How my heart breaks when a poopie is sick

Bones rounded up the poopies and brought them to the vet last Friday. Sam had 2 lumps tested, and Cody, well Cody has had a slew of issues lately.

Cody has been losing hair around his butt, his regular breathing has sounded like an old man snoring, he has been drinking tons of water, having accidents in the house and lastly has gained weight. We thought it was diabetes, the vet felt like it was hypothyroidism, the tests came back as Cushing’s. Now I feel really guilty every time I got irritated when Cody had an accident. He also has a urinary tract infection, which he will be more susceptible to because of the Cushing’s.

Cushing’s is an increase in cortisol levels within the bloodstream. Normally the hypothalamus directs the pituitary glad to produce ACTH, (a hormone), that will stimulate the adrenal gland to secrete cortisol into the bloodstream. Once the cortisol levels are high enough, the pituitary stops secreting ACTH. With Cushing’s this delicate balance of hormone stimulation doesn’t work properly.

For our little guy the cause would either be a tumour in the pituitary gland, causing more ACTH being produced than necessary or a tumour in an adrenal gland, causing the adrenal gland to over produce cortisol. It is relatively common and often mistaken as the normal aging process due to how the symptoms of Cushing’s manifest itself.

Now little Cody will have to go the vet to get further tests done. He will have to stay there for the day. The poor guy, we can’t even explain to him what is going on, plus he won’t have the girls. Cody is a nervous dog with separation issues, having the girls around keeps his anxieties at bay.

Hopefully we have caught it soon enough that he will just need hormone therapy, otherwise they use radiation to try and kill a part of the adrenal gland. Either way we will try hormone therapy first to see if that makes a difference before doing anything like radiation. I am not so keen on the radiation idea, I will have to research it and talk to the vet a lot before feeling fully comfortable with deciding for or against it. Then again it isn’t really my decision, Cody is Bones’ dog.

Jack & Sam are happy & healthy, Sam's lumps are just fat deposits and despite Cody’s condition, he is a pretty happy dog.

Darch

Housekeeping & other news

I added a link to a Quilt Log so you can see the quilts I have completed while trying to achieve my insane goal of 28 quilts by June 11th. If you have been really keeping track that is one more than my goal from last week.

And in other news, Bones has finally seen the baby kick!

Darch

Going to Vancouver with a baby in ma belly

Friday I head off to BC to visit my sister. Together we are ‘The Wild Seesters’, (you have to say the phrase in the worst, cheesy Mexican accent possible). We made famous PukeFest ’93, if you are really lucky maybe I will tell you the story of our sisterly bonding over a bottle of rye, (yes we are classy chicks), but for now I will leave it to your imagination.

To say we have a great time together would be an understatement. We relax, laugh, giggle and try our best not to pee our pants, (which will be a trial for me this visit I am sure). Wish I had some type of cute anecdote to add in here, (that isn’t too embarrassing, I mean our parents are reading and I would hate for them to lose their Angelic impression of us). Together we just make the mundane into a fun adventure.

The quilt you see here is made from fabrics that my sister brought back for me from Central America when she went travelling there a couple of years ago, finally finished it last week. The fabrics, scrap material, leftovers from shirt makers, were so stretchy that I didn’t want to do anything too complicated with it. So I cut it up into various sized squares and put them back together in a planned type of chaos. The extra pieces were placed on the backing. I didn’t do anything too fancy with the quilting, the fabrics are so vibrant on their own that I didn’t want anything to compete with them.

Only 3 more sleeps until the Wild Seesters are together again, Vancouver will never be the same!

Darch

A measure of time

I have waited so long to have a pregnancy to stick around, now it feels so long until I get to meet this wee pea, somewhere along the line I have started measuring time in increments of can’t wait untils.

It started off innocently enough, can’t wait until my period is over, can’t wait until I detect my LH surge, can’t wait until I get my period, (that is if that cycle was a bust), can’t wait until I see the fertility doctor, can’t wait until I start meds, can’t wait until the next ultrasound, how many follicles will there be, eventually my life was defined, not in weeks or days but the next can’t wait until. It wasn’t all conception and fertility related, there were the can’t wait until we go to Ottawa, can’t wait until so and so visits etc.

Each time a can’t wait until passes there is a momentary let down as the build-up to next event begins. Bipolar time management I guess. The thing is when you look back it almost feels like wishing your life away between events.

This month has been filled with great can’t wait untils. My mom came to visit, I went to a quilt retreat, Bones’ sister came down this past weekend from Edmonton, and this weekend I am off to Vancouver to visit my sister. All a lead up to the ultimate Can’t Wait Until, can’t wait until I meet Ellen.

But I can’t help wonder if I am not missing something, a little something called the moment perhaps?

Darch

Quick update on Bones.....

The quilt shown here is Comfy Lap Quilt, it is the first quilt I have made Bones, finished it a few weeks ago. I guess I just think of all of the quilts as ours but apparently he did not so this one is his. I purchased the fabric squares a year ago at a quilt show, they were just small charm squares of the entire fabric line. I put them together and ordered some extra fabrics for the border and a soft brushed cotton plaid for the backing. It is quite subdued for my tastes but Bones likes it and now he has a comfy quilt to keep him warm on these cold April nights, (it is freaking winter here no word of a lie, mid-April with snowfall warnings!).

I do swear that when I set up this little blog Bones said he would post every now and again. He even sounded quite interested in doing so but alas he has remained mum and so now it is up to me to give you a low down on the life of Bones. Just remember this is through the Darch filter so there is no guarantee of accuracy…maybe if I make up outlandish lies he will at least comment?

Bones is doing great, for the most part that is. He is tired most days. Quite frankly dealing with a pregnant lady who has can’t speak properly, has forgotten how to dress, can’t find anything and late evening speaks in a nails-on-the-chalkboard type whine, hasn’t helped. To his friends and family, give him a kind word when you speak or email him next. There seems to be so much support for the pregnant one out there that the partner can sometimes be left in the wings and he is doing a ton to support me as well as keeping the household from falling apart, especially now that The Quilt Factory is in full swing.

He is running and is starting to sign-up for the runs he will participate in this race season. I will join him in a couple where there is a 5k option, my run 10 minutes, walk 1 routine will be replaced by the waddle, wheeze and sit routine. He’ll be participating in his 5th marathon this July, hopefully I can watch him finish as opposed to a friend being there to whiz him off to the hospital to join me.

He is really excited about the baby. He will be an excellent father, and I am not just saying that because I chose to breed with him or trying to score points with the in-laws. It wasn’t until after we were married that I saw him around children. He is definitely a rough and tumble playmate to the neighbour’s children. In fact the older boy, he is 5, occasionally comes over to ‘help’ Steve walk the dogs, not too sure how much help he truly is but they both enjoy it. When I go over to visit I get the ol’, “where’s Steve?”, question, way to make a girl feel welcome!

Bones doesn’t want to be known as Bones anymore on the blog. Instead something like Stan the Man. For those who don’t know him, Bones is the first 5, out of 13, characters of his last name. His first name is not Stan, but he is a man so I guess that relates to him somewhat. Personally I don’t care except that Stan the Man is so much more to type than Bones. But seeing as we don’t have cable, (limited access to sports viewing) and he lives in a quilter’s dream house, I think I should cave to this latest whim of his. What do you think?

Oh ya and he has taken up ice skating to fulfill his life-long dream of Figure Skating!

Darch

Busy, busy busy

Oh my little blog, how I have neglected you so….

This month is a busy one, I thought life was to slow down during pregnancy but mine seems to have hit over-drive. I have so many posts started, they are really profound too, I am doing humanity a disservice by not finishing them they are that profound…..

My mom came out for a nearly a week during Easter. We had a great time. Probably one of the best visits I have ever had with my mom. Unfortunately we have one of those difficult mother-daughter relationships, fortunately we have so many similar interests and pastimes that we can find something to relate to one another about. That and we can both be tenacious buggers, there is no way we could not try when we care about one another so much. She likes to remind me that I will now be getting my just desserts with Ellen. Oh no, what if she is right!?!?!

While she was here we went to get a 3-D ultrasound done. Ellen was once again uncooperative, (giving only more validity to my mom’s theory). I can now see her kicks and movements on my tummy, so far Bones has not been around when she is heavily into soccer practice but I am sure he will see it soon. It is quite freaky and really cool.

In other news I have a new evening job at The Quilt Factory, my boss is a slave-driver let me tell you. She has no concern I am pregnant it is just all about getting those quilts done. My goal is 27 quilts completed by June 11th, so far 7 are fully finished and 2 need to have their bindings finished, will post some new quilt photos soon.

Darch

Can't dress myself - Redux

Do you remember this post? Well it has gotten worse, a lot worse, I put a pair of pyjama pants on backwards. Not a pair of the pj pants with an elastic waist, these were a draw string pair.

Oh Ellen, I love you dearly, I am so amazed at how much I can love a person I have yet to meet, but please isn’t using my tummy as a punching bag enough, can’t you leave me some brain power?

Darch

I’m an idiot & a shameless plug

This morning I wanted to get into work early to get a lot of stuff done as I will be off gallivanting around town with my mom for the next 6 days. She arrives this evening, so excited! Anyway, I successfully got up early, started a load of laundry, did some tidying up, checked my email and what do you know I am still on track to get to work early. Awesome!

That is until I go to grab my keys, not at the front door, back door, in my jacket, check the wash as my pants I wore yesterday are in there, so now I start tearing apart the house in a mad frenzy. Half an hour later, I call my neighbour to see if I left my keys at her place when I went over for tea last night. Nope, but she, Tnik, would drive me to work.

While in the car she asks, ‘did you check your door?’ ‘Crap, no I didn’t can you check when you get home for me?’, was my answer.

She calls me at work, ‘What do your keys look like?’, here I am thinking she found them at her place, ‘they are on a hook by the door on your front porch’, (my front porch is enclosed, that is it to the right). My only thought, man am I a loser. One of my co-workers, between sending me emails only containing ‘HA HA HA’ repeatedly, emailed, ‘you are a loser she found your keys without even having to go into your house.’

I am the worst when it comes to forgetting where my keys are, to be honest, not just keys, wallet, glasses, (that is always fun, a person with really bad eyesight trying to find their glasses), etc. But today was far worse than usual. It was 45 minutes of me tearing apart my house, including the front porch, but never noticed them there hanging on a hook.

I didn’t make it in early today but thanks to Tnik, I did make it in.

Now for the shameless plug. Tnik sells premium loose tea, click on Tnik, and you come to the Tnik website. The teas are amazing. My favourites are the rooiboses, they are naturally decaffeinated and you can get almost any flavour. What is amazing about these teas too is that they are great iced. So a nice organic peach rooibos iced tea while gardening just hits the spot.

Tnik also carries a wide variety of Green teas, black & white teas. Many of the teas you can get organic or not. Really I have to dedicate a whole post on how amazing these teas are, in order to do them justice. In the meantime, check out the website.

Darch

Circumcision as AIDS prevention...huh?

While listening to the CBC this morning I got to learn some really useful information from an interview with the Executive Director of HIV Edmonton, an organization that helps people with AIDS and HIV. Circumcising males can reduce the possibility of getting AIDS up to 60%, so parents should circumcise their baby boys.

Click here to read an article on it.

The only response I had was huh?

As the day wore on much more came to mind, like how the hell was this study done. Did they take 100 non-HIV positive males, some circumcised, some not, and have them engage in bareback relations with partners who may or may not be HIV positive? For some reason I think not. More than likely it was a more survey style study. Take a snapshot of the male population, ask a series of questions and find similarities and trends based on the gathered information. There are problems inherent in these types of studies, the trends could be interpreted incorrectly.

But I am going to argue as though it is true, and the following statement takes the cake:
“If we are not going to be comfortable speaking with our children about sex and sexuality then circumcision is another way to prevent [HIV]."

Deborah Jakubec, the executive director of HIV Edmonton

So instead of arming our children with knowledge, we will arm them with less foreskin. Just a thought but maybe it could be recommended that parents become more comfortable discussing sex and sexuality, as opposed to automatically going for a surgical solution.

After reading the article this afternoon I am dumbfounded. The various UN Health agencies recommended heterosexual males get circumcisions, homosexual men are just screwed I guess, (no pun intended), as AIDS prevention. It also goes on to say that this should be used in conjunction with male/female condoms, abstinence, reducing the number of partners or in other words, safer sex practices.

Within the article is appears as though the recommendation was for males in Sub-Saharan Africa. Now that makes more sense, there are different cultural attitudes towards sex, sexuality and a different equality balance between the sexes. Even within Sub-Saharan Africa male circumcision should only be used as a stop-gap measure while education on safer-sex practices continues.

In the end the best preventative measure on the spread of AIDS through sexual contact is to arm people with knowledge so they can make the best decision for themselves.
As for our bias, we will not be circumcising our son should we ever have one. Either way it is a personal decision each parent has to make.

Darch