Choose Life.

Two patients today are flying home to Alabama (to two different towns) and I thought they created a nice alliterative title for a post, so here they are for you. :-)

The first is Spunky, a small beanie buddy, who had lost her vision and sense of smell.  Here is her diagnosis photo:

She needed new eyes, some fur repair for her muzzle, a touch of stuffing in her head, and a new nose.  The eyes were fairly straightforward, and we did those right away.  Then her family had to choose from fur transplant options, and nose options, and then, she was all better and ready to fly home! (yes, that’s Teddy the hospital mascot in the background):

Spunky’s family wrote “ He looks AMAZING “

The other Alabaman was Paddington (actually one of two very different Paddingtons who were here at the same time).  Paddington was handmade and his person wrote he “ once had much better posture and more fur than he does now”.  Here is his diagnosis photo:

We agreed a spa would be best for Paddington.  He flew to the hospital with special fabric to be used for his heart:

He started his spa with the usual bubble bath:

Once he was dry, his heart was made with a bit of his original stuffing and his special fabric:

The new heart went in with new stuffing….

Now Paddington had separate arm seams, so his first photo for judging chubbiness left three open seams:

Posture much improved, but we decided to add a bit more to make him denser…

No squishy tummy for Paddington!  He was finally ready to fly home!

I frequently hear from my patients’ people “if there was a fire, I would save him/her/them”.  Sometimes there is a fire, and I treat the burns afterwards.  In this case, there wasn’t a fire, there was a flood.

Mutsy, Snuffles, and Big Mutsy were in a box under the bed when Hurricane Harvey struck.  Their person wrote:

My son’s stuffed animals were recently victims of flooding from Harvey.  I had them under a bed in a storage container, but Harvey deposited 4 ft of water in my home and they didn’t stay dry.  I dried them out for 3 days in the sun and also washed them in the washer twice on the “sanitize” cycle that lasted one hour and 45 minutes.  I added bleach to both cycles as well as detergent.  I then laid them to dry in the sun for a few more days.   Confession:  my son is now 28 years old.  We all have very fond memories of Mutsy, Snuffles, and Big Mutsy.  I have thought about cutting them open and taking their stuffing out, and then re-stuffing them.  However, the fact that I have been overwhelmed by dealing with recovering from a flooded home, these poor animals remain damaged.

Now as I have written in the past, washing stuffed animals in a washer is well… hazardous.  In fact, what I wrote was “You can hug them and squeeze them and kiss them and cry on them, but please don’t put your stuffed animals in the washing machine!“

But in this case, washing and bleaching protected them long enough for them to come to the hospital for a proper spa to really clean them and make sure they were dry inside and out before restuffing them.  Here are the trio’s diagnosis photos:

It was very important to keep all the hug marks on the animals, but they needed to be safe for future hugs. The plan was for them to come in for a proper spa, with their stuffing replaced (to ensure nothing was left from Harvey).  

Here are the spa photos:

Now when it came to restuffing, the trio’s family wanted them to stay well hugged (not too fat) but their stuffing had gotten hard from their dunking, and the family wanted them soft and floppy again.  Here they are all better:

Their family approved and they got ready to fly home to TX:

Their family wrote:

I am risking nothing

I AM SORRY FOLLOWERS, I LOVE MY MOMMY

Will not risk.