Happy Halloween!

And the results are...

Looks like I'll be heading off to get more tests done. There's a "questionable" small stone that showed up in the gallbladder ultrasound. Wonder what's so questionable about it? Apparently they're going to make it prove it's a stone by sending me for a different scan. I'd just love to get it all over with.

New doctors and such

So I saw a new doctor yesterday. I'd been meaning to switch to a GP here in Baton Rouge rather than continuing on seeing my doctor in Plaquemine and I finally got off my butt and did so. I liked my doc in Plaquemine but 1) if I get sick I want to be in a Baton Rouge hospital, not the death trap in Plaquemine and 2) he was dragging his feet on referring me for a sleep study.

Anyway, now I have a new doctor and I really like her. She's sending me for that sleep study soon. I have to go Thursday morning to ultrasound my gallbladder finally. (Yes, Dix, time to get it taken care of) It's cool having a female doctor again. I had a list of stuff to talk to her about and I like her responses. I'm anxious to get this sleep study done and take care of the sleep apnea. I'm so tired of feeling tired.

Now that E's working again, I'm ready to get moving and get some stuff together medically, physically, and emotionally. I think 2006 is going to be a good year. :-)

Huh?

Heard during an commercial for the sleep aid Abien:

Until you know how Ambien will effect you, do not try to operate heavy machinery.

Oh, sure, no problem, dude, but it's kind of hard driving that car while I'm asleep.

My Sweet Angel

That's my nephew Tyler sleeping last night while getting his last dose of vancomycin. How cute is that?

Sometimes life sucks

Because of my nephew Tyler, I have become so much more aware of kids who are sick, especially other St. Jude kids that Ty and his family have become friends with. One such kid is Bradley, age 14, and lives about 15 miles from here. Bradley was diagnosed with ALL (leukemia) at about the same time as Ty, just over two years ago, and they met while at St. Jude for treatment.

All the kids under the current protocol have to take a steroid called dexamethasone or, commonly, dex. Dex is a wicked drug and can cause numerous side effects. Ty's trouble with dex was the severe outbreak of mollescum that he's endured for over a year now that landed him in the hospital this summer. But dex also effects muscles and joints and Ty had his share of back aches and other aches while on the dex. This is called AVN (Avascular Necrosis) and Tyler's was mild.

Bradley has been suffering from severe AVN and was taken off dex quite a while back. AVN is supposed to go away after the patient quits taking dex but it hasn't in Bradley.

My sister's latest update says -

It has affected his hips, knees, ankles, shoulders and elbows. He is in constant pain but refuses to let it make him end up in a wheel chair. In mid-September, his right hip collapsed and they had to make an emergency trip to Memphis. They have discussed doing a hip replacement in the past, but have put it off due to his age and the risk of infection, especially with his compromised immune system. Due to the collapsed hip, they cannot put it off any longer. He will be having surgery on November 3rd in Memphis and will have to be there for about a month for rehab. He will be the youngest patient ever to have this surgery and the first ever to have it while undergoing chemotherapy.

I cannot fathom being 14 and having to have my hip replaced. Plus, these artificial joints don't last forever so he'll have to have the surgery more than once in his lifetime.

If you believe in a Higher Power, please pray for Bradley and his parents as they go through this scary procedure in a couple of weeks. And if you have healthy kids, hug them extra hard today and thank that Higher Power for their health. Life turns on a dime.

Last night I found sex in a jar

(That ought to thrill some Googlers)



You can find this yummy stuff here or I got it for a dollar or so cheaper at Target.

It's like a spreadable Reese's Peanut Butter Cup but better because the chocolate is dark. My eyes actually rolled back in my head.

When I told E about the sex in the jar thing, I don't think he was too amused.

Our Dogs Are Just Fuzzy Kids

BREC, the Baton Rouge recreation department, opened their first dog park last weekend and it just happens to be very close to the house. So we decided to take the dogs out there Saturday to play and socialize. Y'all will be proud to know that I trimmed the hair around their eyes so they could see and didn't butcher them in the process.

Our visit to the new park was not without some drama. There was a big ol' pitbull there when we arrived. He was on a leash but at the opposite end of that leash was a pretty small woman. I am pretty leery of pits since Sneauball got mauled by one just over a year ago so I tried to make sure I kept our three away from him. Well, the pit's owner headed in our direction as we were talking to another couple and the woman let him off leash. E and I got our puppies out of that area quickly. Don't you know not 15 minutes later, even though he was back on his leash, the pit attacked a golden retriever and bit the golden's male owner in the scuffle. I was pretty pissed because I knew that woman couldn't handle that pit even on-leash. The poor woman who owned the golden was distraught. I told her to make sure and get the pit owner's information, at least her license plate number, so she could report the bite. The pit's owner had the audacity to ask the golden's mom how she knew that it was the pit that actually bit the husband. What???? I told the golden's mom not to worry as she had a park full of witnesses that had seen the incident.

Once that horrid woman and her pit left, the park was peaceful and we felt comfortable letting the puppies off-leash. We got the biggest chuckle as we realized they are truly no different from human children.

We learned that -
* Sophie is the child that can't let one parent or the other get out of sight. She was following E, Sneauball, and Nate around when all of a sudden she realized that I wasn't with them. I had stayed in the center of the park leaning against a big oak tree in the shade. I looked up just in time to see her running full blast at me. She jumped up on my leg as if to ask if I was ok. As soon as I reassured her that I was fine, she turned around so she could see E. I told her to go meet Daddy and she took off like a shot but she kept a good eye on me until they came back.
* Sneauball is the child that is just a bit neurotic and wants to make a friend so he has someone to follow around. For the longest time he trailed behind Nate but then he befriended a border collie and hung with him for a while. When he wasn't following another dog around, he was my little velcro boy.
* Nate is the social butterfly child - totally independent with the need to meet and greet every human and dog in the park. He is also the kid that, upon seeing a scuffle, screams "FIGHT!" and runs straight toward it. He had to check every inch of the park perimeter, most of the time at a full run with a huge smile on his face. He loves to run free and that is the perfect place for him to do it. We do need to work on the "come" command, however, because he totally tunes us out when he's running. He also has absolutely no interest in Frisbees. E threw one toward him and Nate just watched it whizz by. His expression said, "Hey, something yellow just went by. Cool. Well, I'm off." as he kept running in the opposite direction. I think E was a bit disappointed. :-)

It was dusty in places so both Bichons are now a bit grey. But they had a ball. Nate didn't even mind the car ride home so much. The fun evidently helped him not get carsick.

I'm pretty proud of BREC. They've done well with this park and will be opening several others soon. We'll keep bring the pups out there as long as it remains fun for them.

I told you they were pitiful.

Here is picture proof that I'm a bad mama. Well, not so much a "bad" mama as I am a poor mama. If I were truly being a bad mama, I would have already tried to groom them myself (again) and y'all can't believe what a disaster that is. Suffice it to say that I spend several weeks after a home grooming session saying "I'm sorry" every time one of the dogs makes eye contact with me.

These first two are Sophie. I give you two pictures because for the 10 minutes that I tried to take her photograph she refused to take the danged ball out of her mouth so I wanted y'all to see her the way we see her 90% of the time. The second pic is thankfully without the ball. It gives you a better view of not being able to see her eyes.





This is little Sneauball. Don't worry, groomed or not every day is a bad hair day for my poor little man. And the red eyes? That's thanks to allergies. Oy! The joys of having purebred white dogs. (Yep, that's me hiding behind the little dog yelling at E "Don't get me in the shot, don't get me in the shot!!!")



Finally, we have Nate - and his Daddy. Please excuse E's lovely wife-beater t-shirt. We're really not rednecks, I promise. Nate isn't looking too shabby but that's only because he was shaved down when we got him back in June. It's taken this long for his coat to fill out. But he still has issues with the hair in his eyes.



Psst - you think the dogs are in bad shape? You definitely don't want to see my hair.

I just keep telling these guys to hang in 'cause Daddy starts a new job on Monday. In a couple of weeks it'll be new hairdos all around.

Random stuff

There's not much going on around here so I thought I'd just post some random stuff.

1. After some fits and stops, E's new job will finally begin on Monday. Neither of us can wait for that to happen. He's ready to get out of the house and I'm ready to stop worrying about coming home to no electricity.

2. It's a lot quieter around here. Keith and Nero moved home last Friday. They've got electricity and cable at home and he's back working in the downtown office. His return home has been pretty emotional. I'll let you read his blog to catch up on all of that. We're down to having only Megs here now and, between school, volleyball, and her social life, we never see her.

3. Tyler was in the hospital all week last week. He's got some lymph nodes that are swollen due to an infection of some sort. His little neck was swollen on the left side and he was having trouble turning his head. But he was able to enjoy a week of being waited on hand and foot, playing Game Cube round the clock, and calling down for Coke Icees any time he wanted. He'll be out of school for the next two weeks and he's not complaining about that either. :-D

4. I've actually done some cooking lately. Last night it was homemade chicken soup which included fresh shoepeg corn, lima beans, green beans, and new potatoes with some RoTel tomatoes and macaroni thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, it was so full of stuff that during the night it all soaked up the rest of the broth so the leftovers are actually a chicken stew.

5. We are watching TV like crazy. We love My Name is Earl, Commander In Chief, and The Amazing Race Family Edition. I'm also into The Apprentice Martha Stewart. We're thrilled that there are new episodes of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations on the Travel Channel and we still love our old standby ER.

6. Sophie looks like one of the Beatles right now because she needs grooming something fierce. I'll try to get a pic uploaded so y'all can see how pitiful she looks.

7. I'm ticked that the pool is now officially too cold to swim in. Hurry up April!

I think I've bored y'all enough for now. I promise something much more interesting next post.

Sometimes I just can't sing along with the radio

On my way home in traffic this afternoon I got tired of hearing "Holla Back" for the umpteenth time so I decided to switch over to Air America Radio and see what Randi Rhodes was up to. I'm tooling around nodding my head in agreement with Randi when all of a sudden a commercial comes on featuring Laura "I keep calling it hurricane Corrian" Bush.

In her sweet little down-home Texas twang she says something like, "On September 11th terrorists attacked the United States in an attempt to frighten us. Children don't understand all of this so you should sit yours down and tell them how safe they are and how they shouldn't be afraid." (I'm paraphrasing, of course, but that's the drift of the spot)

EXCUSE ME???? (I yelled at the radio) Correct me if I'm wrong but it is Laura's dear husband Scooter and his cronies that continuously pump that fear into our lives and our living rooms by constantly reminding us that terrorists hate us and will strike again it's just a matter of time. Those dear little children that Laura is talking about have Laura's dear Scooter to thank for their nightmares and the nightmares of their parents. Until we got rid of that idiot Tom Ridge a few months ago, those poor kids got to wake up and hear what the terrorist alert color level was every day.

So, Laura, while I believe we need to have a healthy respect for the fact that terrorists like Osama bin Laden want to hurt our country, it is your husband who keeps perpetuating the most fear. I think it's time you had a talk with him and told him to quit scaring all the little kids. And since it's October and we're talking about scary stuff, how about keeping Cheney locked up because he scares the bejeebies out of me and lots of other folks I know. Thanks!

He Got The Job!!!!!!!!!

Sound the trumpets, close the schools, post offices, and banks and declare this a holiday - my husband just got a job!!!!!!!!

Not any old job, - NO! - one that pays him a good salary, gives him full benefits, and with a company that he will enjoy. I am pleased as punch both for him and for our creditors.

Ok, back to your normal blogging now. :-D