[Dailydrool] Young Charlie's Nebberminds, Part I

[Elizabeth]

(I’m breaking this post into two separate ones due to its length.)

 

We’re all family here, so I feel I can discuss young Charlie’s nebberminds with you, though I’ll try to do so as delicately as possible. Charlie is fine with me sharing his medical information with you, knowing you’ll treat it with sensitivity and hoping it may help other hounds who end up having to cope with what’s basically dry eye of the nebberminds.

 

A few weeks ago I noticed he was paying far too much attention to his nebberminds. It was hard not to notice, as he was engaging in most of his personal hygiene practices in the wee hours of the morning, shaking our bed and making a most unappealing noise as he licked himself slowly and languorously. Woke me up every time. When someone wakes me up for anything not involving a bona fide emergency or a dire need to go outside quickly, I don’t wake up happy, and I don’t hide it.

 

The day I called the vet about what I felt was excessive nocturnal licking was the day I thought Charlie’s groin looked larger than it should, and I was starting to worry about Charlie giving himself cellulitis and/or an infection by transferring bacteria from his tongue to a mucous membrane and/or his urethra. Or perhaps the problem was nothing more than Charlie doing a little dribbling in his sleep and then waking up to clean himself off with way too much thoroughness? It was also, of course, the week I was to leave on a vacation that would have Charlie staying with a Drooler friend. She’s doing me a tremendous favor by keeping him for as long as she is, so the last thing I wanted was to leave her with a dog who’d require a vet visit.

 

The best the vet’s office, which really needs to hire more vets, could do was to let me drop Charlie off at the ungodly hour of 7am the day before we were due to leave for the mountains. He spent the day in a crate, waiting on a vet to have a moment to check him out. It wouldn’t be our usual vet, but beggars can’t be choosers.

 

Check him out that vet did. She examined every centimeter of his nebberminds she could expose and all the bits she could reach inside the entire apparatus. Although I’d brought in a fresh urine sample, she did a bladder draw, which didn’t make Charlie’s day any rosier.

 

And here’s what we learned. First, he doesn’t have a UTI. In fact, his urinalysis was completely normal, which is a nice thing to know about a hound who’s almost thirteen. Combine that with his perfectly normal bloodwork in August, and I’m really pleased. He does have a grade 1 heart murmur, but otherwise he’s in blessedly good health. No chronic conditions. Except for his dried-out nebberminds.

 

He also didn’t show any sign of infection or cellulitis in any part of his apparatus, but the vet said she had flushed a lot of crusty yuck out of its interior space. She said the problem is that the area is drier than it should be and that makes it feel irritable, especially when part of his apparatus extends or retracts even a little bit. It’s sort of like he has entropion, only of the nebberminds instead of the eyelids. So Charlie’s been doing his best to add moisture to the area by lick lick licking it. But licking is counterintuitive; it doesn’t increase moisture, it only makes the area even drier. So Charlie has pretty much been giving himself chapped lips. Only at the opposite end of his body.

 

To be continued….

Elizabeth
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