Sunday, May 30

A very warm, lovely day.

We worked more in the garden, mostly planting. I watered the part that I planted for about an hour.

We went to see River. His breathing wasn't great because the people next door were burning stuff again, and it blows right in to the horse pasture. So mostly we walked. We worked on the outdoor obstacles, and I started out in the outdoor arena, but the pasture trail seemed appealing on a day where we weren't going to be able to do any trotting or cantering. So, we did the little trail and my sweetie walked with us. It was nice just to mosey along.

We came home and watched the one and only season of "Krod Mandoon" which didn't take that long because the episodes were all pretty short. It was actually a pretty funny show, though I suppose it was also pretty sexist and had a gay character that was kind of a tired stereotype.

I am also often grateful for modern medicine. I'm reading the biography of "James Herriot" (Alf Wight), the British veterinarian who wrote several books about his life in a semi-fictional manner. One of the things that never came up in his novels is that he suffered a great deal in his life from anal fissures that repeatedly became inflamed and infected, to the point where he was bed-ridden with fever for long stretches of time. In those days, they didn't have antibiotics or penicillin. If he had those drugs, it would have likely recurred, but he wouldn't have had the infections and the fever and been bedridden for months. Just think that through, a twenty year old man being sick for most of a year from anal fissures, and on and off again and again through his life. Repeated surgical attempts to clean it all out, without modern anesthetics. Even in the biography they kind of underplayed what must have been a HORRIBLE affliction that almost made him drop out of veterinary school, and did keep him out of the war, or at least active service.

Even his descriptions of early veterinary work sound horribly crude, without modern anesthetics (they sometimes used ether) and no antibiotics, just all kinds of elixirs and sulfa powders, and I imagine a lot of pain and suffering due to lack of any better way of doing things.

I am grateful that although neither modern medicine or veterinary medicine is perfect, it's come a long way.