My Not-So-Funny Valentine

 There’s a reason I have that tidal wave from “Interstellar” stuck in my head: my own internal symbol of what my life feels like - as if everything’s gonna come crashing down upon me if I don’t keep my figurative plates spinning, balls juggling, etc…

I knew something “tweren’t right” when Mr Silas wasn’t near the front of the line for breakfast yesterday - turned out Poor Thing fell in a washout which has eroded the fenceline below the barn. Fortunately he did not panic; lying there calmly upside down, waiting for help! We mobilized the troops by calling up all the able-bodied neighbors who were within range, which turned out to be 5 guys & a Polaris to get him hauled out. Amazingly enough, Silas was unhurt although coated in mud, nose to tail.

I was even able to make my long-overdue dermatologist’s appointment, a little late - I had called straight off to cancel, but when we managed to extract him by 9:30, I called them back to say I could still make it a few minutes late, they told me to come on in!

Stacked on top of that, Peran went with me to do the final clean-out of mom‘s little efficiency apartment at Arabella  - it’s amazing how much stuff we had in a 450 square-foot space!

I’ll try to post a few photos of our dramatic rescue later…

                                                                Mud-puppy Silas

Remembrance of Things Past

Yesterday was a stress-fest between “an ordinary Monday” & the fact that Zach drove out to visit his dad** - Z had asked him to help fix the grill on his car even though I advised Z that “juice probably wasn’t worth the squeeze” - I’d have been happy to deal with the little body shop in Mesquite who fixed a scratched & dented fender on my little Buick for a reasonable cost…

** Zach must do 100% of any effort involved in maintaining a relationship with his father as far as calling him, driving out to his place, etc. etc. Of course I realize it’s completely up to them to negotiate their adult relationship, but Zach wants so badly for his father to behave somewhat normally - from what I can see, that’s never gonna happen. My ex-mule Coyote is still alive at age 33 even though he looks like the wrath of God (aka a walking skeleton) - I know Michael has done none of the routine maintenance one needs to do for a senior equine like dentistry, special feed, etc. Zach sent me some photos which just broke my heart all over again - while I would dearly love to bring Coyote home and give him the kind of pampering that he deserves, I know Michael would keep him from me just for spite. (Long backstory: Michael and I had switched horses when I was pregnant with Zach since Coyote was still fairly green & had tossed me a few times, so I took over his Arabian Wynkhy. When everything came to a head, Zach was about eight months old - Michael was moving out & he threatened to take Wynk to the slaughterhouse. I could only save one animal at a time so I let him take Coyote while I kept Wynk. I gave Wynk the TLC he deserved, until he died peacefully at age 25)
So it took me a long time to go to sleep last night - grieving my ex-mule, worrying about my son, etc.

Why should I have any involvement in these matters at all, you might ask? I had to get a play-by-play from my son who called me multiple times throughout the day (last call being The Final Synopsis after Z returned home about 9 PM) Oh, & Victoria learned that Alex & Haley are still in Chicago;  Haley is expecting their second child as Alex has still not found long-term steady employment.

Atlas Shrugged

 I’ve made no secret of the fact that the disruption/uprooting & translocation of my clinic has been a major life-changing event (not in a good way!) for me. I find myself echoing my son as he exclaims: “I was brought up to love, take pride & believe in my country - what is happening!?!”

I have never read Ayn Rand, but I need to - after I catch up on all the contemporaneous material my son wants me to examine in our Socratic quest to understand WTF is going on?!? He has been sampling a lot of YouTubers, some of whom are absolute nutcases, but a few make some valid points…

Ultimately, though, I must concentrate on that which is within my control - which is just my immediate circle of family/friends/clients & colleagues. I have a bad tendency to overreach and (try to) take responsibility for things which are none of my effin’ business. 

Saturday morning, I went into town for a meeting with our trail riding group and the Corps of Engineers who manage Lake Bardwell. Our trails suffered extensive damage during the flooding in 2023 and have been closed for many months now. Our helpful government agencies want us to avoid injury (ha! more like liability!) so we had to develop an extensive plan to ensure trail markers are reinstalled with emergency vehicle access… after months of negotiations, we will finally have our first work weekend at the end of this month, after which we should have access to the trails again.

We went for brunch afterwards and I offered to bring Silas for my friend Linda to ride yesterday - she has not ridden all winter, thinks her older gelding is too unconditioned and still doesn’t quite trust her youngster. And while Silas was his normal gentlemanly self, Linda complained that his stride was “too long” and of course got stiff & sore as she is out of “riding shape”. (Anyone who thinks the horse does all the work - I could prove a thing or two to you) Twoie turned tail and ran away from me yesterday morning; I didn’t feel like chasing him down so I brought Baraq - after a couple of hours of jigging around on him/worrying about Linda’s experiences, I came home with a splitting headache. I took some Tylenol which didn’t touch it; a couple of hours later, I took some ibuprofen but finally had to lie down to shake it off. Lesson learned: I cannot take responsibility for everyone else upon my shoulders

& Here We Are…

 … on the last day of January, staring at those blunt words on the paper: “unspecified dementia”. Somehow it hits a little different, seeing it in black & white - I had to take my mom back to the orthopedic doctor yesterday. Something about needing to take her out seems to bring down the deluge - we had tremendous thunderstorms Wednesday night w/3.5” of rain - luckily it had simmered down to heavy mist & fog by the time I had to pick her up Thursday morning. (Fortunately not as cold as it was 3 weeks ago, the last time I had to get her out)

The nurse gave me a folder with her current health care regimen for Dr. Moore to review, and as I said, seeing those stark words: unspecified dementia, mood disturbances - hit me like a bucket of ice water. I would’ve called her behavior more depressed than demented - I guess that shows how little I know! Once again, she was uncommunicative as I tried to chitchat with her about interesting cases at the clinic - see my previous references to Melissa’s Lab with the splenic tumor or Kristy’s Sphinx cat vs the dental floss. (Well, **I** found it interesting that it took Gollum 4 days to poop out the little red rubber plug with the last 16” of dental floss, but he is now right as rain!)

Kristy just hosted a small family birthday cake & ice cream gathering for Gunner’s 9th which was fun. I was joking with her that where else could you get a house call to check on a post surgical patient?

I’ll try to post some pictures later; I need some fond memories

Curiosity & Cats

 We all know that saying, don’t we??!!?? Friday was apparently a day of good deeds: my girl Melissa who is busy-busy raising her three young kids, but still comes in to fill in occasionally as needed - needed an exploratory surgery/splenectomy on her old Lab. The specialty clinic quoted her $10K, but we were able to do this for her for about 900 bucks… uncomplicated major surgery should’ve given me enough warm fuzzy feelings but then Friday night, Kristy’s Sphinx cat ate a spool of dental floss!

I don’t know what it is about cats and linear foreign bodies: string, yarn, ribbons, Christmas tinsel, dental floss, etc. - but they swallow these things and it is the worst of news because as the intestines try to pass this material, it bunches them up (“plication”) and saws them up like a tiny chainsaw. So I told Kristy it was Go Time, and Friday night I put him on my surgery table and got to practice a new technique which is using a section of a red rubber catheter like a shuttle to get the string or dental floss out. Pretty cool since you can get it out with a single intestinal incision instead of multiples: of course, every incision is an opportunity to leak, dehisce, or create adhesions in the future. So far so good for Mr Gollum.

But here we are with only a few days left in January, and I’ve got to decide what to do about my poor mother? I really think she needs to stay in skilled nursing at The Villages. I fear sending her back to Arabella is just like playing Russian roulette, waiting for her next fall because she will not “ask for assistance as needed”. At least with the limited dexterity of her right hand, she has not been able to pick at the splint on her left wrist so everything seems to be healing up OK. We return to the orthopedic doctor this Thursday.

Twoie continues to be a solid citizen in the couple more training rides we’ve been able to have…

https://youtu.be/kC5YJghpC54?si=uqZwN36dQe9M6BPQ

Back to the Future

 (Alternative title: “A New Hope” - like it or not, Star Wars has saturated every inch of our pop culture, even this die-hard Trekkie ain’t immune!)

I had confused my dear friend Bobbie by referring to Tony as my “padawan” (Jedi-in-training), but I ‘splained it all to her yesterday when I brought Tony along to our mini-trail ride. He was initially apprehensive when I told him we were meeting my friends because he "didn’t want to ride fast", but he relaxed when I told him not to worry, it’s just a slow trail ride. But it was the best possible re-introduction to work for TwoFace: a 2 hr amble, no significant obstacles, no crowds, zero excitement! I wasn’t satisfied with any of the headstalls I’d rigged up for him, so I wound up just clipping reins to his halter - he did great. I’ll put him in a sidepull for our next ride… “If it’s good enough for Quigley, Sahara, Baraq, and Moonie” - your control as a rider does not come merely from pulling on the mouth & head; it also flows from your seat & legs. “Let the Force flow through you” - I don’t feel so bad, quoting Sir Alec Guinness!

I had high hopes of riding again today, but the cold front is coming. Better not press my luck; got a little more storm prep to do: I bought small space heaters to put under the sinks at the clinic; have to stock up on a little bit of feed. Gotta take my mom’s little bit of laundry back to rehab and see if I can lift her spirits - yesterday she was pretty withdrawn & depressed. Hard for me to tell how much of this is physical and how much is psychological? The future is unclear.

I need a short-term goal to fixate on - for now it will be Twoie‘s reconditioning. He reminds me so much of dear Quigley, without all of the knotheadedness, thankfully! And of course Mr Silas was an angel for Tony. Too many horses, too little time!!!

                                                                Twoie led off most of the way

Me & Twoie, Tony & Silas, Amber & Aspen (it's refreshing to find a palomino not named Goldie or Sunny!)

Flowers for Val-gernon II

 (Usually, once an appropriate title** floats into my foggy lil’ head, I am off & typing - but this holiday scramble has me all messed up!)

My poor mom fell on the eve of Christmas Eve (Monday evening the 23rd) -  one of the aides called me to let me know, but she said mom seemed fine so I did not drop everything & run over there. However, on Tuesday when the home healthcare nurse came to check on her, it was obvious she had done damage to her left arm - so back to the ER! I am thankful that whoever examined her initially must’ve heard something so they did a chest X-ray & diagnosed not only a broken left wrist but lobar pneumonia.

This translated into five days in the hospital, back on IV antibiotics. I then arranged for mom to be moved to the rehab unit back at The Villages. This caused some confusion when the young lady came to do mom’s mental evaluation: she asked for her address, and Mom began reciting “515 E Ann Arbor Ave”which of course is where she used to live in her cottage. (Obviously she refuses to accept the fact that her new residence is at Arabella)

The orthopedic doctor will not be casting her arm until January 9th - I have half a mind to do it myself, but I guess I will play by the rules. Of course she is completely helpless now, with her weak right arm with the frozen shoulder & damaged wrist from last spring’s injury. Thankfully her appetite has come back with vigor once we got her pneumonia treated. I am getting over there to be sure she gets at least one solid meal per day. 

Also thankful that her little dog Abbie has settled in just fine with my rowdy crew - buddying up to the little ‘uns (Izzy  & Tina Fea)while ignoring my thundering horde of big dogs. I have no idea if mom will be able to return to Arabella or not after this standard 30-day rehab period.

I am coughing up a lung myself with what I presuppose is allergic bronchitis/sinus crud but I’m just trying to survive the holidays. It is a symptom of my low mental state that I didn’t miss being in horse camp last weekend when we had severe thunderstorms - nothing to prove!

** strange that I published this 11 months ago: https://endurovetssparkjourney.blogspot.com/2024/02/flowers-for-val-gernon.html

Photo dump:

                                      The closest thing to a Christmas postcard I'll send out

\