OK girls, I am here where is everyone else????
 

Doing OK, B/P is as good as it is going to be. If all goes well I will be going to bed way early and get up early tomorrow morning so I can get to church. But that bad Devil knows what my weaknesses are and hits them during the night on Saturday night.

Midd you girls.

I'm here... hand is giving me troubles still so typing is a bit harder to do right now. :(. But otherwise I'm just thankful we have a cold front moving in. It's been cool enough this weekend that the DH and I braved the zoo. I was good for a few hours then it was like getting hit by a brick wall. Just simply down and out for the count. Still was great getting out of the house. And as it's starting to cool down, my mom and I have some great little projects planned for the GBs.

We're doing away with the toy box of randomness that has been building over here at my house. The GBs just grab any old toys from home and bring them over, normally missing half the other accessories or things that go with the toys and then their only game that is left is tossing the toys about their playroom. So we are putting a stop to that... getting rid of all the toys over here, back to mama's they will go.

However, to replace them, we're going to build a really cool modular dollhouse we found plans for online. And build a kitchen set as well and then make up little play foods out of felt and scraps of wood leftover from making the kitchen and dollhouse. And for the GS we're going to make a neat little "workshop" bench so he can have fun building things (really both of them can and likely will) It's almost like a homemade erect-a-set. But basically the new rule at Nama's house is that they only get to have toys that are played with in the same thing they're put away in. I just hope that my plan also helps to contain the toys to the play room, since right now they drag them all over the house and inveritably they end up stuffed under the couch cushions, hiding in the hallway for unsuspecting bare foot, or worse still, in the bathroom behind the toilet (ewwww, I go through a remarkable amount of Lysol thanks to that.)

Keeping my fingers crossed that I don't cut anything more than the wood when trying to make these things, even with the help of my mother and DH.

Other than that, it's pretty much same old same old here for me. Trying to once more wrest control of my house from the ebil dust bunny nation (which is allied now with the junk mail islanders, country of cat hair, and naturally the destructive powers that are 3 and 4 years old) :mf_swordfight:.

I have a mile and a half long list of things I desperately need to get done, with only the energy to get from the couch to the bathroom most days. I so hope it cools down soon and stays that way for the rest of the year, and more so that it's just the heat leaving me so drained on energy. We still need to build my DH's workshop, finish our master bathroom, get started on the guest bathroom, the home gym, finish the guest bedroom, clean out our utility room, completely go through our computer room, the garden is in desperate need of TLC, and we still have to redo the walkway, have to make the toys for the kiddos.

I need to clean too, not just pick things up and put them away, but the kitchen needs scrubbed from top to bottom, all my windows need washed, my front porch needs cleaned off once again, and we need to treat the whole house for spiders as my bedmate last night was a lovely brown recluse. My closet needs reorganized after the DH "helped" me do laundry. And that's the 'little' things I need to get done, I still have a kitchen that needs remodeled, doorways to move, possibly moving whole walls within the house, we need to fix the access to the attic, the woods around the house need cleaned up again, and I have a whole pile of poison ivy that I need to take care for the DH as he is highly allergic to it.

And it doesn't really matter on the financial side of things getting such a list done, it comes down purely to hours in a day and there not being nearly enough... or at least not enough that I can seem to rouse up some energy for myself in. I mean cleaning the house, thoroughly, from top to bottom and every little crease inbetween, only used to take me a day. A full day, up at dawn, finished by midnight. But that was making every single room white glove ready. The kind of clean where you smell like Myrphy's wood soap and Lysol for about a week afterwards. Now it takes me a whole two days just to clean one room and that's not even getting everything, cleaning it to more of a grey glove readiness than a white glove.

i YAM here. :)

i hope you were able to sleep and made it to church.
one step at a time.

doydie;
hopefully that "bad Devil" did not get the better of you; but we all know how that can really play havoc with us. He really knows what buttons to push.

The good news is your BP is doing well.


Gerry

Starz,
I sure know only too well the overwhelming feeling of taking days to do what once was hours. It's kinda funny tho; seems like we have a few similar playmates.....like the dust bunnies, and spiders; especially in the bedroom. YIKES !!!; i'm not afraid of the dust bunnies but spiders make me cringe.


Gerry

I'm here! DD25 got sick and I have been over at her house helping her with the little one. She's been miserable. She missed a couple of days of work. This all started last Thursday. I have been trying to be so careful about washing my hands and not touching things she has touched and things like that. Well, yesterday afternoon the sore throat hit me and I've gone down hill since. Today is a couch day for me. I'm hoping to sleep this thing off. I have been doing everything I can to minimize the symptoms (fluids, teas, honey, lemon, Neti pot, etc.). I'm hoping the little guy doesn't get too sick. Yesterday he was emotional and this morning his nose was running a bit.

Anyhow, I haven't had much time to check in with taking care of an almost 2-year old and DD25 (meals and fluids, etc.).

I see you ladies have been busy. Aren't grand kids the best thing in the world??? The 'workshop and kitchen sound so neat. I remember when I was a kid that Dad made different town buildings and we painted or used magic markers to draw a school, church, store and different houses. Dad helped us girls do that for our younger brother's Christmas present one year.

Yes, the bad devil, I decided to not give him a capital letter, did have his way with me. It just completely deflates me when I allow that.

Turns out this week I have actually have had a physical problem. I'm not sure if I have mentioned my new pain I have had. When I bend my head down and to the left or right, I have this had pain in my upper right chest and back. It is quite a limiting pain, once the pain is there, you know you have to get your head back up. The pain goes all the way to under my right arm. Then my fingers hurt on my right hand.

The pain has been getting more and more worse with it all the way into my entire right arm. So I went to the doctor today, well the nurse practitioner, and she said she thinks I have two things going on. One, the pain in my chest, back and under arm is costochondritis which is an inflammation of my sternum of which of course the ribs come right off of back and front. The pain in my arm may be due to a herniated cervical disc. Oh what fun. So she scheduled an MRI. I knew there was no way this entire right side which is in some pretty good pain was going to go into that MRI tube and would need sedation. I have never needed that. I don't know if doctor ordered Ativan or Valium, will find out when I pick it up tomorrow. But they can't get me scheduled until Monday at 5 PM!!!!!!:mad::eek: This is going to be one painful weekend. Then if it is herniated, get an appointment with a surgeon, get scheduled, etc. And then there is the issue of my Effiant which I have to stay on until the end of next August. So I don't know what will be done with that and using a different blood thinner.

So no choir practice tonight and maybe no church on Sunday. She ordered me some Prednisone and hopefully that will take care of the chest pain.

Oh Doydie, you need to get out from under the black cloud of bad luck that's been plaguing you :(. Necks are no fun to hurt at all either, I just really hope they'll do the surgery for you, I have a bulging disk in my neck and can't turn it very far to the left, I can't look over my left shoulder, the farthest I can turn my head is to just see my left shoulder out of the corner of my eye. But I'm not a candidate for surgery :mad:. My DH is hoping to get his neck operated on around the beginning to middle of next year for a narrowing of a disk that's causing his left arm to go pins and needly numb, but since finding out about the his being able to have surgery to fix his neck he's been having fun telling me neener neener neener.

The worst of it is, it's not just my neck, I have a bulging disk in the thoracic spine and one that is bulging and herniated in the lumbar spine and not a single one that they'll go in an operate on. Doesn't matter the pain and problems they cause me, they simply won't touch my spine with a ten foot pole. Which I can't understand... I have great posture, the disks are evenly spaced and open, there's some mild degeneration to the vertebrae other than the one I snapped and a few minor cracks to others up and down the spine but for the most part it's a great looking spine... you'd think they'd want to go in and just wiggle those disks back into place and poof I should be doing so much better.... but nope, my posture is too good and my symptoms too mild for where the disks are at to risk any kind of surgery. Before a spinal surgeon will touch me I have to lose use of limbs or something first until then they've said I can just live with the pain and that came from 3 different specialists.

They need to start doing more research into bionic bodies. I just need a new body and all will be well. :p

Oh Starz I am so sorry. How many opinions have you gotten on this. I can't imaging this daily pain. Just this one week is bad enough. And I can't imagine what I will feel like if this MRI doesn't show a herniation. I was reading up on that and the most common approach to the surgery in through the front! Yikes!!!

Some times I do get so tired of the pain, I do slouch and get some relief but I don't want to do that.

3 different doctors groups came back telling me I wasn't able to have surgery. It's not only the placement of the injured disks but also the uncontrolled muscle spasms... The entire reason for the herniated disks :rolleyes:. if they could get those under control then they might be able to do the surgery, but as I'm at the limit of medications to relax my muscles and still have severe spasms... Surgery just isn't in the cards for me

My daughter's dog died sometime in the night. She got him as a foster about 6 years ago. He got into the rescue after being rescued from a very abusive home, abused by men, other dogs, a big wolf who really threw him around and just life in general. When she got him he was underweight, petrified by men, other dogs and life. She already had 2 dogs and a husband who had a lot of testosterone spirit. Together they slowly nursed and nurtured him to physical health and then she started on the socializing health. Her other dogs really helped. A full blooded boxer is not going to let another big not not play. He was a puppy and just wanted another dog to play with. The dog park she is on the board of directors of has routine seminars at the dog park by experts that comes out, observes the dogs and helps the owners. They have specific rules of behavior and even a time out pen.

Trevor slowly came out of his shell and let others in. But the damage done by the wolf and male abuse stayed with him. So he has had a lot of back pain, tumors and probably failure to thrive. The vet has been giving him steroids which has helped with the back pain. My daughter had thought of putting him down this past Thursday but the vet convinced her to give it another week. Last night when she got home from work, he had peed all over the cage which had never happened. So she gave him a bath and tried to give him some quality time. She laid down beside him in his cage, gave him a hug and kiss an went to bed. This morning when she got up he was gone. He had apparently had a seizure because of the bleeding around tongue and mouth. He had also soiled himself again, both bladder and bowel. She feels so bad that she was not there when he died. She feels so bad that she did not put him down when she wanted to instead of letting the vet give another medicine. She shut herself down and didn't want me to go over to her house, call her on the phone. Finally she called me this evening and we had a good cry and talk.

I felt so helpless as a Mom, could do nothing for my daughter when I needed to. OK, talk over

How it hurts to comment ... I have 2 who I know are living on borrowed time. Our current dogs came to us as youngsters less than 12 months old and were rescues, none could handle or train them but my husband persevered and they have since served their country receiving defence medals on 5 yrs service. We have had 2 of them now for 10 years and the 3rd is 5 going on 6 years (gets his defence medal next month I think). The older 2 are since retired (7-8yrs) the younger still wildly active but his retirement is approaching and DB is once again on the search for new rescues to be trained. Please tell your daughter she gave her dog 6 more years of life than he would have had, she give him love, warmth and comfort, he will have died quickly with a seizure, the brain doesn't register anything while seizing so there is no pain nor awareness. The blood a sign of a bitten tongue in seizure, the soiling after he has gone and the body purging. He would not have felt anything. I can completely understand her pain and sorrow. Vets in my experience do on the whole try to do the right thing, he or she may have thought medication would help the dog to live a longer life. Sending you all love and hugs xxx:hug:

Pamela thanks for responding although it hurt to think about the future of your own four legged members of your family. As a foster Mom and active member of her rescue group she knows because she has given the same kind of advice to other foster families. But when it is your own, as you know, it is different. She is still holding her emotions to herself, not wanting to spend much time with family or friends except her 3 other four legged family members. One of those is a black cat that she found in the engine of her car.

You should be very proud of what your rescues have provided and will continue to do so.

Oh Doydie! I'm so sorry to read about your DD's dog. That is so sad!

Costochondritis can be quite painful!!! I don't know if you are able to take NSAIDs but those help quite a bit. Slow, gentle exercises as well as good posture help as well (which is sometimes so hard when the pain is so bad). Heat, ice, and a muscle rub or even Vicks vapor rub help as well. Does the NP think this is from your procedure?

I can't take the antinflammatories for the whole time I am on this Effiant that you take for 365 days after a stent. The oral Prednisone has almost taken that pain away.

My daughter will be changing vets. She tried to notify the vet's office over the weekend on their email to let them know and get directive on what to do with his body. When she called them Monday they just said to bring his body in and they would take care of the body. When she took him inside, she told the receptionist why she was there. They told her to take a seat in the lobby with all the other people and dogs which some were healthy and doing what dogs do. She has to sit there and watch this while holding her dear dog. The whole time she is aware that she is sitting there holding a dead dog and other people were seeing her dead dog in a vet's office lobby. She still has not taken her other dogs to the dog park to keep their lives normal and to have the love of other dog Moms.

Oh my, that is disgraceful behaviour, I can't fathom what your dear daughter went through, so heartbreaking to read. The pain must be excruciating. I guess vets must differ in countries. None I know of here would ever entertain such a cruel notion. Nor can I think of any when we lived in the UK.
I'm gladdened to read prednisone takes most of your pain, baby steps for now. Hugs to your daughter xx:hug:

Losing a pet is such a hard thing, my deepest condolences to you and your daughter. I can't even imagine sitting in a vets office with my departed pet, we've always brought them home rather than allowing the vet office to dispose of them. There are crematories for pets though, but a 4' deep hole has been our choice, the vets dispose of the bodies in local landfills :( down here. My aunt on the other hand has hers cremated and keeps the ashes of her loved ones. Either way every time a pet dies we swear we can't go through the heart ache again, but then another animal comes along and we've no choice but to rescue them.

Your daughter is very special to have adopted a baby from such a terrible life and hopefully can take some comfort in knowing that while his final moments might have been alone, his last years were spent happy and content knowing he was saved from a fate worse than death. Thank God for people like her saving poor souls like him.

I just lost 2 of my cats this past August so I can relate to her pain. It's never easy.

And I hope she will report that vet's behavior and lack of professionalism. I cannot imagine anyone being so cold and uncaring as what they were to her. I'm glad to hear she is changing vets.

I took both my cats to crematories here and have their ashes in little decorative containers on my fireplace mantle. Pets deserve a respectful ending of their life.