I was browsing through an old newspaper site the other night, put my old dad’s name in and came up with this!

1955 at Oakleigh. We lived there then and I was five. Talk about a weird serendipity!

Look at the gorgeous ad at the bottom right....

It just amazes me that you can put a name in and up will come some obscure photo from 58 years ago. Who works quietly in the background trawling through and archiving all this?

My dad's been gone since 1988, and he would have been amazed, and thrilled to have been in the news like that. I wonder whether he knew.

Trip Home

We went to see the movie 'Hitchcock' on Sunday afternoon, and to dinner with a much loved friend and hubby for her birthday. It was dusk on the trip home, and I was enthralled by the beauty of our countryside as we drove home. I memorised the colours, determined to reproduce them in AR today. I think I got it reasonably right.

Done on Digital painting program Art Rage, which I find very inspiring!

If you're interested, follow this link below to see where posting this work on the Art Rage Forums led. Lots of lovely people and a gorgeous poem by Lord Byron.

http://www2.ambientdesign.com/forums/showthread.php?43081-Trip-home

What you see is not always what you get.

Well, the dispute with the vets is ongoing, and I am learning a lot about what seemingly decent educated people will do to get out of admitting that they handled things badly.

Lily exhibited what I called 'startling' as soon as the anesthetic wore off, and was stumbling and falling, twitching and behaving quite strangely quite a few times through the days and now months that followed. At first I thought she was having trouble adapting to having only one eye, so just watched her and calmed her when she needed comfort. 

She no longer had the courage to come upstairs to sleep, and sadly put herself to bed in the lounge while her mate slept upstairs with me. She had a few slips on the timber steps, which left her very unsettled about falling all the way down. Indeed, she did come a clanger every now and again before she gave up totally, poor love.

I had emergency surgery with my thyroid coming out less than a month afterwards, so it took a while for me to focus fully on her again, but I was concerned to see that the symptoms were escalating. 

To cut a long story short, it really became obvious on a hot day recently, when we flopped around in front of the telly, and I filmed her while her left side of her face was jumping and twitching. Huge jolts would jar her whole body, and they would be the ones that have caused her to stumble and fall so soon after the surgery.

I  did a lot of research on the net, and consulted with a terrific online vet who advised me about what it might or might not be.

My research came up with Trigeminal Neuralgia, caused most likely from the surgery. In humans, it can be terribly painful, and the symptoms were identical to Lily's.

I made an appointment with a neurologist and took my poor little lady down to see him. Her symptoms escalated with the long trip and the stress, so he was able to watch it first hand. He was marvelous, and we spent a really interesting hour and half, tossing symptoms, possible diagnoses and treatments back and forth. He agrees with me that she has nerve damage. She has been put on anti-convulsant drugs and we are hoping to see some improvement soon, though 10 days later, she is still as bad. 

I did find some references to using Botox in humans, and it has been used safely on dogs for other reasons, so I have asked the specialist to look into that if the meds don't work.

I hate watching her, as she is really miserable at times, and her only relief is when she is heavily asleep, so I tiptoe around when she's dozing.

Back to the vets... They have been truly, truly disgusting, twisting facts, making up things that never happened, and trying to discredit me and protect themselves. I was lucky to get hold of their case notes, which displayed just how low they will stoop to get out of taking responsibility for this disaster. Fortunately I have lots of ways to disprove them.

My final submission is going in this week, but sadly, none of this will get Lily's eye back, or take away her suffering.