If you follow me on the Twitters then you know my poor puppy, Brody, has not had a good couple of months.

At the beginning of February he had a gland infection that was pretty bad, but thankfully with antibiotics, cleared up quickly.

Shortly thereafter, literally 48 hours, he scratched his eye. Something, like a mote of dust, got in his eye, made him sneeze and we watched him, as if in slow motion, reach up with his paw to scratch his face. We stopped him, but that one swipe was all it took. When we woke up in the morning he wouldn’t–or couldn’t–open his left eye.

Our vet office is great and got in him that morning. Yes, he’d scratched his cornea. So they did all the things they do and gave me some antibiotic drops to keep it from getting infected. Sadly, every single time I put a drop in his eye, you’d think I’d re-injured it. He’d be doing okay, his eye open and personality good, then it was time for drops and bam, eye closed and laying on his bed for hours. When it was finally doing better, it would be time for the drops again and the cycle started anew. The doc agreed that was weird and gave me some new drops made from his own blood cells.

Same damn thing. He’d seem fine, then time for drops, pain.

So we tried a healing gel with hylauranic adic.

SAME DAMN THING.

So I trusted my gut after 3 weeks of this nonsense and quite a bit of money, and on that Monday I said, “No more drops. Only the pain meds.” He had an appointment that Thursday. So three days with no drops. And the change was amazing. His eye looked better every day, almost perfect when I took him back. And the doc admitted he was finally healing, it was in fact 80% healed then.

But we were out of pain meds so I asked for more to get us through that last 20% but the doc didn’t want him on them long term so she said no. I was uncomfortable with that.

And, lo and behold, the healing slowed dramatically. So a different doc at the office agreed to another week of meds, but said if it didn’t heal, I’d have to take him to an ophthalmologist to have an grid keratotomy done. And, if like me, you have no idea what that is, it’s where they take this teeny tiny drill with a diamond head and scratch a hashtag-like mark over the injury and this will cause the white blood cells to attack and make it heal. Supposedly.

Saturday was the pup’s 11th birthday. And I looked at him and saw that his eye looked damn near perfect. So much so that I tempted the Fates and said so out loud.

And then last night, around dinner time, I looked at him and saw that his third eyelid was up and he was trying to keep the eye closed.

Reader, my heart sank.

This morning, it looked just as bad. So I’ve obviously called the Ophthalmologist. But they can’t see him until Thursday and the consultation alone is going to be $163.

And last week a large part of our car’s engine failed and it’s going into the shop tomorrow. So, as you can imagine, things are very tight right now. And that’s where you come in, maybe.

To help offset these unexpected costs I am offering a 10% discount on all my manuscript critique services and professional beta reading services. All you have to do to get the discount is email me (shaunagranger82@gmail.com) with the information of your project and mention Brody’s name or this blog post by the end of April. That’s it! Check out the info here.

And, if you want to snag this deal but don’t have an MS ready yet, you can still get the deal by reserving your future spot and paying a 10% deposit. If you’re ready now, I do have a couple of openings this month!

Now, if you’d like to help out but don’t have a book to be critiqued or beta’d, you can become a Patreon, so you’ll still get some benefit from your monies. Or, if you’re just some eccentric person who likes to send money to people, I am also on Venmo and Paypal and my bank is with Zelle!

Venmo: https://venmo.com/Shauna-Granger

Paypal: paypal.me/thegrangers

Bank-to-bank supported by Zelle: shaunagranger82@gmail.com

Look at this face! How can you resist helping this face! And, if you’re a fan of my Ash & Ruin Series, you know Brody was the inspiration for Blue!