quick post

The beast came home last night. Yay! He's doing pretty good. He's not allowed up on the bed yet which means I slept on the floor last night... or tried to. :)

He has on an e-collar to keep him from picking at his incision.

Thanks for all your kind words, thoughts, wishes and prayers. It really means a lot to us.

Hopefully regular posting will resume...soon. :)
blessings
~*~

keeping warm

It is 46 degrees outside, windy and very wet. Ida blew through our area yesterday bringing very high winds and pounding rain that at some times was falling sideways. The tree in my front yard has taken a beating. Pre-Ida it was still covered in beautiful yellow/gold leaves with just a hint of crimson. Now they are mostly on the ground. I watched yesterday as it seemed like it was raining leaves. I wish I'd taken pictures. :(

Beastie's progress is not so great. It was late Tuesday before they could get him to eat much. He apparently really likes Oven Roasted Turkey, but does not like plain mashed potatoes. :) Yesterday he ate really well, his regular dog food, and they took the catheter out and stopped giving him fluids. Today, he went back down hill. He wasn't eating and apparently was extremely lethargic. The doctor called me a little while ago and gave me the latest update. They had to put the catheter back in to give him fluids, mostly to try to flush the glucose out of his system. I'm hopeful that he will come home on Saturday, but at this point I'm not certain.

I can tell you it is a completely different atmosphere in the house without him. It's so quiet. I don't have to sweep the floor every day to clean up his shed fur. The biggest difference is I have room on the bed and sofa to stretch out. And I hate it. I always fuss at when he takes up most of the sofa or when I wake in the middle of the night to find he's pushed me to the very edge of the bed and he's all stretched out beside me taking up the whole thing. But now, I have it to myself. I can't stay warm. He's my heater and he's not here. I sure hope he comes home soon.

I've been drinking hot apple cider since I arrived home, hoping to warm me up from the inside out. It is delicious, but probably very bad for my blood sugar. :)

So, now to some knitting and then bed later.

blessings
~*~

beastie update

I picked up beastie this morning and transferred him to his regular vet for monitoring. It took two techs to lift him out of the car and help him along to the building. We think the pain is causing him to lose control of his back legs and he is very, very wobbly. He's had a bit of arthritis for a while in those back hips and often has trouble with stairs and getting up and down from the bed/sofa.

He didn't eat until about 3:30 this afternoon and then it was just the teeniest bit. The doc says that isn't surprising given what he's been through but with the diabetes, it is a bit of a worry. The other worry is that his "PVC" (I think that is his platelet count/red blood cell?) was 44 before surgery but late this afternoon was down to 23. She thinks it is because of the liver biopsy they did but because of it being low they didn't want him to be alone at the vet all night. So he can be monitored all night, I had to take him back to the emergency place for him to spend the night. My brother (sweetheart that he is) met me up there and did the lifting so beastie wouldn't be hurt too much.

Tomorrow morning I'll go back to the emergency vet and transport him back to his regular vet for the day. If his "PVC" is good, he will spend a few more days at the vet before coming home. I have no way of keeping him contained (unless I buy a crate) and he must be confined/kept still and calm for at least 8-10 days. I have large steps in and out of the house and I know I can't lift him up and down the steps and don't think he could make them on his own. So, more than likely he'll be staying there for a few days.

I was so disturbed when I saw him this morning. He has a large incision down his belly and many, many staples sealing it shut. He couldn't lay down on his belly and couldn't get comfortable on his side, so he sat up on his butt, sort of almost on his back with his butt tucked under him. I don't think it helped me that his winky was sticking out. :)

Anyway, I didn't sleep all that well last night, weird dreams that I need to figure out the meaning behind. It is so strange not having him curled up beside me. Plus, he keeps me warm!

In other news...I did make it in to work today. Granted I was late due to transport of beastie, but I made certain I got in all 8 hours. It was weird being there, not as miserable as I expected it to be, but not as good as I'd hoped. I didn't have to plug up my ears with music all day. I'm hoping tomorrow will be better. Wednesday is a holiday, and then there will be only two more days before two off. I have to figure out how to get myself through each day of work. I can't be off anymore.

Well, I'm off to watch the Steelers play the Broncos. My Tarheels already beat FIU in the college basketball opener. I love this time of year. :)

blessings
~*~

Thank you St. Francis!

My beastie baby came through surgery just fine. The surgery took about two hours, they pulled out a big part of the cob that the surgeon said would never have been able to be passed through his system. They also got another small part that had the two toothpicks still in it. (I don't own any corn holders so I use toothpicks - which increased my worry about him having eaten it to begin with. He'd already vomited up the other two toothpicks and a small part of the cob.)

She did find some abnormal looking sites on one of his liver nodes and biopsied that, but said that for his age and as long as he's been diabetic, he looks pretty good. When she called, about 40 minutes after surgery ended, he was already standing up and moving around.

I'll go get him in the morning, take him (some food and his insulin) to his regular vet for them to monitor him and make sure he eats and his blood sugar is stable. Hopefully he will come home tomorrow night.

Thank you for your prayers. I just don't know what I'd do without him. I'm already plotting how I'm going to stay warm tonight! :)

blessings
~*~

please say a prayer...

...for my beastie. He will be under going surgery shortly to remove an obstruction from his stomach. What could be blocking it? A Corn Cob. That's right. He snuck one out of the trash while I was distracted by my mum. And after I'd been so careful since the last time. This one apparently is larger and is wedged in his stomach so they couldn't get him to vomit it up. (Don't you just love that word? Not!)

I'm at home, I would go crazy sitting up there waiting. At least waiting at home I can do things to keep me occupied. Who knows, I may end up going back up there anyway. I'm very worried. His age, his diabetes and the ever present "chance" when you have to sedate a pet. oy...

They let me see him before I left and I told him I wasn't ready for him to leave just yet and he'd best behave himself and come home safe and sound.



blessings
~*~

sinking again...

i feel myself slipping

back down

under the shadows, under the grey

i'm afraid

of what? i have no idea...

there is so much

pain, anger, fear and uncertainty

today is the first day out since sunday

this causes more anxiety, more worry...

will they forgive me for not being there,

will they let me come back? can i make myself go back?

i feel like i'm on a runaway roller-coaster

one that has no breaks, no stops, it just spins...

round and round... will it ever stop?

i don't know who to talk to, where to go, what to do anymore

one minute, i want to just disappear

the next, cry out for help

by the time i make up my mind to do one or the other

my mind changes...again, so i have to start trying to figure it out

all over again...

keeps getting better

I'm getting better. Every day I can feel myself feeling free-er, happier, calmer. I don't know exactly what changed, but I like it. I have ideas again, I have energy. I have ... life.

My herbal teacher brought me some things to help counteract the anxiety and stress I've been feeling. I've started taking a tincture she makes. Also, Oatstraw and Nettle infusions were started tonight.


Tomorrow is a "halloween" breakfast at work. We are supposed to bring a breakfast item. In our room we were all debating what to bring and I said I was thinking about either bagels from Panera or pumpkin bread (homemade) and everyone yelled out Pumpkin Bread! So... when I came home and got settled, I started the bread. It turned out better than any I've ever made.



I'm thinking this weekend I'll make chicken and noodles and maybe pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese icing. yum yum...

I love making homemade bread, but do it so rarely because a- i can't eat it all myself and b- it is so time consuming. Turns out, it really didn't take any time at all for me to put this recipe together tonight and once it was in the oven I could turn my attention to other things. I'm going to start making some kind of homemade bread at least once a week. I can always take any surplus food to the office (they are like Mikey - they'll eat anything). There are so many different types of bread I want to try. The first one will be the Buttered Rosemary Rolls that Ree over at The Pioneer Woman wrote about today. I know they aren't completely from scratch, but it's a start and sounds so fabulous! I do have a wonderful yeast roll recipe from my Grandmother that I could use for it too. mmmm... yeast rolls.... (ugh.. I can hear my blood sugar racing up the scale as I think about it). That is the one bad thing about my bread plan. Being diabetic, I really should stay away from bread. But I'll work on the breads and I'll also look for recipes that aren't as bad or are at least a little carb/diabetic friendly (is there such a thing?) :)

I'm going to go start my latest knitting project. The black and white fun fur scarf I mentioned a few days ago, hasn't been started yet, so I'll do that tonight while I watch what would loosely be termed a football team of UNC visit Virginia Tech. At least basketball season starts soon. :)

blessings
~*~