Archive of Marcia's Musings October 7-13, 2002Sunday, October 13, 2002
Better-n-Better!
Sally's just getting better and better every day!! It is an interesting saga to watch the transition however. She did the nearly 6am wake-up call for me again and, once again, I finally got her back to sleep around 7:30 so I could go back to bed. When we awoke later in the morning, I went downstairs to find her trembling. At first, I was a bit upset because I couldn't get her to move and, with the trembling, I was concerned. I called Brian downstairs and her reminded me that she had gone off her pain pills-- the trembling was probably a result of feeling what hurt now. He was able to get her to move from the breakfast area to the living room so I also felt better about that.
By noon, she still hadn't eaten anything of substance-- cream cheese here-n-there for pills and a slice or two of cheddar cheese but nothing substantial. That was beginning to bother me a great deal so I called the doctor to see what they'd fed her figuring I'd go out and buy whatever it was that she had eaten for them. We talked about several possibilities after he reassured me that it wasn't unusual for her to not eat very much for the first few days. It was important to keep her hydrated and we weren't having a problem with getting her to drink enough water so I decided to stop worrying about it. He did mention that they'd given her some canned dog food when she was there so after her evening glucosamine and thyroid pills, I gave her half a can (about 3 ounces) of dog food which she started to gobble up almost immediately!! Success!!
Our Baby Girl is coming back in personality, too. The growling has almost completely subsided and she's more alert and keeps smiling at us when we come in the room. Today, she and I had a cuddle where she just couldn't get close enough to me-- every time I think she'd settled down, she'd push herself into me harder. Too cute!!
I've got a vacation day tomorrow and Tuesday and Brian has a holiday tomorrow so we're going to try leaving her alone for a couple of hours. We've got to go to a local mall to find some serving pieces we need for when we entertain. I've got to return a pair of pants that I bought for Brian awhile back, too so it will be a couple of hours that we're gone. Just enough to test her out on her own.
We'll keep you posted on her progress. Thanks again for all of the notes and emails and electronic greeting cards you've been sending-- she really appreciates them and so do we!
I've gotta get my vitamins set up for the week so I'm going to hit it-- thanks again for coming by and have a great night!
Saturday, October 12, 2002Better Night
We had a much better night last night-- Sally slept through until nearly six. I got up with her because Brian had gotten up soooo many times the night before, I knew he needed his sleep and I could always nap this afternoon. I was up with Sally for 1-1/2 hours during which time, we watched tv (she loves HGTV-- just like Daddy!) and I wrestled her morning pain meds and antibiotics into her.
At about 7:30, she fell asleep and my first inclination was not to trust that she would stay asleep. After a few minutes, I realized that she was out "cold" and that she would stay asleep. Considering that my back wasn't happy from being on the floor with her, I decided that I would go ahead and go upstairs. I'm glad I did-- at 10:30 we woke up! What woke us up? Sally growling at the foot of the stairs, of course.Oh, well-- Brian got a lot of much needed rest and she must've, too, since she spent so much of the day not sleeping yesterday.
On the Agenda for Today
As I said, Sally likes to watch HGTV and yesterday morning, before I started to work, there was an advertisement for a quilt shop about 3 miles from the house! I've been having a heck of a time finding any quilt shops that are not 20 or 30 miles away but this advertisement popped up so I'm going to go see what its all about-- maybe its new and that's why its not on the web or in the yellow pages-- I don't know but I'm sure gonna be happy if it is a nice new shop to call "Quilt Home"!!
Maybe I'll get a chance to stop back later, if not, however, have a great day
Friday, October 11, 2002TGIF!!
As Brian mentioned on his site this morning, we had a rough night last night. Sally was unsettled, to say the least and Brian, being the only one with two good ears, was a wonderful, responsive "Daddy". Because of our lack of sleep (and Brian had much less than I did), we are both very tired.
I had planned to work from home today and was fairly successful with a couple of exceptions: 1) Sally has taken to some kind of growling noise, very low and gutteral, as a means of complaining and/or talking about her aches and pains and 2) dial-up is just nothing like being there! I couldn't open a PowerPoint slide that was attached to an email at all and of course, the download speeds for emails in general was horrible.
Being the "Bad Guy"
I guess because I'm the "Mommy", I automatically fell into the role of being the food and medication dispenser. Prior to the surgery, I was the one to feed Sally her pills before dinner and make up her dinner. I'm continuing that tradition by trying to give her the pills that she needs to get through this: pain medication and antibiotic, in addition to her thyroid medication. Yesterday, she took all of her pills with her turkey meat (yes, I know-- she's spoiled!) just like always but this morning, she would have none of it! Suddenly, turkey meat isn't any good any more-- oh, man, what to do?
Ya know, after a night of light and interrupted sleep, it is difficult to think with both barrels in the water! I quickly remembered, however, that we do have some cream cheese in the fridge and I've always heard that will work for getting a dog to take a pill. So . . . pain medication and thyroid pill down but, a no-go on the antibiotic-- Now what? Brian suggested waiting until the pain medication kicked in so that she would be too groggy to fight me and just take the antibiotic. I waited an hour but the pain medication never got around to making her groggy. I tried one more time to feed her the cream cheese wrapped pill but, with no joy, I gave up. Put it back in the fridge in a plastic baggie (I figured I'd get it down her at some point-- I will not waste an antibiotic!) and got a "clean" pill out. I went over, pried her mouth open and dropped it down her gullet-- no, I don't like to have to do that but if she isn't going to cooperate, what am I going to do?
Seriously: any ideas? Let me know! Peanut butter will be the next option but she doesn't necessarily like that either and it will stick to the roof of her mouth and cause her no end of problems with that and, when that happens, won't she "feel" the pills and spit everything out? NOT GOOD!! Oh, argh!!!
Plans Change
How do you know when you're a parent? When your child gets sick and your weekend plans go out the window! We were going to go to a crafts fair in Gaithersburg but neither of us is comfortable with leaving her alone for any length of time. That'll probably be easier to do when she's off the pain meds but it is too scary for all of us right now-- she's really disoriented with those things!
Anyway, as a result, I'm going to work on a baby afghan this weekend and Brian will do what Brian always does: computer stuff. Better to err on the side of caution however . . .
*****
Thanks to everyone who has written emails asking about Sally and relaying "Get Wells" to her-- she smiles every time I tell her about one of them!Also, thanks for coming by-- its nice to have "normal" numbers here today!
Have a nice evening!
Thursday, October 10, 2002Our Poor Baby Girl
She is definitely not happy-- of course, she's glad to be home (and we are SOOOO glad to have her home) but she is not happy about the cast and the pain and the uncomfortableness and the not being able to shift to the other side of her body. Poor Baby Girl!!
BUT: She's home and we are all so glad that she is!!! We'll probably be listening for her all night instead of sleeping but she'll be doing so well when this is all finished!!
Pet Insurance
Needless to say, I've learned my lesson: we are going to get pet health insurance for Sally. I'd like to recommend this company (and I hope that someday I don't regret even mentioning that we've purchased pet health insurance) but I'm afraid to mention who they are for fear of recrimination. (You'll understand later.)
Yesterday, I called up and asked about their coverage for "pre-existing conditions". Nope, there is nothing so that means that Sally's blood tests and pills for the Thyroid condition won't be covered and neither will her Rimadyl. Okay, well my whole point in doing the pet insurance was because of the inevitable "next" disaster that will happen.
At the end of yesterday's call, the woman I spoke with gave me her name and extension and told me to ask for her when I called back. I did and Helen and I began our chat. The essentials first: name of dog, breed of dog, birthdate, age of dog... hmm, that's always a good one, isn't it?
Name of Dog: Sally Ann Bilbrey
Breed of Dog: Cocker Spaniel/Golden Retriever mix
Birthdate: We don't know-- we just adopted her 10 months ago. (Helen then insisted that they had to have a birthdate for their records.) Okay, so we adopted her on December 9-- that will be her birthday from now on, henceforth and forever more.
Age of Dog: We don't know. Helen said, "Well, is she 9 going on 10 or 10 going on 11?" Dah . . . so Helen continued: "You see, if she's 9 going on 10, I just sign her up here and now but if she's 10 going on 11, I have to have a full CBC, Thyroid test, serum cholesterol and that will cost you a lot of money." Ooooh, I get it: "Ya know, Helen, I'm pretty sure that the doctor said that she was 9 going on 10." "Great!" was Helen's response.
Now you see why I can't tell you who they are: this woman has helped me to defraud her employer!! While I think that was extremely generous, it could get her in trouble and I don't want to do that. Soooo, if you ask me who it is another time or on email, I'll probably tell you but I'm not going to announce it to the world today!
WebCrawler!!
6,858 pages reads today . . . can you say "Web Crawler"?? I knew that you could!!
I've put a couple of other pictures of Sally on her website if you have time to go check them out-- thanks for stopping by but I'm going to go spend some time wiht my Baby Girl!!
Have a nice evening!
Wednesday, October 9, 2002First Things First
We want to thank all of you who have written to us to express your concern and caring for our dear, Sally. This afternoon, after waiting as long as I could (and not calling every two minutes like I wanted to do), I called the surgeon's office and asked how her surgery was going. I was told that they had just finished the actual procedure so the doctor came to the phone!! It was good to hear his voice-- he was genuinely excited that the surgery went as well as it did! He had to go back and get her cast on but, she came through surgery and recovery fine.
As I was dropping her off this morning, I saw a little doggie with the cast on like she'll be getting: it looks like half of a pair of chaps!! It was really cute on the doggie that I saw this morning so I'm sure that Sally will be adorable in it!! I can't wait to sign her cast!!
The Bad News?
Its awfully quiet here and, although Brian is great at kissing me "Hello" at night, he just isn't Sally. I've only been home for a half hour and I've realized that it is just too quiet. I don't have my Baby Girl to talk to while I make dinner. BUT, she'll be home tomorrow and that's the really Good News!!
Happy Birthday, Sue!!
It is my sister's birthday today!!! Susan's husband always comes up with unique ways to celebrate her birthday so I'm anxiously awaiting a report to see what they've done this year.
*****
This post is early because I know so many of you were waiting on word about Sally.I've got dinner to make and laundry to finish-- Brian started it so I'm going to see how much can get done tonight.
Thanks for stopping by, and again, thanks for all of the emails about Sally-- we'll let her know you sent your hugs and kisses tomorrow when we're able to see her ourselves!
Have a great evening!
Tuesday, October 8, 2002Another Hard Day
Today started out normally enough-- Brian had his shower and went to work; then I took mine and dried my hair. Then, Sally saw something in the back yard and did her "Wake-The-Dead" bark and scared the living daylights out of me!!! I went downstairs to see what she was barking at in the backyard but I couldn't see anything. I opened the door and she shot out and made chase after something that was long gone! Unfortunately, she hit one of the ruts in that side of the yard and over-extended her knee.
She immediately started limping. I went upstairs to get my glasses so I could see what was in her foot and figured I'd be late for work getting whatever it was out of her foot and make the bleeding stop. When I looked . . . hmm, there was no bleeding but she was still limping. Oh, man-- what did she do???
I called Brian and told him and we agreed I would bring her to the vet immediately. I ran upstairs to get dressed in street-wearable clothes and, unfortunately, limping up the stairs, Sally followed. We went down the stairs cautiously-- the whole way, she was limping-- and I scooped her into the car.
I took her to the vet's office but it was too early-- the staff was in but not the doctors themselves. They said that they would hold her at their office until an appointment that I made for her later that morning. I had to keep her immobilized because she was hurting herself with every step. I wouldn't be able to do that at home so I agreed, reluctantly, to leave her there at the office.
I went on to my work but, unfortunately, that didn't last long. I was worried and upset over her and found myself looking for contracts on customers whose work I'd completed minutes before and didn't need to be looking for them anymore. Not a good sign.
Then the vet called and gave me a cursory review of what she thought was the problem without x-rays-- torn ACL (or the equivalent in doggie-terms-- which is the cranial cruciate ligament). Oh, great! Boy, do I know what that feels like!!
I left my office at 10-- I couldn't not be with Sally. I went to sit with her and I'm glad I did-- she was really worked up. It took a half-hour for me to get her calm enough for them to sedate her for the x-rays and blood work. When finished, the vet confirmed: torn ACL and recommended a surgeon. Their office helped me call the surgeon's office who was gracious enough to see me today, as well. Then we came home between doctor appointments. She drank water and I ate lunch-- then I did some more work, logging in from my laptop, and we went on to the next doctor appointment.
I spoke with Dr. Goldstein this afternoon and he examined Sally. He explained that usually, when there's a torn ligament, there's also a torn meniscus.
Oh, really? Like mother, like dogter.
Sally is scheduled for surgery at 11am tomorrow. I have to have her at the hospital by 8:15. All food and water have been removed from her diet for the rest of tonight. She doesn't get her morning medications but they will make sure that she gets her thyroid pill tomorrow night and Thursday morning. We'll be able to pick her up on Thursday, during the day, some time.
Worried?? You bet!! This is our "Baby Girl", remember?
In addition to the fact that our connectivity was down tonight, we have both tried to spend oodles of time with her tonight-- she's not going to be here tomorrow night as they require her to be at the hospital over night tomorrow. I had lots of good cuddle time with her on the floor at the vet's office-- they let me into the deep hospital part to be with her so she wouldn't be alone. They let her out of their cage, thankfully and I sat on the linoleum floor to pet her. After the x-rays, I stayed with her while she slept off the sedation.
We'll post an update about her surgery tomorrow night, assuming we have connectivity. Yes, thanks-- we'll relay your good thoughts to her . . . you're such good people!!
On that note, however, I'm going to sign off to try to get some sleep.
Have a nice evening!
Monday, October 7, 2002Just Way Too Close to Home
Whoever this jerk is, he needs to be found. He's now trying to kill children. Obviously, very few people feel safe in the DC area these days-- it doesn't matter where you live. This particular shooting incident is less than a mile and a half from our house. As I write this (from my office), I don't know if the main highway leading to our side street will be open-- the good news is that we've been there long enough now to know some other ways home. The bad news? Brian's cell phone isn't charged so he has no way of communicating with me to tell me where he is or to find an alternate route unless he calls from a landline.
I have to admit, I am not one to go hysterical easily but I do not like this situation. If I had gone to work at my usual time, according to the timeline provided by the police, I would've been going past the school either at the time or very shortly before the time that the shooting occurred. Hopefully, this kid hangs on and even more hopefully, this nut will get himself caught-- SOON!!
Later . . . on my drive home tonight, traffic was diverted from our usual exit to the next exit. Traffic there, trying to get to the area that the traffic was diverted from, was fairly heavy. I stopped on my way to get Chinese food (we had dishes piled in the sink since I didn't have time to wash them after the plumber left) and, as I sat waiting for it to be cooked, I have to admit to a certain amount of anxiety and trepidation. As I drive up the back route street to our street, there are helicopters hovering overhead-- I hate it when they do that!!
We're all home now-- safe and sound. Doors and windows locked-- that gives me some comfort. Thanks to everyone who wrote with their concerns for us-- once again, the community has proven itself a wonder.
Forgot to mention one thing . . .
One thing that happened over the weekend is that I upgraded our Quicken from 1999 to 2003. Our new bank here in Maryland has a download process that created duplicate entries in our Quicken 1999 register. Obviously, that's not a good thing! Last weekend, we bought Quicken 2003 and I got adventurous and put it on the computer and downloaded the info-- . Okay, so I had a couple of transactions not recorded that the bank had but, eventually, with a little of Brian's help, I figured out the problem and we are now up and operating on Quicken 2003!!! I've got a few more things to figure out (like how to schedule transactions) but that shouldn't take too long.
I'm just proud of myself for being able to install a computer program!! There was a day, long, long ago when I could do that sort of thing but then I married a Nerd and, since I don't have to do it anymore, I do question my abilities from time to time!
Plumber's Helper
The plumber showed up promptly at 8:00am and, despite Sally's best efforts to make him concentrate on petting her, he solved the plumbing dillema at the Bilbrey Belfry. Once again our water is flowing from the house as it should be-- dishes have been washed and the one load of laundry that was stopped mid-cycle has been completed. Life is good, eh? $161.95 good for the other guy-- No, I will NEVER, EVER run celery through the disposal EVER again. Apparently the pipes in the older houses of Bowie have a tendancy to be a little on the thin side and that's why this sort of thing gets caught up in them.
Okay, so that's all I can think of for now-- sorry, its been a long day.
Have a great afternoon, evening and night!
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