Eye surgery is done

Blue had her eyelid margin mass removed yesterday by Dr. Anne in Annapolis. I dropped her off around 930 am and headed towards West St. to kill time. I just couldn’t leave her and head home.

In my rational, non-feeling mind, i planned on reading a book, reading the paper, getting lunch, and registering as a new patient at the local cannabis dispensary while i was there.

I did manage to eat a bagel and buy some RSO at Goldleaf but i can see now i did all of it on autopilot.

I think i mostly just sat in the truck , in a sunny parking lot and was periodically surprised at how much time had passed.

I was advised that she would probably be discharged between 4 and 430 pm but blissfully Anne called me at 1 pm to tell me it was done and she was ok. I picked her up and we made it home alive.

Now i’m waiting and trying not to stress about the biopsy of the mass b/c while meibomian gland masses are typically benign Blue’s was described as unusual in appearance. Maybe i can float back into the greyness and await the lab result without feeling the panic i feel.

Blue was out of it yesterday – did not drink or eat until later when i bribed her with butter but today she seems herself. and we went for a walk on the farm. I just need to keep my shit together and get her eye ointment administered as directed and wait.

My anxiety and fatalism assures me that the mass will be malignant and i have already pictured her with no upper lid, no eyeball at all and how do you keep an eye patch on a dog? Doc

A bad day

I am struggling today.

Yesterday i took my dog Blue to see a veterinary opthalmologist to have an eyelid margin mass evaluated. She developed this tumor last November around the same time an acute respiratory illness tried to kill her. I thought they were connected.

I treated her acute illness with 2 antibiotics for 2 weeks and intensive nursing care and somehow she didn’t die. Of course, this took place over the Thanksgiving holiday and no regular providers were working so we spent about $4,00.00 at the nearby emergency clinic. It was initially thought that she had cancer but the cytology of the fluid removed from her left pleural space did not reveal any neoplastic cells.

They never reported the culture results to me and i decided not to follow up because she was improved and i was too stressed to care.

Anyway, now 3 months later i have realized the eyelid mass needs to go.

Our visit with the eye doc went well. She is a practitioner i used to refer my patients to when the need arose and she agrees it is probably a common, benign mass and probably not related to her lung issue. Whew.

My problem today is that when i made the appt. on Monday for the following day (wow!) i knew the stress of it all plus the fact i didn’t know how to get there meant i needed a navigator so i could just drive during the morning rush hour and not lose my shit. so i asked a friend if he would go with since he grew up in the city and knew it well.

He told me he could go with us the next day so i abandoned my plan on Monday to make a test drive up the road and find the place. And this is where i’m unsure what happened b/c after he came over to my house and we talked about what time to leave in the morning and what was the best route to take, he told me i’d have no trouble finding it and to call him when we got back. For some reason this did not sink in until the following morning and i realized he wasn’t planning to come.

So i just went, got hopelessly lost and was late. Needing to be somewhere and not being able to find it – turns out – is a big stressor for me.

But as i said, the visit went well and Blue is scheduled for surgery next week.

I, on the other hand, am not so well.

This friend called my phone twice after he saw we were back but i ignored him.. I was and still am feeling abandoned. Any normal person would probably have just told their friend what is bothering them but i cannot.

I just encountered him out walking his dog and i gave him curt yes or no’s and left him standing in the street, the latest victim of my passive/aggressive mood. While it felt wrong i know the alternative of expressing my true feelings would probably lead to me screaming and cussing and ending the relationship then and there in my front yard.

I’m trying not to do that.

I’m hoping i just need time to see this more neurotypically and not as i do – which i have recently self diagnosed as probable autism.

Doc