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la_belle_laideTHIS WAS WRITTEN YESTERDAY:
The goings on lately:
Trisky hurt her leg right after Thanksgiving, trying to get up the stairs after having yanked her staples out. I took her to work with me, where of course her limp disappeared and she was leaping around like a maniac. Rob sent her home on buffered aspirin. She seemed to do okay for a while. Then the next day, the stupid neighbor's little crappy white dog tried to storm the gate, and Trisky of course went ballistic. She tried to go through the gate like she always does. I was in the back yard with Haku so I didn't see exactly what happened, but I heard her make this horrible yipe noise, more like a scream, and I went running figuring she had twisted her leg or foot again or something. But instead it looked more like she had gotten her front leg stuck in the gate and had pulled it out. Then her limp got really bad. She can hardly put any weight on it. I'm going to take her for X rays tomorrow. OH MY GOD, A BREAK IF YOU PLEASE. "Break" meaning, "a rest, something good for a change," of course. Just to clarify.
Work has been a drag, especially Fridays which I used to love. First Casse left, now the new girl Angelica has had to leave because her baby is sick. Not severely sick or anything, she just needs more time at home. That leaves only me on Thursdays and two of us on Fridays and lemme tellya, this ain't pretty, not at all. And with the holidays coming up and us about to get bombarded, it's going to just get uglier.
Lao Shir came into work on Thursday to pick up some meds for her cat and we started chatting. She was telling me about this african gray parrot who was so outstandingly brilliant, not only in speaking but interpretation, that he had become famous. My good friend Mrs. You Should Have Plastic Surgery was there listening in on our conversation and chiming in with "Wooooow. Oh myyyyy. Beauuuuutiful. Lao Shir and I were giving her the side-eye like, WTF? Anyway, I want to find out more about that parrot. The story gave me the willies.
Last night after work Kim came over. We didn't even watch a movie, we just talked endlessly. I also didn't even bother to have dinner. Last night for dinner I ate a pint of ice cream and about a quarter pound of raw cookie dough. But tonight I hd salad and tomorrow I'm going to make something yummy. I bought some fruit (vegetable? who the hell knows?) called "butterscotch" and I didn't even know it was a real food. I'll have to taste it to see what I'm going to do with it.
After grocery shopping I went out with my Mom. It's about 30 degrees here today, and I've been waiting since last Spring to wear my awesome, extra long hat that I bought in March. I got to wear it, and caught my reflection in the car window, with the Chinese coat and the weird, long knitted hat and I thought--not for the first time--I'm "one of those people." One of those people that are charitably called "eccentric." I'm okay with that. This is the best hat ever:
Then after that I went to buy my tree. You know, I have a lot of weird hangups about The Tree and all of this. For those of you who have only just met me, it's like this: I have absolutely convinced myself that I get the same tree every year. This is so that when the time comes to drag it, dead and dry, out the door in January, I don't feel so bad; I just tell it, "See you next year!" and then I look for the same one next year. ("Eccentric" tips over into "neurotic.") My other thing is that I've always taken Shinigami to get the tree, always. I've never not. For about eight years it's been me and Shinigami. (Once again, for those people I've only recently "met:" Shinigami is my Caddy, the car that pretty much more or less stopped running, forcing me to get my first new car, Ronin the Elantra.) Well, actually Shinigami was all right to go today, so I took him out. The drive was literally .3 miles from my house so it was okay. I talked to Shinigami the whole way there and back. ("Neurotic" tips over into "obsessive.")
Anyway, I have my tree, and it's a big'un.
Oh! Then I was taking the dogs back inside and I saw this big old adorable wolf spider trying desperately to get under the shingles outside to keep warm. He was all sluggish and moving slowly and looked just about dead. I caught him and brought him inside to put in the laundry room. First of all, I love spiders. Secondly though, I can't stand watching anything struggle like that. ANd third, I think it was this dude:
He was in the same general area as where that pic was taken and just, I dunno, looked like the same spider. So I put him in the house.
And this was written today!
I decided to take Trisky to EEVEC today because of her leg. Here's basically what happened:
Remember a few weeks ago she had to go for stitches etc.? Well not a week after that, she hurt her other leg on the stairs. She was on painkillers for that for about a week. While she was in there for stitches I had her senior checkup done and it ended up that her heart murmur (which she's always had) had gotten worse. That's pretty much a natural progression for an older dog but I scheduled an echocardiogram anyway; that will be done on Wednesday.
Then a fwe days ago the neighbor's dog tried to crash the yard and Trisky (that's my girl's name, by the way,) went nuts and tried to go over the fence. I think she ended up getting her leg stuck in it. I don't know exactly what happened because I didn't see it; I just heard her screaming and then when I got there, she was pulling her leg away from the fence. I figured she had just exacerbated the same injury and she was already on painkillers for it so I figured I'd give it a few days.
Well anyway, the pain didn't lessen and in fact seemed to get worse. When my friend Kim came over Friday she talked me into getting x rays done, saying it could be something a lot worse. (The first thing any of us in the veterinary industry think of when a dog starts to limp is bone cancer. Neither of us wanted to say it but the thought was there.)
So she was just as bad today so I took her down to emergency. We waited in there for about an hour before anyone saw us.
Fortunately the vet I got is my colleague's husband and we know each other pretty well. I like this vet because he explains everything in minute detail and holds nothing back. The first thing he did was to check her heart and say, "WOW. That's quite a heart murmur." He said that since there was no way to get a decent x ray without putting her under anesthesia, the only thing to do was treat for pain until she had her echo and hopefully can get on some heart meds. Then if her leg was still just as bad they would do the x rays and monitor her while she was under.
Meantime he checked out the joints and he feels that while it may be something like a hairline fracture, it's probably just age related arthritis that she exacerbated with her series of disasters. So he put her on better pain meds and they are kicking in already. She can actually get comfy now.
So now it comes down to waiting for the echo, which is Wednesday. We talked in detail about this, too, which was cool. He said that since she's had it all her life, the fact that it wasn't sudden onset and was such a slow progression was a good thing. Bearing in mind that you can find anything wrong at any time, what he mostly thought was that she has basic congenital valve problems. It's like a slow leak; easily fixed in humans, but not so much in dogs.
The good thing is that because it's so slow (*knock on wood*) he thinks that with medication she could live to a really old age anyway and die of natural causes years down the road.
He also did some blood tests to make sure she'd be all right with better pain meds. He checked her blood for kidneys, liver and heart and they were all good. (*knock on wood*) So even though he was just checking for the meds, it's still awesome that they all came back within range.
So while it is a concern, and no one will know anything for sure until after Thursday, I'm feeling better about the whole thing. I like the words "really old age" and "natural causes." ^_^
That's the story.
While today really sucked kinda badly, there were some good things, too. People over at BlogBelieve know why that is. ^_^ It's because you guys are awesome, and because of our visit from SS. Anybody not love that dude and his hat-tipping? Seriously.
So I also bought Trisky a coat because today was the first snowfall and it's been bitter cold. She's got such a thin coat to begin with. So I took all the dogs out and while I was out there, I took some pics.
And of course the Ninja Wizards wishing you happy holidays.
And here are some pics of my decorations and my tree:
That's my kitchen, obviously.
That's an accidental self portrait. I took one like that on purpose last year, but this year I was just trying to get the blue glow from the LED light and my mug ended up being in there, too.
And these are random ones; a few that I took yesterday and some that I stole off my Mom's camera while I was borrowing it. Some of these go back to Halloween and even before: our collective birthday party. O_O
CRINKLE SACK! The things they will sell in the store these days, honestly.
My brother and I at our birthday party.
Me feeding Havok on Halloween.
Look at the nails on him! People wonder why I'm always scratched up.
NOMNOMNOM!
Chrissie and I being blurry on our Crackberries on THanksgiving.
Sunset at the sanctuary last Thursday.
That's about it! Now I'm going to make dinner, then it's off to Tai Chi in the cold, cold night. O_O Damn.
The goings on lately:
Trisky hurt her leg right after Thanksgiving, trying to get up the stairs after having yanked her staples out. I took her to work with me, where of course her limp disappeared and she was leaping around like a maniac. Rob sent her home on buffered aspirin. She seemed to do okay for a while. Then the next day, the stupid neighbor's little crappy white dog tried to storm the gate, and Trisky of course went ballistic. She tried to go through the gate like she always does. I was in the back yard with Haku so I didn't see exactly what happened, but I heard her make this horrible yipe noise, more like a scream, and I went running figuring she had twisted her leg or foot again or something. But instead it looked more like she had gotten her front leg stuck in the gate and had pulled it out. Then her limp got really bad. She can hardly put any weight on it. I'm going to take her for X rays tomorrow. OH MY GOD, A BREAK IF YOU PLEASE. "Break" meaning, "a rest, something good for a change," of course. Just to clarify.
Work has been a drag, especially Fridays which I used to love. First Casse left, now the new girl Angelica has had to leave because her baby is sick. Not severely sick or anything, she just needs more time at home. That leaves only me on Thursdays and two of us on Fridays and lemme tellya, this ain't pretty, not at all. And with the holidays coming up and us about to get bombarded, it's going to just get uglier.
Lao Shir came into work on Thursday to pick up some meds for her cat and we started chatting. She was telling me about this african gray parrot who was so outstandingly brilliant, not only in speaking but interpretation, that he had become famous. My good friend Mrs. You Should Have Plastic Surgery was there listening in on our conversation and chiming in with "Wooooow. Oh myyyyy. Beauuuuutiful. Lao Shir and I were giving her the side-eye like, WTF? Anyway, I want to find out more about that parrot. The story gave me the willies.
Last night after work Kim came over. We didn't even watch a movie, we just talked endlessly. I also didn't even bother to have dinner. Last night for dinner I ate a pint of ice cream and about a quarter pound of raw cookie dough. But tonight I hd salad and tomorrow I'm going to make something yummy. I bought some fruit (vegetable? who the hell knows?) called "butterscotch" and I didn't even know it was a real food. I'll have to taste it to see what I'm going to do with it.
After grocery shopping I went out with my Mom. It's about 30 degrees here today, and I've been waiting since last Spring to wear my awesome, extra long hat that I bought in March. I got to wear it, and caught my reflection in the car window, with the Chinese coat and the weird, long knitted hat and I thought--not for the first time--I'm "one of those people." One of those people that are charitably called "eccentric." I'm okay with that. This is the best hat ever:
Then after that I went to buy my tree. You know, I have a lot of weird hangups about The Tree and all of this. For those of you who have only just met me, it's like this: I have absolutely convinced myself that I get the same tree every year. This is so that when the time comes to drag it, dead and dry, out the door in January, I don't feel so bad; I just tell it, "See you next year!" and then I look for the same one next year. ("Eccentric" tips over into "neurotic.") My other thing is that I've always taken Shinigami to get the tree, always. I've never not. For about eight years it's been me and Shinigami. (Once again, for those people I've only recently "met:" Shinigami is my Caddy, the car that pretty much more or less stopped running, forcing me to get my first new car, Ronin the Elantra.) Well, actually Shinigami was all right to go today, so I took him out. The drive was literally .3 miles from my house so it was okay. I talked to Shinigami the whole way there and back. ("Neurotic" tips over into "obsessive.")
Anyway, I have my tree, and it's a big'un.
Oh! Then I was taking the dogs back inside and I saw this big old adorable wolf spider trying desperately to get under the shingles outside to keep warm. He was all sluggish and moving slowly and looked just about dead. I caught him and brought him inside to put in the laundry room. First of all, I love spiders. Secondly though, I can't stand watching anything struggle like that. ANd third, I think it was this dude:
He was in the same general area as where that pic was taken and just, I dunno, looked like the same spider. So I put him in the house.
And this was written today!
I decided to take Trisky to EEVEC today because of her leg. Here's basically what happened:
Remember a few weeks ago she had to go for stitches etc.? Well not a week after that, she hurt her other leg on the stairs. She was on painkillers for that for about a week. While she was in there for stitches I had her senior checkup done and it ended up that her heart murmur (which she's always had) had gotten worse. That's pretty much a natural progression for an older dog but I scheduled an echocardiogram anyway; that will be done on Wednesday.
Then a fwe days ago the neighbor's dog tried to crash the yard and Trisky (that's my girl's name, by the way,) went nuts and tried to go over the fence. I think she ended up getting her leg stuck in it. I don't know exactly what happened because I didn't see it; I just heard her screaming and then when I got there, she was pulling her leg away from the fence. I figured she had just exacerbated the same injury and she was already on painkillers for it so I figured I'd give it a few days.
Well anyway, the pain didn't lessen and in fact seemed to get worse. When my friend Kim came over Friday she talked me into getting x rays done, saying it could be something a lot worse. (The first thing any of us in the veterinary industry think of when a dog starts to limp is bone cancer. Neither of us wanted to say it but the thought was there.)
So she was just as bad today so I took her down to emergency. We waited in there for about an hour before anyone saw us.
Fortunately the vet I got is my colleague's husband and we know each other pretty well. I like this vet because he explains everything in minute detail and holds nothing back. The first thing he did was to check her heart and say, "WOW. That's quite a heart murmur." He said that since there was no way to get a decent x ray without putting her under anesthesia, the only thing to do was treat for pain until she had her echo and hopefully can get on some heart meds. Then if her leg was still just as bad they would do the x rays and monitor her while she was under.
Meantime he checked out the joints and he feels that while it may be something like a hairline fracture, it's probably just age related arthritis that she exacerbated with her series of disasters. So he put her on better pain meds and they are kicking in already. She can actually get comfy now.
So now it comes down to waiting for the echo, which is Wednesday. We talked in detail about this, too, which was cool. He said that since she's had it all her life, the fact that it wasn't sudden onset and was such a slow progression was a good thing. Bearing in mind that you can find anything wrong at any time, what he mostly thought was that she has basic congenital valve problems. It's like a slow leak; easily fixed in humans, but not so much in dogs.
The good thing is that because it's so slow (*knock on wood*) he thinks that with medication she could live to a really old age anyway and die of natural causes years down the road.
He also did some blood tests to make sure she'd be all right with better pain meds. He checked her blood for kidneys, liver and heart and they were all good. (*knock on wood*) So even though he was just checking for the meds, it's still awesome that they all came back within range.
So while it is a concern, and no one will know anything for sure until after Thursday, I'm feeling better about the whole thing. I like the words "really old age" and "natural causes." ^_^
That's the story.
While today really sucked kinda badly, there were some good things, too. People over at BlogBelieve know why that is. ^_^ It's because you guys are awesome, and because of our visit from SS. Anybody not love that dude and his hat-tipping? Seriously.
So I also bought Trisky a coat because today was the first snowfall and it's been bitter cold. She's got such a thin coat to begin with. So I took all the dogs out and while I was out there, I took some pics.
And of course the Ninja Wizards wishing you happy holidays.
And here are some pics of my decorations and my tree:
That's my kitchen, obviously.
That's an accidental self portrait. I took one like that on purpose last year, but this year I was just trying to get the blue glow from the LED light and my mug ended up being in there, too.
And these are random ones; a few that I took yesterday and some that I stole off my Mom's camera while I was borrowing it. Some of these go back to Halloween and even before: our collective birthday party. O_O
CRINKLE SACK! The things they will sell in the store these days, honestly.
My brother and I at our birthday party.
Me feeding Havok on Halloween.
Look at the nails on him! People wonder why I'm always scratched up.
NOMNOMNOM!
Chrissie and I being blurry on our Crackberries on THanksgiving.
Sunset at the sanctuary last Thursday.
That's about it! Now I'm going to make dinner, then it's off to Tai Chi in the cold, cold night. O_O Damn.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-12-03 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-03 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-03 04:18 am (UTC)I love hearing these stories, it reinforces what I've always suspected/believed.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-03 04:48 am (UTC)