Out and About

Today, we started anew.

Yes, each day does do that, duh.

But in our case as I had said previously when busy hearts will heal, and so let’s put it this way, the process has begun!

Actually, yesterday I started playing catch-up with many things formally put on hold.

I made two doctors’ appointments and one for a haircut.

Sure, what woman doesn’t need some pampering to help her feel not as depressed?

That has been a little well known cure for years and years…

Men too need to get busy to stop the mopes, and Hubby began right away yesterday with his own cure for what ails ya, turning into a sort of Edward Scissor Hands. Yes, cutting back our hedges of Hibiscus.

My new do did help with some old school skin helpers too, Noxzema and Ponds cold cream, as well as a bit of hair mousse to help with the new me, hairstyle.

My skin has a weird look to it and a reddish rash across the bridge of my nose extending to either cheek. I believe it could be related to the older, large economy sized lotion I was using for way too long!

Used for years, I am embarrassed to say, but I just did… they do have an expiration date usually on them, but I could not find the one on mine, it was a Dial product for very dry skin, with a large pump bottle, kept most all this time opposite the soap on my bathroom sink.

Any-who, thus the new products with determination to get back my healthy glow, huh?

Well, not so rosy one?

Better me?

Oh well, we had stopped to get all that at Walgreen’s, and that is even an old school drug store if I recall.

I don’t wear foundation, only an occasional bit of blush via my matching lip stick, but I do wear mascara, waterproof/Almay and I have to add eyebrows these days. I, for some reason have trouble shaping them and so half usually are gone, weird, I know.

Lunch was at Olympia, which was very crowded and we had a short wait to be seated; the snowbirds are definitely back! Snowbirds definition: people who winter here from their colder climates.

I had broiled Swai and Hubby had a Reuben, we both had soup, and he had his usual black coffee with sugar and I had my usual unsweet iced tea with lemons on the side.

My appointment tomorrow is for that eye thingy, the bubble on the white of my eye above the iris of my right one that had the two surgeries. It is still there, and I had been wearing one contact lens there except it kept popping off due I think to that nasty bubble. According to what I Googled it is more than likely nothing serious, but still annoying just the same. Maybe he will pop it? It does really look like just a clear bubble.

Moving on…

Today is Election Day here in America!

As I think I mentioned before Hubby and I had voted early via snail mail, about two weeks ago.

The polls close at seven P.M. tonight, but of course we have a few time zones here in the US and so it will take a while to get all the results. (Even two in Florida.)

Here alone our gubernatorial race is neck and neck and so Hubby and I believe they will be having a recount…!

All in all, it will be interesting to see how it all turns out.

We also have medical marijuana bill up for a vote; a very controversial topic to say the least and both sides have good arguments for and against.

On that note of leaving you on the edge of your seats with anticipation; I can pretend, can't I?…Allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night, and ask all of you to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

The Day After...

Sure one might argue that death is part of the circle of life, and in the long-run they would be right, right?

When does grieving become beyond normal and just becomes plain too weird?

Here are the known five stages of grief:

1. Denial and Isolation

 2. Anger

 3. Bargaining

 4. Depression

 5. Acceptance

For more in-depth  explanations of each goto: http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-5-stages-of-loss-and-grief/000617

As a person not unlike most of you by my age of happily sixty-four years old, the truth is you sadly have had too much experience with losing the ones you love. And yes, I am talking people, pets came too in between the people, but at this time it in my life it seems like there at times that have been never ending streams of loss of the human or pet type.

Since I was a young woman I have had this very weird superstition and just before Skipper was diagnosed it had happened again... two little birds flew/crashed into our sun-room door to the patio at two different times, the one without the wind-chimes and only the heron decal and died all just before Skipper was diagnosed. That is the superstition that someone will become ill or usually dies, and horrifically it has always happened...true.

I bet you know where I am going with this... and so my fear, not unfounded mind you based on previous experiences... is if two little birdies died, I am very concerned that someone else I love or know of who may have crossed paths with me may be in jeopardy, and NO this is NOT a scary belated Halloween story...

So that adds to my grief this particular time... although going through it, at home with Skipper and realizing what he went through and valiantly fought till the end! Well, that makes those stages of grief speed up with the acceptance coming sooner rather than later...

I do believe that it is one of those life lessons that we must discuss with our children as well as we do all the other important topics of becoming a grown-ass adult, oops did I say that? Cringe factor seems to dwindle as the years go on... I have noticed with many of my peers leading that byway with much gusto!...Why now even cursing is supposed to be healthy for the mind, or stress and of course to lower that blood pressure, so "they" say..., who would have thunk it would come to this?

Any-who, death comes to all of us eventually, no running away from it, but some have tried...More importantly it is how we run towards life that is what we all should do, as if our lives depended on it and many do! (Enough cliches in there for you Lee?)

In the end we all know that adjusting and continuing is all that any of us can do... busy the body and the mind and time will mend all souls hearts....Where did I hear that before? Sounds familiar, but lately even when I try to find these decent sounding idioms the authors are unknown, mine again! I call dibs, for I do like it...

Here are not too weird PICS of how we are still living with Skipper, don't think badly of us or that we are weird, but most all have been here a very long time as he was...

Skipper 3-18-2004- 11-2-2014

These are just a few of the hundreds of pics of our little guy that were taken in the last few years, sadly his baby pics that could melt your heart are on our floppy discs and our floppy disc player is not working! (Any ideas on what to do about that would be most appreciated.) He had an always happy go lucky attitude that would make us smile no matter how bad our day might have been. And he was there for me during some of my worst times of my illness...We love him with all our hearts and he loved us back! Skipper will be sorely missed by us and anyone whoever met him or knew about him. He passed away at 1P.M. today, at home, after a short time period of gallantly fighting an inoperable cancer, only since October 15 when diagnosed. He is being cremated like all his predecessors and we should be receiving his urn within the next two weeks. PS I too want to be cremated when my time has come…

Until we meet again Skipper…

This was sent to us shortly after I posted about Skipper's death this came via email from a very old and dear friend and I hope that she doesn’t mind me sharing this with all of you…

"The Rainbow Bridge
Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. When an animal dies
that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.

There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm
and comfortable. All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health
and vigour; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again,
just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.

The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and
looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers.
Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs
carrying him faster and faster. You have been spotted, and when you and your
special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again.

The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head,
and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your
life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together

Author unknown

 I love this poem and I hope it helps a little.

Dogs come into our lives to teach us about love.... they depart to teach us about loss.
A new dog never replaces an old dog; it merely expands the heart. If you have loved many dogs, your heart is very big.”

I think it is heartfelt and well said.

Another day, another dollar...

NOPE!
At least not today.
We stayed home all beautiful day!
Here in hotsy totsy Florida we actually had low seventies with low humidity with not so gentle breezes!

And tonight we are having an early cold spell drop in on our SUNSHINE STATE with temperatures in the forties!
Especially for Florida that is quite cold for November first!
On occasion in December and maybe even January and sometimes February we get cooler, but odd for this early here…

 Moving on...

Skipper is getting force fed still and now has to be carried even when he is outside, he sleeps an awful lot.

I fear his body is shutting down on him, but he does still drink water and eliminate that when he goes outside, still no accidents, except with drool from his mouth…

He has been getting the Tramadol like clockwork every ten hours or so, its directions are every eight to twelve. I just turned to Hubby and questioned that maybe he is over-medicated?

Although, he doesn’t get any in the middle of the night, during the day he gets it ten hours apart.

This is so hard, all our other extremely ill four legged friends we knew when it was time to let them go and all but one had been euthanized until now. While writing this in the sun-room on our oldie but goodie desktop computer Skipper had been lying on his mommy blanky, translation: fake sheepskin mat from puppy-hood, alongside our dinette table but next to me sort of in the next room, he just got up and walked all the way to the front door, sort of like a drunken sailor sixteen feet to the front door to look for Hubby! I guess I was ignoring him, shame on me!

Perhaps, we both have been too cautious with him… carrying him onto furniture and down off of it, when he always was capable of doing it himself…Although, it all started, our more concerned behavior when he would try one, two or three times and not be able to get up or land badly getting down from the furniture this cat-like balanced little guy!
I don’t know but it is so hard to know what is up with him, he is so alert and when we talk he watches us both as if hanging/understanding our every word. 

He is still that bright eyed little pup we love oh so much.

The difference here is that I recall with all the others the main issue was how much pain they were in and asking each veterinarian what they would do if he/she were theirs.

Previously, the answers were always so clear cut. Yes too much pain and I would let them go was always the definitive answer in all those cases, but this time, none said that when asked!

He had two blood tests each at the different facilities to verify his anemia and other info, the one here also did the initial x-rays determining the growths were there, and the ultra sound at the Ft. Myers facility verified all that.

We had stopped short at biopsy only because at that point they felt it might cause the cancer to spread, surgery was ruled out due to being told that he could die on the table and the cancer could spread that way too…Not many options.
All I do know is that he is very anemic; his gums are white although his tongue is still pink, no jaundice or yellowing anywhere, and his whites of his eyes are just that very white. 

We had one dog that did have liver cancer and vomited bile and turned jaundice in his eyes and gums that was Andrew our younger son’s dog from Hurricane Andrew 1992-2001, a collie Shepard mix and he lived till he was nine and he was euthanized within weeks of his diagnosis. Puffy 1979-1992 our grey and white domestic short hair cat had leukemia and she was on IV’s from August until February, she died at thirteen also euthanized.
Benji our male Yorkie 1984-1998 also had inoperable nasal tumor and I drove with him with him having syncopy, passing out/falling over in the truck, at the time, from here all the way up past Clearwater, nearly a two hour trip, just him and me, the specialist there told me that he had no hope and was in incredible pain, and so also euthanized. Brandi our female Yorkie and his gal, 1988-2004, had breast cancer twice and survived but her medication caused a heart problem that also gave her a horrible quality of life and was therefore told better to let her go years later, after the breast cancer…Mandy our black and white domestic short haired female cat foundling wandered into our garage as a kitten she was doomed from six years old  when diagnosed with kidney disease and even so survived till nine and died here at home and was the only one not to be euthanized, but neither was Charlie our thirty-one year old Cockatiel, he just fell dead off his perch one day. Casey our beautiful long-haired orange Tabby cat with amber eyes another foundling by our younger son and his girlfriend while in college and given to us when he joined the Navy, he all of a sudden got that horrible cancer of the tongue, where it looked as if it exploded it his mouth, he was euthanized when he lost half his body weight in two weeks due to being unable to eat and being in severe pain as well, he lived blissfully for thirteen years until then. We sadly do know how to let our little loved ones go...

So without the doctors helping to put this all in logical terms, and with now Tramadol masking any pain, we were never told about Tramadol for any of our others and all we were told then was that nothing could be done, but somehow with Skipper we have some hope…

I think I am telling all of you this so you can try and understand that we aren’t doing this to hang onto someone we love for selfish reasons, the truth is he is the one hanging on and we are just enabling that! Does that make any sense?

On that note of again telling more than any of you probably care to know, allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

PS FALL BACK THOSE CLOCKS TONIGHT!

Happy Halloween Folks!

Not too scary tonight I hope for the little ones, but just enough, one would desire... BOO!

Here are some sites with scary Halloween stories for the children to use at your own discretion with care:  

http://www.americanfolklore.net/halloween.html
http://www.halloweenishere.com/ghost_stories.html
http://www.scaryforkids.com/scary-stories/

Now here’s my NOT so scary at all story for our little darling/bog/pal, better known as Skipper!
I suppose it should be called a tale of a tail?

Trying our darnedest to help our little guy and so we do whatever it takes and now that we have been feeding him via the tube it feels rather harsh to have to do that to him or anyone really!

Ta Da!

The below medication does offer some help and some hope to perhaps within days not needing to do that to our four footed friend…

Mirtazapine

Another medication used for both people and dogs/cats.
This is the one that I mentioned that I had Googled and came up with how to increase the appetite of a dog with cancer.

“How this Medication is Used

Mirtazapine is used to treat conditions where poor appetite and nausea go together such as intestinal/stomach disease, liver or kidney disease, or others. Mirtazapine can also be used to alleviate the nausea/appetite loss that accompanies the treatment of cancer by chemotherapy.

In dogs, mirtazapine is generally given once a day, a relatively convenient dosing schedule compared to other medications. Even better, in cats mirtazapine is given twice a week.

In the event of liver disease or kidney disease, the clearance of this drug from the body is reduced by approximately 30% so ideally the dose should also be reduced. In cats, it is difficult to reduce the dose as the smallest tablet manufactured cannot be accurately cut much smaller than the regular dosing schedule allows. In this situation, a compounding pharmacy could be employed to create a lower dose or the dosing schedule can be stretched out. This is especially important for cats with liver disease.
Mirtazapine also has antihistamine properties but it is unlikely to be used for these when so many other antihistamines are more readily available.”

Thanks to: http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?A=2552

And so Skipper received his first dose this afternoon after Hubby brought it back from the doctor’s office.

He is on the minimal dosing of a quarter of a 15 mg. tablet.

This time his doctor’s office even cut it up for him, last time we received his Tramadol that was in Ft. My ers and I did tell the doctor that we had a pill cutter so we received it whole. I suppose I had forgotten to tell them that we have a pill cutter at his local vet’s here.

Any-who, it is in him along with his Pepcid and Tramadol and food from the a/d type of Hill’s Science Diet.

And we are feeling a bit more confident on what and how to handle this medical issue for our baby bog.

Now allow me to be the very first to wish all of you a very happy good night and kindly ask all of you to count all your blessings and share all those overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Hope we are not too late!

Sure we love our Skipper, and that goes without asking …  and sure we want to do everything possible for him and so after trying to get him to eat everything and anything suggested by knowledgeable people and reliable Internet sites…we finally have given in to contacting his doctor again and the holistic doc too for the first time, who is a VMD!

Now his Dr. Randy DVM has ordered medication to help with his appetite stimulation that should be in tomorrow afternoon (I had Googled to see if there were such a thing and then waited for the doc to reply on what I found.), and the holistic doc will be seeing him next week at the soonest.

It is nice to know that there are not too many divas in the veterinary profession, ya know?

We seemed to, at times, have found a few in the people medicine arena, ya know that too, I am more than sure of this.

Skipper’s appetite is iffy at best and it also becomes confusing on what to make for him when the doctors first tell you to use a specific diet that he spits out and when you go to try certain other things it says no high sodium due to blood pressure, no beef due to nasty enzymes, no toxic things of course to dogs as onions or garlic… and those things are good for humans though, not the beef or sodium but the onions and garlic.

Nutrition for people and dogs is NOT the same and what we may think is okay, may very well be taboo for our four legged friends.

Although, some silly things that Skipper would beg for that we were strict parents who made sure that he always ate his specific dog food only since he was born with a sensitive tummy and as a pup and even as an adult would find non food to eat, mostly outside that created havoc with his gastrogenic system, from the time of the infamous Hurricane Charley of 2004 when he was only a five and a half month old pup and debris flew into our yard from our home and our neighbors, insulation and such…not food stuff, but he ate a bit of it before we could grab it away of the NOT food stuff!

Yes, he with his brothers of Charlie the Cockatiel who was a mere twenty-five years old then and his pal Casey the cat, our orange tabby with amber eyes… who was around seven-ish at that time, a foundling, and so yep he was the baby, and I suppose he always will be, since his buddies have long since passed on; you all know how that goes…

Skipper’s emergency is that now that we can see through his thick lamb-like coat that he is diminishing in size…by his collar getting too big and is shoulder blades being felt as well as his ribs that were always felt just right, he has never ever been fat, but never ever too thin either, I guess one could say just right at around fifteen pounds or up or down a pound or two from there in either direction at times, but never for very long…

If we had a proper scale I would say his weight loss is significant and so we have thrown caution to the wind and Googled, yep, not too jeopardizing his well-being… I checked to see if he could, in his present condition have and egg and some bacon?

And last night, he has an entire slice of BACON with about a half of a scrambled egg!

I know some of you purist are thinking that this is not such a good idea, but he ate it!

And the verification from his doctor’s office was that he ate and now who can argue with that?

So tonight we tried it again this time with two slices of BACON and the rest of the egg and he ate nearly the whole thing, well not all but quite a bit…

Hubby and I were talking to his doctor’s office early on about whether or not to force feed him they said it could come to that and so I sent hubby to go and get the larger plastic syringes for feeding and the young woman, Sara, at the local Pet Supermarket was quite knowledgeable.

You see, her thirteen year old Great Dane was diagnosed with lung cancer six months ago with being told he had three days to live, and no there is no second hand smoke in her home she assured me.

Any-who, she went holistic with him and so far six months later he is still with her on 23 different herbs and supplements, which made me, perk up my ears and listen to what she had to say.

I told her of the holistic veterinary doctor I was told about and she said to check with her since Skipper’s cancer was in different organs and his size and all, very responsible young woman. She did say that giving our little darling fish oil which comes in squirt form, making it easy for him to take and so Hubby picked that up too and he has had some today.

Skipper had his half of Pepcid again tonight this time melted in the syringe, silly us we thought he had to chew it… perhaps that will help him with calming his tummy, it helps mine usually.

So now we have a plan of attack to try that hopefully will have a positive effect, he is so thin and weak, I sure hope we weren’t too late!

Those last few words made me feel like crying… anyway, let me be the first one to wish all of you a very happy good night and ask you all to kindly count all your blessings and share all your overages with you know who and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear!

Copaxone shot gone wrong!

Was due today for my right arm shot of my Copaxone, and after four and a half years I was bound to get a nerve sooner or later, and it feels as if I did!
I am writing lefty and I am no lefty!
This is it for this evening and thanks for understanding, but my right arm is both numb and in pain, and yes both can happen and to me it does way too often...