truer words were never spoken
The last few days seem like more like a few weeks.
Winter returned with vengeance. The temperatures have been well below normal so Maggie and I haven't walked very much in February. Conditions are very slippery in a lot of areas as well. A week ago, after a walk Maggie's left hind leg started to tremble. I thought perhaps she had slipped and pulled a muscle. By Tuesday all four limbs were trembling so we drove 70+ km to see our vet. (their local office is staffed with a vet on Wednesdays and Saturdays only) Maggie didn't enjoy the ride and was very stressed by the time we arrived. After examining Maggie and ruling out several possibilities the vet suspected that they were idiopathic tremors. They drew blood for testing and we went home with a prescription for a muscle relaxant. By Friday Maggie's head was shaking and she kept it tilted to one side. So, Hubby drove Maggie and I back to the vet. The blood work came back clean, but with the new symptoms the vet was as concerned as I was. The vet suggested prednisone to suppress what she felt was an immune response to something. Then after further consultation she said that it could be GME (Granulomatous Meningoencephalitis) which has a very poor prognosis. Diagnosis of GME is done by testing spinal fluid but the veterinary clinic that does them in Edmonton charges triple the regular price on weekends and their lab wouldn't be able to test the sample until Monday. The vet recommended we start the prednisone and hope for the best. She was concerned about degradation of the sample over the weekend. If Maggie didn't improve she would have to go off of the prednisone for 3 days before a spinal could be done because the steroid would make reading the sample difficult. Needless to say I was very upset. Today is day 3 of the prednisone and Maggie seems to be improving. Her tremors seem less severe, and she is holding her head level again. We walked today even though it was very cold and her gait was normal and her "waggle" was back. I'm very thankful to everyone who prayed for recovery. God is so good.
On Thursday the seat heater on the driver's side in my Jeep failed again. (on one of the coldest days this winter) *sigh* I made an appointment with the dealership for this morning and the seat is once again nice and toasty. There is supposed to be another "new and improved" heat grid available soon.
For much of Saturday Hubby was unable to log into his yahoo email on his lap top or his iPad. He could get on the internet but not into his email. I'm not sure what the problem was but that has been resolved as well as the land line outage that we had all day Saturday. It seems that more than 200 households were without phone service in our area. The phone outage had nothing to do with his email problems because our internet connection is through satellite not phone line.
I guess my stress levels were pretty high. I spilled coffee creamer everywhere on Sunday morning and have cried more in the last week than I did all last year. Thankfully things seem to have calmed down.
Meanwhile I finished my "Katniss" cowl and then proceeded to take it apart. I was unable to match measurements stated in the pattern so added some stitches to each of the pieces. That turned out to be a bad idea. The cowl was too big. I worked up a cowl for our oldest daughter using the patterns stitch count and it turned out great so I unraveled mine and re-worked it. Here is a picture of it; modeled on my dressmakers form. (I try to avoid selfies)
I have left over yarn from both cowls so I'm going to knit up toques for both myself and our daughter. Busy, busy. It keeps me from munching during the long evenings while Hubby is up north.
I've also crocheted 6 more caps for the Christmas boxes. A couple of friends have offered to make some too, so we should have enough ready by the end of October.
That's all I've got for now.
Winter returned with vengeance. The temperatures have been well below normal so Maggie and I haven't walked very much in February. Conditions are very slippery in a lot of areas as well. A week ago, after a walk Maggie's left hind leg started to tremble. I thought perhaps she had slipped and pulled a muscle. By Tuesday all four limbs were trembling so we drove 70+ km to see our vet. (their local office is staffed with a vet on Wednesdays and Saturdays only) Maggie didn't enjoy the ride and was very stressed by the time we arrived. After examining Maggie and ruling out several possibilities the vet suspected that they were idiopathic tremors. They drew blood for testing and we went home with a prescription for a muscle relaxant. By Friday Maggie's head was shaking and she kept it tilted to one side. So, Hubby drove Maggie and I back to the vet. The blood work came back clean, but with the new symptoms the vet was as concerned as I was. The vet suggested prednisone to suppress what she felt was an immune response to something. Then after further consultation she said that it could be GME (Granulomatous Meningoencephalitis) which has a very poor prognosis. Diagnosis of GME is done by testing spinal fluid but the veterinary clinic that does them in Edmonton charges triple the regular price on weekends and their lab wouldn't be able to test the sample until Monday. The vet recommended we start the prednisone and hope for the best. She was concerned about degradation of the sample over the weekend. If Maggie didn't improve she would have to go off of the prednisone for 3 days before a spinal could be done because the steroid would make reading the sample difficult. Needless to say I was very upset. Today is day 3 of the prednisone and Maggie seems to be improving. Her tremors seem less severe, and she is holding her head level again. We walked today even though it was very cold and her gait was normal and her "waggle" was back. I'm very thankful to everyone who prayed for recovery. God is so good.
On Thursday the seat heater on the driver's side in my Jeep failed again. (on one of the coldest days this winter) *sigh* I made an appointment with the dealership for this morning and the seat is once again nice and toasty. There is supposed to be another "new and improved" heat grid available soon.
For much of Saturday Hubby was unable to log into his yahoo email on his lap top or his iPad. He could get on the internet but not into his email. I'm not sure what the problem was but that has been resolved as well as the land line outage that we had all day Saturday. It seems that more than 200 households were without phone service in our area. The phone outage had nothing to do with his email problems because our internet connection is through satellite not phone line.
I guess my stress levels were pretty high. I spilled coffee creamer everywhere on Sunday morning and have cried more in the last week than I did all last year. Thankfully things seem to have calmed down.
Meanwhile I finished my "Katniss" cowl and then proceeded to take it apart. I was unable to match measurements stated in the pattern so added some stitches to each of the pieces. That turned out to be a bad idea. The cowl was too big. I worked up a cowl for our oldest daughter using the patterns stitch count and it turned out great so I unraveled mine and re-worked it. Here is a picture of it; modeled on my dressmakers form. (I try to avoid selfies)
I have left over yarn from both cowls so I'm going to knit up toques for both myself and our daughter. Busy, busy. It keeps me from munching during the long evenings while Hubby is up north.
I've also crocheted 6 more caps for the Christmas boxes. A couple of friends have offered to make some too, so we should have enough ready by the end of October.
That's all I've got for now.