Hestia’s been developing another staph infection over the past couple of weeks. She gets them every few months as a result of allergies. We’d been treating it at home and thinking of taking her back into the vet soon.
Last night we noticed her eyes were red. This morning, not only were they red and watery, but she would hardly open them at all! I could tell she was just miserable. So we called up the vet and made an appointment. Below is a picture of her squinting a bit this morning.
First, though, we had a family lunch! Since we were going to be at lunch and then going to the vet, we had to take all three dogs with us! Alice was SO HAPPY she got to go with us!
We had a fun lunch, and Alice got to be held by both Brad’s mom and aunt. Felix got to be held by Brad’s aunt. All the pups (and humans!) had a great time! We even got to see some of the eclipse!
We had to leave right after the peak of the eclipse to go to the vet for Hestia’s eye. There was a lot of traffic, so we were running late. Luckily I called and they were OK with us being 7 minutes late.
When we got there, we went right into the exam room. While we were waiting, Brad took some pictures of Hestia’s bloodshot eyes (which, for those of you who can’t see them, are big and googly and look like bug eyes!), and he got a picture with all three dogs in it. I am sitting on the bench with the big ones (Hestia and Felix, at a whopping 8.75 lbs each), and Alice (the little one) on Brad’s lap.
The vet we saw was the same one who popped Hestia’s hip back in socket. She was not impressed with our story of Hestia leaping off the 5 ft tall deck the other day! She told Hestia to be more careful!
She agreed it was probably allergies, but said it might also be a thyroid condition causing a propensity for skin changes. So before doing the super expensive allergy testing, we did a cheaper thyroid test (we just got senior bloodwork done because it was time for that anyway and a thyroid test is included). If the thyroid is the problem, then we can just treat that. If not, then we’ll do the allergy testing and start getting her allergy shots.
In the meantime, she gave us antibiotics to help with Hestia’s staph infection and eyedrops to help her eyes feel better. She also told us to get Benadryl for her allergies. We are already on a holistic allergy treatment which has helped some, but right now it’s time for the big guns. If the Benadryl doesn’t help, then we might start on Claritin.
While we were there at the vet’s office, we ordered some Benadryl from Amazon and it will be delivered tomorrow.
When we got home, I put the eye drops in and Hestia was so good! It won’t be hard to give them to her at all. She’s such a good patient!