A post!
While I'm waiting for my battery to run down so I can plug it in and while I have a stable internet connection - a little catch up on what's been happening.
We spent many, many hours in the local ER (spread across two days), because Mark had intractable head and neck pain for a week prior to getting medical attention. Of course thoughts went to meningitis, stroke, aneurysm, brain tumor , all the bad stuff. It turned out to be a subluxated disk (C2?) from coughing so forcefully when he had a cold a few weeks ago. The disk was pressing on a nerve which in turn became more and more inflamed. He was put on a short course of high dosage prednisone, and it's mostly cleared up. There were some other health problems found during various exams and tests, and the bottom line is that he really, really needs to start taking care of himself. We'll see if that happens.
As that was happening, Dar got a call from her son that Little Cat was very sick. (Dar rescued a very fragile Little Cat when she was practically a newborn and nursed her to health. Little went to live with Dar's son a few years ago when we had so many cats that she just couldn't handle it.) It seemed at first as if Little (an indoor/outdoor kitty) was hit on the head; she had a big lump on top, and a few days later she became lethargic. Then the bump started to ooze pus. Then she went blind, lost her sense of smell, and started a manic pacing around the house. Off to the emergency vet went Dar, Oliver, and Little Cat; Mark (who had to drive, because I had to stay home to do chores) slept in the waiting room. It turned out that she inhaled the larvae of a bot fly; the larvae usually hatch and work their way out of the body by boring up through the skin, but occasionally they get lost and end up in the brain. (The vet said they've been seeing a lot of cases of this in urban areas, so please be advised.) High doses of prednisone for Little and sedatives so she could sleep; she's improving daily. We all really thought she was going to die.
Happily for us, sffan was visiting, and she saved our butts frequently over the week. She pitched in for chores like she did it for a living, and that helped us out tremendously. Our friend, Skye, also volunteered to drive up and help us (me) once SF had gone back to Toronto. Poor Skye - she was going to a benefit dinner immediately afterward, but it was raining while we were doing chores, and she left here with soaking wet jeans.
I realized at one point that I was the only around who could drive. If I took a header (and I was feeling poorly, too, at the time), we were sunk. Mark was too sick; Dar has a fused neck and is legally blind; Deb was gone (as were our friends down the road), and SF doesn't know how to drive. I told her that the next time she comes to visit, I am dragging her to an empty parking lot and getting her behind the wheel. She doesn't have to be a great driver, but if she's here during an emergency (and let's face it - we have a lot of those), then I want her to know at least how to accelerate, brake, and basically keep the car on the road. She unenthusiastically agreed :)
We spent about three days in the beautiful glow of autumn, and now we're on to winter. This is completely unfair, and I hate it. I was hoping to get out and take some pics of the foliage, but the week was taken up with medical emergencies. By the time that all settled down, the rain and high winds moved in; now almost all of the trees are bare, and we're trying to remember where we put our winter work clothes.
I'm down to 1/2 mg of prednisone; I'll be done completely with it in 3 1/2 weeks. Yikes. I take 1 mg every other day now, and on those days when I take none, it feels . . . scary is probably the best word. It's been a lately ineffective talisman, and I've hated the side effects, but it's also been a bit of a security blanket, because maybe it will start working again, and I'll start to feel better. I know that's not going to happen, but you get these irrational hopes, you know?
'
I told you that my monitor died, right? I'm using an old Samsung monitor hooked up to my laptop. That's working out OK, and I'm getting spoiled by the large screen and large font. However, just to add to the mess, my internet connection is now ridiculously unstable. I keep the diagnostic window open all of the time so I can tell if I've dropped the connection or if everything is slow (or not loading at all) for some other reason. While I've been writing this, I've been watching the button next to the Internet line flicker merrily back and forth between green and red. Mostly it's stayed green tonight; I think because the winds have died down. I don't know; I'm just making stuff up as I go along. Some days I can barely keep a connection, so if I'm not commenting, that's the reason.
I'm hoping that AMC will rerun the opener for The Walking Dead before the next episode airs on Sunday. I missed a lot of it because I was exhausted and not feeling all that well; it was hard to concentrate, and I kept muting it when there was screaming - which was pretty frequently. I did like what I saw, though. Oh - I tried to post a link to a youtube video, but I couldn't get it to copy. Please do yourselves a favor and seek out "The Walken Dead." A little bit of genius, that.
And that's it for the highlights. I hope that life has been dealing well with you. I know the answer is "Not so much" for a few of you, and you're in my thoughts. I had this small epiphany this morning; I realized that I no longer ask that things go better with me (us); now I just ask that they don't get any worse. I think that's some kind of growth. Acceptance, perhaps. Or maybe desperation? Ha :)
We spent many, many hours in the local ER (spread across two days), because Mark had intractable head and neck pain for a week prior to getting medical attention. Of course thoughts went to meningitis, stroke, aneurysm, brain tumor , all the bad stuff. It turned out to be a subluxated disk (C2?) from coughing so forcefully when he had a cold a few weeks ago. The disk was pressing on a nerve which in turn became more and more inflamed. He was put on a short course of high dosage prednisone, and it's mostly cleared up. There were some other health problems found during various exams and tests, and the bottom line is that he really, really needs to start taking care of himself. We'll see if that happens.
As that was happening, Dar got a call from her son that Little Cat was very sick. (Dar rescued a very fragile Little Cat when she was practically a newborn and nursed her to health. Little went to live with Dar's son a few years ago when we had so many cats that she just couldn't handle it.) It seemed at first as if Little (an indoor/outdoor kitty) was hit on the head; she had a big lump on top, and a few days later she became lethargic. Then the bump started to ooze pus. Then she went blind, lost her sense of smell, and started a manic pacing around the house. Off to the emergency vet went Dar, Oliver, and Little Cat; Mark (who had to drive, because I had to stay home to do chores) slept in the waiting room. It turned out that she inhaled the larvae of a bot fly; the larvae usually hatch and work their way out of the body by boring up through the skin, but occasionally they get lost and end up in the brain. (The vet said they've been seeing a lot of cases of this in urban areas, so please be advised.) High doses of prednisone for Little and sedatives so she could sleep; she's improving daily. We all really thought she was going to die.
Happily for us, sffan was visiting, and she saved our butts frequently over the week. She pitched in for chores like she did it for a living, and that helped us out tremendously. Our friend, Skye, also volunteered to drive up and help us (me) once SF had gone back to Toronto. Poor Skye - she was going to a benefit dinner immediately afterward, but it was raining while we were doing chores, and she left here with soaking wet jeans.
I realized at one point that I was the only around who could drive. If I took a header (and I was feeling poorly, too, at the time), we were sunk. Mark was too sick; Dar has a fused neck and is legally blind; Deb was gone (as were our friends down the road), and SF doesn't know how to drive. I told her that the next time she comes to visit, I am dragging her to an empty parking lot and getting her behind the wheel. She doesn't have to be a great driver, but if she's here during an emergency (and let's face it - we have a lot of those), then I want her to know at least how to accelerate, brake, and basically keep the car on the road. She unenthusiastically agreed :)
We spent about three days in the beautiful glow of autumn, and now we're on to winter. This is completely unfair, and I hate it. I was hoping to get out and take some pics of the foliage, but the week was taken up with medical emergencies. By the time that all settled down, the rain and high winds moved in; now almost all of the trees are bare, and we're trying to remember where we put our winter work clothes.
I'm down to 1/2 mg of prednisone; I'll be done completely with it in 3 1/2 weeks. Yikes. I take 1 mg every other day now, and on those days when I take none, it feels . . . scary is probably the best word. It's been a lately ineffective talisman, and I've hated the side effects, but it's also been a bit of a security blanket, because maybe it will start working again, and I'll start to feel better. I know that's not going to happen, but you get these irrational hopes, you know?
'
I told you that my monitor died, right? I'm using an old Samsung monitor hooked up to my laptop. That's working out OK, and I'm getting spoiled by the large screen and large font. However, just to add to the mess, my internet connection is now ridiculously unstable. I keep the diagnostic window open all of the time so I can tell if I've dropped the connection or if everything is slow (or not loading at all) for some other reason. While I've been writing this, I've been watching the button next to the Internet line flicker merrily back and forth between green and red. Mostly it's stayed green tonight; I think because the winds have died down. I don't know; I'm just making stuff up as I go along. Some days I can barely keep a connection, so if I'm not commenting, that's the reason.
I'm hoping that AMC will rerun the opener for The Walking Dead before the next episode airs on Sunday. I missed a lot of it because I was exhausted and not feeling all that well; it was hard to concentrate, and I kept muting it when there was screaming - which was pretty frequently. I did like what I saw, though. Oh - I tried to post a link to a youtube video, but I couldn't get it to copy. Please do yourselves a favor and seek out "The Walken Dead." A little bit of genius, that.
And that's it for the highlights. I hope that life has been dealing well with you. I know the answer is "Not so much" for a few of you, and you're in my thoughts. I had this small epiphany this morning; I realized that I no longer ask that things go better with me (us); now I just ask that they don't get any worse. I think that's some kind of growth. Acceptance, perhaps. Or maybe desperation? Ha :)