Alfie, Daisy and baby Brown

Sometimes it seems as if all your luck disappears. This has been a bad week. On Tuesday night my mummy sheep, Mary (who's photo is just above this posting on the right) gave birth to two little lambs in the barn, but they didn't make it and were both dead when I went down to the field in the morning. They looked so perfect - life's not fair sometimes.

Then yesterday late afternoon, Alfie was on my lap. He is my fourteen year old cat and came with me from Cornwall when I moved in 2006. I suddenly noticed that his right eye had no detail, just a dark green colour over the whole eye.

The photograph doesn't show it correctly, I think something to do with the light reflecting from the retina while he has this condition. The vet this morning didn't seem to know what it was exactly, but was thinking perhaps glaucoma. She gave me two lots of drops to administer and asked me to return on Wednesday morning. Poor Alfie - he is the most placid cat with the best character of any cat I've ever owned - the vet was amazed at how easy it was to do quite a long examination with him.

Daisie gave him a lovely welcome when he got back from the vet journey and didn't leave his side for quite a while.  When she finally settled somewhere else, it was on my table with her paws on my laptop so that I couldn't open it.

I have also had some bad news for myself.  My calcium levels are much too high and this seems to indicate that I have a tumour on one of my four parathyroid glands (nothing to do with the thyroid in spite of the name).  I am waiting for the results of urine tests and then have to have an ultrasound and a scintigraph before seeing the Endocrinologist on 21 April.  It is almost certainly benign, but would need removing as it means that I produce too much calcium which would lead to possibly malignant tumours elsewhere.  Unfortunately, my doctor has said that she wants this to be sorted out before my mini gastric by pass, so that will not now be taking place next month. 

Right - so that's three horrible things this week, which is more than enough.  Time for some good news.

Some friends of mine in Cornwall had a little boy prematurely on 19 December weighing around 730g - less than 2 lbs.  He has been in intensive care for so long, but is gaining weight and here is a photograph where he seems to be laughing.

No-one knew if he would survive, but he's obviously a little fighter and has surprised us all.

Fingers crossed for a better luck for us all next week.