Belabored

*Gore alert: Bloody pics below!*

After spending the midweek getting through what may or may not have been the piggy flu (still haven't heard test results), I thought I was ready to head back to work on Saturday. I was still a little on the weak side, but I had slept, I was rested...

...I was so very wrong.

In general, our two busiest weekends of the year are Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend - the two bookends of tourist season here in Vacationland. I also worked Memorial Day weekend, and it was pretty manageable. The rains were starting, people were nervous about spending money, and while we were reasonably busy, we were spared too much hell. Not so for Labor Day weekend, though.

The weekend came after a week or so of gorgeous weather with the beginnings of dry, autumnal air, so the hordes descended like we hadn't seen for at least a couple of years. And at the clinic it really, really showed. In the course of my nominal 15 hour shift, I saw 24 cases, which exceeds the Upper Limit of Manageability (ULM) by quite a few. In fact, the overage could have made for a moderate night in itself.

The end result was that my so-called 15 hour shift lasted for 21 hours. And by the time I collapsed in the overnight room and managed enough of a sleep that I could drive home without being a menace to others, I had been at the clinic for about 28 hours. I got home about 30 hours after I'd left, then got up the next day to do it again.

Thankfully, Labor Day itself squeaked in right about at the ULM. Truly, the most beautiful sight of the day for me was driving up the Turnpike to work and seeing tens of thousands of vehicles heading south. Traffic was literally at a crawl or a standstill all the way up to the 20 mile marker, and they were all leaving for the season. Had I not been driving, I'd have danced a little happy dance to celebrate.

Of course, not all my cases were happy ones. One of the first ones I admitted Monday night was an old brittany spaniel who turned out to have a bleeding mass on her spleen. About 80% of these masses are malignant hemangiosarcomas, which I understand are fairly rare in humans but are very common in dogs. Survival times for these are incrementally better with surgery and chemotherapy, but the bottom line is that about 95% of cases are dead within a year, even with aggressive chemo. In a nutshell, double plus ungood.

Still, the owner wasn't quite ready to say goodbye and opted to proceed with a transfusion and surgery. I was able to pick up the bleeding mass readily on ultrasound, but I was reluctant to put the dog into potentially stressful positions because of the hemorrhage and shock and had missed a couple of other masses in the spleen. Note the fist-sized clot I took out of her abdomen.



I had also not been able to get good views of her liver and had not seen one large mass taking up most of the quadrate lobe, which is essentially a time bomb waiting to blow. I called the owners during surgery just to make sure it wasn't going to change their decision, and it didn't. I also could feel at least two other nodules in the liver that weren't readily visible at the surface. And this is the blood I suctioned out of her abdomen.



That's like a pint and a quarter. If it were Ben & Jerry's, you'd gain about a pound eating it, though I'm not sure it's a flavor that'd sell. It's also more blood than I transfused into her, but it's clear that without the transfusion first she would not likely have survived surgery. As it was, she did relatively well and went home the following afternoon, albeit on borrowed time.

In Cheerier News...

I finally got the chicken coop up on pressure-treated stilts today. And for extra butch points, I did it all by myself. Well, Tuck supervised, but I provided all the muscle. Despite my efforts at engineering the coop to be relatively light, it's quite a heavy and bulky beast. But by cleverly using braces and leverage I was able to get the stilts on one side firmly screwed in place, then jack the other side up with my shoulder and a brace board to get the stilts on the other side. I didn't even strain my back doing it, either.

I also got a double layer of predator-deterring chicken wire laid across the top with a layer of mylar-coated bubble wrap insulation sandwiched in between, plus a layer of chicken wire on the underside for more predator deterrance. Tomorrow will hopefully be spent on getting the corrugated metal roofing on and getting a ramp/hatch in place so they can enter and exit from underneath.

The plan is to enclose the area underneath to they've got a protected area where they can hang out in inclement weather. Aside from that, there are also little details to attend to - latches, window and windowsill, wheels, some sort of system to hold window and doors open, etc., but it looks as though I may actually have it ready for them before really cold weather sets in.

Same-Sex Marriage Lowers Divorce Rates

From Rachel Maddow. Massachusetts already had a low divorce rate, but since same-sex marriage was legalized in the state five years ago, their divorce rate has now dropped to levels not seen since before WWII. And yet, the Catholic Church, the fundies, and other hate groups still tell us that recognizing all families will hurt marriage.

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Sinéad's Hand

From Ireland, but very topical here in Maine. Thanks to Joe.My.God. for this one.

Oink

Sunday night, in those few hours between David's bedtime and mine, I noticed that I was starting to feel kind of congested and the back of my throat was getting raw. I hadn't had a cold all summer, which is a bit unusual, so I figured it was just a nasty one making up for lost time. It made sleep a bit fitful, but otherwise didn't seem too bad.

Monday brought an afternoon of errands trying to get things done before heading back to work on Tuesday, and then a bit of carpentry trying to press on with the chicken coop, which has languished over the past month. The congestion and sore throat were about the same, but I noticed that I was also starting to feel more achy and light-headed. No fever, though, so I figured I'd just overdone it a bit, had a nice hot bath and a relaxing evening.

Then a while after David had gone to bed, I noticed that I was feeling warmer than I had earlier. Now there was a definite fever, and this was clearly something more than just a cold. So I called in sick to work about 15 hours early so they could get a quick start on finding coverage (since we don't have any sort of backup plan in place for this like we ought), and made plans to go get tested for swine flu. Not because it would change treatment, mind you, but it's The Big Thing at the moment from a public health standpoint and it's the kind of data epidemiologists like to have. I also happen to be taking a class this semester on disease surveillance, so it's even more topical for me.

Anyway, it's been considerably milder than the last time I had flu, with the fever breaking overnight and staying at bay through the day today. Tonight's fever was milder than last night's, too, so I seem to be on the mend quite quickly, though dragging myself to the hospital to get my nostrils swabbed pretty well wiped me out and required a few hours' nap.

I wasn't entirely unproductive, though. The last few days have definitely been autumnal, so it's back to sweater weather for Tuck. David found the second sweater I made for him yesterday and put it on him. It's a nice sweater, but it's always been problematic because it's slipped down his shoulders Flashdance style and then right off his short legs until it's hanging on him like a skirt. I still had part of a ball of the C220 colorway I used for the neck, so I took it off of him for a few minutes today and chain crocheted around the neckline, picking up 3 of every 4 stitches around to pull it in a bit more. You can barely even tell that the crochet is there unless you look closely, and it's really done the trick. He's had it on all evening with no Jennifer Beals poses at all. See?

Before:



After:


I also started working on a prototype for a hat design David wants to have done in time for Rhinebeck. It's the first time I've picked up the needles in a few months because of wrist pain. So far they seem to be doing pretty well, but I promise I'll be taking it easy. If David allows, there may be photos in advance of Rhinebeck.

Does Your Artie Choke?

My first attempt at growing artichokes has been fun, though not terribly productive. I harvested this one today, though, and found another small one growing on the same plant, so perhaps there will be more to come yet. I steamed this one (though they always seem to need more steaming than I manage to give them) and we had it with fresh melted garlic butter, which was absolutely teh nom. For next year, I definitely want to start them earlier and get them in the ground earlier, because they really are quite the fun treat to pull apart and eat.

The garden has been a bit of a mixed bag this year. I expect to get maybe enough scarlet runner beans to cook as part of one meal, but they've been fun to watch. There are a few pumpkins and winter squash, so that's not a total loss. The tomatoes were a sad, tragic loss (Curse you, Late Blight!). I'm still remaining hopeful that I'll get some butterpeas, but a somewhat late start coupled with the wettest summer on record means they're only just producing pods. And unless my crowder peas get really busy, they may not even make it that far. At least the garlic made me very happy, and I'm already planning for even more next year.

The other thing I'm planning, if I can find the time and energy, is to shift some of my raised beds around and rework my tiny front ledge. The neighbors across the street decided to put in a bright halogen driveway light about a year ago that they leave on pretty much all night long, and it drives David crazy. I'm not terribly thrilled about it myself, but I don't have the glare straining my eyes when I'm working at the computer, either. At any rate, I'm thinking to construct a woven lattice living fence of willow right where the hillside drops off, moving the flower beds away from the foundation, and then turning the current beds and measly strip of grass into vegetable beds.

We'll see how well I manage to make that happen.

Ch-ch-changes

Working on revamping the template here a bit, so don't be surprised if things are changing around for a bit. Going to see if I can come up with a banner of my own design, for one thing. I just did one for my new family history blog, so I expect I can come up with something for this one, as well.

Tuck Update

Tuck handled the anesthesia and the diagnostics very well on Tuesday and thanks you all for the good wishes. He's still a bit congested, but that's kind of to be expected when someone spends an hour or two shoving a scope up your nose and grabbing chunks of tissue. He's quite the little trooper, though, and absolutely everybody at the specialty hospital fell in love with him.

I also got the good news that it was going to end up costing me several hundred less than I'd thought, which was very nice. Still, I'm looking at a couple thousand in total expenses for this round of diagnostics and it looks like at least some surgery is in his future. So if you haven't picked out some Tuck swag, feel free to go find a little something for yourself or the frenchie lover in your life. And if you want something but don't see it, let me know and I'll try to make it happen.

The Right Tool for the Job

"Fred with Tyres" by Herb Ritts

We're off this afternoon to spend a couple of nights at my grandmother's. My dad's two sisters are up visiting for a week and we don't get to see them very often, so it should be fun. Making the trip, though, required a bit of vehicular maintenance. My car's been chugging a bit lately, especially since I've been running the air conditioner to keep Tuck from frying in the heat.

I suspected and confirmed that I was a bit past due to change my spark plugs, so I picked up some fresh ones yesterday and set out to replace the old ones today. The owner's manual makes it look all so easy, doesn't it? "Why just pop those old plugs out by twiddling them around with your thumb, put the new ones in and VIOLA!" Except it's never quite that easy.

In truth, this wasn't too bad, but what the manual doesn't tell you is that the spark plugs are set way down in a hole in the engine block. I mean way down in. The extender in my socket wrench set was not up to the task. Fortunately, I have another socket wrench extender that's long enough to reach and was able to unscrew the old plugs without trouble. The problem then was that the spark plugs didn't come up out of the hole along with the socket wrench. This required another trip back up the hill into the house to find a pair of forceps, with which I was able to pluck the old spark plugs out.

So now my car has brand new spark plugs and, although it'll never sound like a new car again, it's still running much more smoothly than it was and I'm not so worried that it'll crap out on us on the 4.5 hour drive up the coast.

The moral of the story, of course, is that you should always make sure your tool is long enough to get deep down into the hole.

New Chairman Tuck

Tomorrow is Tuck's big appointment, so do think happy thoughts for us. And if you haven't done so, do please consider going and buying some Tuck swag. We were able to negotiate and pare down the estimate for this workup, but it's still going to cost nearly $2500 by the time all is said and done and anything to defray that cost a bit would be exceedingly helpful. Besides, who wouldn't love a little piece of his awesomeness?

The Beloved Frenchie Needs You

Next week Tuck's going to have some major diagnostic work done to see if we can get to the bottom of his recurrent respiratory infections. When I say major, I don't necessarily mean invasive procedures so much as majorly expensive. As in, a few thousand dollars that we don't particularly have.

Anyway, considering his bouts with pneumonia and upper respiratory infections have cost us easily that much in a bit over a year - and that's with me getting meds at cost and providing most of his care myself - the hope is that we'll find something that can be fixed. Barring that, I'm hoping at least to know whether there are things we can do to improve his care from a preventive standpoint.

But still, thinking about the cost over the past few weeks has been nothing short of gut-wrenching, particularly since things still aren't terribly rosy for David's business. The other night, though, Rabbitch suggested that I should shamelessly exploit capitalize on Tuck's adorable mug and start selling it. On mugs. And t-shirts and what-have-you.

To that end, I've been working the past couple nights on putting together some images and creating an online store on Zazzle. The Chairman Tuck image above is the latest and, I think, the best yet. So rather than ask for donations for this particular cause, I'd appreciate it if y'all went on over and bought a little something. Christmas is coming up before you know it, so buy several little somethings. You'll be getting some extra adorable stocking stuffers and maybe, hopefully Tuck will be able to breathe a little bit easier because of it.

p.s., If you go to the storefront, scroll down and look for the "Product Lines" section in the right sidebar. Everything is organized by design there.

Geek Humor

What does it say about me that I snorted when I read this? If you don't get it, don't worry. And if you really need to know try the Wikipedia article. Just don't say I didn't warn you.