Sunday Drive

You will be happy to know that Bubbles is doing well! The first 28 hours or so after her surgery were a bit difficult but after her second night at home she seemed to be back to her old self. She has been walking on her leg as if nothing ever happened and she is happy as ever! Of course nothing spoils her appetite, so that is normal for her too! Now I just have to try to keep her calm so her leg continues to heal without her ripping the stitches. She feels good enough that she wants to play and since she hasn't been allowed to go on walks for the past six weeks or so, she has a lot of pent up energy. But she is definitely doing well. Thank you for all the well wishes for her!!

Since the dogs have been cooped up in the house, I decided to take them on a drive this past Sunday. We drove around the southern end of the island for awhile and I stopped at a few places along the way to take pictures. The dogs even got to see some Carabao (water buffalo) that someone had tied to trees near the Spanish Bridge. Enjoy the pictures!!

We have mountains!

One of the many WWII memorials on island.

Latte stones and a looks like a quickie memorial.

Spanish Bridge with a Carabao.

The Spanish Bridge.

Carabao in front of a playground.

Coastline with Cocos Island in the distance.

Local fishermen enjoying their Sunday.

And here are a couple pictures from my garden.

The tomato plant in the back corner looks horrible but the others are good!

You can see a blossom on my eggplant and my squash plant!

Recovery is Ruff

I believe the last time I wrote about Bubbles and her wound, the vet had thought that it was healing well and she wouldn't need surgery. Well that all changed this past Monday when I took her in for another bandage change. Apparently the wound had opened up again and he decided that three weeks of doing the bandage changes and waiting for it to heal on its own was long enough.

So Ms. Bubbles had surgery on Wednesday - they had to go in and debride more of the tissue that wasn't healthy. They also had to close down the spacing that was left from the wound so it wouldn't fill with fluid again and form another seroma, so they had to tack down some of the tissue directly to her leg muscle. Lucky girl got a little nip/tuck during her procedure, although that might mean one leg is leaner than the other! Ha! I am sure she doesn't care.

We had a little bit of a scare before they did the surgery. The vet was doing a preliminary physical assessment before putting her under anesthetic and found a solid mass in her mammary tissue. He took a sample to check it out on a slide and thankfully determined that it was not cancerous. He was concerned that it might be mammary cancer, which is pretty bad according to him. It appears to be another site of infection that can be dealt with by Bubbles taking antibiotics. The vet is still sending a sample off to a pathologist to double check but he really thinks it is non cancerous.

Poor Bubbles is definitely not herself. When I first brought her home, she basically just stood in the spot where I set her down. She had to be carried out of the vet and from the truck into the house. I finally got her to lay down (by picking her up and turning her so she was on her side rather than standing) and she has basically been in that position since we got home yesterday. Of course she still eats...I mean, it is Bubbles after all. But I can tell she is definitely in pain and is afraid to try to move her leg because of the pain. She has yet to go to the bathroom and I am pretty sure I am going to have to carry her out when she does need to go.

Here are some pics I took when she got home yesterday:

Bubbles on her favorite doggie bed...cone of shame still on, I think this is week 5.

They shaved quite a bit to make sure the area was clear.

Close-up of the stitches. She goes back in 2 weeks to get them out.

So for the next few days, I will be Bubbles' nurse. I have been bringing her food bowl and water bowl to her so she can eat and drink. She won't even get up for food, so I know she doesn't feel good. I also have to ice her wound every two hours to keep the swelling and inflammation down. In the next day or two I am hoping she starts to move around a bit more. This should be the last of this ordeal for her and the antibiotics should get rid of the mass in her mammary tissue as well.

I will keep you updated!!

Whiling Away the Days

About a month ago or so, we noticed that Bubbles had developed a small, quarter sized bald spot on her back leg. It didn't seem to bother her at all and she wasn't licking at it but then over the next couple of weeks it got bigger. We had her checked out and the vet determined that it was a seroma. Basically when the tissue healed from the dog attack back in April/May, a space was created and it filled with fluid (not pus though). So he aspirated some of it to examine the fluid and just had us watch her to see if anything changed.

The following week, her bald spot started to leak. It was the same clear-ish fluid but she left a trail through the house and down the sidewalk about half a block before I realized it was her wound!  By the time we got into the vet, a hole had developed and gotten bigger. This past Monday we went back to the vet and he shaved the area to get a better look at it. Here is what it looked like after he shaved it:

You can definitely see the open sore and the problem is that because of where the wound is located, it is very difficult to keep a bandage on it!! I had to take her back the same day because they wanted to sedate her and explore the wound further.


It turns out that she has an infection and it is most likely from the dog attack. It is not systemic though, just localized to this area but the vet also discovered that she has a pocket that goes from this wound all the way up to the base of her tail which is where the bad puncture wound was located. They debrided the wound to get the infected tissue out and cleaned it out really well.

The treatment so far has been for her to be sedated while they go in and flush out the area. They are checking the tissue and debriding more if necessary and they have to stitch a wad of gauze onto her skin! So we have been to the vet three times this past week so they can remove the bandage, check the wound again, and then put on a new bandage. She has to be sedated every time, and he had to put a drain in her this last visit to try to get more of the fluid out. She may need surgery if the tissue does not heal but he wants to watch her a little more before deciding on surgery. Here is Bubbles with her bandage.

The cone of shame has been her accessory for over a week now.

Here you can see how big of a mound of gauze it is.

On a happier note, I have been doing some gardening with a small area in our yard that was originally a section of gravel. I shoveled the rocks out of the area, filled it with mulch and soil and then planted a couple plants and some seeds! The cherry tomatoes should turn red soon and my Japanese Eggplant had a blossom just this morning! I am still waiting for the Okra to blossom but I think they need more time. I also planted seeds for Sunflowers (the huge kind that actually produce sunflower seeds big enough to chew), yellow squash, swiss chard, and artichokes. I also have some potted plants that I am hoping turn out as well. I just hope this storm that is currently going through doesn't destroy the plants. We will see!! Here are pictures of my baby garden!

My potted plants - Sunflowers in the long planter and the light green pot, boonie peppers in the back corner and swiss chard.

This used to be the gravel pit. Bottom left is the Japanese Eggplant with the cherry tomatoes behind it and the okra on the far right. Yellow squash seeds were planted in the middle.

Okra plants

Japanese Eggplant and cherry tomatoes

I will have to keep you updated on how the plants are doing and if I actually get any veggies from them! I have another gravel pit area that I can clear out for more garden space but I thought I'd wait and see how this one does first. I do have more seeds I can plant and since the weather doesn't change much here, growing season seems to be year-round. The only potential problem is the typhoons! I am excited to have some of my own veggies!!

Old Wives & More Clowns

I promised you that I would get more pictures of Clown Town at some point and we were able to go diving this past weekend and return there! We also dove at Old Wives Beach, which is conveniently located at the end of our street!

We started at Old Wives Beach and explored there for about an hour making our way down to about 100 feet at one point. We hadn't been diving there before so we wanted to see what was there. We got to see a few clams a little bigger than my hand, lots of fish, more blue sea stars and a turtle! It was pouring when we got out of the water, so we returned home to warm up a bit before heading back out.

Later that afternoon, we went to Gab Gab so we could dive to Clown Town and get more pictures. It was still rainy but the water was nice. Once we found Clown Town again, we hung out there for awhile just exploring the area. It was much bigger than we originally thought and it was fun watching all the fish in the area. We left for awhile to continue exploring the reef and we spotted another turtle! Then we returned to Clown Town for more pictures and video before heading back to shore for the day.

I created a slideshow of some of our photos for you to enjoy. Sorry for the watermark, it's a free trial.



I am also including videos that Carlton took when we were at Gab Gab. He got a video of the turtle we saw at Gab Gab.

This video shows Clown Town.

This last video shows Clown town...hopefully you can get an idea of the size of it with the video. It was hard to demonstrate in photos. This video also shows a couple clown fish who are not too happy about Carlton's closeness to their homes!!

Hope you enjoyed the visuals!! :-)

Haphazard Hiking and Clown Town

Shenanigans from this past week include a lovely sounding hike and a spontaneous snorkel excursion!

Last weekend we decided we wanted to try one of the hikes in our hiking book but we didn't have a lot of time, so we chose one that wasn't too far from base (Asan Falls). It promised to be a fairly short hike (two hours) and we were supposed to see three waterfalls.

One thing we did not take into account was the off and on raining that had been occurring all morning. The hike started on a dirt road which was super muddy...and slippery!! I was taking it slow going down some of the short hills because it was super slippery and there wasn't much to grab onto for support. When we came to the water, we found that we were just below one of the waterfalls and right at the top of the middle waterfall. According to the book, we were supposed to cross the water and hike down to the last waterfall (which we could see). Once we got across though, we realized that not only did the hike down look a bit treacherous, there was no trail on that side of the water! So the only way we could reach the other waterfall was to actually wade through the water and we had no idea how deep it was. We hadn't dressed for wading through water and we didn't exactly have rope with us to scale the rocky descent. So we ended up cutting our hike short! Hopefully we will be able to complete that hike at some point.

There were a bunch of these tiny frogs on the trail!

One of the waterfalls

Selfie!

Another waterfall

July 21st is Liberation Day in Guam, it is the day that U.S. forces liberated Guam from Japanese forces during WWII. It is their Fourth of July and it is a huge deal! They have celebrations going on the whole month and there is a four hour parade on that day. Most of the businesses in town are closed on that day and it was supposed to be a day off for Carlton.

Well, things don't always go as planned and he ended up having to work the first half of the day. But we wanted to do something with the rest of his free day, so we decided to return to Gab Gab beach and snorkel. We had been told that "Clown Town" was not far from shore, so we decided that we should look for it. On one of our previous scuba dives, we had found a couple anemones with clown fish at Gab Gab. "Clown Town" is a larger anemone with lots of clown fish. Besides it was a rainy day and hiking was out of the question, so getting in the water seemed like a good alternative!

We snorkeled for almost an hour looking for this anemone with no luck. We had covered quite a bit of the reef and decided that we should head back. Of course it was right when we were getting back to the pool at Gab Gab where Carlton found "Clown Town"! The problem is that it's about 20-30 feet below the surface, so it's a bit hard to see when you are snorkeling. I did some free diving to try to get pictures but they did not come out as well as I had hoped. We do plan to return sometime when we scuba dive so we can get better pictures. For now, here are the pics from our snorkeling!

Lovely coral

"The fish was THIS big!"

He blends in well!

Great camouflage!

Beautiful colors!

More great colors!

Very long, skinny fish!

This is Clown Town!

Carlton diving down for a closer look

More of the anemone and fish

They are well hidden in this part of the reef

More of clown town

More of the anemone here

Clown town - reminds me of a Dr. Suess story

Creatures of Guam

I am sure you have been wondering about the various creatures that we may run into on a regular basis here on island. I wanted to share some of those with you but let me start with a fun little anecdote.

Conveniently, we have an open field across the street from our house, so that has become our "potty" field for the dogs. One problem with going out at night with the dogs is that is also when the toads come out. They are always out at night and sometimes early in the morning too. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal except that these toads are poisonous and they secrete this poison when attacked. Of course Bubbles LOVES to chase them!! So we learned very quickly that we need to be careful when going out at night.

Unfortunately they blend in well with the grass and sometimes we don't see one until after Bubbles has pounced on it.  Last week she not only pounced on one but actually bit it before I realized the toad was there. The vet had warned us about the toads already, so I knew that I had to wash her mouth out as quickly as possible. As I was dragging her across the street back into our yard, I noticed that she had started foaming at the mouth!!

I had to hold her under the hose spigot and pry her mouth open to make sure the water got in. Luckily she doesn't weigh too much and didn't fight me a whole lot although I am sure she thought I was trying to drown her! I made her go through three rounds of waterboarding before I felt like her mouth was thoroughly rinsed out! Thankfully she doesn't seem to have been affected by it, so I guess I got her rinsed out fast enough. Of course she hasn't learned her lesson...she still really wants to chase the toads! I just make sure to keep her on a short leash when we go out at night now.

So....cane toads are one creature we have run into a lot!

Now the brown tree snake is a creature that I read about before moving to Guam and thought that they were a pest. Turns out that they aren't as prevalent as Wikipedia would have us believe. They are poisonous but not deadly to adult humans. They can be dangerous for children but they are nocturnal and the only ones we have seen so far are dead ones. I am fine with that!

Geckos are all over here on Guam and actually a welcome addition to help get rid of the bugs!! We have found a few in the house and although we don't have bugs in the house, they are welcome to stay as far as I am concerned. I like the cute chirping sounds they make. We had them in Belize on our Honeymoon too!

Another lizard we have seen when hiking is the skink. They are about the same size as a common lizard and seem to be harmless but come in a variety of colors!

The yellow monitor is a lizard that we saw once and it was the first week we were on island. They move fast!!! It was crawling through a grassy field as we were driving by and we stopped to check it out. By the time I dug my camera out, it had run back through the grass to the bushes to hide! Unfortunately I haven't seen one since, I hope we do find another one. They are really neat looking lizards!! They can grow up to 8 feet long but the one we saw was about 4 feet long which is about average.

A spider that we have seen a lot when hiking turns out to be harmless (thankfully). I can't remember what the general name for it is but the female is the larger of the two. In the picture below, the adult male is next to the adult female, so you can see the difference in size. The female can be up to 7cm while the male only gets to about 2 cm long. They are prolific with spinning their webs among the trees in the "jungle" areas.

A spider that we have seen once (and that was enough) is the Huntsman spider. They are big and can be aggressive. If they bite you, it can be harmful but not deadly. We saw one of these at a bar we went to within our first week of moving here. I watched that thing all through dinner because I was afraid to take my eyes off in case it moved towards us!! I found this lovely picture to give you an idea of how big they are!!

Another creature we have seen are crabs. You are familiar with hermit crabs, which they have here. But not many have heard of the coconut crab. They are called that because they can actually open a coconut and eat it! These guys are strong and large! I have only seen one in a cage at one of the festivals. They have a coconut crab festival where they dump barrels of them out into a field and people run around trying to catch them. We did not make it to that festival this year...maybe next year!

Last but not least is the carabao (pronounced care-a-bow, not care-a-boo). These are not as common as they used to be. The locals used to use these for farming. I have seen two on the island that looked like they were still used for that purpose. The Chamorro Village has one every Wednesday night for kids to ride. Other than that, there are statues of them all over the island in various colors. Officially or unofficially I think it's the national mascot for Guam.

That is all for now!! I hope you are enjoying your Summer!