Redemption

 I suppose just like the weather - wait a few moments here in Texas and circumstances will change!

Poor Bo’s tumors have grown dramatically and even though he’s still eating & mobile, they are obviously uncomfortable bcz he has rubbed open sores on his neck; he flinches away when I try to examine him. I can’t let this go on - so Karen & I are going to do a “twofer”, having the gravedigger out to excavate a double gravesite for Bo and Karen’s old crippled pony Cass (who is actually a retiree passed down from Christina years ago) this evening. I notified Christina, in case she wanted to bring 12-yr old Catie down to say goodbye. She did so yesterday, but sprung the surprise of asking me if I wanted to host Catie for a week since she’s interested in veterinary medicine. Remembrance of things past - my ex & I used to host his nephew for a couple of weeks each summer when David was 8 - 10 yrs old. Of course I did the “wrangling”, taking David to work with me & planning activities for him…

Of course I said “Yes” - when they got here, I was dismayed by Christina’s deep bronchitic cough & continuing debilitation. She certainly needs a week off - even though she’s traveling to FL for work!?! They’re sending Catie’s older brother (13) to “Ranch Camp” today. I gave Christina my bottle of Mucinex & advised her to advocate for follow-up chest radiographs. (Her doctor just prescribed a new course of azithromycin) Color me worried!

I had just gotten back from an overnight camping trip with my trail riding buddies, returning to Train Robber Ranch just outside of Palestine. I managed to talk Karen into this mini-escape with me. Gotta dump my virtual stack o’ photos and get on with my Monday, but the redemption arc comes in when I informed P that we would be hosting Catie - he got up there, stripped the bed in Z’s old room where he’s resided for the past 2.5 yrs, and cleaned the bathroom! I presume he wanted to impress Christina, but he did impress me - I was dreading making multiple trips up the stairs, but he handled most of that prep!

Catie was up & about before both of us this morning - of course already down in the barn! We have joked with her that her mission is to civilize Kwan the mini-mule 😂🤣

Business Casual

 … is the recommendation from my attorney when I drive up north (Frisco) to give my deposition about “the nightmarish auto accident that never ends” this morning. It is absolutely Kafka-esque that I have had to retain my own attorneys to countersue/protect myself when **I** am the person who was seriously injured and spent the day in the ER. Of course it’s a lot of time, effort, and aggravation to go through this -  what I absolutely cannot afford is to be forking out money to personal injury attorneys, but luckily they are working on contingency!

Good thing I am not an attorney, because I really don’t see how they’re gonna cover their costs unless they really stroke the post-traumatic stress and emotional turmoil from this. I do have the report from the Head Trauma Center that my short-term memory/recall is adversely impacted, but who’s to say how much of that is from the TBI and how much is long Covid? I’m sure those are the points the other attorneys are going to argue, since all my recent medical visits are categorized under long Covid symptomatology.

Oh well, as I said the important thing is I couldn’t afford to pay their invoice even if they submit one to me. Let’s just hope it all shakes out in their legal arguments - while it would be nice to think that I earn a small chunk of change from my injuries, I’m not counting on it. The ludicrousness of the whole situation just keeps spinning in my head - it also occurred to me at 2 AM that perhaps the accident was also the pivot point in Peran & my’s relationship: that’s when he moved into the upstairs bedroom, after all, and hasn’t been downstairs since?? 

But for a spot of good news, I swung by Irving on my trek home yesterday afternoon and was able to give Zach his long-overdue birthday presents, for which he thanked me kindly. He liked the shirts although I may have to exchange them for a larger size (he’s gonna try them on). He is thrilled beyond belief with his new job: he likes the facility (he’s got his own office), he likes his supervisors, he likes his coworkers. I’m so happy for him. He looked tired because the new schedule is an adjustment, but he’s not even complaining about the early morning hours - that leaves him plenty of daylight to pursue other things: for instance, if he decides to go back to work on his master’s degree. We grabbed a quick bite at the Chinese joint, but he promised me a celebratory dinner this weekend. I will plan accordingly!

Athena now weighs in at a sturdy 417 grams & swallows her favorite green peas whole!

His Father’s Son

 Yesterday was “just another Manic Monday” - my feet were killing me by midday, & I wound up with about 15 minutes for a lunch break. I’d like to think I did the world a lot of good, between a rescue dog spay, a routine cat spay, cancer surgery on a beloved old Labrador, and a dental which does so much to improve quality of life in the older pet, but once again I staggered home to collapse in my recliner for most of the evening. These days it seems like a miserable way to live/survive. 

I skim social media (I know, I know - pro tip, I need to just keep away!) to see my friends traveling, RIDING, doing fun stuff with their kids which is discouraging when I feel as if I’m barely keeping my nose above those figurative turbulent floodwaters. On Thursday, I’ve got to go give my deposition at the attorneys’ office in this damn car accident lawsuit case which drags on forever. The trial is now set for next February which will be more than three years after the actual accident. It seems beyond ridiculous that I have had to secure my own legal representation to defend myself in an accident which was ruled 100% not my fault, but such is our system. My greedy neighbor found his own ambulance-chaser and has dollar signs in his eyes.

But I checked my son’s location this morning and he is again at work well before his 7:30 AM start time. I’m so proud of him - obviously, he’s got more of his fathers get-up-&-go than I do at this point. He called me yesterday afternoon after Day 1, full of anticipation and excitement. I wish I could’ve met him somewhere for a celebratory beverage, but he promised me dinner at the end of the week.

My darling Athena is growing like a weed - 417 grams!

Reward vs Punishment

 Again, another rehashed title but I’m short on time as well as imagination here…

Not to mention I’ve just wasted about 10 minutes trying to find an actual photo of the facility where Zach is starting his new job TODAY! with the City of Dallas. Obviously the city doesn’t publicize nitty-gritty photos of “how the sausage is made” or, in this case, “how the residues are disposed of” even though this is a vital public service. In this modern world, everyone expects clean water to flow from the taps, the lights to come on when you flip a switch on the wall, and all our household appliances to work on schedule (lemme tell ya, I have gained a new appreciation for the simple washing machine)

That aerial view of the facility is the closest I could get - Zach will be in the water chemistry lab, which is one of the buildings near the front. He will get to operate a wide variety of machines, so his experience will be much broader;  at Quest he would’ve been primarily working with one of their large blood chemistry analyzers.

In celebration, I went ahead and pulled the trigger on that quarter horse tattoo I have contemplated for decades now, ever since I was competing with dear ol’ Quigley.  Of course I’ll post a photo when some of the redness fades away, but it’s Orren Mixer’s ideal horse portrait in B & W. It took the nice young man almost 5 hours and I have a new appreciation for the art created on human flesh!

So I’m stiff and sore this morning, partially from the immobility and also from the Italian food Peran & I  indulged in last night in a low-key Father’s Day celebration.

(Zach should be working in that red brick building in the upper left-hand corner; this is the best street-level view I could find) Mom will just have to cruise by herself at some point to get better photos!

Photo Drop

Most of the gang’s here (actually only 7 of us but that was a decent turnout for a warm summer’s day)

Our beautiful Ellis County Courthouse looked so awesome in the morning sunlight, I had to snap a quick shot as I pulled up to traffic light

               Bobbie’s daughter came to ride with us - Happy Birthday my friend!!!

Gotta get on with things this morning as my poor mom wasn’t feeling well last night - at least it is a great relief to be able to do simple things like laundry without having to jump up a dozen times to restart the recalcitrant machine. 
 

The Dose Makes the Poison

 Can’t recall where I first read that chestnut, but nothing is more true! I started to title this “ALL Alcohol is Poison” just to drive the point through my thick skull… Absolutely no one pinned me down & poured merlot down my throat; it was naught but peer pressure. I drank ONE & only one mini 6-oz bottle last night with my friend**, yet I felt the sleep-disrupting, mildly foggy-headed effects this AM. (Jaime had 2 as we kidded her she was “cut off” bcz she couldn’t twist off the cap, and apparently she’s still asleep this morning)

** much more economical to drink at home at approximately $2/serving than to pay $8-10 a glass at the restaurant. 

It is wild to me as I look around and see the havoc that alcohol wreaks: this legal drug which is so firmly entrenched in our culture. I watched it destroy the life & family of my uncle, who was a lifelong alcoholic, as I continue to see its ill effects spread throughout so many others - friends, acquaintances, clients… My former receptionist Tamara is slowly dying of cirrhosis; it’s tragic to witness.

I missed my follow-up phone consultation with the nutritionist on Wednesday since I was snowed under with emergencies: another C-section and a sick puppy belonging to my housekeeper. Not much to report since I can’t discern much benefit (yet?) from the new supplement regimen. As usual, I have not been terribly compliant in my diet - I remain “flawed & imperfect”. But I’ll keep trying - I heard a inspiring segment yesterday about a group called Girl Trek which encourages women to do simple & easy  interventions like getting out of your house to walk for 30 minutes a day. 30 minutes sounds like Mount Everest at this point, but we’ve all gotta start somewhere. “Never give up, never surrender “…

The Reluctant Friend

 It’s either Day 5 or Day 7 of my potential Covid exposure, depending on how you wanna count things. (I saw Zach last Thursday which was before he got sick - that was the day Victoria went to urgent care) Zach broke with illness on Saturday and stayed well out of arm’s reach when Mom was delivering - ??? Must not have been that vital; I can’t even remember what I was taking him besides the registration sticker for his car…

I’ve had some weird headaches which I am writing off more to atmospheric changes and stress than Covid - everything else with me seems to be the same ol’, same ol’! Things are running at their normal hectic pace at the clinic - I’ve got to go change the bed linens in the horse trailer and sweep it out since my friend is coming down from Arkansas for me to work on her little dog’s ear. I had to run into town last night to the laundromat to wash said linens because our washing machine has given up the ghost. I’m waiting for the Home Depot delivery man now, but I didn’t want to cut it that close. She may regret her choices when I inform her that the AC is non-operational in the horse trailer, but I’ll take her out a fan. It’s getting fairly warm and humid around here but it should be tolerable for one night, we generally have a decent breeze up here on top of the hill. Beggars can’t be choosers after all!

I need to get moving but it’s certainly cozy when Izzy settles herself on my lap

I hope Zach feels well enough to go with me this afternoon to pick up an upgraded habitat for Mila the Burmese python. I want to use her old habitat for Claude the beaded lizard since the homemade wooden box she’s living in is water-damaged - I couldn’t even get one of the doors open last night. Zach has stars in his eyes about getting a huge custom-made enclosure for Mila which would be great, but it’s something neither one of us can afford right now.

Jaime will just have to settle herself in and wait for my return - on Saturday, by God, I plan on riding! New Mexico is now exactly one month away and Dr M confirmed  she will be able to work for me.

https://www.customcages.com/

r/Tragedeighs

 I’m well aware that I waste FAR too much time skimming social media - but I swear, on Reddit you can find every permutation & combination imaginable of bizarre stories and family tragedies - even a little honest-to-God news with spirited debate here & there! It's very entertaining...

Tragedeigh = a given name that has been deliberately misspelled or completely made up to appear more unique than it actually is.

It’s also a good place to read about situations even more screwed-up than your own, misery loving company & so forth… here we are going into day 5 and I seem to be stable: not feeling great but certainly not feeling like I’m coming down with (a new case of) Covid either. Zach sounded a little bit better last night but he still didn’t want me to risk delivering his birthday presents (not much, really, - just a couple of polo shirts and a small set of Legos as a gag gift). 

I’m staring down the barrel of one month before my beloved New Mexico trip and I am questioning my stamina A.) to make that drive and B.) to complete any rides. I am sick & tired of being sick & tired, but if I give up all my recreational activities, what then? I am already down on myself for neglecting my home but I’ve got to save most of my energy for the clinic these days. Yesterday I took out a nasty splenic tumor from a couple’s beloved 10-year-old German shepherd. He did well, but as always we had to have that extensive discussion that there aren’t any guarantees! Maximus couldn’t carry on with intermittent internal bleeding of what I suspect is a malignant tumor - I consoled them that of course it would be reasonable to contemplate euthanasia (he had collapsed at home one night, necessitating a trip to the veterinary ER), but they wanted to try. Hopefully I’ve bought him some time. These are the kind of cases that cement my resolve - I’m the only one in this part of the county that can do these things. The emergency clinic is too expensive (as is the referral surgical center across town), and most of my younger colleagues seem to be terrified of surgery?

I’ve got to keep on keeping on - for myself (what kind of "endurovet" would I be if I stopped distance riding?!?), for my son (I can't dump this Godawful mess in his lap!), for my employees & clients. Still suffering an extreme case of aggravation-with-spouse, but my farm hand did complete some of the mowing & smoothed out some of the ruts in the driveway, then acted very strangely as he literally backed away from me when I went in for the goodnight hug last weekend. He then tried to deny it, but I'm too tired to argue.

                                   "East Texas rain gauge" - all too true, unfortunately!

& here Misti forwarded an “action shot” from yesterday’s splenectomy… (a video would’ve been even more dramatic - the only thing saving Maximus from bleeding to death was the fat pad overlying his spleen: when I pulled it back, this little artery was spurting merrily. Very much a “now you see it/now you don’t” situation. The primary tumor was actually fairly small, but you can see in the green circle where it had ruptured through the capsule of his spleen. Fingers crossed as we await his biopsy report but as I’ve already said, we’re basically buying Maximus some more (good quality) time with his family.

No, don’t routinely wear a cap and mask, nor am I in the habit of coughing or sneezing onto my patients 

Z-Day!!!

 I know I’ve recounted Z’s birth story in my past blogging, but obviously that was part of my Spark People blogs that I didn’t manage to preserve. I have skimmed lots of advice columns & social-media forums over the years, but have yet to find anything which matched the cruelty and arrogance of my ex-husband. He invited his girlfriend (of course he was still vociferously denying she was a girlfriend: she was his “friend” and “coach”) to the birth of his son. Excuse me, I thought the mother was the one who warranted a coach?!? My own mother couldn’t be there since I was restricted to 2 non-medical personnel at my bedside. Even typing it out now, it’s unbelievably effed-up - in retrospect I should’ve found my spine and kicked them BOTH out, but I was still following my Gandhi-like path of taking the high road on the remote chance that my marriage might be salvageable. (Insert your armchair diagnoses of PTSD & Stockholm Syndrome here)

At any rate, I don’t want to dwell on the past today - unfortunately, Victoria brought back the plague (Covid) from her bachelorette trip and has now infected Zach. He went to urgent care for his Paxlovid yesterday so I hope I can at least drive by today, hurl his gifts through the front door, and blow him a kiss… Upside: we’ll be able to attend Karen & William’s granddaughter’s 3rd BD blowout this afternoon; she shares her BD w/Zach so I have no legitimate excuse for ever forgetting it! Karen forbid me to buy her toys (“she has plenty”) but no power on earth can stop me from buying her some cutesy baby-girl clothes! I have an old picture of Zach wearing one of my dance recital costumes when he was about three years old - cross-dressing him was fun and in no way insinuated that he “felt like a girl”, no matter how many jokes I made about wishing he was a horse-crazy little girl instead of a war-mongering boy. 

Downside: ain’t nobody got time to be sick around here, but I’m upping my supplement game and taking a little ivermectin just in case. From the looks of things I will know by the middle of next week if I’ve been exposed.  I’ve got a mild headache this morning but I blame that on oversleeping and not getting my coffee down the hatch as quickly as I normally do - we’re out of cream but we all must make sacrifices, I suppose. Couldn’t find the dance recital picture, but I did find a couple of cute baby pictures:

        For Zach’s first Halloween,  one of my employee’s mothers made him an adorable bull-calf costume 

Not-quite present day (last August actually; I don’t recall what occasion we were celebrating?)

Opportunity Knocks

 26 short years ago, I was closely monitoring every twitch of my full-term uterus as I marched around my house, obsessing about everything being “just right” for the arrival of Baby Zach. While I had absolutely zero control over the fact that my husband had lost his ever-loving mind**, I could control my own environment! Our little farmhouse has the master bedroom on the ground floor with two bedrooms upstairs - while my ex and I didn’t agree on much, we did agree that would be an awkward scenario for an infant. So we put our dining room table and chairs in storage and set up the nursery in the dining room. This actually worked out great, even though I wound up moving Zach into the master bedroom with me in his bassinet eventually.

** my suspicions were correct; M had taken up with Sue when I was about two months pregnant but at this point he was still denying everything - “she was just a friend“

I had painstakingly arranged three weeks of maternity leave for myself - my ob/gyn had given me false hope that I might deliver early, so I started my maternity leave that first week of June. My calculated due date was June 7 & fortunately I started having real contractions the evening of June 8. Let me not bore you with a play-by-play description - fast-forward to present day!

Zach got another job offer from the City of Dallas, which is where he believes his best opportunities lie. He really liked the supervisor there, who is an honest-to-God industrial chemist. He has started the onboarding process for the City, going for his physical, drug tests and so forth - I don’t know if he has made his apologies to Quest Diagnostics yet? I advised him to go ahead and rip off that Band-Aid because he was supposed to start there June 17th. Zach was fearful of being pigeonholed at their lab. What does Mom know about the wide, wide world of chemistry? My career path seemed simpler. (Z also consulted with his professor, who recommended the City’s position)

The only drawback to working for Dallas will be the schedule (although not really! it’s a better schedule in my opinion):  Monday thru Friday, 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM. Poor Victoria is stuck on her half-day shifts (3 PM - 3 AM) for the time being. I don’t want to joke about absence making the heart grow fonder or anything - just have to trust them to work it out.

I had just been accepted to veterinary school when Michael and I started seriously dating - that kind of jumpstarted our decision to get married, because my parents certainly didn’t approve of cohabitation. Originally we were going to maintain a commuter marriage because Michael was working for Dallas County in their utility and maintenance district at Las Colinas - I find it the height of irony that his son is also starting out as a municipal employee. (Zach tried to speak to his father about these choices - not surprisingly, he was busy! May he rot in hell)

At any rate, newlyweds only seeing each other on the weekends only lasted about three months - Michael decided to resign and talked his father into helping him out so he could come back to school full-time at Texas A&M to finish out his bachelors degree. 

I hope this is the start of a fabulous career for my son: “Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards” (not that mine seems to make a lot of sense anyway!)

I took Aphrodite to work yesterday for a check up - she is much stronger but has not gained any weight. I hope this is a change in body composition but I will amp up her feeding schedule to see if I can grow her up a little faster!

99 Lead Balloons

 …a fitting description of my mood. My sitch is improved over what it was a few short months ago, but far from where I’d like to be: financially, physically, emotionally, environmentally!!

Was it in February (pre-BD blues) when I set the mini-goal for myself: you’ve gotta see this through to your son’s graduation? I’ve managed to slog through but now I need a new goal. Gotta finish the remodeling (as you can imagine, I. Am. SO! Damn. Tired of it!!!), get my X-Ray machine re-installed (I am again, exhausted from having to explain to clients that no, we still don’t have radiographic capability), find another relief vet: Dr M has to take her husband back to MD Anderson at the end of this month for evaluation of a “spot” in his pelvic canal - of course, if intensive treatment & nursing duties commence, I will lose her help. Kristy’s mom’s ongoing battle with lung cancer continues - a tumor treated with radiation last year has begun to grow again; the only option will be removal of that lung lobe. And Misti’s FIL was hospitalized for a coronary blockage that almost led to renal shutdown! She has to take off this afternoon because she’s got to take her daughter to the orthodontist while her husband picks up his dad from the hospital. We’ll be even more shorthanded again today because Amber‘s grandmother is dying.

Fun never stops round here, does it??!!??

And my son circled back around to give me more grief on the Jeremy situation** yesterday, threatening to “distance himself” because he doesn’t understand my reasoning. Oh please, Brer Fox, don’t throw me in that briar patch! I’ve only been trying to usher Zach into adult independence for the past eight years - sternly lecturing myself to finish sawing through that gnarled umbilical cord. It was strange, because he was absolutely fine on Saturday when we met up for alfresco ramen - I had been bracing myself for a lecture then?!? 

** I’ve been practicing my own version of “charity begins at home”, helping the young man who was my lawn guy and then a temporary caretaker of the Mesquite house where I let him live rent-free for several months since he was helping me get the place straightened up and ready to be sold. I don’t think my little prince has any room to criticize me after dumping that fiasco in my lap.

And now my phone won’t even let me transfer photos since “my storage is full”, but maybe I’ll get that straightened out later also - just add it to Val‘s things to do list!

                                   At least Aphrodite is doing very well - getting hissier!

 

This, of course, is directly related to my ex-husband - but my son has inherited a few of his traits unfortunately!