WELL...here we are again!
It's been eight months since we last posted, mainly because of a couple of unfortunate events which happened in the Perri/Richard household.
Firstly, I [Perri] became very ill. I suffer from a very serious chronic illness which can usually be controlled by several medications which I take daily allied with weekly therapy. I was able to work for about 30 years at the School of Pharmacy, but eventually I had to take Disability Early Retirement about ten years ago. Without the stress of work, things seemed to improve to a tolerable extent until very late this past fall and winter. At which point my health deteriorated badly and unexpectedly, catching my physician and Richard by surprise.
My doctor quickly placed me on another drug regimen and my other therapy was adjusted as well. So, the good news is that my health has recovered over the last several months, so that I'm in pretty good condition right now with hope that additional improvement will follow. Poor Richard has also finally been able to relax as my medical emergency has been resolving itself.
Secondly, in the middle of all this, the second of our three cats [Cinders] had to be put to sleep because his diabetes (which he'd had for six years) ceased to be manageable by insulin therapy and he developed severe cardiac complications. We had known from the day he was diagnosed that his days were numbered, but these things are always a shock. The vets were impressed that he survived six years (he developed the diabetes when he was six years old) so we can take some comfort in knowing that we had him longer than might have been predicted at the beginning.
Of our three cats--Dusty, Cinders, and Soot--we have lost two of them in less than a year. Combined with my own illness, this has been a very difficult period for Richard and me.
Dusty, our remaining cat, is diabetic also. However, he developed his diabetes about a year after Cinders developed his, so we hope to have more time with him yet. Dusty also just had an excellent Glucose Blood Level Curve (which indicates that his diabetes is being well controlled by his twice daily doses of insulin). We can only knock on wood and hope for the best. Interestingly enough, Dusty is thrilled to have the house to himself. He doesn't seem to miss his litter-mates at all. Strange.
Enough for now. We have been reading throughout this entire period, so we hope to discuss some of our reading in our next post.
And thanks cassandraterra. It helped to get back into the saddle, as it were, to know that our "mentor" was concerned where we had gotten off to. I've read Sarah Monette's Corambis twice now and Richard is currently about half way through it--so we look forward to contributing to the_mirador presently. :o) :o)
Firstly, I [Perri] became very ill. I suffer from a very serious chronic illness which can usually be controlled by several medications which I take daily allied with weekly therapy. I was able to work for about 30 years at the School of Pharmacy, but eventually I had to take Disability Early Retirement about ten years ago. Without the stress of work, things seemed to improve to a tolerable extent until very late this past fall and winter. At which point my health deteriorated badly and unexpectedly, catching my physician and Richard by surprise.
My doctor quickly placed me on another drug regimen and my other therapy was adjusted as well. So, the good news is that my health has recovered over the last several months, so that I'm in pretty good condition right now with hope that additional improvement will follow. Poor Richard has also finally been able to relax as my medical emergency has been resolving itself.
Secondly, in the middle of all this, the second of our three cats [Cinders] had to be put to sleep because his diabetes (which he'd had for six years) ceased to be manageable by insulin therapy and he developed severe cardiac complications. We had known from the day he was diagnosed that his days were numbered, but these things are always a shock. The vets were impressed that he survived six years (he developed the diabetes when he was six years old) so we can take some comfort in knowing that we had him longer than might have been predicted at the beginning.
Of our three cats--Dusty, Cinders, and Soot--we have lost two of them in less than a year. Combined with my own illness, this has been a very difficult period for Richard and me.
Dusty, our remaining cat, is diabetic also. However, he developed his diabetes about a year after Cinders developed his, so we hope to have more time with him yet. Dusty also just had an excellent Glucose Blood Level Curve (which indicates that his diabetes is being well controlled by his twice daily doses of insulin). We can only knock on wood and hope for the best. Interestingly enough, Dusty is thrilled to have the house to himself. He doesn't seem to miss his litter-mates at all. Strange.
Enough for now. We have been reading throughout this entire period, so we hope to discuss some of our reading in our next post.
And thanks cassandraterra. It helped to get back into the saddle, as it were, to know that our "mentor" was concerned where we had gotten off to. I've read Sarah Monette's Corambis twice now and Richard is currently about half way through it--so we look forward to contributing to the_mirador presently. :o) :o)