clickmom

antidote needed

Sometimes I say things to test my kids because I kind of want them to have synesthesia too.  Yesterday I was telling Matt a story about guy named Jeff and I slipped in that the guy named Jeff totally didn't look like a Jeff, but more like a Christopher, because that makes very concrete sense to me, with Jeff being a certain color and thickness and Christopher being the opposite,   and Matt interupted and said he had no idea what I was talking about.  Damn. 

I spent the morning with bear bait at the specialist's office. Bear bait got an ultrasound to look for cancer after she had an x-ray at the vet yesterday which appeared cloudy so that he vet couldn't see her internal organs.  The whole ordeal was nerve wracking because 1. I thought bear bait had cancer and 2. they made us wait and bear bait was hysterical, panting, shaking and whining and 3. after 30 minutes in the back room while I waited in the waiting room the doctor came out to ask me if they could give bear bait a sedative because she wasn't cooperating.  I said they could, but then 4. they had to wait over 20 minutes more for the sedative to work, and then finally ultrasound her.  We were in that place for over 2 1/2 hours.  

The specialist said that the only remarkable thing she saw was one lymph node which was all in the back between her spine and stomach which appeared "dark".  I guess dark is not a good thing, but this lymph node was so buried that the only way to pull anything out of it would be to perform surgery on bear bait and she is 10 now, so I'm not going to let them do that to her.  She might not wake up!!   Bear bait has some fluid in her lower belly, (we knew trhat for a long time) but the big thing is that her adrenal glands were too small, so now Addison's disease is in the ring along with Cushing's.  There will be more tests and we are in this for $1,600 so far!! They want her to take antibiotics for all tick related diseases and I dutifully picked those up from the pharmacy today, but I am waiting for bear bait to stop hallucinating from the sedation before I give them to her.

Yes, she's crazy right now.  When I returned from the grocery store bear bait was outside in the pouring rain and when I came in she ran off in the other direction.  Then I tried to get her inside and she looked right through me, so I watched her outside, and she pretty much walked from one spot to another around the house looking off into space as if an invisible friend was standing there chatting with her.  Finally I grabbed a leash, went outside and brought her back in.  I toweled her off and now she's just whining to the kitchen island.  

I wish was there was an antidote to dog sedation.

stress all around

The vet called and said that there was one little glitch in bear bait's blood test which is maybe something that is related to cushings disease.

I'm laughing my ass off.  

Not.

But really, MY dog has a stress related disease?  Oh, the irony........

In the mean time, bear bait's still trying to create a water shortage in the north east by drinking it all.  Since today is day 5 on anti biotics for her because of the bladder infection, I'm pretty sure that the never ending thirst isn't due to her bladder situation.  Maybe her bladder infection is related to what ever else is going on, but I don't think vice versa.  The vet wants to wait until bear bait is completely done with the antibiotics beore she runs more tests.  I feel like it's a waste of time, but, who am I to question her?  I (could have gone to med school) didn't go to vet school.  Just kidding, never in a million years would I have gone to med school and if I had ever gone to vet school I would have just played with puppies and kittens all day long and gotten myself kicked out, so what ever she says.  

I am going to get a second opinion though, because it pays to have relatives who work for other vets!!  Yay!! 

 

not one bit

Something is wrong with bear bait.  She's been drinking more than usual, and it was getting out of control, so I paid more attention only to discover she's been drinking twice as much as usual.   I finally went into panic mode, called the vet and brought her in last week.  They asked for a urine sample and that is always fun.  Nothing like chasing bear bait around the lawn with a soup ladle while she pees looking over her shoulder because she is totally on to me and does not want that ladle waved under her tail while she's obeying nature's call.  It took me two tiny little tries but I managed to get enough urine for a sample.   The vet called the next day and said BLADDER INFECTION, so I zipped over for medication, but it isn't affecting the amount of water she is drinking.  It has (or something else has)  killed her appetite, and that is worrisome to me.  There was no sugar in her urine so diabetes is out of the running and I should get the results of the blood testing tomorrow.

In the mean time she's been a little subdued.  She seems to have lost her pep.  She's been spending more time sleeping next to either me or Evan (her favorite boy) on the couch and less time snuggled on her own.  And this afternoon I witnessed her having a little shiver/tremor and I have never seen her do that before.  It was weird.

I so want/don't want to know what those blood tests reveal.  This worrying is hard and I don't like it one bit.

cooler

I am fond of saying that no one ever really knows how the rest of the world views them.   I know some people think I am one judgemental bitch,  and that doesn't sit well with me, and I know people think I'm confident, which amazes me, but what I think I am is flaky and scatter brained.  

As a kid I know for sure I was clueless, especially socially. I can prove this with one story:

I did not know people went to the prom with dates, not having a boy friend I bought myself a ticket, Hopped into a taxi cab, and showed up, not in a "prom dress" like every single other girl in the prom, but in a corduroy shirt dress that looked like a tuxedo with red patent leather shoes.  Imagine my shock!!  

Fast forward to 2014, middle aged me digs out my paltry childhood photo album and puts a couple of old photos on facebook which get a tremendous response.  One (actually, the only) friend, who I knew all the way from first grade through high school (even though I skipped a grade in middle school and graduated a year ahead of her) puts this as her comment when I am able to name some of the other kids in a photo:

"amazing that you remember everyone's names! C----- D---...wow. She definitely looked familiar but I never would have remembered that. And I don't remember a Danny at all. You were so much cooler than I ever was - in elementary school, in junior high school, in high school...good thing we didn't go to college together! :-)"

COOLER?!?!?!?   There are two ways to go with this: 1. She was lived more in her own little lala fantasy world then I did or 2. I fooled everyone!!!!  Bwah ha ha ha!!!! 

dog post

Yesterday during a group text in which I suggested "margarita lifting" counts as working out, another friend sent one saying her dog had just died.  I ran over to her house knowing that she'd take it hard as can be.  I found my friend standing outside drenched and shivering (her blind and deaf 16 year old dog had taken his own life in the creek that runs through her yard)  holding the body of her dead dog while another friend was digging a hole.  I convinced my friend to go inside and put on some warm clothes and that I would stay with her dog.  She rested him, wrapped in a towel, on her wood pile and went inside to change.  Feeling like her dog shouldn't be alone quite yet, I put my own hand on his head and stroked him, through the towel, as I would have if he were just napping beside me.  Her dog went in the hole and my friend's kids joined us and we had a little ceremony.   I hung out with my friend for a while until she seemed to calm down (that dog you had before kids will always be a tough loss) and her kids were fed and ready to watch some comedy sit coms on television and then I left them to have some family time. 

But what it is really interesting to me is that when I got home bear bait took one sniff of my dead dog petting hand and left me completely alone for the rest of the evening EVEN WHEN I ATE DINNER.   It's pretty amazing what dogs know.  I wonder if bear bait thinks I played a role in the death of her acquiantance.  

On the subject of dogs, I stopped by Peanut's house last week when I was in stepford seeing the chiro.  Her dog is bear bait's age and Peanut and I spent countless hours walking in circles around fields trying to wear those puppy dogs out and chatting away.  I've always had an extra soft spot for Peanut's dog because he as goofy as can be.  Well, he treated me like a long lost love, laying his head across my chest and just pressing in.  It made me feel a little terrible, because I suspect that he and bear bait miss each other.  I'm trying to figure out how I can get the two dogs together while they can still enjoy each other.

Speaking of dogs, the lake guy that I am photographing took his dog to try to breed it and I can't believe he didn't tell me before the fact. His dog did not manage to get the deed done, but still .....   His dog does not get another chance either because another dog stepped stepped in and nailed it.   He told me after the fact.  I just wanna cry.

charmers

Just had a little stepford flashback.  I said Happpy Birthday on a stepford acquaintance's facebook wall yesterday and noticed that the wife of the neighbor who peeping tommed me was a mutual friend.  Creepy!!!!

It's been a while since I experienced the skin crawl of that memory.  Like yesterday, when I told the story of the boxing guy who just wanted to know that if I ever kissed a man if I would tell my husband.  Ick Ick Ick.  More skin crawl.

I figured I'd share another .  In high school there was a big lurky kind of guy who was a known drug dealer and he dressed like he belonged to a motorcycle gang.  This was not a good thing when the rest of us were more likely to be studying the Preppy Handbook.  Also the drug thing was way out of my league.  I guess he took an interest in me and instead of ever talking to me, he decided to pester my buddy, a 95 pound 5'5" guy (who would some time after graduation grow almost a foot in a year) and follow him around all day shouting strange questions like what my breasts felt like.  

Pretty much I've been surrounded by charmers all of my life.

PSYCHED!!

I didn't have my usual super great critique the last two times around because first the husband was starting to complain about being photographed and then I just showed too few photos.  But the last time I did have some photos of a new guy- a lake guy.  I am fascinated by this lake guy for a million reasons, and now I have to admit I am in love with his hairless cat.

I had my private critique with my advisor today and he started it by saying that "this is the kind of work that happens when you get your excitement back" and then in the middle of our conversation he told me that he was in a terrible mood last night until he opened my file and saw my work and then he ended our conference with a warning not to get a fat head and to keep on working.

HELLOO!!!!

What I am learning is that my real talent is probably in photographing people, which is interesting because I always have ended up photographing people, but in my dream world a perfect day for me would be a day wandering around with bear bait by my side shooting landscapes.  Go figure!! 

I kind of knew I'd excel at people.  It's just what always worked for me. I think it's my mothering instinct in over drive.  Somehow it transfers.  Either that or I just choose good subjects.  I think it's a combination.

In any case, I was floating on a cloud of PSYCHED!! all afternoon.  The worrier in me, is trying to peek through, because my friends are struggling so much, and I am wondering if next year I will have a hard time with another advisor, but I'm trying to push those thoughts aside and just keep on dancing in my seat because right now everything is good and I am in a really good place.  

talent

Last week I was in rubber necking traffic and the amount of ridiculous happiness I felt when I actually saw the jack knifed tractor trailer was over the top.  Knowing that, you can possibly imagine the thrill I experienced today when I cruised past a car with flames coming out of the hood.  In defense of my appreciation of things frightening, I would like to point out that there were no dead bodies at either scene.

But I did see someone's body being pulled out of a gorge up in Ithaca when I was in college.  It stayed with me.  It was the first dead person I ever saw.  People were all just standing around watching, which is how I got to looking down at the scene.  The whole thing was surreal.

And ......... there is no point to that last paragraph, but I'm leaving it here because I like leaving little parts of my history on these pages. 

Speaking of little parts of my history, I am thinking of creating a book about some of the worst memories of my childhood abuse.  I just have to come up with a way to get these ideas on paper.  Too bad I can't time travel back in time and photograph them.  Some thoughts I have tossed around in my head are creating little dioramas and photographing them, or illustrating the scenes and then  making them into intaglio prints.  I could also intaglio print the photographs too.  I guess I'll just have to just do it and see what works.  I'm not sure why I want to do this with the worst of my life, but if I had to play therapist and guess I would say that I still have some processing to do.  

As just about every victim, or loved one of a victim responds, I too would like to share my story just to maybe stop someone else from going through what I've been through,.  It seems so preventable, and in the least I'd like to give some one the power that was stripped of me which I have spent to much time and energy trying to figure how to get back.  Even if there are still victims I feel like the earlier someone can reach them then the faster they can reclaim themselves.

Did you all notice how smoothly I just transitioned from vehicles on the side of the highway to child abuse?  Talent.

 

go me

Embarrassing as it to admit this, I hurt myself again.  A week ago I slipped on a patch of ice on the last step leading down to the driveway in utopia.  I landed right on my butt, slamming my elbow on the step and sending flames of pain through my elbow, shoulder and wrist.  Sunday night I was in so much pain I couldn't even sleep.  Monday I went to an orthopedist, got xrayed and was told nothing is broken.  I kept saying that I thought I probably just pulled very thing from my wrist to my elbow, but I wanted painkillers, because another sleepless night was not what I needed.   I took one pain killer the second night and now I don't even know where they are.  I'm afraid of painkillers.  I am still in pain, but not enough pain to take painkillers. I have not regained the ability to move my right arm without whimpering in pain.  But the orthopedist told me to come back in a week, so I will be going tomorrow and telling him that I still can't lift my not broken arm away from my body, my elbow is still tender as all get out and also when I try to write the old fashioned way with a pen I get a sharp shooting pain down my right forearm.  Go me!! But it is not bad enough to need pain killers.

Josh is off from school for the week and I dread forcing him to get showered and dressed each day.  The boy's fantasy is to live his life in bed.  It's gonna be a battle.  I'm going to win. Go me!!

 

posturing

I seriously regret downsizing from Sylvia to Blue about every 6 days or more.  I didn't realize the amount of times I carry other people's children or just an incredible amount of stuff and dog.  I still love the gas mileage and it blows my mind to be saving HUNDREDS of dollars a month in gas alone, but damn is this small vehicle is cramping my travelling hoarder style and seriously inconvenient.  (Except when parking in Manhattan) 

I'm photographing a new person these days.  He is a guy from the utopia (which gives me an awesome excuse to get back here often!) and he is so interesting.  I spent some time in his house yesterday and realized when I got home that I would like to spend more time there except without him being in the same room.  So ...... I have to figure out how to politely and diplomatically tell him I want to do some interiors of his house and can't focus (reality: feel inhibited) when he's there.  The guy has been incredibly gracious so far, and I don't want to rock the "let me do anything I want" boat.  

It was intersting discussing this new project with my advisor because he is so very spot on with some of his observations, and he immediately called me out on my interest in men who are very much into manly posturing.  (meaning the utopian neighbor and the husband)  The more I think about that the more I see it in myself.  I am fascinated by people who put on big shows for the rest of the world.  I think this might be a topic to take to the couch.  

Speaking of the couch, my therapist pointed out last week that I often mention "when I don't need therapy" anymore while talking.  (As much as I have put myself through the process it is always with the purpose of reaching a place where it is a moot point) and she asked me what it would like to be at the place where I no longer needed it.  Now, I've been crying more than usual lately, but I am quite sure that is because it is the end of a long cold snowy winter and I have seasonal affective disorder, crawling in desperation to the spring, PLEASE JUST WARM UP out there or I will go mad syndrome.  My gut response was the think that when I was "done" I wouldn't be a weepy person, but I think that isn't true.  I think that when I am "done" I won't be a compulsive eater, because my over eating (and therefore weight) is my big life barometer.  At least that is the answer I have come up with for next week's session.  Unless I change my mind in the next few days, which is always a viable option.