One of my senior labs is going to be put to sleep today. First lab puppy I ever walked - I still remember that day from over 13 years ago.
I got a chance to say goodbye yesterday. He is is such agony with cancer (even with meds) that he couldn't even get to his feet and can't breathe unless his head is elevated. It is definitely time to end his suffering.
I gave him a big hug, a last cookie, and told him what a good boy he'd been all these years.
It's going to be a very long day for me today. I assume the gas line explosion is in the national news? I dropped off my younger dd (15) at the airport last night to visit my older dd at college for the weekend. I was already a nervous wreck about that and I drove home to hear about the large explosion near the San Francisco airport. At first they reported it could be a plane down. I had older dd check on the flight and it had taken off on time so I was relieved. It wasn't until hours later when I was watching the horrible tragedy unfold on the news that I realized I had dropped her off at the Oakland airport, not the San Francisco airport! What a horrible tragedy though. Dozens of homes have been burned, and at least six deaths reported but probably many more. When we lived in Houston, a gas line ruptured right by our house and two homes exploded (one block away). I remember the panic so well. We couldn't get to our house to find out if our house was still there, and we were particularly worried about our pets. Dh managed to leave his car and walk over a mile to sneak into the neighborhood to find our house and pets ok. I woke up this morning at 4:30 and put the news back on. Just praying for all of the people involved in this tragedy. I guess I'll just go into work early to try to get my mind off of this. I see they need a lot of blood donations so I am going to try to donate later today or this weekend. I wish there was more I could do.
Good Morning, all. I feel daring posting here. I'm still at that stage of being surprised when I look at myself and there is less there than the picture I have in my mind. I pinch myself, and yep, 'tis I .
Bill, I vote for extra days, too.
Dagmar, I'm sorry about your dog. That is hard. Am sending you the best thoughts I can.
Michele, I'm glad you and your daughter are all right. Thank you for the report. I will be praying for everyone.
Hi SilverLife! and welcome!!
Please tell me what Lacto-Paleo is? I saw it on one of your previous posts and I have no idea-- assuming Lacto means no milk? Paleo sounds like a dinosaur to me.....
Oh and Dagmar-- hugs to you. You go through such heartbreaks with your clients' pets.
Because of you I have contacted a pet sitter. They sound great and I've been boarding my dogs when I go out of town and having a friend feed the cats. They will either come to my house or my dogs can board at their house. While it isn't much cheaper, I am having a hard time paying the $70 a night when I board the dogs plus what I give my friend for the cats. I could stay in a hotel for that much! When we're gone for a week or more it is huge $$!!
The gas explosion was on the news last night but at that time they had no idea what had happened. I guess the explosion was so huge that they thought it could have been from a plane. It was a ruptured gas main and is just so sad for everyone there. Losing everything is one thing, but I kept thinking of the people who weren't home yet and probably lost their pets. So sad.
DD is coming home tonight for a couple of days. I'm sure she'll go back sometime on Sunday, so it'll be short, but it'll be nice.
The weather here sure has cooled down. I was chilly walking from my car to my office. I think that means a nice dog walk tomorrow morning!
Dagmar~so sorry to hear about the dog being put down, but I agree, it sounds like it's time to end his suffering. I got the report back from my Buddy's lab test (he's on Metacam so they have to check his liver). It came back only slightly elevated in one thing that shows liver damage, so that is good. The calcium levels which were high last time are now normal (high calcium usually means a tumor somewhere). The creatinine was high but was offset by a low BUN, so that is good. She recommended we lower the dose just a bit because he gets diarrhea from time to time.
I went for my own blood test yesterday which meant a 14 hour fast first. I mistakenly had a drink of something other than water at 8:30 PM the night before so that meant I couldn't go to the lab until 10:30 AM the next day. No coffee. No breakfast. But, on the other hand, NOT showing up to the lab at 6 or 7 AM meant the fastest (blood) draw in the west! There was one lady who was just finishing up when I got there and someone else came in while I was being drawn. The last time at the same lab I sat and waited over an hour.
I'm on board with the three day weekends every week. I could totally live with that.
I'm sad this morning - two of my good friends lost their not quite 12 year old golden retriever Baylor (at least I think that was what kind of dog he was, I'm bad with breeds) last night. They have another dog, Harvey, who is a little younger and has no memories of the house without Baylor in it. I've been thinking about pets today and the role that they play in our lives, sad for them and for Harvey today. They are putting some great pics of him up on FB, he was quite the well traveled dog. There are pics from Seattle, Vancouver, Scotland, London, France, all over the place. Fabulous life.
Dagmar - :hugs: to you and your client.
Michele - glad you and DD are okay and not impacted by the explosion and fires!
Allison - glad the blood draw was fast. That always helps!
SilverLife - welcome! Come on in and get to know everyone. And I'm sometimes still surprised by the image in the mirror after two years.
I'll be back later - have to do an interview now.
to all!
Last edited by Shannon in ATL; 09-10-2010 at 10:49 AM.
Here is a blog which explains what eating Lacto-Paleo means, by Dr. Kurt Harris. When I found his blog, I saw that the way I'd been eating was going in this direction, so I just happily continued along the way. Lacto in the name means that one does indeed eat dairy. Dr. Harris' blog has the best description of this that I have found. Paleo sounds like dinosaurs to me, too. It is a short name for eating a pre-agricultural diet. I could call it huntress-gatherer-herdswoman, but I buy most of my food. Milk is the original comfort food, and dairy products are high on my list of comforting things to eat. Some people are casein or lactose intolerant, but, thank goodness, I can eat the dairy products I like.
Silver~last year my doctor put me on a diet that was very much like a Paleo diet (but not paleo-lacto). Basically he (and the doctor who wrote the diet book) decided that humans started having health problems around the time we started cultivating and eating grains. My comfort food is breads and pastas so this was very difficult for me to follow and it actually backfired and set me up for overindulgence in the things I craved most and I ended up gaining rather than losing. I'm glad it works for you!
Shannon~so sad about the dog loss of your friend. That darn gas break up in San Francisco area made me think of all the poor animals that had to have been trapped and died. It made me think of my own pets. If a fire were to break out at our house, the dogs (if they were smart) could leave the house, but not the cat as he isn't strong enough to go through the dog doors. But if it were a gas main break like the one in the news, they'd be able to escape the house but not the yard. They'd be trapped. So sad for them all.
Allison, I wonder how they "decided" that humans didn't have health problems before agriculture? It's so prehistoric we don't even really have any data on it (ha, it's called pre-history for a reason!). I did at one point read a pamphlet from some other people who claimed that if we ate lacto-fermented foods every day we wouldn't have any dental problems. The reasoning was that tribes in the middle of nowhere that follow traditional diets which included those foods had good teeth. I say, correlation isn't causation, but whatever.
I'm considering signing Carter up for a class at the humane society that starts tomorrow. It's called the "reality class" because rather than taking the dogs into a training room, all the meetings are at parks and public places in order to help work on dog behavior around strange people and strange dogs. That's definitely something Carter needs work on. The only problem is that the first meeting is tomorrow and I don't really want to go tomorrow! Well, that and it's $150. I sent DH an email about it, we'll see what he thinks.
Alinell, I'm sorry the Lacto-Paleo didn't work well for you. I hope you found a plan that suits you splendidly. We're all so different.
Paperclippy, I have only read snippets about the health research on ancient bones. Apparently the scientists are now able to tell what diseases a person had, as well as the diet, along with how much a person weighed, etc., from bone analyses. Even dead people and their skeletons have no privacy now.
The class for dogs in real life makes a lot of sense.
Well, I can't really vote for 3 day weekends any more, as I now have 7 day weekends! I was with my quilting friends on Wed night, and we realized that we are now all retired, but 1, and she works at home with a somewhat flexible schedule, so why are we continuing to meet in the evenings? We decided to start meeting in the day time, esp in the winter when it's dark so early. (Gads, I'm sounding old!)
Dagmar - sorry to hear about the dogs. Sounds like he had a good live and was well-loved.
Michele - that gas explosion was very scary.
My DH and his friend are still gone, and today was gorgeous, which I'm glad for them. I've been enjoying puttering around here by myself, though the cats are noticing that there is not the normal number of humans to pay homage to them....
4-day weekender here - is it only Friday night? Er, Saturday morning. I'm up at 34am and I'm pretty sure it's due to the 12-hour Claritin D I took for allergies at 8am Friday morning. I need the decongestant for allergy symptoms, but they make me shaky. Today was the last day of scallop season, but I'd already been invited to go diving with a friend and checked w/ my boss to take the day off. So yesterday when I got the call to go scalloping... I had to go one last time before the season ended, right? And then I went diving today. And then I went scalloping again in the afternoon! I'm rather waterlogged but it was a lot of fun. I baked the scallops for dinner and they were delicious.
Last weekend I visited my sis and niece. She is so cute! Of course she's only 2 months old, doesn't do a whole lot besides eating, sleeping, and dirtying diapers. I attached a picture of her. We also went to an outdoor amphitheater and saw a show, and were able to get lawn seats that were very baby-friendly. My sis also has some nice wooded trails nearby, and I attempted some trail jogging 2 days I was there. It was quite nice and I ran more than I expected to be able to, and the weather was perfect - 79 and very low humidity. It made me hopeful that I haven't actually lost all my fitness this summer, it just really is a lot harder to work out in extreme heat & humidity.
I've also been very busy trying to get my community theater group going for the season. I'm sort of running around crazy trying to sell ads, find directors for plays, put together season ticket packages... our Board President's husband is very ill so I've taken over a lot of her responsibilities. Other Board members need to step up to their responsibilities, grumble, grumble.
Dagmar, sorry to hear about your dog friend. You handled the cat/neighbor situation very well, bravo! Have you heard anything from the owner about it? Yeesh, that man sounds like a real nut job.
Michele, I always think that when BF goes out of town I'll eat extra healthily and have plenty of time to exercise. Usually I get lonely a fall prey to lonely eating, try to distract myself by going out w friends and have more wine or beer than normal, and sleep badly (curled in bed w my tennis racket) so I'm too tired to have very good workouts. I hope you have more success than me w your DH out of town!
Hi Silver, welcome!
4:35 AM now, this is ridiculous. Stupid Claritin! I'm going to try to read my book and see if it makes me sleepy. Have a good weekend all!
Megan-- your niece is adorable!
I can't take any of the "D" products or I don't sleep a wink. I'm sure that is the culprit.
Do you really sleep with a tennis racket?!?! Now that dh has been gone 2 weeks, I have to get used to him in bed again. He is only home until next Saturday morning when he leaves again (actually he's not home yet-- late tonight-- so a really short time).
So quiet at my house. I realized recently that I have never lived by myself except for a few months when I moved out of the house right after high school before college. I had roommates in college and then got married and lived with dh after that. I don't know if I'd do well living by myself but I guess I would get used to it-- hopefully I won't have to though!
Pat-- how do you like retirement? Is your dh retired too? I seem to remember he was. Do you feel adjusted?
I'm off to my weigh in this morning. Still battling those few extra pounds but I'm going in the right direction-- only a pound or two still hanging on at this point. I have to remember that when dh gets home. He loves to cook and he cooks so well that I tend to eat too much!
Boy it is hard to get out of bed to get going. I've got two kitties in my lap while I type! One is having "happy feet" on my leg! When I was heavy she used to happy feet my tummy-- now she has trouble finding a padded spot to knead!
So DD is home from school this weekend, mainly to meet the new kitty. They had a lot of fun playing last night but this morning she said that he woke her up at least 5 times during the night! He's never done that to us, but DS reports that it happens to him all the time to the point where he now cocoons himself in his comforter!
Alas, it appears that DD has gained even more weight. I feel bad for her but again refuse to say anything to her about it. She is taking two active classes at school, badminton twice a week for an hour each time and tennis on Fridays for two hours.
Well, it's the weekend and I have a lot of errands to run. Have a great weekend everyone!
getting lots of practice . . .
to all!
I was with my quilting friends on Wed night, and we realized that we are now all retired, but 1, and she works at home with a somewhat flexible schedule, so why are we continuing to meet in the evenings? We decided to start meeting in the day time, esp in the winter when it's dark so early. (Gads, I'm sounding old!)
