how much info is too much info?
answer...there is never too much. you never know when something you did not want to hear, might actually prove helpful one day.
i de-scabbed merry yesterday. scrubbing off her thick armour of scabs every couple of days is time consuming, disgusting, counter-productive and necessary. it is counter productive because the scrubbing itself is uncomfortable for her and it continually damages her damaged skin which just makes her scab up more. so yesterday renee and i mummy wrapped her from head to butt in several layers of wet moisturizer impregnanted gauze and then covered her in several more layers of thick absorbant stuff. we secured it all with duct tape and left her to warmly cook in the wet layers and her own body heat for several hours. as soon as i got home, i stripped the entire wet, moist and slimey mess off and gave her a couple of gentle shampoos with no scrubbing involved and her skin was voila!....non-traumatically de-scabbed.
i am having real emotional and moral issues with merry. i named her merry because she was such a merry old soul. but this whole process of merry's ongoing skin issues has made merry not so merry any more....merry is currently a tormented old soul. i am trying to be hopeful and think positively now that we finally know the root of her problem. and i totally get that this is a long treatment plan before we see the kind of improvement that merry will feel.
but i am telling you, it is so freaking hard. merry is totally disgusting in every possible way...i have to steal myself to hold her, to hug her, pet her, to kiss her every day....to de-scab her...to pull the thick, wet, smelly and matted balls of furs out from between her teeth that accumulated from her scratching and chewing herself.
i am super sensitively aware of her laying behind my head on my pillow or tucked in under my chin and i have to force myself not to cringe away. and i can't not have her near me...i can't not touch her and love her...because frankly..that is the only currently decent thing in her life that merry has left.
but i have to say that on most days...i really just want to end the whole frustrating foulness that both she and i have to live. i am starting to lose hope that the ivermectin will finally kill off enough of the mites that merry can finally be managed routinely, comfortably well and she will feel good, inside AND out and she can be merry again.
rescue is not all warm and fuzzy....sometimes rescue is gross and it sucks....and that is important to know and accept....the fantasy and reality of rescue don't always match.
3 weeks