End of the Trail

 Clarice has been exhibiting “sundowning” behavior - where she gets worse in the evenings, but (marginally) brightens up each morning. But last night when she refused to eat, I recognize her last steps are before her. She had finally gotten comfortable in the recliner, so I left her there last night instead of taking her to bed with me. At 4:30 AM, my bladder had me up & Clarice had disappeared? I finally found her after about 3 laps around the house - she had wandered up into the foyer & wedged herself beside the iguana habitat. I took her to bed with me, startled myself awake shortly after 6 AM when I thought she had fallen out of bed - she had not, just moved over to stretch out comatose on the opposite side of the bed. I wearily reset my alarm for 7:30, thinking I could grab another’s hour’s nap - but went ahead & got up shortly before 7:00…

Izzy had her patellar surgery yesterday & I would like her to see her sissy one last time - hopefully Clarice will keep breathing until I am able to go pick her up. Then we will have another small invalid to nurse - of course the difference being that we expect Izzy to make a complete uncomplicated recovery at a little over 1 year of age! I called Zach last night to give him one more warning (I had called him Saturday when Clarice was also doing poorly); he was fixing a late dinner with the girlfriend. He has been shopping for RINGS (I will give him my old ones which ain’t much but hopefully can be traded in - a little sooner than what I had planned, my baby’s only 24! but this mom will plead the case for a Long Engagement) Weird thing is, his father was 24 when he proposed to me - we got married much too soon; 6 mos later he was 25 & I was 21.

The freight train keeps rollin’ - closing on workshop property this Friday; need to notify architect & workmen (secure fencing is first priority), also line up water tank & go by tax office to get Bertha properly licensed & registered. It is either refreshing or horrifying that Misti & I drove an unmarked RV all the way back from FL without a single inquiry by any law enforcement officers - I really expected to be stopped at least once?!?

NRE vs ORE

 I’m always learning some new terminology, hanging out on social media with some of my younger colleagues!

“NRE” = New Relationship Energy

(My young friend was describing the ecstatic phase of a new relationship when ya can’t keep your hands off each other - yes I remember that stage well, even though it’s like a fond distant memory now)

Old Relationship Energy these days seems to consist of P doing his dead-level best to avoid all contact with me - he was gone when I got home last night about 6:30, showed up briefly just as my Star Trek was coming on (I joked: “Hurry, honey - you’re just in time!” - shall we just say that P is NOT a Star Trek fan!), then left again to take care of some volunteer fire dept business… He reappeared about 8:30, fixed his dinner & isolated himself in the kitchen…

When I reached around him to hug him from behind (it was lonely without Miss Izzy, he had taken her up to the surgery center for her knee surgery this AM), I could feel him cringing away from me - but as usual I was too tired & stressed to make an issue of it. At 3 AM in desperation I took a quarter of a Xanax - I had dozed off briefly but my racing mind had reawakened me shortly before midnight. This translates into a foggy head this morning but I had to get a little bit of sleep.

Clarice‘s blood work has improved - her pancreatic numbers have returned to normal as have her kidney function values; however, she still shows significant inflammation so I put her on a new antibiotic yesterday. She’s eating well but this morning she vomited right after she got up - we’ve obviously still got a sluggish GI tract. I would like to think her mentation is somewhat improved, although she still qualifies as a zombie dog. On we go - as I mentioned, I’m not undertaking any heroics at this stage, just good supportive care. I took her skin sutures out yesterday which she did not appreciate in the least.

Quick photo dump:

No this is not one of my patients (restaurant prop)

We got one brief stroll on the beach between raindrops

Small private beach at our hotel

Crossing the Mighty Mississippi River

Misti piloted Big Bertha very well (I drove the first part & the last part, she drove the middle)

 

Que Sera, Sera

 I hospitalized Clarice on IV fluids & antibiotics last week (Mon - Thurs) in one last-ditch effort to support her through post-op pancreatitis with impaired kidney function (her WBC count was 32K, creat 3.1 for any of those interested in “cold hard numbers”) - not necessarily disastrous, but very serious in my Ancient One!

She perked up quite a bit (although normal mentation has never returned), Kristy took fabulous care of her while Misti & I completed our mission of retrieving our new “home base”, the mobile unit, from Pensacola. Unfortunately it drizzled rain on us from the moment we landed, so we had a nice meal, then hung out in our hotel room, resting up for the big push home Thursday. Travel was uneventful (Big Bertha actually handles quite nicely) & we pulled into Red Oak shortly before 9 PM (a little over 12 hrs on the road). Clarice declined again after IV support withdrawn - I really thought I was losing her Saturday night but she’s still breathing this AM. She will still eat if hand-fed, but I’ll recheck her bloodwork today to help me with my decision. I know the time for heroics is past, I’m not going to turn her into a Zombie Dog experiment.

This next series of obstacles looms before me like a steeplechase as we work through our last couple of weeks of appointments before shutting down operations in Red Oak & packing up for our transit to Ferris. We should be closing on Ferris property on Wednesday (have I heard anything more from the ambitious city planners of Ferris? That would be “No”!**); I need to put my architect & construction crew on alert so we can start ASAP (improved fencing first), then line up WATER (I’ve spoken to a company that supplies water to construction sites - we should be able to have our own little supply tank while I fight things out with the city to try to get city water to the property).

I had to block Alex after several weeks of increasing drama for my own sanity - the lifeline is withdrawn & Romeo & Juliet are going to have to figure things out, I’ve got enough to deal with in my own backyard. Someone tried to hack my debit card Friday (WalMart in Bentonville AR?) so I had to cancel it - I can work off clinic MC while they issue me a new one… Zach needs to sort out his fall semester expenses (he should still be able to draw tuition from his college fund, but we seem to go round & round about this every time he registers), and when we are able to talk face-to-face we need to have a serious conversation about downsizing his collection. He’s GOT to concentrate on schoolwork as he enters what I hope is his final push to get that bachelor’s degree.

                   Still eating!

**if by some miracle we do work out a deal on this Ferris property? it would be great to have it strictly from the standpoint of the nice barns and pens, some of which could be converted to dog kennels since we don’t have a great percentage of our practice as large animal work. But I don’t have any more time to wait I have to have a place to park and work!

The Struggle is Real

 Clarice is struggling to live, I’m struggling to survive this trial-by-fire of clinic relocation with my sanity intact (more or less), Peran has trekked to CO to “find himself”, lose those last 20 lbs or whatever, & Zach starts the fall semester of what I hope will be the final push to achieve his bachelor’s degree by next summer…

I put Clarice on my own surgery table Friday afternoon in sheer desperation, removing a 2-cm pancreatic tumor and ignoring the little speckles which I’m afraid may have been metastases… Her mentation is not normal, she has no appetite and I should’ve brought home more anti-nausea medication. As my friend & colleague is fond of saying, that’s why they call it “practice”!

Misti and I are flying to Pensacola bright & early Wednesday morning to spend what I hope is one glorious day on the beach before driving the mobile unit home on Thursday. I have to decide whether to burden another one of my staff members with Clarice’s care - I could also hospitalize her at the ER or take her back to the diagnostic clinic, although I’m not too thrilled with them at the moment. Dr R was off Friday, I couldn’t seem to get the ball rolling, which is why I did her surgery myself (now as to whether it was “done right”, we’ll see how it goes). In my present mood I am leaning towards taking her to the ER - it isn’t like I want anything heroic, just medication administration, hand feeding and maybe some supplemental fluids. I’ve got to recheck her lab work today. I already signed a DNR at the diagnostic clinic.

I’ve already gotten three calls from my boy this morning as he gets ready to start life as a commuter student again - he got the day started off right at the gym, calling me at 6:15 to ask “Wassup?” I replied “Not me!” but I reluctantly rolled out at 6:30…

We’ve had instant relief from our drought with heavy thunderstorms rolling in last night. I wish I had gotten before & after pictures of our pond - it was critically low yesterday, this morning it’s brimming full! Zach says no one seems to know how to drive in the rain, surface streets in Mesquite are flooded.

A humorous riff on “Jesus guiding the surgeon’s hands”

Peran sent me a few pictures from his expedition 

A Man of Action

 As I type this, my “man of action”** is probably having his breakfast before he continues his expedition to Denver for this mysterious health-related seminar. He has suffered a mild regain, which as we all know is not uncommon in your weight loss/self-improvement efforts. I peeked at his last weigh-in sheet from the supplement store, which showed he had regained about 12 pounds 3 wks ago - watching him walk around the house these days, I think it’s probably pushing 20 pounds now. Of course that’s not the end of the world, but I can tell how much he hates it - he has buckled down on salad consumption and don’t even ask about a splurge at a restaurant! He will still occasionally go to the custom pizza place in town where he can get a cauliflower crust pizza…

** in this endless death-by-1000-cuts relocation scheme, I could call the first major step the disassembling and reassembling of a metal run-in shed that was in the backyard of the clinic. There was no point in me leaving it for the wrecking ball - our own modest shed (built by ex almost 30 yrs ago) got blown over a couple of years ago…

The guys got it up just in the nick of time as we had long-awaited rain Wednesday night to break our horrendous drought - we let the ponies have the run of the property while they were working and Tuesday night one of our neighbors texted to say a couple of the horses had gotten out on the road. I had just showered off but Peran dashed out to start rounding them up - when I griped at him for not answering his phone (I was trying to coordinate this roundup) he made the quip about being a "man of action". It made me snort and diffused the tension - of course it’s always scary when livestock gets out & I freely admit my patience is thin these days!

Clarice continues her slow decline as I play phone tag with the surgery center - if I can’t get a definitive answer today I’m gonna put her on my own table, damn the torpedoes!

I can’t give up on such a voracious appetite and will to live

Izzy is helping with the "intensive care" (she knows Mommy is upset)

It may not look like much from here, but this is awesome shade for the ponies

 in our drought-ravaged pasture

Meanwhile, the extent of Mom's "self-care" is taking Z for some back-to-school shopping

at NorthPark Mall; we have hiked many a mile down these corridors!

I did splurge on a pair of Doc Martens for myself, I hope they prove to be comfortable on my ol' crooked toes. I'm glad to see Z tackling the new semester with renewed enthusiasm (no he didn't pass Calculus last spring, but "the 3rd time's the charm"!

Photographic Evidence

 

                                       Clarice visits Norma's Cafe, a Dallas institution for "down home cookin'"

                  Our latest HS volunteer intern went back to school but brought us all coffee mugs w/Hershey's kisses (you know how I complain that wholesome dietary efforts are so often for naught around here??) I don't know if these sentiments are true, but I do appreciate the chocolate!

Kitchen area of "office trailer"

Better than a porta-pottie

Decisions, Decisions

 Yesterday was an even longer day than usual, since I was up at 5:30 AM to take Clarice for her evaluation at the Animal Diagnostic Clinic. Of course I had to drop her off to get on with my workday so I didn’t get to meet the illustrious Dr R (internal medicine specialist) but she sounded, shall we say “young” on the phone… The full scans have yet to be interpreted (they go to a radiologist, one of the benefits of dealing with the specialty center), but there does appear to be a nodule in Clarice‘s pancreas - I can pat myself on the back that my diagnostic sense still seems to be functional. Understandably, Dr R is concerned with Clarice‘s long-term heart condition and probable pulmonary hypertension, so she suggests medical management & possibly chemotherapy to slow things down - but I intend to talk to one of the surgeons today. They should know I would have no hard feelings if they attempt surgery and Clarice dies before, during, or in the aftermath of this procedure. I know she has discomfort because she has these restless spells in the middle of the night - neither of us are sleeping well.

I may put her on my own surgery table if no one is feeling bold - better that she die while I am attempting to do something than for me to watch her struggle. She was stressed out by our separation yesterday - we went to a cafe across the road to celebrate, the very nice waitress let me smuggle her in in her little dog bed (at 100° at 7 o’clock in the evening, it was still way too hot for her to wait in the car). Needless to say she earned herself a generous tip!

Next week I have to go pick up the mobile unit, which might be the perfect opportunity to have Clarice hospitalized for surgery? I have booked the movers the week of September 19, ordered a shipping container which I will use for temporary storage, and I am first on the list with the x-ray service company so they can pack up my unit and put it in temporary storage…

I mailed the nice young man a check for the “tiny home” trailer which will be our employee lounge/restroom  so I will probably go pick that up this weekend. He is quite the entrepreneur building these tiny trailer homes from the ground up - I’ll post some pictures when I can transfer from my phone, the never-ending challenge!

Of course I’ve written this entire post without a Star Trek reference, but that’s not counting the soundtrack running in my head!