"Ick..." Tuesday June 6th, 2007

Okay I want to preface this by saying if you want the non gory version of this story then read this paragraph and then skip all the way to the end. The short version of why there is no comic for the week goes like this. My dog, Gai,  ended up having an unpleasant abscess of a gland. The gland itself was apparently blocked and then became infected. Luckily it seems this sort of thing is a rather common occurrence with older dogs and the vet was quick enough to calm the entire family down. I would like to say Gai is doing okay despite some discomfort from the abscess and the effects of the antibiotics he is given. I had to watch him all day Monday and he definitely is doing a lot better today. It'll take up to two weeks for the abscess to fully heal, but the vet says Gai should be pretty much good to go in a few days time. Now if you want the longer more detailed and somewhat gory version keep reading otherwise like I mentioned skip to the last paragraph.

Okay the long story goes like thus...

I woke up on Monday to go to work and then all of a sudden my mom calls me to come to the kitchen. She says that my dog Gai is bleeding and we need to see what is going on. I look and it appears that he is slightly bleeding from his butt. my mom calls and makes an appointment with the vet and we are set to take Gai there after I get home from work. needless to say I start panicking at work and then when my mom doesn't pick up the phone I start completely freaking out and am about to leave work when I finally get through. Turns out that he is still bleeding, but otherwise seems to be energetic and otherwise normal. I calm down with the notion that it doesn't appear to be something that will get horrible really quick, but I am still worried because I wonder if it's a problem with one of his organs or cancer or something bad that will take some more time to get really bad.

Anyway work CRAWLED... The clock just seemed to stop moving, but finally my mom came and we took Gai to the vet. At the vet I notice that Gai's nether region is looking a lot more bloody that I had recalled from when I looked there in the morning and now I start to panic again. We get to the vet and are waiting in the exam room. I'm trying to stay calm and not freak out. The vet comes in and asks what the story is and we tell him everything. What he could've eaten, what he did during the day, how he was acting... We even brought a stool sample. So the vet then looks at Gai and wipes away some of the dry blood to see what is going on. Almost immediately he says in this uplifting voice that we should relax and that he thinks it's going to be good news. Now at this point my mom starts freaking out because she can't understand what the vet is saying. She's trying to get me to translate, but I'm in no mood because right then and there all I could focus on was the vet. I can tell you that my hope was there, but my eyes never left his just in case his mood changed even for a second. Luckily it didn't.

he basically takes a longer look and then smiles and says that it is good news and that we have nothing to worry about. he gets me to hold the flashlight, which was in hindsight pretty brilliant because it gave me something to focus on and kinda with his uplifting attitude helped change the mood quick. So basically he has us looking at Gai's butt and then goes okay there is his butt. Then he has me move the flashlight down and a bit to the left and sure enough there is what looks to be another hole and that is what is bleeding. The vet explains that Gai is suffering from an Anal Sac Abscess. He brings out a book to show us a diagram of what  parts are involved and what is going on. Basically the anal sac is just a gland that helps the dog defecate and doubles as a scent gland. Gai's basically became blocked, infected, and then burst. The vet took Gai into the back and within 15 minutes had cleaned the gland out, made sure there were no underlying tumors, applied a topical antibiotic, and my dog was good to go. We had to keep close attention to him for the very first day because the abscess was still an open wound. We ended up using a rubber glove as a hot water bottle for Gai to sit on to help the pain. However like I said, the wound has dried up pretty much today and he is in much better spirits besides feeling dopey from the antibiotics.

So I just want to apologize for yet another delay in the comic. I hope you can understand. I have the next comic colored and such, but in between Rob's visit and Gai, I just haven't had a real chance to sit down and finish it. I actually got up super early today while Gai was sleeping to get it colored at the very least. So I will say that I will make every effort to have the comic up next Monday/ Tuesday. I thank you and Gai thanks you for being patient.

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