Puppies And A Hockey Puck Story

Last Monday evening a crew of three spread some of the sand at Dave's Lake.

Later that afternoon, puppy #1 arrived.

 

Beautiful evening for garden.

By 8:00 or so, all 8 puppies were here... although one with a cleft palate was spirited off to Lewistown where someone on Tori's fb puppy group was going to try to bag it until it could eat soft dogfood. At last report Clefty was doing ok.

More yardwork on the cleanup after the electrical project.

Time for a walk on a beautiful evening.

Tuesday, Anne came for lunch and a walk while these two hung out here.

By Tuesday afternoon, it was clear that the smallest pup wasn't getting enough milk,

so kids tried valiantly to feed him until he was strong enough to nurse.

Alas and alack, on Wednesday evening then Tori discovered that he also had a cleft palate and would never be able to nurse; no one was excited to continue the hand feeding for three weeks, when pneumonia and death was likely anyway, so pup #7 is no more😞. Very interesting bc from the start, Brandi wanted nothing to do with her tiny pup. Ignored it when we'd pick it up and wouldn't clean it up when we put it back. Instinct is powerful and accurate.

More evening beauty.

Josh keeps busy doing so many things for Dad around here. He does a great job. Here's one of his projects last week, on Thursday - trimming sprouts off oak tree trunks.

Six fat healthy puppies and a very good mama dog.

With the unique lighting and clouds and vivid colors, that evening's views were spectacular. To quote a dear friend:

Who can say there's not a God?

Friday. Ahh Friday. What a day.

First a re-cap of life beyond the pictures and a hockey puck story. In February, Josh's lip/tooth met with a hockey puck at a backyard skate and the puck clearly won. A chipped tooth and a fat lip were the result. Dr. Sean at Smalltown Dental fixed the chipped tooth (twice bc the first one didn't stay in), and the lip healed over but was always abnormally puffy. It didn't bother Josh, and I thought it was scar tissue that would eventually be absorbed or whatever. See, I had a similar injury in college (circa 1988)(not from a hockey puck though) and still have a lump of scar tissue in my lip, np. So I wasn't worried about it.

Then last week, whilst on his Cousin Squad Trip, this silly lip started to swell and hurt and on Saturday evening it burst open and A. Sarah pushed the pus out of it and it was fine again. Or so we thought.

On Monday we went to promptcare (bc after 35!! minutes on hold with his pediatrician's office, they had no openings to see him!); the NP said it was definitely not infected but we should have it checked by his primary care physician bc it's clearly not healing correctly. 

So we did that on Tuesday, only I went online to OSF Tremont and made an appointment; how easy is that?! The APN there said it was a mucocele cyst and would heal on its own; but it would continue to fill with pus and burst, etc. until it was surgically removed, ugh. She said it could wait until fall when life slows down (ha, like that's going to happen), so that's what we planned to do.

Thursday evening. Swelling/pain began again. Pulled up my handy OSF Tremont website and made an appointment for Friday morning.

Friday. Trip to dentist (routine cleaning for three)(all clear, woo-hoo). Errands until 11:20 when we went to OSF Tremont. Are you counting? That's three visits in five days. Four if you count the dentist appointments. Not cool. But it was okay because Dr. Baer popped the pus out of the "cyst" again.... and the chipped part of the tooth that had been inside Josh's lip since February popped out too! Needless to say, he and we were surprised. There never was a mucocele cyst - there was a tooth causing all the problems! Not sure why it took three months for the silly thing to work its way out, but that's what happened. At the time of the injury, the tooth landed in the lip and the lip healed around it - and then when Dr. Baer pushed it out the front, it completed its journey through Josh's bottom lip. 

And now his lip is finally healed, not a bit swollen, and we are thankful.

The problematic tooth chip which was inside his lip😑

And that concludes A Hockey Puck Story. 

Moral of the story: life is dangerous. Handle with prayer.

Home again -

Sarah babysat these two sweethearts Friday night. They were enamored.

And that was last week. Between runt puppies and a swollen lip and dozens of other things that are too numerous to mention - well, it was kind of an exhausting week and I'm glad it's done.