Decisions, decisions

Happy New Year!

The holidays gave Byrd the opportunity to re-side the back part of the house. We're finally ready for exterior paint! (OMG OMG OMG)

The only question is, what color? We're partial to the green one.

Dozer was predictably naughty at the vet, for his eyelid surgery. He pulled out the IV when no one was looking. The techs ran a new IV, with a special cuff to hold it on more securely, and he pulled that one out immediately. At that point they decided to wait until he was asleep before running the IV. Anyway, the surgery went great, and Dozer's eyelid is almost healed already. Despite the success, Dozer was a whiny, pathetic baby for three days afterward. He has to get the stitches removed in a few days... I suspect that will be the most difficult part of the whole affair. Sharp implement + eyeball + squirmy dog = disaster.

I couldn't have two more different dogs. Star thought her dental cleaning at the vet was an amazing vacation. I dropped her off in the morning and she ran off with the vet tech, tail wagging wildly and ridiculously huge grin on her face. She didn't even look back at me. In the afternoon, she came out of the back wagging her entire butt despite her groggy stupor; crashed into a wall, the door, and the side of the car (with the same giant grin on her face); and did drunken zoomies in the backyard before collapsing on a dog bed to sleep it off. The dental was well worth it--she no longer has breath that would cause buzzards to circle.

I hope you all had a great holiday season! Here's hoping 2011 is a good year.

Warm Holiday Wishes

It doesn't feel much like Christmastime here in Texas at the moment. Until yesterday, it was sunny, dry, and in the mid-80s.

If there's dead grass in the photo, I know it's winter. Or possibly summer.

I tried to get the dogs to make a cute Christmas photo in front of the tree. This was a total failure.


"So, what's my motivation in this scene?"

"OOOOHHHH!!!! A chance to be the center of attention!! Move over!"

 

"Yeah! Front row!! Here I am!"

"Dozer? Where are you going?"

"O hai! What's that little flashy box you're holding?"

Though Dozer has always had an obvious distaste for Star (who schmoozes and fawns on him obliviously), only recently has he been actively avoiding her. In fact, many of us are avoiding her. Her breath reeks. Consequently, she will be going in for a dental cleaning next week. This will be her first time under anesthesia since we got her... and really, her first time at the vet's office for anything more than an annual checkup.

Dozer is also going for surgery next week. He has an odd little skin bump that would be harmless anywhere else, but unfortunately, it's on the underside of his eyelid and is likely irritating his cornea.

As you may recall, Dozer's Christmas gift last year was a second knee surgery. His Christmas gift this year is eyelid surgery. Poor old guy, no wonder he's such a Scrooge. :)

Happy Holidays!

Good news, bad news, and news

There's been a lot going down in Jentown these days, hence my prolonged blog absence. (I've noticed, actually, that by viewing the number of posts per month in the archives, you can easily see when I have a full-time job versus freelancing or unemployed.)

The good news, for me anyway, is that I got word today that my contract with my employer has been extended. So whereas the full-time job was to end next week, it now ends in May. Yay! Steady income! <3

In other good news, Dozer went to the ortho surgeon yesterday for his post-op (after surgery for torn meniscus) and got the all-clear to go back to his normal activities, minus the crazy circus act he puts on while playing fetch. So fetch is now more of a ball-rolling thing (soccer?).

Bonus photo of me in 1983 (age 4) about to whack my little sis in the face with a tether ball:

(Yes, I am wearing shorts. That's just a really long shirt.)

In the bad news category, I got sick with the mysterious illness again (swollen throat and fever)--it was a minor case that went away after a few days, but I still went to the ENT to try and get a diagnosis, only to learn that I will probably never get that. The ENT has concluded that 1) it's a virus, but unknown exactly which (the common ones like mono, strep, etc., have been ruled out), 2) it doesn't seem very contagious (no one around me gets it), 3) it's cyclical in nature for reasons he doesn't understand, and 4) all he can do is treat the symptoms.

Number 4 is unfortunate in that only steroids seem to work against it, and the Dr. says I shouldn't take steroids more than about three or four times a year. Since this is something that I get every two or three months, I plan to save the steroid requests for the bad cases like the one last August, where I was dealing with a high fever for almost a week (the dr. that time gave me antibiotics, which did not help at all).

In other news, Byrd is expressing interest in higher education on his own, without any prompting from me. I bought him an SAT prep book last week, with the hope that he would look through it and realize that college isn't out of reach. We sat down for a couple nights in a row to look over the vocab sections, like fill-in-the-blank sentences and item comparisons (hand:glove::foot:___). He was initially very confused ("Hand dot dot glove four dots foot two dots what? I have to know Morse code?") but seems to be doing better with just a little practice.

I hope he will hang in there and move toward community college as a first step. He's getting too old to continue at his current type of job, as labor, even if it's management-level. He and I both think he could be a great transportation engineer--he's often been consulted by engineers for various traffic projects and works closely with them in a number of ways, he knows the basics, is good at mathematical calculations, and he's a quick study--but the obstacles he's facing to get there are pretty significant, including his inability to read or write well, the length of time since he was last in school (and he never finished high school for that matter), his agoraphobia, and his undiagnosed but blatantly obvious dyslexia.

Anyway...

In my next post I am going to discuss something that has been a popular subject of late: breed-specific legislation versus breed-specific voluntary community programs (i.e. free spay/neuter for "pit bulls")--and why it's acceptable (from an ethical standpoint) to single out "pit bulls" (or other types or breeds of dogs) for special treatment in the latter case, but not the former.

Bonus photo of the word that Byrd slapped down to beat the pants off me in Scrabble:

If I recall correctly, this baby managed to hit several double or triple letter/word squares, and scored extra points because Byrd used all his letters. I think it ended up worth over 70 points, and as it was the last word in the game, I couldn't recover. Well played, sir, well played! (Yes, Byrd gets to use the dictionary freely to look up words, to level the playing field a bit. But still, what a perfect storm.)

Dozer's Christmas present

Dozer turned nine last month. I promised him a birthday party, but that didn't happen. Not even a little present, unless you count the allergy shots he's getting every three days or so (hey, he gets cheese as a treat for taking his shots so well).

Nine years is decidedly senior for a big dog like him (90 lbs). But he doesn't show his age, except that he's slowly falling apart physically.

Last week he had a major allergy episode, and had a staph breakout. He's on antibiotics.

He's also on a special prescription shampoo. I have to bathe him every 3 days. I gave him the first bath on Friday and he sloughed more fur than I've ever seen him shed before. I had a Chihuahua-sized pile of fur on the shower floor at the end, and Dozer continued to drop huge dust bunnies as I dried him.

Dozer also has an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon--finally--to officially diagnose what appears to be a torn meniscus in his leg (the one that previously had a torn ACL and subsequent surgery).

If it is a torn meniscus, Dozer will probably have surgery the week before Christmas. Yes, another surgery.

So his Christmas present--and ours--will be... surgery! Yay!

I'm still recovering from the bill for his dental surgery to remove his cracked tooth. And it looks like we'll need another surgery in the future because of an odd growth on his front leg.

I'm still working two jobs. Actually, the freelance job is on break for the holidays--but that only helps me in that I don't have to come home from work and do more paid work. I come home from work and do unpaid work instead.

Byrd swore up and down that, if I went back to a regular job, he would absolutely help out with the housework, cooking, and all that jazz. Let me give credit where credit is due: Byrd has done 1 load of laundry (his pants only) and 2 loads of dishes in the last two months. (Note: At our house, I fill a dishwasher in two days, and do about ten loads of laundry a week. So Byrd has assisted with 3% of dishes and 2.5% of laundry in last 2 months.) He also cooked three meals in a row! (7.5% of meals) OK, you get the point. I still love him. I just wish he understood how much time gets sucked out of my evenings and weekends by chores.

I've worked full time before, and it seems like Byrd was a lot more helpful then. Or maybe I had more time for chores, because I wasn't as involved with volunteer work, website maintenance, and the like. Maybe it was a combination of both.

Anyway, the discouraging thing is that all of the money I'm making from my awesome new full-time job is going straight to vet bills. I can only give my most heartfelt thanks--and a sparkly greeting card from Target--to the people who hired me just when I needed the money the most.

Happy Holidays to you all! May you have a surgery-free vacation. :)

ICL Surgery Update: I have glasses

My post(s) about my ICL surgery back in December 06 (see My ICL Eye Surgery Experience, Part I and My ICL Experience, Part II) have had longevity. (In fact, do a Google search for ICL surgery and my blog is the third result, yikes!) I occasionally get requests for updates about how things are going, usually from people considering the surgery themselves, and since it's been almost three years at this point, I think I should probably oblige.

So if the dog-oriented followers will bear with me...

ICL (implantable contact lens or intracorneal lens), also known as IOL (intraocular lens), is essentially a contact lens that is surgically implanted into one's eyeball in order to correct vision. ICL is an alternative to Lasik when Lasik isn't possible because a person has extreme near- or farsightedness.

Before I had the ICL procedure done, I was -11D in my right eye and -12.5D in my left. If I had gone with Lasik, I would have had to have it done twice to get to 20/20--and unfortunately, my cornea wasn't thick enough to handle Lasik twice.

You can read more about the procedure and my early impressions of the surgery at the links above. I came out of the surgery with 20/20 vision that lasted for about two years. (My left eye was not quite 20/20, but my right eye made up for it.)

Three years later, my vision has shifted somewhat. This wasn't unexpected. First, my vision is eternally creeping further into the negative Ds, especially in my weak left eye. And second, even the slightest shift of the implanted lenses can cause blurriness.

But the change is minor. I don't need glasses for anything except driving. Even then, I'm not legally required to wear the glasses. I just feel a little more comfortable with them on when I'm in a strange place trying to read street name signs, or when I'm driving at night.

It was actually sort of neat to walk into an Eyemasters and buy a pair of basic frames and basic lenses for $50. I've never gotten glasses at that price before. With my old prescription, I used to buy special lightweight lenses, special frames for the lenses, special non-reflective coating, special frosting on the edge to cut down on refraction, and on and on. The cost was always around $400+. And I had to wait 2 weeks turnaround, because everything had to be special ordered. Now, my prescription is so tiny, I can get the cheapest possible option and it works great.

I do still have halos around light sources in many situations. This is a result of a misplaced hole in my left iris during the initial preparation for the ICL (the YAG iridotomy). It's not a big deal for me, though it makes nighttime activities, movies, and laser tag a little challenging.

Would I do the surgery again, even knowing that I'd have to use glasses to drive three years down the road? Even knowing I'd have halos forever?

Yes. Absolutely.

I spent twenty years trapped in glasses and/or contacts. The freedom I gained from the ICL is difficult to describe. Some nights I still reach for my face to put my glasses on the bedside table, only to grasp air.

Not everyone will feel the same way, I'm sure. But I'm pleased with my results--looking back with the benefit of three years' retrospect.

Everyone's sick/injured except me

Dozer has torn his ACL and will need surgery.

Peepers has come down with fowl pox.

My sis is mysteriously ill (probably not swine flu).

Byrd's back is killing him.

His bro has Bell's palsy.

And yet I'm the one with the reputation for falling ill at a moment's notice?