Do the Dew (claw)

I'm hoping Mountain Dew won't sue me for using their slogan to title this night's blog entry, but since I have a readership of like three people, I'm thinking they'll be okay with me.

BTW, the wife is in the other room watching that reality Wives of New York show and she is laughing out loud. She LOVES that crap! More power to her, I guess. All I hear is rich women yelling at each other. I'm gonna stick with "The Biggest Loser" and "Dancing with the Stars." How 'bout that 48 year old woman winning it all? You go, peri-menopausal grrrrl!

Today's topic: Using vacation monies to fix the car AND get the dog's dew claw removed. I've already whined about the car, so I'm onto the dew claw. You know what a dew claw is, right? It's that funky nail on the front paws of a dog that really seem to serve no purpose that I can think of except to cause havoc and to give groomers one more thing to trim. (Side note: if any of you know what the hell a dew claw is for, I'd love to know.)

Poor Freckles Warrior Princess. Some of you will remember her episode with the ripped off dew claw in December or so. You know, the trip to the emergency vet on a Sunday, little pink cast, pain meds, big bill. She's had dew claw issues since the day she was born. (She has a lot of issues. Even her little butt hole isn't in the middle of her butt. Really.) Her dew claw is very deformed and thus curls inward and ends up growing in to her skin. You have to see it to truly understand it. It's horrible to cut in general, it's impossible for me to trim, the old groomer always missed it and I'd have to take her back, yadda yadda. It's been eight years of dew claw hell.

You'd think since Freckles only has one dew claw, she'd have half the problems of other dogs, but this is not the case. (Why she only has one on her left paw and not her right, I do not know. I'm guessing that she is a mutant of some puppy mill sort.) That deformed dew claw is definitely making up for the lack of the other one. I was rather relieved when she had the dew claw accident last winter because I thought it was the end of the dew claw regime. Even the vet was pretty sure it wouldn't grow back. But, it's back, curlier than ever. Ugh!

I came home from work Wednesday and found Freckles limping and waving her paw in the air. Oh no!

She was doing the dew...claw. The paw in the air is never a good sign.

I thus took ol' Fatty Patty to the vet (Dr. Kitty Cat) so we could discuss the dew claw situation and to make sure this was indeed the problem. A physical identified no other issue, so dew claw it was deemed to be--which is good and bad news--it coulda been a lot worse, but I am so over this dew claw thing.

Why it has taken me nine years to ask the question, "how much would it be to have the dew claw surgically removed?" I do not know, but while at the vet, I inquired about the cost and the danger of doing such surgery. The vet thought it would be a fine idea and although Freckles is going on nine years old, she's probably got many a year left in her and thus surgery of this type would be worth it. Dr. Kitty Cat didn't seem too worried about any dangers for Freckles as related to surgery, so I asked for an estimate. The cost was much less than I thought it might be; in fact, the dew claw incident this winter cost more than the surgery will cost.

On a side note, the vet took a look at Fatty Patty's teeth, as it seemed like a good idea to kill two birds with one stone: remove dew claw, clean teeth. Unfortunately, Freckles has very few teeth. I'm serious. They never grew in. (I told you she's deformed.) The vet literally laughed. No need for teeth cleaning--you have to have teeth for that.

After a bit of deliberation, I decided that potential risks associated with surgery would be so minute that it would be worth using my remaining vacation money to fund the removal of the claw. I scheduled the laser surgery--the big day is June 8th. It's the first day that Dr. Kitty Cat and I could get our schedules together. I wish it could be this week but we'll be on vacation (NOT on a beach in Mexico) and then the vet is on vacation and then I'm out of town on business.....thus, June 8th. (The wife wants nothing to do with this. She doesn't want to take the dog to the vet, pick the dog up, care for the dog upon arrival home. The wife doesn't do pain.)

Waiting til June 8th will give me time to fret about everything and it will give Freckles time to have one more episode of dew-claw-trauma. It will also give me time to spend the money and then save the money only to spend it again. By then, my car will be fixed, my non-vacation will be over, the weather will be warmer, Dancing with the Stars will be history and I'll be well on my way to addressing my goiter via Jillian's new book.

Goiter Grrrl doing the dew....claw. Sounds like an adventure to me.

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