Bea and I spent another day lounging at the villa at the clinic today.  As bad as our Monday turned out to be, Tuesday wasn't much better.
Fluffy came back in to have a small tube removed from her leg after last nights ordeal.  Sweet Sally calls it a "catheter".  Mother and her helpers leave the tubes in legs just in case they have to give more pokes and pinches, because for some reason having one of those in your leg makes it not hurt so bad.  Of course, the tube in Fluffy's leg was the least of her worries.  She looked like Bea does if I play with her non-stop for a couple of hours -- flat out exhausted.  But Fluffy wore an expression of pained endurance; wincing with every move she still struck me as the bravest cottonball I'd ever met.  She never once tried to bite the people that worked on her.
All of her tubes and strings were still in place all over her body, but I detected an odor of rotting meat.  It's a fabulous smell when it wafts out of the garbage.  When mother's not looking, I do everything I can to get into the garbage bins and bags to eat whatever it could be that smells that good.  Humans tend to heat up all of their food, but if they would just leave it in the garbage for a few days, I can't imagine that it could taste much better than that!  I realize that I don't know much about what my mother and father do to help dogs and cats, but I knew that the smell coming from Fluffy wasn't a good one.
Later that day another dog came in with a similar scent. This was a big hairy red dog.  I think her name was Candi -- but it came out sounding more that Camthee when she said it.  After a little sniffing around I figured out why.  Her tongue had a large, purple, sick but yummy smelling swelling on it.  Mother had seen the swelling a month ago, when it was smaller.  Tests had been run, but the outcome was that nothing could be done to really help Candi.  I'm not sure if the humans know how important our tongues are to us, and if they would dare remove one, swelling or not.  Unfortunately for Candi she was having a hard time getting food and water into her mouth now.  Somehow, mother knew this and gave Candi water under her skin instead of in her mouth.  There was definitely an air of sadness in the room with Candi today.  I got the sense that although the sinfully fabulous smell of rotting meat will bring dogs running for miles, that when that smell is coming from you, it's a cause for serious concern.
I spent the rest of the day wondering what life would be like if my tongue stopped working.  I mean, who would clean Bea's ears?