We'd already written blogs for the first part of the week, so...
Monday saw a return to 'normal' life, whatever that means. For Helen it means a regular stint in front of the PC each day and today, with the 10 days of rain arriving as promised, I joined her in the office, but largely to do more tidying. By 'tidying' I mean throwing away lots of the stuff 'that might come in useful one day', as without a loft space for storing junk we have to think long and hard about what we keep in the house. Ruthless was the name of the game and the end result was another pile of rubbish out on the driveway awaiting a trip to the bins - but with round one of de-cluttering done, all of the tools now housed in the new shed and two new desks assembled, the office was really starting to look like a nice room. We have some way to go yet before it's finished, but the overall result was pleasing.
Later in the day we had to head into town as we had avoided the weekly food shop at the weekend, and with little else but leftover Christmas chocolate to eat, we begrudgingly decided to go and do it, and to take Reggie along for a walk afterwards.
Fortunately, very few others seemed to have had the same idea, the supermarkets were almost blissfully quiet and we were soon walking in the pouring rain along the river, Reggie making a show of his rain coat for this first time in maybe a year. Luckily it still fits (somehow), although the rain still put paid to his enjoyment and he often came and walked in between us, sheltering under the umbrella for a while.
It was then back to the office to continue the day as we'd started, so there's little of interest to tell you about for the rest of the first day back at the coal face.
On Tuesday it was raining again, so we both headed to the office once again, and while Helen worked at her day job, I continued to make small gains in the office tidying (Dave Brailsford would be proud of me).
After lunch we had the usual tidy up of the living room before Samantha arrived for Helen's Italian lesson. It's quite staggering how much mess one bored dog can make: the living room/kitchen floor was covered in muddy footprints from Reggie going outside to run around and bark on the lawn, the sofa was in a similar state, half of the kindling sticks had been removed from their basket and were laying chewed and strewn around the floor amidst three blankets that he had removed from his bed next door and dragged through to the other room to play with, not forgetting some cardboard boxes he'd taken out of the recycling bin and torn to shreds, and half a dozen toys littered around.
Poor Samantha yet again got her usual barky welcome but Reggie soon settles these days, very quickly going in close for a few sniffs before settling down for a snooze on the sofa (perhaps learning some Italian in his sleep), we'll get there eventually.
Once Samantha had left there wasn't much more daylight left in the grey day, so I rekindled the fire I'd lit earlier and we got settled in for the evening after doing another couple of hours in the office.
While at my computer I received a couple of emails from Amazon saying that their courier had attempted to deliver a couple of parcels around 1.30pm today but had been unable to deliver them - this was strange as we had been in all day, and the Amazon courier always now comes to the house. I punched the tracking number into the courier's website to find a status that said both packets had been delivered! 'Here we go again...' I thought.
Helen suggested I tried checking the post box at the gates. By this time it was pouring with rain and pitch black, so I lazily took the car keys so I could drive down to the gates. I ran to the car, swung open the door ... and almost sat on two parcels from Amazon! The courier had obviously been bibbing his horn, and since we hadn't heard him from the kitchen while eating lunch, he'd decided to put the parcels in our other 'postbox'. Full marks to the courier for ingenuity.
Relieved to not have to deal with yet another parcel drama, I went back indoors to find out what had been delivered: a new humane mouse trap, and our new wildlife camera - bought with money given to us for Christmas by Helen's Mum and Dad.
While I read the instructions for the camera, Helen went to work making us a Thai red curry with the paste and coconut milk very kindly given to us by our new friends Paul and Kathy from their own precious stores.
We eventually sat down to a DELICIOUS home-grown pumpkin and cima di rapa Thai red curry. I hadn't quite realised how much I was missing a bit of spice! This meal certainly sated that craving, but not before I'd finished the leftover curry (pumpkins are quite large) on a sandwich (you can take the boy out of Birmingham...).
As is now custom, on Wednesday morning we headed up to Vellano for our weekly 'team' Italian lesson with David, Sarah and our teacher Johnny Ferrari (yes that really is his name).
But before that, at breakfast time Lucca had given us some cause for concern, he had seemed rather under the weather on Sunday: normally he wakes us up around half six for breakfast then wants to go out but on Sunday he'd showed no interest in either and seemed rather subdued, as well as having an odd-looking eye.
Later that day he started twisting his head to the extreme left when we went near him, it was as if he was in huge pain from some invisible force, which was hard to watch. This is how he remained on Monday until the evening, when he perked up a bit and seemed to be more like his usual self, and on Tuesday morning even more so - surely on the mend we hoped, and he seemed in much better spirits each time we checked in on him.
However, things took a nosedive on Wednesday morning when Helen went to feed the cats and Lucca, on simply trying to turn around, fell over having lost his balance completely.
On the drive up to Vellano we decided to get in touch with Alessandra, our new vet, to see when she could see little Lucca. Unfortunately, Alessandra was busy today with physiotherapy clients who were coming to see her all the way from Milan, but she arranged for us to see her colleague at midday instead.
After a prompt exit from our Italian lesson - which, as usual, was both immense fun and more than a little demanding - we dashed home to pick up Lucca and take him straight to the vet. It was only after leaving the vet that we realised how lucky we were to have found the surgery open today - the 6th January is both the feast of epiphany and 'Befana' day (a bank holiday in Italy). Befana, as I believe the story goes, is a benevolent witch who met the three kings as they were on their way to Bethlehem. They asked her to join them on their journey but she opted to stay behind and sweep her floors instead and has spent every night of the 5th of January ever since kicking herself for not going with them, and she now flies around the skies trying to find the kings, while doing so delivering sweets and cakes to well behaved children, and coal to those who are less well behaved.
An odd story, but I can't help wonder if it is coincidence that so many Italian women fastidiously sweep outside their houses and front doors!
Anyway, after an examination, during which the vet put Lucca on the floor to see if he'd walk and all he did was walk around in a tight circle to the right (something we'd not noticed before), it all started to look like really bad news. The vet suggested they keep him for the afternoon to take and test his blood for parasites as she suspected it to be a brain related issue so we did just that and waited for their call later in the day.
After lunch I took Reggie out for a walk, leaving Helen to do some work in the office, and while we were out the vet called to let me know that they already had the results of the blood tests. The good news was that the blood tests were all clear, the bad news was that the symptoms all pointed towards a neurological problem.
Helen and I spent the next two hours working in the office until it was almost five and time to go back into Pescia to collect poor Lucca.
This time we were greeted by a third lady vet, who took us in and in fairly slow Italian explained our options - not easy to follow at our level of Italian, but we managed to grasp that our choice at this stage was either to try him on a course of steroids and antibiotics to hopefully cure an inner ear infection (a possible cause of these symptoms) or to go straight to a specialist neurologist in Monsummano Terme, the far side of Monetcatini Terme. We decided try the drug treatment first, so the vet went to fetch two syringes and gave Lucca his first dose of both, as well as giving us tin of high calorie cat food, and then we held our breath while she wrote out a prescription for Lucca and then totalled up the bill.
We had been given an estimate earlier for the visit and the examination of €105, and since then we had a full blood work-up, two shots and a tin of food, all on a bank holiday, so we were more than pleasantly surprised when she asked for the same €105 and then rounded it down to €100 because we only had €120 and she didn't have change. I dread to think how much that little lot would have cost us back in the UK.
We then took little Lucca home where an hour or so later the steroids seemed to be working wonders and he was almost like his old self again, meowing a lot and eating plenty too.
Unfortunately, despite having seemed brighter and much more like his normal self all day on Thursday, eating heartily, moving around more normally, and even being playful, Lucca took a nosedive on Thursday evening. We didn't realise until we headed upstairs to bed that our poor little boy was hiding underneath the bed in considerable discomfort, panting. This was a clear sign of something being very wrong, so despite the hour, Helen shakily telephoned one of the two emergency vet services in the area - the one she called happens to be the same clinic in Monsummano Terme as our vet had talked about referring us to for a neurological assessment.
Having managed to get through and speak to a vet, who was happy for us to bring Lucca in, we grabbed coats and got into the car to drive the 35-minute journey through the dark and the rain to Monsummano Terme. Very helpfully, Donatella had sent us through a set of directions for finding the surgery after Helen had called her and asked for help. We definitely wouldn't have found the place without directions even if we'd been calm and collected and driving in daylight hours, so there would have been no hope whatsoever in the dark, in our tired and anxious state. We arrived at about 11.40pm, saw the on call vet, and were there for about an hour. After examining Lucca, the on call vet gave us the same diagnosis as the vet in Pescia had given us, and suggested that she keep him at the clinic so that one of their specialist neurologists could check him over in the morning. We finally left the clinic at about 12.30am, having left a hefty deposit on the estimated amount we would eventually owe them for the examination and tests, and drove home, arriving back at 1am to fall into bed for a fitful sleep.
Since then, we have made two more trips to the clinic in Monsummano Terme - one on Friday and one on Saturday. The incredibly kind and patient Donatella has given up hours of her time to accompany us to the clinic on both occasions, to help with the language, has telephoned the clinic on our behalf for updates in between visits, and has sat (or stood) with us in a chaotic, overcrowded, overheated waiting room waiting for well over an hour to be seen by the vet on each visit. The clinic at Monsummano Terme is famous for its neurological work, and people come from far and wide to visit the specialists here, but where its expertise and treatment facilities excel, the waiting area certainly leaves a lot to be desired - noise, chaos and disarray were our overriding impressions - not a helpful environment for anxious owners and certainly not a pleasant environment for poorly and frightened animals. We were thankful that, having arrived at close to midnight, Lucca was spared the chaos of the busy waiting room.
We dearly wish we had some positive news to report about our poor little boy, but we have been told that Lucca is in a very serious condition and that his prognosis is not good. He was given an MRI under anaesthetic on Saturday, which we were warned he may not come round from, and although he did come round, his condition remains critical. We await news on Monday to see whether he has responded at all to drug treatment - if he has shown any improvement there will be further investigations as to the cause of the significant intercranial swelling he is suffering from, but even then the prognosis remains poor. If he hasn't shown any improvement, we will of course have to do the kindest thing and let our poor 'Little Bear' go peacefully. We have spent the weekend feeling just like the weather - dark and grey, teary, and very, very sad.
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