Blather, rinse, repeat

We got some bad news yesterday. I took Sano to the vet because he seemed a bit off, and a quick, in-house ultrasound scan revealed a splenic mass. It’s probably not benign. It’s still small and doesn’t seem to have spread, but these usually do, within a few months.

Sano is almost fifteen, and with surgery, a mass like this would return in about three months anyway. The vet said we could do a more thorough ultrasound for $400, but A. it won’t really reveal anything we don’t already know and B. I don’t have $400, because Haku’s $8000 surgery is still nowhere near paid off. The only way to know for sure what it is is to do surgery.

So with surgery a few months, and without surgery a few months. Honestly surgery seems like the stupidest idea at this point.

What we can do is some treatments, like TCM and palliative care, to maybe slow it down. Tumors like this generally aren’t painful. He doesn’t feel it and isn’t uncomfortable. 

2016 is just awful.

When I started writing this, it was still March 10th. Ugh how is it past midnight. I'm going to have to go to bed and finish this tomorrow.

I'm having a moment, because my FB memories came up today and showed that it was this day in 2009 that Haku had his first surgery. And of course it was, because he had that first seizure around March 8th, the day my Gran started to go downhill really fast. I remember that day—that minute—so clearly because, looking back, it seems like my entire life split into two sections the moment Haku jumped up and had that first seizure. Then he went into the hospital. Then Gran went into the hospital and then she died in April. And then my Dad died in August.

And I've been reading all of my old LJ entries from that Spring and Summer, trying to see if there were any signs, or if I had any intuitions that would have told me just how drastically things were going to change. And the disturbing thing is, I feel like I did. Because a few times I wrote “I wonder what will be different this time next year” and “I wonder who will be new to me and who will be gone (no one, I hope!)” or variations on those themes.

And that day started the entire Trauma Conga Line, where everyone in the family was like, “Okay, enough – that really has got to be the end of the bad stuff, right?” And it wasn't, and then my Dad died.

So, now Lao Shir has died, and Haku had surgery on the same exact day that he did in '09, and I am sitting here losing my mind thinking, “This is how it starts.” I can't stop imagining that, a few years down the road I'll be reading this entry, tsk'ing over my clueless past self who had no idea how bad it was going to get.

Doesn't that sound neurotic? It does, but here's something I wrote shortly after my Dad died:

It's real hard going back and reading journal entries from even just a few weeks ago, harder to read the ones from a month ago. I can hardly fathom that I was happy back then; that I had no clue whatsoever what was right around the corner. Still sad for losing Gran, I was also getting on with it, doing my schoolwork, excited about writing, getting ready to go to China, doing Hula shows with my friends and having a spectacular summer.

I always knew—and feared—that life turns on a dime. But knowing something is entirely different from living it. When you live it, you come to see the world differently; someplace that is not safe, where the worst possible scenario is indeed around every corner and behind every door. You start to expect nothing less. I sort of knew it ten years ago when Grampa died suddenly and with no warning, and I always dreaded it ever happening again, but this illogical part of me thought, “Well, that already happened once. What are the chances?” I thought that the fears I always had that every phone call, every noise, every slamming door was the worst thing I could imagine were irrational fears and I was neurotic. But I wasn't neurotic; I was correct.

“I wasn't neurotic, I was correct.” That's how I feel now, like I'm right, and it just has to keep getting worse, until something unthinkable happens. There's that part of me that's like, “Well, now that I've put it out there, it can't, right?” And the other part that says, “OMG, now I've put it out there, that's like inviting it.” There's the rational part that says, “Don't be a twit, you literally have no control over anything,” but the rest of my brain tells that zen bitch to take every seat in the house, because that's exactly the problem.

(Of note: I realized while peeing today that my novel is pretty much about this fear. Main Character is so much of a fearful f'ing control freak that he can't accept that some things are out of his hands. He takes it to the extreme and changes things on a like, 4th dimension level because he has lost the ability to can when it comes to reality and death. Oh my god. he is my fantasy of my most fearful and most powerful self. Jeez.)

And yes, I know that I should probably be talking to someone about this, you know, someone who is not LJ and who is a professional, but the one therapist I contacted, though she seemed nice, worked out of a clinic that got into huge trouble because the main doctor was dealing drugs out of there, so. And like, what is a therapist going to tell me that I don't already know? It's not in my control. The intrusive thoughts aren't rational. Blah dicker blah. But are they really irrational? Because past experience says “No, you're on the right track here, and terrible things are about to happen.”

What also sucks is that I feel like I'm short-changing Lao Shir out of the mourning she deserves, because I'm too busy being afraid of how much worse things are going to get, that it's overshadowing how much I actually miss her. Right before she died, we were FB messaging about how we were going to get together for lunch once she was out of the hospital. I asked if I could send her anything: books, music, a gift card for some movies she could watch on her phone. But she said that, with all the tests she was having, she hardly had time to read or watch anything. But that she would love some flowers. So I sent her flowers, the kind you can take home and plant. (They got lost in the mix and she never got them.) A few days before she died, I sent her a link to the “Girl On Fire” video because, I said, it made me think of her. She never answered and I started to worry.

I had called Gold Dragon to tell him she was in the hospital (he's not on FB) and he kept saying, “It's terrible she's in the hospital, but remember, she's the strongest person we know. She's beaten everything else, and she'll beat this, too.” When I called him to tell him she had passed, he was honestly thunderstruck. And angry. He really thought she was coming home. We all did.

One time, Gold Dragon and I were talking about Lao Shir, one of those times when the cancer had returned, and he had just seen her for lunch a few weeks before. He said he knew she was going to beat it again, because, “it's the light in her eyes, or something about how they shine. Her eyes are really bright.” That really stuck with me. I told her, next time I saw her, of his comment, and she was so pleased. After that, we called her Alohilani: Heavenly Light. She thought that was delightful.

And now we're talking about what to wear to her memorial, since we're going together, and maybe Empress too – should we wear our Kung Fu clothes to honor her? Should we be formal? Do we bring food, who else will be there, who else will show up in Kung Fu clothes, do we bow like in class? Or what? And it boggles my mind—and my heart—that we have to consider these things now. She was supposed to come home. She was going to go back to teaching T'ai Chi.

This was maybe coming for a long time. She had multiple myeloma, diagnosed ten years ago. Usually with that, you get about a year, maybe two. She got ten. But in those ten years, I think we all thought, “Obviously she keeps winning the battle.” It was heart failure, though, this time. At 60, so, you know: very young.

* * *

Okay so I wrote that last night, and I'm trying to see if, by the light of day, this looks any different. Kind of, maybe. Like, rationally, I realize that Haku has actually had 8 surgeries, and only one of them (the one on March 10th) was followed by that entire “life falling apart / death and mourning” year. All the other ones were just bank-breaking. Thinking of it that way really doesn't make the anxiety up and quit, but it takes the edge off, I guess. I'm always, always worried about losing my Mom. And since having Callum, thinking of that kind of thing is a place I really bar myself from going. My brain kind of can't – but it always lurks there like background radiation. For any parent, I guess.

I know that Haku doesn't have a long time after something like this. I visited him today and talked to one of the vets. While all the others were like, “Well, let's wait to see the biopsy,” she said, “Yeah, we're pretty sure it's cancer.” It remains to be seen if it's the really aggressive kind that only gives you a few more months, or if it's the slower kind. It's so obvious to me that it started last July. I kept bringing him to the vets every month, but his blood tests were consistently awesome and no one could feel anything in there. Except me; I felt it all the time, every time I pet him. No one else did, though.

And Sano is 15 ½. So like, I get it; I know my dogs won't be around forever or even for a few more years. That time of not having to think about it is over.

So I don't know, this whole thing has me so anxious and depressed. I'm reading back through all of my 2009 entries, when Haku and Sano got sick, and Gran died, and my Dad died, and my one brother got sick and my uncle died and then my other brother got cancer (but he's better now.) (Although, sadly we don't really talk anymore.) And I just kept saying, “I wish something good would happen!”

And like, so many good things did happen, and it's not like I didn't notice them. I mean, HUGE things happened, like Callum, and getting an agent that I like; things I've wanted since forever have happened in the last 3 years. So I'm not ungrateful, I just wish I could kill this anxiety that the worst possible thing is around every corner.

Another thing I keep noticing in those entries is how much Kung Fu helped me. Like, so much. Kept me sane on some days. I miss it unbearably, and nothing has come along to take its place. (And I can't afford to join any program either, anyway, so.) I mean, I miss my KF family and I really wish it could be like that again, all of those people I loved and still love (and still see, semi-regularly, too. But we're not together 2 times a week, like we were.) It's not like i'm the only one who left the kwoon, and I can just go back, even if I could afford it. Everyone left. There's no one left there out of our group. I keep telling Gold Dragon, “Please decide to teach Kung Fu, please open a school!” only half joking. But, you know, real life.

Whew, what an entry. I hate that I just dumped all of this out. This is not what I wanted for my LJ, so much angst.

And as usual, I really should wrap this up because it's about time for Callum to get up. Well, 3:30 or 3:45 or so, but I still have a few things to do while he's sleeping.

So yeah, sorry for popping on randomly and spilling nothing but neuroses!

Only three weeks until Disney! Or, as Callum calls it, “Diz-din.” I've started telling him often, that soon (“Next month, this month, three weeks,” etc.) that we're going to Disney. “Callum and Momma, Grandma and Meghan are all getting on an airplane, way high up in the sky. Then when we land, we'll go to Disney! And there we'll see Spencer and Natasha, Aunt Chrissie, Uncle Timmy, Gavin and Mason, and Uncle Don and Jen. And then we'll see Micky and Minnie, and the castle, and Haunted Mansion, and Pirates. Also a great big ball, and tons of animals.”

When I mention Haunted Mansion, he does the scream. That's because I've been reciting the whole thing to him since he was about three months old. Cracks me up. It's so weird to me that he has no idea what I'm talking about. Like, no sense of the future, that this is a thing that has yet to happen. I wonder if he thinks I'm talking about the Disney Store, or maybe the Disney room at my Mom's.

I'd been fretting, a little, a few weeks ago, because he was only saying five or six words. Then, out of nowhere, in the space of about two days: five more words. And the next week, five more. And then more. All at once! So weird how that happens.

So of course, my biggest stress is boarding the dogs, and leaving my goldfish, The Doctor. I got an automatic feeder thing for him, and I tested it today, and it works. And I'll put his light on a timer, too. But what if something goes wrong, and he doesn't have food for six days? Or light? I don't know, I guess goldies are kind of hardy, but I'd be so upset if he went without food for that long. And, I always hate boarding the dogs. I haven't done it in so long. I know it's going to trigger Haku.

In other news, I started teaching Hula again. I've got a class of six kids, ages 5 to about 10. Okay, I've taught adults and I've taught tweens before, but this is a while different box of frogs. They actually are just like a box of frogs, one that I keep trying to keep the lid on, and they keep popping out. I'm worried, because there's going to come a Monday where my Mom will have to go to work for inventory, and I'll have to bring Callum with me. How the eff am I supposed to teach six frogs, and stop my toddler from getting into everything? I'm stressed just thinking about it. But, it's really fun to teach them. At the end of the first class, the youngest girl ran up and hugged me, saying, “Miss Jules, I love the Hula!” And they all wanted to learn Hawaiian words, too. Which is pretty good, I think.

As far as writing: That one really cool agent still has the manuscript. I even nudged her last week—or two weeks ago?--and haven't gotten a reply yet. She's replied to everyone else who's nudged her (with rejections. :( ) But she is telling people that she's focusing on SciFi now, which is what mine is. IDK, maybe she's getting invested in it, and taking her time? I don't know! My palms sweat every time I check my email.

I've also started another novel. I've actually written tons, tons, TONS of stuff since this one, but either I've kept them to myself, or they've been fanfics, or I've put them on the internet or on HitRECord, and none of them were ever meant for publication. This one is, though. I've only just started it. I might join NaNo this year, even though I'll miss the first few days.

It is cold, cold, cold here today, after a relatively warm Autumn so far. My room was 55 degrees and I put the heat on a little, just to take the edge off. I like the chill, though.

Although, I won't be complaining when I'm in Florida and it's 85 degrees, either, that's for sure. :D

I'm writing this quick update on yet another new laptop. Like I mentioned, my Mac is dying a protracted, painful death, so I had been using the little Toshiba I got last year. Well, during our family Xmas celebration on the 26th, I stupidly put the damn thing on top of Mom's freezer to make some room. My cousin didn't see it up there, opened the freezer to put in some ice cream she'd bought, and CRASH went the laptop, breaking it entirely. 100% my fault for putting it up there. Lucky thing it didn't land on her head. I still feel really bad about it.

The holidays were good this year, though. I'm a little sad that I forgot to do my annual “end-of-year” memes on LJ. I'm sad, actually, that I haven't been on LJ a lot. In fact, honestly, I'm sad that LJ in general is just about done and that everyone has moved to Tumblr. Even me. I still feel faithful to LJ even if I'm not on it often.

But yeah, Christmas was good. We had a lot of people over, and we bought those cracker things you see on Doctor Who all the time, and everyone got stupid prizes and a crown to wear. To me, it was awesome. It was all a bit much for CJ, who has started to have this separation anxiety and stranger danger kind of thing. He's still in that phase, too. He only wants Mommy and Grandma and sometimes Jo-chan. Everyone else scares him if they get too close.

Speaking of, I took both dogs to the vet yesterday for their blood work and checkup. It was just me, the two dogs, and CJ. I was just trying to keep them all in one place while we waited. It wasn't so bad until this bratty kid, maybe around 3 or 4 years old or something, came up to us and started bothering Haku first. I told him to stop, that Haku would bite him. He asked if he could pet Sano and I said okay (Sano really loves kids,) but don't get near his face. Then the bratty kid went up to the carseat and peeked in. “Is that your baby?” I told him yes, and then took CJ out of the carseat, because I didn't want Bratty Kid to start touching him. Once he was out, Bratty Kid started getting in CJ's face and growling and barking at him.

WTF. So I said, “Where's your mother?” really loud. Finally his mom came over and dragged him away, Bratty Kid screaming and hollering all the way. Then he frigging CAME BACK and started doing the same thing again. I looked Bratty Kid in the eye and said, “My dog is going to bite you if you keep doing that to the baby.” Once again, his mom came over and pulled him away, promising him candy if he would behave.

I sat there thinking, “Please don't ever let me be that negligent Mom of a bratty kid who bullies little babies.” I know toddlers are pre-rational, but there was something up with that kid the way he was acting so mean. And with her making promises of candy to get him to stop... I dunno, I realize I'm not there yet and there's no telling what CJ is going to be like so maybe I shouldn't judge. I just know that if he started picking on babies and getting into strange dogs' faces, we'd be having some serious talks.

Anyway, the good news is that both dogs look really good. I got the blood test results today. Sano's blood is perfect! (*knock wood*) His arthritis is getting pretty bad and the lipomas on his sides are getting big. But his insides are all good. Haku's liver value is up from last year, by about 100 points (up to 317 she said) but it's not a significant increase for a dog on so many meds. She said that she's seen dogs his age with higher values than that, who aren't on meds. And his chloride is actually down from last year!

I'm not clear on the chloride. We think it's related to the potassium bromide he's on, but she mentioned that it had to do with the potassium-sodium pumps and my brain went “Oh well that's cell biology, the exchange of potassium and sodium via the pump inside each cell, doesn't that have something to do with action potential or something something it's been a long time since A&P...” and I started to wonder if maybe it was related to epilepsy. He was having lots of seizures last year and his chloride was high. This year it's lower, and—I feel like I'm jinxing this just by writing about it—he hasn't had a seizure in 4 months. FOUR MONTHS. That's a record. And I have no idea why. But maybe the chloride level is related to seizure activity. It's worth a google, which is what I'll do once I'm done typing this.

So, I started this entry this morning, then CJ woke up and we drove to the north fork to visit my boss at work, just for a social sort of thing. There was a horrific accident this morning. One of my cousin's friends lost her life in it. Nothing more terrifying than these random accidents. Can't stop thinking about it. It was about a mile from my house. So we were able to get out of town without any issues, but coming back, there were detours on the main road to my road. They said they'd have it all gone by noon. We came back at 1 and the detours were still in place. So they made me go all the way to Hampton Bays to go around... And of course, there was another detour on the other side. I pulled over to the shoulder of the road, opened the door and asked the cop, “I live just up the road. How do I get home?” He just stood in the road yelling at me that it wasn't his problem the roads were closed, and to go the other way. I said “Well, that side is closed too. I have to get my baby home.” By this time CJ was way late for lunch and his nap and he was crying. The cop was super douchey and just stood there yelling about how it wasn't his problem. PROTECT AND SERVE, BRO. So I yelled back, “YOU'RE THE OPPOSITE OF HELPFUL!” and slammed the door shut while he was still ranting about how none of this was his problem. Then, instead of collecting my wits, I yelled, “This is so stupid and it's made me REALLY ANGRY.” I looked into the backseat to check on CJ and I saw his little lip wibble, and then he just busted out with a full-hearted cry. And, oh man, he cried and cried for the next half hour that it took us to get back to the other detour.

The cops on that side were nice; when I told them I lived on this road they let me go through. Why couldn't the other cop do that? No idea. Baby cried—wailed, really—all the way home. And I know it was because he knew I was upset.

So we got home to a late lunch and a late nap. But. We got home to a late lunch and a late nap. We were inconvenienced and the cop was a bag of dicks and CJ was hungry and tired and I was angry. But we got home. And the people in the car accident didn't. Even when I'm pissed off and nervous, I am still thankful every single day. Though, I should probably not have shown my anger and frustration, because it really upset the baby.

Well, anyway. He's asleep on my lap now and, I don't know, maybe I'll read a short fic or something before he wakes up.

Oh yeah, and one more thing! Anyone who gets Pivot TV should watch the new HitRECord show. I'm going to be in two episodes of it. :D Yay! And I'm on the Don Jon DVD briefly, too! Buy it, so that I get paid! ;)

And be thankful every day!

Addendum: I just read my last entry re: ancestry.com where I was looking for the Plantagenets. And guess what! A few branches over, there they were! Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine are my 28th great grandparents. :D WOW!

Today is such a gorgeous day. LIke Bob Marley said, “Sun is shining, weather is sweet.” I took the dogs to the beach for a long walk, and I’ve been outside setting up bird feeders and putting my tropicals out for the season, scrubbing bird baths, re-arranging things, etc. just to be outdoors. Everything is so green and lush, and it smells like the ocean and apple blossoms.

The latest Hyperbole and a Half  gives people a really intense look into what depression feels like. Reading it has made me so grateful that I’m able to enjoy days like today, and more understanding of people who can’t.

So, here's how the rest of my week went. I finished up my last (so far) day of work. I don't plan to take too much time off, because I honestly can't even afford to, so I only hope the clinic will still be there when I get back.

Then I had a doctor appointment, which are once a week now; kind of a pain. I had a different doctor, some dude, whom friends assured me was very chill. He was nice, really; looked at the birth plan I'd written up and agreed with everything on it, etc.

But here's what happened: he was running an hour late. The nurse who weighed me was pissy and in a huge rush. She didn't wait for the scale to stop tipping and she wrote down that I had lost two pounds. (Maybe I'd lost one, or just hadn't gained. Which is totally normal.) But then the doctor saw it, and he thought I measured too small, didn't look right or whatever. So he made me go back for another ultrasound 4 days later. I pretty much had a feeling nothing was wrong and they were just being stupid about it and trying to get some more money, but of course, you worry about things like this anyway.

But, I went back Tuesday and had yet another different doctor who was like, "Umm, why are you here?" Even the u/s lady was all "Everything is perfectly normal, what is the meaning of this?"

So now I'm super annoyed and I hope I don't get this doctor for delivery, because he seems to be an alarmist.

They also keep pestering me to get internal exams every week. (Sorry, TMI.) I keep declining. I think you only need maybe one, before the due date. They were really insistent and totally confused about why I was turning it down. The nurse was literally like "You're really not doing it? I mean... your pants are staying on?" YES, FFS. They were so insistent about getting all up in my puanani that I began seriously to suspect their motives. >_> Back away from the vagina, people.

(A few years ago, Jo-chan and I were trying to come up with some way to invent one of those spring-loaded boxing gloves that you could stick between your legs during an OBGYN exam. It would have a trigger or something that you could pull when the doctor went down there for a look. IDK, I still think that's hilarious.)

But enough about my crotch.

I was supposed to have new windows by now, but contractors across-the-board suck. I'm sorry to any contractors who don't. I don't believe in you; you're like Santa Claus. Not that I can actually afford new windows, but the ones in my bedroom (which is going to be the baby's room) are cracked. Like seriously cracked, completely broken, ice on the inside of the windowsill, black mold building up, can't-get-room-above-50-in-the-winter kind of broken. My Mom actually put it on her credit card, tbh, paying like 50 bucks a month. Anyway, originally they were going to put a rush on it and get it done in the beginning of May, but, contractors, you know. "Beginning of May" means "end of June, maybe."

Oh, here's another thing. I have Havoc outside today. It's not his first time outdoors (I've dragged his entire cage outside a few times, to get him some sun, even though this totally panics him,) but it is his first time in the aviary. I figured, I'm not using it for a while, let's see if he can stand it out there. And honestly, he's been screaming so completely non-stop lately, I have no idea what's causing it but it's driving me insane. Today when I took the dogs to the beach he screamed so loud and so long that I could hear him from my car, down the block. O_O

So, I put him outside and set him up with a bath, perches, food, peanuts, and a toy. He was hysterical for about five minutes until he discovered his water bowl. Then he had a drink, got on a perch, and chilled out. He's nice and quiet now and I am a much calmer person without him screeching the way he has been. I think I'll put him out during the day, and bring him in at night. (He could stay out at night since I fixed the aviary all secure, but IDK, I'd probably be too nervous.)

Oh, and I had Sano's bloodtest done again this month. Once again, everything is normal. (*knock on wood!*) This is the first time in years he's had platelets in the spring. Haku is still having seizures on his new meds, so it's not a totally perfect situation, but Sano not being on pred is totally new. The only thing I did differently this year was give him coconut oil with his dinner, because I read some anecdotal stuff from people with ITP saying that it had worked for them. Very odd. I even started cutting down on his SUPER EXPENSIVE Chinese Medicine pills. Maybe I can get to the point of filling them every 40 days instead of every 20, saving over $100 a month. Let's hope.

As for the rest of today, maybe I'll do a little writing, maybe some recording for HitRECord, maybe some laundry. I've already had the dogs to the beach this morning for a nice long walk, and done lots of outdoorsy work and now my hips are aching again. Well anyway, won't be long now!

Sun is shining, weather is sweet. :)

Power is flickering, iffy at best. Internet access is on and off, too. Lots of sirens and fire alarms. The wind and rain are pretty bad here, expected to be worse tonight and tomorrow morning. I know they already lost power a half a mile up the road from me. Some of the trees around here are looking a little unstable, so that worries me a bit. I'll keep checking the beach down the road to see how high the water is rising. If it starts really creeping up, I have a place to go inland with my Mom and my cousins.  If I can, I'll sure be on at least intermittently! :D

Meanwhile, I am stocked up on food, filtered water, pet food, and, for those of you who know my crow, Havoc, I've got lots of food and filtered water put away for him, too. :D If I have to bail, I will take my dogs and Havoc. But I'm worried about my goldfish, The Doctor. I don't know what to do if we lose power for a long time. He'll be without a filter and aerator. Someone told me--in all seriousness--to blow into his tank with a straw. If it comes to that... I also scrubbed his tank clean, changed his water, and put away a gallon of filtered water in case I need to change it again, if the filter goes. Jeez, being that worried about a fish, of all things! 

Anyway, now that I can get on Tumblr and LJ once in a while, I can stock up on OTP feels, as well!

Last night, Havoc had a meltdown that was so intense, I was afraid for him. I've never seen a bird do this before. I was chilling out on Tumblr, everything in the house utterly quiet, when I heard him make this low, frightened sound like I'd never heard him make before. The only way to describe this sound was utter fear, even though I have never heard this noise in my life. You could just feel it.

When I went into his room, he was out of his mind. I've never seen a bird get this hysterical before. I actually thought he was neurological, that he had West Niles or something. He didn't know why he was in a cage, or in a room. He couldn't find his perch, just flapping around madly, panting and freaking out. And he didn't know who I was. This hysteria went on for about an hour. Even after I turned off his light to let him go to sleep (and darken whatever he might have been looking at that scared him,) I could still hear him shaking in his cage. And when I'd turn on the light to check on him, he would hiss at me, with his feathers all puffed up. Havoc gets annoyed and irritated and he doesn't want to be pet or carried, and sometimes he hisses meaninglessly when he's feeling bothered, but this time it was because he honestly didn't know who I was.

Then he fell asleep, and woke up fine, like nothing had happened.

What. The. Hell.

I wonder what he saw out there? He's seen cats, raccoons, mice and rats go by before, so I can't imagine it was anything like that.

Anyway, I'm glad that's over, and may that crap never happen again, jesus.

I finished watching Lost, and, WHAT. Really, WHAT? I feel like all seven seasons totally trolled me. I'm not going to say anymore about it, because people who read this LJ haven't seen the whole thing yet. So no spoilers. Just know that I was not pleased with the last five minutes.

I have been having some crazy dreams. In one, I was at the beach down the road. Again, it's a dream-beach: never the way it is in real life, but always exactly the same in every dream. What is it with that? I have a lot of dream-places that are like that. They are only vaguely similar to the actual places, but are laid out, detail for detail, the same in every dream, from one to the next, even if the dreams are years apart. I mean, are those like, real places in parallel worlds or something? So bizarre. Anyway, I was at that beach, paddling out into the water on a chair, so that I could get a picture of the sunset. I know it sounds boring, but something about it was really intense.

Then, a few nights ago, I dreamed that I was watching TV somewhere and this nature show came on, talking about a building called "The Cascade," where, if you could get past the waterfall and get to the top of it, your most important question would be answered. After that, I was driving home from somewhere, and I decided to take an alternate route. I got lost, and ended up in front of The Cascade building. It was really high, and the floors got narrower as it went up.

My Dad was there, telling me that I had to press certain buttons in a sequence in order to get past it. He said he'd figured out that if you press one button, it would deactivate a barrier, but activate another one farther in. (I play too many video games, it's true.) Then he demonstrated by pressing a button that had a picture of a small rock on it. When he did this, the waterfall in front of the building came on. Some of the other buttons had labels, like "rain" and "river" and things like that. Dad said he had to go meet someone, and he'd be right back.

Then I ran into my brother, and then Lao Shir. They were also trying to figure out The Cascade, and how to get to the top. My alarm went off before I could figure it out.

Wow, I guess the surface of that dream is very sort of Buddhist or something.

Work is pretty much what it's been: good weeks with tons of clients, slow weeks with next to no one. But fun, nice, mellow.

Still hot here in the afternoons, cold at night and in the mornings. Jo-chan started college again and is here every Mon-Tues and then Wed-Thurs. It's nice, we're still watching Doctor Who, and we've started re-watching Sorcerer Hunters. That show still cracks me up every time.

This, that, and the other.

Haku's blood work is nigh perfect! His liver values are perfectly normal, which is a first. Because he's on phenobarb, his liver is constantly overworked, and his values have always been elevated. But this time, everything is within range. (His thyroid is still a little low, but that's not a huge concern yet – might have to up the thyroid meds in the future.)

The normal liver values are, without question, down to the milk thistle supplements I've got him on. Yes, and the vet confirmed that and told me to keep both dogs on them. I remember a few years ago someone or other was asking me about liver health and I was like, "Oh, milk thistle" and then someone else came in yelling about me being a "stupid fluffy bunny" and to stop trying to mess up real medicine or something.



Uhh, yeah. These days, doctors and vets are prescribing milk thistle for everything from liver cleansing to hepatitis. In fact, one of my brothers has hepatitis and had lesions on his liver. His doctor wrote a prescription for milk thistle. Actually, they sell it as an allopathic medicine now under a different name - Silmaryn, I think. When Sano went into liver failure a few years ago because of the prednisone, they put him on that. His liver was fine after a round of it, but it bugged me because it cost a hundred bucks, and I can get it at the store for about twenty.

It's no secret that I enjoy being correct (who doesn't?) especially in the face of ridicule. And, hell, even when people are politely dissenting, I still like being right. There is really something about that "nyah nyah, I was right!" that I never quite outgrew. Also, I enjoy being ahead of the curve on things like this.

Herbs and natural stuff can be dangerous if you don't know wtf you're doing, that's true. But I've found over the years that I'll look into some kind of natural, herbal treatment for something, start using it, get good results, and then hear about it a few years later. I cross reference everything I try (and everything I try on my dogs and birds, too,) with everything else they're on, and all of their conditions. (I do this with food, too. Like, neither of my dogs' blood clots really well, so I could never give them turmeric.) I think doctors are held back from even looking into these treatments because, you know, CYA. "Oh, my doctor told me to try milk thistle and then I DIED." I think because of that, they don't often bother to find out sometimes.

I'm always really perplexed when people get pissed off about the use of herbs and supplements, and when they say it can't possibly work. That's really weird, because everything you put into your body causes a chemical reaction. I can't imagine how people don't know that in this day and age. It's not like there are evil humours in your blood or something; this is all chemistry. Understanding that things go into your body and react with other molecules causing your body to do different things, umm, that's grade school stuff. Everyone knows that certain foods are healthy and you need the vitamins and minerals you get from them. All "medicine" comes from some chemical that's found naturally (usually tweaked beyond recognition, but still.) Aspirin comes from willow bark. Even more obvious, you eat a poisoned berry, you get sick. So, why is it so hard to believe that the opposite must be true: you can eat some kind of plant material and it makes you well. Something that doesn't come from a pharmacy with a little piece of signed paper would, in fact, also cause a chemical reaction in your body. Thinking that it wouldn't just isn't even logic. IDGI.

With that said, there is no current scientific theory to back up how acupuncture works – and yet there's no question that it does work. Now you are talking about something close to "humours" and such in the body, because acupuncture relies on qi flow, systems of energy, and various fluids. Yet Chinese medicine and Tao were talking about anatomy and quantum physics 3000 years ago, when western "science" was still talking about demon possession. In some ways, science is only catching up to them now. "Oh, wow, it looks like atoms are most stable with eight valence electrons!" "Uh huh, really? Yeah, we call that the Bagua."

Also, allopathic medicine is really slow in catching up to the idea that the body is connected to itself. That, yanno, if you have something going on in one part of your body, you might want to take a look at the other parts, too. House—you know, on TV?--is actually a holistic doctor.

And, like him, I can't help feeling smug once in a while.



Hurray for people who know what time it is. :)

Hmm, let's see. I don't really have too much to update. Work has been sort of on and sort of off. When it's good, it's really good. But when it's slow, I lose a ton of hours. That's no one's fault; it's just the market. It's how things are.

I went out to dinner with Lady Chrysanthemum a few nights ago. We went to this teensy tiny little place on the river, that's been there for years but I've never seen before, even though I drive past it at least once a week. It is, in fact, next to my favorite pizza place and across from the ice cream shop that is totally aces. Anyway, we met up there and had a really nice dinner, where we discussed many things (which I'll talk about in a locked post.) It was super mellow and the food was great. It's someplace I'd really like to go back to in the summer, or even the spring when it's awesomely warm and bright, and I can look at the river and watch all the boats go by.

Come to think of that, I'd really like to kayak down that river. Kayaking seems to be some kind of theme lately: everyone's talking to me about it, trying to lend me their kayaks (which would never fit into my car) and telling me how much I'd love it, how beautiful the island is when you're seeing it from the water. I'd really like to do it, but I think I'd have to rent a kayak. Maybe this year I'll do that, finally. If I can save up enough dough.

We haven't had a winter this year. That's really weird, because the last, what, four? Have been insane. This year we had about five inches of snow and that was it. I wouldn't mind at least one deep freeze, just to kill all the damn bugs. There are already mosquitoes everywhere.

Sano goes back for another blood recheck tomorrow (which is Thursday.) If his platelets are holding up, we're going to drop the pred even more. That's really rushing it, but he's having such bad side effects this time, I have to try. Last year it took about six weeks before he lost all his muscle. This time it took about four weeks. He's just a bag of bones and he can't make it into the car, and has trouble with the stairs. Fingers crossed that we can lower it again and maybe find some more Chinese meds to stave off having to go back on pred.

I'm bored. I go to work and Kung Fu (when I can) and sometimes to get groceries and that's it. One of my friends from school (you know, That Guy, only now he's seeing someone,) wants to get together to train, to spar and stuff like that. Which I would love to do, except my left arm is still really effed up. I went to my chiropractor yesterday and he thinks it's either a torn delt, bicipital tendonitis, or maybe some neurological entrapment starting in my neck. We were both frustrated because we couldn't pinpoint exactly what the problem was; the symptoms are kind of diffuse. But my left arm has gotten really weak in the meantime, and that bums me out.

Also I'm going to get pregnant next year. Just throwing that out there.

I finished watching all the Dr. Who episodes available, as well as all the Torchwood ones (BOOO! HISS! Who ends a show like that?! >_< ) and Sherlock. Now I'm watching Downton Abbey. All of a sudden I'm in a British phase again. My cousins and my Mom and I are all on Tumblr, always reblogging all these Dr. Who gifs and such lik ea bunch of fangirls. Too funny.

The other day I had to look for a video of birds for this thing I want to do for HitRECord, and I got to looking through my summer photos and videos. Don't I just do this to myself every winter? I start looking at those pictures, and then I'm just aching for summer. It seems like Spring will never get here.

Blah de-blah. These are my ramblings for today, a plain old Wednesday with nothing to do except take the dogs to the park. That's not actually a complaint, just that in the summer, Wednesdays are for teaching Hula.

Well! Who knows what the future will bring, eh? Good things, please. Nice things! Yeah, let's go with that.

Sano has platelets again! YAY! He's up to 115K which is a huge improvement. Normal starts at 165K. Sano had about 10K last week - if even that, because that's an estimate; they couldn't even find one on the slide. BUT, he still has to stay on the prednisone for another few months. You can't just yank him off of it otherwise he could get adrenal problems. Pred is such a double edged sword. So - good news! But still crummy that he's got to be on pred, because it destroys his liver/muscles/bones.