and sent it to the rescue. Within a few short hours, her eye had completely filled with blood. I took another photo and sent it to the rescue, and was instructed to get her to the vet asap. Vet let us know that indeed she needed to have her eye removed, the buckshot was moving around in her eye cavity and causing problems. I admit, I was actually grateful for this news because that would put to rest the uncertainty of how to treat this medical issue. She was scheduled for surgery.

Now, I was prepared for the worst, the surgery can be a bit gory looking. But, it soon became clear that she really needed her eye removed. She’s now 6 days post-op and healing beautifully. They generally do not look this good. But what is even more amazing? She FEELS good, and it became immediately clear. She was instantly more playful, happier, more excited. She also SEES better, she’s not working around the sight in one bum eye, instead she can concentrate on the sight she does have. She plays with balls, she pushes them all over the house, then chases and pounces on them. She can SEE those toys and act accordingly and she is Just. So. Happy. And we are just so happy for her!

She’s had a very medically transformative journey, and it’s felt a bit out of my comfort zone. But she’s all the sweetness and she’s so fun, and her medical needs have been so well managed that it turned out to be so much less worry and work than I thought it would be. Her stitches come out at the end of next week and then she’ll be ready to find her home! And we’ll be ready to commit to the next foster, whoever that may be.

There’s been a lot of other stuff this past month-there’s the general state of the country that felt rather worrisome. My mother in law fell and broke her femur, had surgery, and is now in a rehab facility despite the fact we’d tried hard to keep her out of one during the pandemic. Unfortunately, no one can go see her at all, due to the pandemic. The fall brought to town my brother in law who is really a fun person to be around despite the stressful situation, and it was really great to see him. He also “took care of business” with his mother so I didn’t have to be so worried or making decisions I wasn’t comfortable making (these types of things are often left to the women of the family, but my mother in law does not have any daughters.) It was nice to see the guys step up this time. So, overall, it’s just been kind of a busy time, and somewhere in the mix I forgot about the blog. It happens!