Hi all!  Hope everyone is hanging in there!!

I had news from my rehab vet last month and it wasn't great.  She said my left knee, the one I tore my CCL 6 years ago, is now bone on bone.  That means I have none of the cushioning stuff left in my knee joint that I should have.  She gave my man some Tramadol for me to take and gave my people a prescription for me for Tylenol with Codeine.  My people still haven't given me any of the Tramadol and haven't filled the Tylenol prescription yet because they said they don't think I'm having any pain issues from my knee.  They did talk to my acupuncture vet and she is now doing cold laser on my knee when she comes out every other week.  I really like having laser done so my people are looking into either renting or buying one to use in between vet visits.  They also want to talk to my regular vet about what pain meds she thinks would be best for me with my various issues.

It was really hot the swims after we got back so I skipped going to the pool.  I got to do my 1st post-vacation swim at the end of August.  My woman was able to go in the water with me and we all had a lot of fun.  They decided to have me swim for 30 minutes instead of my normal 45 minutes and I didn't get exhausted.  I've been swimming my normal every other week swims for 30 minutes.  

We had some smoke come in from wildfires from southern Oregon.  We had to keep the windows closed and run what my people call the house fan so stuff goes through the filter.  I still have an air purifier in each room.  It wasn't bad like last year though and the air seemed to clear each night so we could have the windows open.  

We had some rain last week.  Real rain!!!  The 1st real rain we've had since June.  My grass is starting to get green and it doesn't crunch when I walk on it anymore.  

After we got back from vacation was really busy!  My woman had surgery 4 days later and had to go get a Covid test, see the surgeon, get her blood work done, do the pre-surgery check in stuff, and run errands.  I also went to my rehab vet and had home visits from my regular vet to steal my blood and pee and check me over and also from my acupuncture vet.  
The day of her surgery, I went along to drop her off at 6:30 a.m. at the hospital.  My man ordered us a little pizza to share for lunch and took me to Sonic for dinner so I wouldn’t spend so much time waiting for her to come back.  I also got to go pick her up the next morning from the hospital.  I also got to take her to her 2-week post-op check.  

I saw my eye doctor the week after we got home.  She said the cloudiness in my eyes is starting to go away and gave my people a stronger version of the eye meds I’m on.  I go back next January.

I was supposed to swim the Saturday after my woman’s surgery but we skipped it because I was still all tired out from my vacation!  I also missed my next 2 swims because the temperatures were too hot for me to be in a steamy, warm pool room.  

We had such a hot summer, I didn’t want to be out much during the day.  I spent my time laying on one of my many beds in my living room because I have my own fan that blows on me.  It was so warm that my air conditioner ran most days and we even had a few nights when it never got cool enough to open the windows.
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Hey everybody!  Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted.  A lot of stuff has happened but things are getting back to normal!!!

I helped my woman make a bunch of food for their freezer.  She said it was stuff to eat after she had surgery.

Then I had to get everything packed for our vacation.  

The place we stayed last year was going to have people logging next to it, and logging people parking right next to the rental house every morning to hike up to where they would be cutting down trees, so we decided to stay somewhere else.  So my woman found a place a little further south on the coast.  

The back yard was a wild and scenic river!!!  It had lots of places for me to swim and wade and was even deep enough in spots for my people to swim.  The water was nice and cold too – just how I like it.  The river had salamanders than hung out underwater and lots of frogs, tadpoles, crawdads, and small fish.  The next place up river was a fish hatchery and after that it was all public land.  No motorized boats are allowed and it was the wrong time of year for people to do things like float down river or be on a boat to fish so it was like having my own private river.
The house itself was OK.  My people said it could have been cleaner and they weren’t happy that there was a mouse issue and there wasn’t any place for me to go for a walk.  The mouse issue got better after the exterminator came.

Not too far upriver was gravel forest service roads for me to explore.  The roads by last year’s place were better but I had fun anyway.

We really liked the nearest town.  I got to go there every other day and get FISH AND CHIPS!!!  I found out I really like fish and chips.  My people would eat the breading and chips and I would get the fish.  I also got to walk trails in town.  My favorite place we went was the lighthouse because it was really, really windy and really cold.  I got to walk on the beach a couple of times too.  

I went swimming almost every day.  The days I didn’t go swimming were pretty cold, barely made it into the 60s.  While we were gone, home had some really nasty weather!  Our neighbors said temperatures were in the 100s and, one day, the high was 115-117.  We got really lucky because when it was super hot at home, it was so cold where we were staying that I didn’t want to swim!  My people said they don’t know what would have happened to me with that kind of extreme heat and my collapsing trachea.

There were lots of deer and I even saw a Grey Fox one evening on the property.  My people found lots of agates in the river plus some really shiny rocks that they have to try to identify. 

We went ahead and booked the house for next year because of how great the river was for me and how much fun everyone had playing in it.

NEXT TIME… My Woman’s Surgery, Post-Vacation Stuff
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