Penguin Club week 3

We didn't get off to great start today.

Cleo was clearly obviously not well - she ate a little bit of food out my hand but still refusing fluids and very wheezy and lethargic. So back to the vets we went for them to check her over again. The vet confirmed she is slightly improved on yesterday but as not as much as he'd like. Trouble is, she's so fiesty it's impossible for him to give her as thorough a check up as he'd like - he wanted to take a blood sample but said with her nature it would be impossible without sedating her. And at her age (16), the fact she's unwell and not knowing what the problem is, sedation was potentially risky. But also risky to not do the bloods as they can't diagnose what's wrong without them and therefore can't treat her. Really horrible decision for me to make and I was in tears at the vets as I tried to decide. In the end I opted to go for the bloods - Ethan clearly picked up on things and was bawling as we left the vets, just calling out Cleo's name over and over as he wanted her to come home with us.

Back home again, I tried to keep busy to take my mind off things. Ethan and I did lots of jigsaws which was interesting as he's not usually so fussed by them.

The vet phoned me just as I was putting Ethan in the car to take him to his skating lesson. I hesitated before I answered, as if it was bad news, I didn't want to end up bawling during his lesson! However, I had to know .... fortunately he told me she has come round from the sedation fine and that the bloods don't show any kidney damage which is what he had though may be the problem. They were hooking her up to an IV drip and are keeping her in overnight. So I'm still not sure what is exactly wrong with her but will hopefully find out more tomorrow.

The rest of the day went so much better after that!

Ethan did fantastically at his lesson. The teacher had put the penguin skating aids half way across the ice rather than at the side of the rink. She got the children to skate out with her to the penguins for the first time and Ethan went with her very enthusiastically. He then wanted to go over to the trikes as usual - she had put them much further away too to encourage the children to skate to them. I thought Ethan would then insist on sitting on it for the bulk of the lesson but no, he wanted to be up on his feet most of the time, holding my hand. Tricky for me to keep us both upright as I'm not the worlds best skater, but great fun. He also ended up standing up on the ice by himself, with no support for a minute ... until he realised and then grabbed my hand haha! When he wasn't upright, he wanted to get down on the ice to cuddle the cuddly toys - the other 2 boys in the class love doing that too. As for me, I asked the teacher to show me how to skate backwards and then promptly landed on my backside as I attempted to practice it!

Ethan fell alseep in the car on the way home. I stopped of in Dobbies carpark, read a book, caught up on Facebook and had a wee snooze myself while I waited for him to wake up. Once inside he said he was hungry - he didn't want a snack from my bag though but insisted on a scone from the restaurant. Oh go on then!