Which Weekend?
I'm floundering.
Lycan is sick. Last Sunday she came down with Kennel Cough, even though she has been inoculated for Bordatella. Apparently, it's like getting a flu shot, there are so many strains out there that you can still get the flu. Took her to the vet on Tuesday, I thought she had something caught in her throat. But they knew better> KC is extremely contagious, so they wouldn't even let us come in to the waiting room. We entered directly into a side door that opens onto their "isolation" exam room. Waited over an hour (even though we had an appointment). I wasn't told until later that my "appointment" was actually an emergency fit-in-when-there's-time appointment. If they had told me that right up front I wouldn't have gotten so frustrated and angry at the unexplained wait. =( Anyway the doc decided to just let the KC run it's course, since Lycan was just coming off her antibiotics from the intestinal problems. She had a mild case, so he wasn't worried. That was a week ago Sunday. He did give us cough suppressant pills for her.
Last night around 10 pm Lycan started shivering. She was on her bed in front of the fireplace (with fire) with Michelle, when she started. She wasn't cold, but we put a blanket on her anyway. She wouldn't eat a treat. Her gums were very red (not pink) and about 45 minutes later her breathing became labored. She was very gassy, and her guts were doing a lot of gurgling. She did continue to pee & poo when we took her out. We were freaking out. (She has never not eaten!) I was googling my brains out, but not really finding anything. I did find out this was NOT bloat, and we didn't think it was seizures, she was missing a few key symptoms there. All I really found out was that shivering means 1 of 3 things: cold, afraid, or in pain. She shivered for 2 hours, and then stopped. For a while. She continued to shiver on and off for the rest of the night. Heavy breathing also came and went. No idea what caused this.
This morning I half expected her to be dead when we woke up. (You want to become a terrified dane owner? Read about how fast bloat can kill a dane.) This morning she did eat breakfast, but she has been very lethargic all day. Some walking around, but mostly napping on her couch. She now has green snot coming out of her right nose & discharge out of her right eye. Calling the vet tomorrow. I read a lot about KC turning into pneumonia, and *that* has killed a lot of danes, too. So there has been underlying dread going on all day. She continues to eat (albeit slowly) and eliminate, so that's good. We've got humidifiers going all over so she has moister air to breath.
So what else is overwhelming me? The Mater's computer. She only has a 75gb hard drive, and it's full. For a couple of years she's had an external 150gb drive to hold her photos. A few months ago her USB ports started failing erratically, causing her iPhoto to get corrupted over and over again. I really thought I could fix things, but I've had most of my spare time & energy taken up with Lycan. I promised Mom that I'd have her computer fixed by her birthday (tomorrow). So today I really got down to work. And was immediately shot down. Tried to install the OSX 10.4 (Tiger) onto her external drive, only to find that when her computer boots off of the Install disk, it doesn't recognize her track pad, so I can't click on the choice buttons to run the system installer. I can't install from my laptop, because that version of the OS doesn't support my Intel Processor, and I don't get to go to the part that says install on a different disk. My last possible attempt is to Carbon Copy Clone the internal drive onto the external drive (and hope the USB port doesn't crap out in the middle). Except, I first have to copy off the contents of the external drive since that will get overwritten by the cloning. But my laptop hard drive is near capacity too. So I thought I've got some stuff I can dump... only I can't empty my trash. It took nearly 2 (Slightly distracted) hours to troubleshoot that issue, ending with some command line stuff. Also, had to interrupt for some shopping & other errands today, and a birthday celebration. Whooppee! Not. So now it's 10 pm. I think I have enough room on my MacBook Pro to back up the external drive so that I can clone her internal drive onto it. I'm tired, I'm worried, and I have to go to bed. Even If I can do the backing up, the cloning, the recopying of the external drive files back. Then I have to swap out the hard drives. She has a old iBook G4. To replace the hard drive I have to take the entire F-ing machine apart. I mean *completely*, over 50 screws, 6 pages of detailed iFixit instructions just to take it apart, and then do it all again in reverse to put it all back. I figure about 8 hours of work. =(
*Sigh*
And at work, I have this HUGE project I am part of, that I have 3 big deadlines coming up in the next 3 weeks. I know I can make my parts on time, but this has been a high stress project for the last 3 months, and until 3 weeks ago, I was the only one who fully understood that our collaborators were *not* on board, and were not doing there part. I kept telling Big D, who is this project's manager about the problems, but he had a hard time getting buy-in from our hospital collaborators. One guy retired, the new guy thought things were in hand (not for his team) and he finally woke up and smelled the roses 3 weeks ago. He finally assigned us some "resources" that would be the blind, and special needs programmer, and his handler, who's been on our team all along, but didn't think any of the work applied to him. I tend to take a lot of ownership on projects I'm involved with. Big D & I had a lot of heart to hearts about this. I've shared my doubts and misgivings, he has assured me that I only need to worry about my part. So I am. "They" have now scaled way back on what is supposed to go live on 1/1/2014. We are now going for the most basic functionality for Jan. 1st. There will be a Phase 2 and a Phase 3. I'm sure I will be involved in Phase 2, but maybe not after that. I've been told that between 1/2 to 3/4 of my time may be spent on this project over the next 3 months. So much for my other work. And...I'm taking vacation for 10 days from 12/23/13 to 1/1/14 (aka final testing time). Yeah. That's non-negotiable. The guy who's in charge of the other "resources" has heard, but hasn't really realized that I won't be there. But he also thinks I'm just doing a small part of the project. I am, but I'm the only one who has actual development experience in Access, especially Access connected to SQL Server. The other guys all know SQL. We'll see how it all shakes out.
In the meantime, tomorrow I have to call the vet, have my performance review, have 2 other meetings, and get my regular 6 hours of required monday work done. Then go to a birthday dinner immediately after work. If the vet wants to see Lycan I'm afraid that I can't get her in until Tuesday, especially if I'll have to sit there for 2 hours waiting to be seen in isolation.
Lycan is sick. Last Sunday she came down with Kennel Cough, even though she has been inoculated for Bordatella. Apparently, it's like getting a flu shot, there are so many strains out there that you can still get the flu. Took her to the vet on Tuesday, I thought she had something caught in her throat. But they knew better> KC is extremely contagious, so they wouldn't even let us come in to the waiting room. We entered directly into a side door that opens onto their "isolation" exam room. Waited over an hour (even though we had an appointment). I wasn't told until later that my "appointment" was actually an emergency fit-in-when-there's-time appointment. If they had told me that right up front I wouldn't have gotten so frustrated and angry at the unexplained wait. =( Anyway the doc decided to just let the KC run it's course, since Lycan was just coming off her antibiotics from the intestinal problems. She had a mild case, so he wasn't worried. That was a week ago Sunday. He did give us cough suppressant pills for her.
Last night around 10 pm Lycan started shivering. She was on her bed in front of the fireplace (with fire) with Michelle, when she started. She wasn't cold, but we put a blanket on her anyway. She wouldn't eat a treat. Her gums were very red (not pink) and about 45 minutes later her breathing became labored. She was very gassy, and her guts were doing a lot of gurgling. She did continue to pee & poo when we took her out. We were freaking out. (She has never not eaten!) I was googling my brains out, but not really finding anything. I did find out this was NOT bloat, and we didn't think it was seizures, she was missing a few key symptoms there. All I really found out was that shivering means 1 of 3 things: cold, afraid, or in pain. She shivered for 2 hours, and then stopped. For a while. She continued to shiver on and off for the rest of the night. Heavy breathing also came and went. No idea what caused this.
This morning I half expected her to be dead when we woke up. (You want to become a terrified dane owner? Read about how fast bloat can kill a dane.) This morning she did eat breakfast, but she has been very lethargic all day. Some walking around, but mostly napping on her couch. She now has green snot coming out of her right nose & discharge out of her right eye. Calling the vet tomorrow. I read a lot about KC turning into pneumonia, and *that* has killed a lot of danes, too. So there has been underlying dread going on all day. She continues to eat (albeit slowly) and eliminate, so that's good. We've got humidifiers going all over so she has moister air to breath.
So what else is overwhelming me? The Mater's computer. She only has a 75gb hard drive, and it's full. For a couple of years she's had an external 150gb drive to hold her photos. A few months ago her USB ports started failing erratically, causing her iPhoto to get corrupted over and over again. I really thought I could fix things, but I've had most of my spare time & energy taken up with Lycan. I promised Mom that I'd have her computer fixed by her birthday (tomorrow). So today I really got down to work. And was immediately shot down. Tried to install the OSX 10.4 (Tiger) onto her external drive, only to find that when her computer boots off of the Install disk, it doesn't recognize her track pad, so I can't click on the choice buttons to run the system installer. I can't install from my laptop, because that version of the OS doesn't support my Intel Processor, and I don't get to go to the part that says install on a different disk. My last possible attempt is to Carbon Copy Clone the internal drive onto the external drive (and hope the USB port doesn't crap out in the middle). Except, I first have to copy off the contents of the external drive since that will get overwritten by the cloning. But my laptop hard drive is near capacity too. So I thought I've got some stuff I can dump... only I can't empty my trash. It took nearly 2 (Slightly distracted) hours to troubleshoot that issue, ending with some command line stuff. Also, had to interrupt for some shopping & other errands today, and a birthday celebration. Whooppee! Not. So now it's 10 pm. I think I have enough room on my MacBook Pro to back up the external drive so that I can clone her internal drive onto it. I'm tired, I'm worried, and I have to go to bed. Even If I can do the backing up, the cloning, the recopying of the external drive files back. Then I have to swap out the hard drives. She has a old iBook G4. To replace the hard drive I have to take the entire F-ing machine apart. I mean *completely*, over 50 screws, 6 pages of detailed iFixit instructions just to take it apart, and then do it all again in reverse to put it all back. I figure about 8 hours of work. =(
*Sigh*
And at work, I have this HUGE project I am part of, that I have 3 big deadlines coming up in the next 3 weeks. I know I can make my parts on time, but this has been a high stress project for the last 3 months, and until 3 weeks ago, I was the only one who fully understood that our collaborators were *not* on board, and were not doing there part. I kept telling Big D, who is this project's manager about the problems, but he had a hard time getting buy-in from our hospital collaborators. One guy retired, the new guy thought things were in hand (not for his team) and he finally woke up and smelled the roses 3 weeks ago. He finally assigned us some "resources" that would be the blind, and special needs programmer, and his handler, who's been on our team all along, but didn't think any of the work applied to him. I tend to take a lot of ownership on projects I'm involved with. Big D & I had a lot of heart to hearts about this. I've shared my doubts and misgivings, he has assured me that I only need to worry about my part. So I am. "They" have now scaled way back on what is supposed to go live on 1/1/2014. We are now going for the most basic functionality for Jan. 1st. There will be a Phase 2 and a Phase 3. I'm sure I will be involved in Phase 2, but maybe not after that. I've been told that between 1/2 to 3/4 of my time may be spent on this project over the next 3 months. So much for my other work. And...I'm taking vacation for 10 days from 12/23/13 to 1/1/14 (aka final testing time). Yeah. That's non-negotiable. The guy who's in charge of the other "resources" has heard, but hasn't really realized that I won't be there. But he also thinks I'm just doing a small part of the project. I am, but I'm the only one who has actual development experience in Access, especially Access connected to SQL Server. The other guys all know SQL. We'll see how it all shakes out.
In the meantime, tomorrow I have to call the vet, have my performance review, have 2 other meetings, and get my regular 6 hours of required monday work done. Then go to a birthday dinner immediately after work. If the vet wants to see Lycan I'm afraid that I can't get her in until Tuesday, especially if I'll have to sit there for 2 hours waiting to be seen in isolation.