So... I still have a journal, huh?
It's been more than two months since I posted. Maybe this is a record? I am too lazy to go back and look it up.
Things have been crazay around here, ever since the holidays. Or - we were just starting to dig out from the holidays (including Miss Miriam's first birthday) when the shit hit the fan and just kept spreading. I'll do a quick summary because otherwise I won't finish a post today and then I'll blink and another three weeks will have passed and probably no one will remember me anymore and I'll just have a thousand things to write and I won't write any of them. So yes.
In order of shittiness from least to greatest:
1. Tai, Miss M and I all got stomach flu. Fortunately it was only 12 hours or so of real sickness for the kidlets, and not even all of that was spent throwing up. It was our first round, and I survived it. When I got sick I didn't throw up, but I had chills and fever and stomach pain and intestinal issues and it was no good. Tai woke up one night and came to tell me that he'd thrown up in bed. At first I thought it was just a case of coughing and gagging, but nope. While I nursed Miss M, who woke up in the craziness, Tom took care of Tai. (And put him in our bed, so I went to sleep downstairs. Which was good because Tai threw up a couple of times in bed, and Tom slept right through it. Sigh.) Tai was pretty matter of fact about the whole thing - he'd just go throw up in the toilet, then go back to watching This Old House with Tom. Miss M was less lucky. She wanted *me* and only me. And she was confused about what was going on while throwing up. She nailed me pretty good, too. Fortunately she only threw up a few times. We're all better now, and somehow Tom avoided it altogether. Lucky guy.
2. Luna is having some pretty severe spine/rear leg, possibly neurological issues. One afternoon we came home from lunch and was laying on the floor and couldn't get up. Tom suggested she'd need to be put down, which made Tai cry (she's his favorite dog and he wanted to 'take her on just one more wildflower hike'). After some vet care and testing she's on some pain meds, thyroid meds, and glucosamine and while she can't go on walks, or go up and down stairs, she *can* walk again and is generally pretty happy.
3. Cocoa (not to be left out) spent a couple of days hunched up and clearly in pain. I thought maybe she'd just eaten something and that she'd go outside, eat grass and take care of it. But no. Another vet trip and we discovered masses in her neck. Unfortunately it would take more (expensive) testing to find out exactly what they are, and the only fix would be surgery - which would be very difficult because of the location of the masses. She might not even recover then. Tom was not willing to spend $3K on a 13 year old dog... and I didn't want to put her through the trauma of surgery if it might not even fix her. So we're giving her prednisone (hoping to shrink the masses, but it doesn't seem to be working) and pain meds, and are giving her lots of love and treats and just trying to watch how she's doing. Doggy hospice, sort of. When her quality of life seems too poor, we'll have to say goodbye. With meds, she's mostly fine... losing weight, sleeping a lot, coughing on her food and having swallowing issues.... but wagging her tail, enjoying pats and treats.
4. Worst of all, by far and so horrible that it maybe shouldn't even be in the same list... my niece, Abigale, is in the hospital, and has been since 1/10. She turned two on 1/11, in the PICU. Looong story short (and I'll probably write the whole thing out another time)... my brother (Q) had been engaged to a woman (K) for 6-9 months or so. She and her son (from a previous relationship) moved in with him. One day, while Q was at work, K did something to Abi (who is not her daughter, but the daughter of Q's ex). We don't know what (though I am going to find out at some point). It was so bad, that they weren't sure she was going to live. They airlifted her to another hospital and we spent four or five days waiting to see if her brain swelling and pressure would go down, or whether it would kill her. Fortunately, it went down. She has brain damage, pretty severely. Half of her brain is pretty much gone, and the other half has extensive damage. But she is an amazing fighter - she is out of a (medically induced) coma, is able to eat, is able to interact, is trying to talk, and walk. One of the ICU pediatricians said to Q that none of them would have thought Abi would do so well so quickly. She's recently had a setback, though - she has a fungal infection in her cerebrospinal fluid. It may or may not be inside her skull, her brain, her heart, her gut. Testing is going to be done today and we'll know more hopefully tomorrow or Monday at the latest. We're not completely sure what this means, but while they had been talking about moving her out of the hospital to a rehab facility, they aren't saying that anymore. And she's moved up from regular peds, to acute care - thought not ICU. Everything feels up in the air about this - brain trauma is so unusual, it can show up differently in different people and not even doctors know why. One neurologist said Abi would likely be a baby all of her life... but that was before she was responding and trying to walk and eat...
K was arrested and is in jail. She's had a couple of court dates, but the big one, where evidence is presented, isn't until 5/3. I am going down to SoCal for that. If I could, I would make that chick suffer. She did this in cold blood. She's charged with child endangerment, assault with a deadly weapon (not a firearm) and attempted homicide. I hope the other women in prison are making her life as difficult and painful as possible. I don't want the death penalty (not that it's on the table, as far as I know, since Abi is alive) because death would be too easy. I want cruel and unusual punishment.
If you're the praying type, Abi would benefit from prayers, as would Q and M (her Mom).