My assault on the world begins now

My Girl

2011-02-03T14:51:00.000-08:00

2010

2011-02-03T14:47:00.000-08:00

I’ve been trying to write this post in my head for a long time, and I still don’t know exactly what I want to say. After two and a half years of fighting cancer tooth and nail, we lost our Princess Honeydog on July 27th of 2010. It became clear to us that the tumor was growing in March, and we dedicated the last few months of her life to spending quality time with her, and making her as happy as possible.

I don’t think I’ve ever shared here what Cameron and I did when honey became ill and we decided to pursue an aggressive course of radiation. We knew we would be able to *barely* afford it, but beyond money, our commitment to Honey and her health was to spend as much time with her as possible, and to make sure her needs were always met. Cameron changed his work schedule so that he worked only nights and I worked only days. In the two years she battled cancer, the longest stretch of time Honey was alone was about four hours, and we arranged for a neighbor to stop by. We only went on trips where Honey could come, and traveled separately when it was not an option. Honey has been cross country with us twice, she’s frolicked in all corners of Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, seen the Grand Canyon, 4 corners, the painted desert, Carlsbad Caverns, Dollywood (yes really), California, Texas, Arizona, Alabama, and even been rafting on the Nantahala. She’s swum in the Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf, and almost every river, sinkhole and lake we came across. She was our baby, our first priority and our best friend.

Through the last few months of her life, Cameron and I talked knew she would tell us when she was ready to go, and we developed a plan with our vet so she would be as comfortable as possible. Until the end, Honey was full of life and surprises. For her last month we fed her a lamb chop for dinner every night, and she developed her own special way of letting us know that was ‘chop time’ (this involved significant tail wagging and some growling, then leading us to the kitchen. I said SPECIAL, not subtle). And on her last morning she stood up and greeted the vet with a wagging tail. I will miss her every day. I was truly blessed to share my life with her.

A month of significant dates :)

2010-02-23T16:24:00.000-08:00

Honey and I had our 10th anniversary on February 4th 2010.

Honey's 2 year radiation anniverasry is Friday the 26th of February, 2010.

As of February 19th 2010, her lungs and lymph nodes were still all clear. 'Average survival' for canine chondrosarcoma treated with radiation is a year and a half.

:)

2010 :)

2010-01-22T10:34:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to do a quick update – Honey had xrays to check for metastasis on December 7 and she was STILL ALL CLEAR!!! This is huge – average survival for this type of cancer post radiation is 1.5 – 2 years. Honey will celebrate her 2 years in February. Over the holidays she went with us to Santa Fe for a week and got to wear sweaters, take rides in the car and eat snow. She loved it. I’ll let you know how her Feb xrays come out, but here are some recent pics of Hun:

With her friend Copper

Snoozing

In the car on the ride to Taos, NM

Exploring with her people :)

Not wild about the deeper snow, but just fine with being held

Overlooking the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico

HUNNDOG!

2009-09-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

In the car (C just texted me this)

On a morning walk with her (chuckit) ball

at the vet waiting to be examined by the doctor.

19 Months Out of Radiation

2009-09-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

And Honey's lymph nodes and lungs are still all clear :) She jumped up on the reception desk when we walked into the vet's office and ran over to the receptionist, stepped over her keyboard and licked her face. This is my 9 (SOON TO BE 10) year old dog with cancer. And arthritis. And cataracts. Who's blind in one eye. She remembered exactly what we wanted on the scale, and climbed up in the chair in the exam room to sit between us. Spoiled freaking dog.

She still can’t breathe out of her nose, and one of our friends suggested Benadryl. While it hasn’t magically reopened her sinuses, it’s for sure helped her sleep sounder and longer, and magically, we’re able to stick a ball in her mouth once instead of 5 times during the night. This means we get a full night’s sleep as well, and it is BEAUTIFUL.

Summer of the Hunndog - 2009

2009-09-09T13:05:00.000-07:00

Honey helping me eat salmon sushi at an outdoor sushi place in Larchmont

Howdy! Summer out here is HOT. I know I should have expected that, it being summer and all, but C’s family came to visit and I was at least 100 every day. I had to arm wrestle a woman at kmart for the last table fan, which we’ve owned for about 5 days and hasn’t been turned off yet. The fires haven’t helped. It was cruddy and smuggy and yeech for a few days, and the station fire was clearly visible from our roof. One of our neighbors also had a heart attack, and since he has Carmine, a 12 year old 65 pound fluffy mutt with a pinched nerve who gets along with Honey, we figured we were the best option for him while his pack was in the hospital recovering. It took about 2 weeks, and by that point Carmine and Honey were well and truly a pack. I was never more than 7 inches from an old hot dog. I’d take a shower and by the time I was finished they’d both be standing in the bathroom looking at me like ‘omg it’s got her, what are we gonna do?!?’ While Carmine was with us, Honey developed a urinary tract infection. She woke me up at about 4 am and asked to go out, which is WAY out of character. I woke C up because I was nervous to go outside at 4 am, and made him promise to watch us from the window while we walked. I got Honey and Carmine on leashes and we went downstairs and out front and while they were sniffing around for a suitable place to tinkle, one of the homeless people who make a living out of collecting cans and turning them in for the recycle fee started yelling at me. I think she wanted to me let in the locked parking lot to go through the building’s recycle bins, but as soon as she shouted and started to walk towards me, both dogs went NUTS. I’ve known Carmine for 3 years and never heard him bark before. Both he and Honey were at the very end of their leashes snarling. I’ve been taking care of Honey and thinking how fragile she is for so long that I totally forgot she was such a good guard dog. When she as about 2, someone tried to break into a house she was staying in, they had unscrewed about half the bars that were over the window, and Honey broke the window out with her nose. I know this because she had a tiny cut, the glass was broken outwards, and the hole in the window was nose-shaped. Needless to say, nobody ever broke in.

Honey on C's chair, on C's shirt, with a ball he gave her in her mouth

Carmine the floofy dog

The most surprising part of all this was that Honey was ok with Carmine in her space. She let us love on him and even let him on the bed (once, and very briefly) but wasn’t at all mean. I have to admit I was worried that she would be sad when Carmine finally went home, but that happened Monday and she doesn’t seem at all fussed, despite the PLAYING they did Sunday and Monday. I was shocked. Normally (well, since cancer) she exists to regulate and prevent play in other dogs, but she did that frisk / front legs down and butt up, tail waving combo in his direction. C witnessed the phenom first and was all ‘LINDSAYOMGCOMEHERERIGHTNOWYOUWONTBELIEVETHIS’ and I almost fainted. It’s been years since I’ve seen her do that to another dog (she does it to us like 3 times a day). She has been having some trouble breathing through her nose lately, and we increased her prednisone to 10 mg a day. This means she gets a charge out of barking at joggers and GOD FORBID a dog walk by on the sidewalk where she can hear its tags jingling. But so far it’s making breathing easier. In fact, I just got a text that says ‘modified ball breathage’ so that’s a step in the right direction J she will sleep for a while with the ball in her mouth, but as soon as it falls out, she wakes us up to make her feel better. Last night I got sleep in 2 hour blocks. Not fun.

Visiting her friend Arnette a month or so ago.

my... what a delightful toy...

She’s also – drumrooooooollll – 20 months out from her diagnosis!! So awesome. She’s actually due for her every three months xrays pretty soon. I’ll update again when I know how her lungs look.

awful bad weekend.

2009-06-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

My friend's dog, Maybelline, died in an accident Saturday night. She was about 2 years old, rescued from the L.A. City Pound after she was found abused and functioning as a puppy producer for a pit bull breeder. She was one of the sweetest dogs I've ever known and had a wonderful life with her owner. We will all miss her terribly.

17 months!!

2009-06-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

Honey had her every-3-month chest xrays yesterday, and apparently climbed right up on the chair in the waiting room and sat down on it like a person. The doc even examined her while she was sitting in the chair, and gave her some lay's potato chips, that spoiled brat. But the good news is that she's now 17 months out of her original diagnosis, where we were given 3-6 weeks, and her lungs are "fantastically clear" and her lymph nodes are "perfect" and her heart sounds "awesome" (a concern 'cause she's been on prednisone). Also, her energy is great and her coat is all shiny and she's HAPPY, which is the most important part :)

Hunolympian!

2009-06-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

We had a big weekend. Saturday we were up before Honey and that weirded her out considerably. But once she figured out she was going with it was all good. We headed up to an estate sale in silverlake, followed by a few stops at garage sales and then breakfast at an outdoor cafe (where she got a whole hard boiled egg) and the farmers market. Saturday was also the day the Dark Knight hit HBO so we spent the evening watching movies. Sunday we just hung out at home, except for a few walks. I was impressed that she was walking on the grass, she usually prefers sidewalk cause she has contact allergies to grass, but instead of her usual half block out-and-turn-around trick, she just kept going. I know a 7 block walk is just about nothing on most dog-walking-scales, but for Hun it's QUITE the walk. We called ehr the olympian for the rest of the day. And she even wated to play fetch yesterday afternoon!

She goes in tomorrow for chest x-rays, her first since having palliative radiation. I'm pretty sure she also needs antibiotics, her nose is pretty stuffed up.

Those strawberries were awesome!

Leaving the farmers market

sleeping on Gus

The last thing that squeaky hedgehog will EVER see...

2009-05-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

THE NIGHT VISION HUN!!!!

tramadol stepped down, and Hun feel awesome. awesome enough to kill poor hedgie. I did this with a mac, so I have a feeling the pics will be messed up.

post-palliative checkup

2009-05-26T13:01:00.000-07:00

So Honeydog weighs 62 pounds. Pretty impressive for a dog who was at an all-time low of 42 during the thick of definitive radiation side effects last year. It looks like we're out of the woods side - effet wise now, nothing should pop up, and she doesnt seem to have any sores or pain. We've been keeping her on tramadol in case she's hurting but so far it seems all good. She did feel bad Sunday, and we all just stayed in bed and watched movies until she got up, then we took her to petsmart for some noms. The vet said we can go ahead and start weaning her off tramadol and then off prednisone after about a week. She'll get some follow up xrays in July to look at her lungs.

Through Radiation, on to world dominays-HUN-s.

2009-05-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

Hun had her last dose of palliative radiation Monday and has (as of Wednesday afternoon) no side effects. I don’t think we’re out of the woods totally yet, we’re waiting until next Tuesday when she has her follow-up vet visit to clal a victory, but she can already breathe out of her nose and sleep through the night and apparently had a BLAST going to the vet every day and made a friend, Candy, who also has nasal chondrosarcoma and even looks like Honey. Boyfriend didn’t manage to get a picture because they were licking each other and wouldn’t hold still, but I’m impressed, since she started losing sight in her left eye she’s been pretty mean (scratch that, downright catty) to virtually all other dogs. Case in point - last night we had to wake her up and bribe her with duck jerky to take her for a walk at like 11pm, and she was seriously dragging – giving us these looks like ‘I cannot believe you would be so cruel as to make me ride an elevator and actually take multiple steps, you obviously live to torture doggies and don’t love me’ but its all an act, as soon as Maybelline (a grey pit-bull rescue that live in the building, about 3 years old, and mega-submissive, really a doll) and her human walked outside Honey launched herself across the sidewalk snarling with all her hackles up and teeth showing. I had to catch her in mid-air as she flew by me.

We’ve been giving her tramadol and prednisone and we’re both glad we get to start weaning her off. I think another few days on the tramadol to make sure no sores pop up and any that might be inside her sinuses have time to heal and we’ll cut the does. She’s acting completely fine though, playing tug of war and fetch, nosepunching the food container when shes ready for dinner (which is about every 45 minutes) and attempting to eat all the other dogs she can see. I think we’re going to take her to the beach over memorial day, or at least to get some pinkberry. I need to take some pictures of her for the vet, they have her day-by-day side effects photos from first round radiation and I wanted to give them the same for palliative, I think it would really help anyone whose dog is going through this, to see how hun reacted to both kinds. The problem is she wont stay still long enough for me to actually take a decent pic. Its always like honey mid-run or honey chewing on a ball or honey eating. I’ll really devote some time to it tonight, and I’ll post so everyone can see her xmen ‘do.

In other news...

2009-05-15T11:59:00.000-07:00

I'm way too freaking sensitive. I just felt a 2.0 earthquake 28 miles southeast of here.

Must be tough to be the Hundog

2009-05-15T11:20:00.000-07:00

Friday Hunday

2009-05-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

I was sick yesterday and spent the entire day in bed. Honey helped me by making sure the blankets were firmly held in place and that there were a sufficient number of balls / squeaky toys in the bed with us in case I woke up and wanted to play. This morning I was getting ready for work and she kept trying to herd me back to the bedroom. I'm not exactly sure where she learned this, but maybe from Savannah, the huskie we fostered when I was in college. She gets between you and whatever it is you're doing and looks at you, wagging until you back up. If you don't back up fast enough, she barks. And then takes a step forward, until you're effectively walking in the direction she chooses. Every time I walked into the bedroom she would hop up on the bed and lay down, and when I left again she would jump down and give me a very exasperated sigh like 'CLEARLY there's something wrong with you that you don’t want to spend the day napping with my toys.' The kicker was when I was in the shower she made a nest with the clothes I had just ironed, rocketed snot all over my shirt and then lay down on them. Like 'you think you're going to work, don't you. Cute, human. really cute.' so I was late because I had to find a snot-free getup and then iron it. Cam is taking her to the vet for her next-to-last palliative treatment today, she apparently has doggie friends there, rumor even has it that she LICKED ANOTHER FEMALE DOG ON THE NOSE AND SNUGGLED WITH HER which I find amazing because we can't get within 35 feet of another dog, regardless of gender, without Honey acting like a land shark and trying to eat someone's face. I guess the sedative the vets uses really works.....

Honey all comfyt in the car over the weekend

2009-05-13T10:56:00.000-07:00

HoN O WaR (with a backwards 'R')

2009-05-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

So we started palliative radiation yesterday. There really was no option, the tumor is bigger and stopping her breathing through her nose, but other than that she’s still my little war pig. So it was do this and slow / stop it growing for a while or have a dog who can't breathe. If the tumor was anywhere else, it wouldn't be necessary, but this will physically prevent her from breathing before the cancer becomes systemic. She came home from the vet with her face shaved and a green sharpie grid across her head to help them line up the 'zapper' and was totally her normal spunky self. We went for a walk and ran into a neighbor who had just been to the corner store and was walking home eating an ice cream, then another neighbor with a mini-bag of lays potato chips left over from lunch. Needless to say, she got the minibag of chips AND 3/4 of a vanilla ice cream bar, which she ate off the stick. So that, coupled with the fact that C has been calling her 'warpig' since she started taking prednisone, resulted in the xmen name 'HoN O WaR'. I totally want to get it in rhinestones across the back of her collar.

Palliative is really different than definitive, which is what she had in February 2008. The definitive radiation is 30 doses (!!) and has the goal of killing the tumor completely. Side effects, other nastiness insue. Palliative is 5 doses, and the goal is to reduce the inflammation around the tumor, and maybe stop / shrink it a bit. it's not a 'cure' like definitive intends to be, but to preserve the quality of life when it's necessary. The chances of side effects is vastly smaller. The doc predicted 'lots of snot, you may want to cover your furniture' (I told him that I didn’t care last time, I don't think he believes me). So she'll have her last dose Monday, and for a week or so after apparently will be a snot rocket.

I just heard about Sophie, the dog who's blog was the best guide to what honey went through, and she's been diagnosed with an additional cancer in her pelvis. So awful. The extra time you get is never going to be enough.

Recent pictures of the Hun

2009-03-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty miserable weekend.

2009-03-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

Looks like her tumor is indeed "larger in some places" according to the vet. We're doing a long course of hellishly strong antibiotics to help with the sinus infection, swelling and resulting inflammation. They haven't really started working yet. She's acting just fine, playing and prancing and wanting to go with and bogarting the bed. I, however, have been dissolving into tears every 45 minutes or so all week. Every time she makes a stuff-ed up breathing noise I go right back to that awful month where none of us slept and I was sure she was going to die at any moment. I'm leaving in about 20 minutes to go get boyfriend (who's coming home from NY, and who's plane should have landed an hour ago) and I'm glad I get to take Hun with me.

I know we got more than an extra year from the radiation. She should have died in February 2008 and its March 30 2009. And I am happy. I am grateful and humbled and I know we made the best use of that time. But I wanted to be one of those people who are still coming back to the vet for the 'every-3-months-chest-x-ray' 7 years after radiation.

Honding my breath

2009-03-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

The vet gave Honey antibiotics after our last visit, she has having some nose drainage issues. she finished the course on Thursday or Friday and by last night was draining again. We've scheduled a CT scan for tomorrow, to "check the status" of the tumor. Apparently it could be growing again. For that they do aplliative radiation, which is 5 courses instead of the 30 she had before. Hopefully we'll know tomorrow evening. About the same time the Boyfriend's plane departs for NY for the week.

one year, three weeks out of radiation and still ALL CLEAR!

2009-03-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

Honey had her last set of xrays last week, and I took the morning off work to go to the vet with her, the boyfriend and the boyfriend’s sister, who was visiting for spring break. Her lungs were still all clear, and the lump I found the week before wound up being fatty tissue and not a tumor – this makes her a full year out of radiation and still in stasis – no progression. I seriously almost hugged the vet techs. And I’m fairly sure the vet thinks I’m nuts. I directed him to this lump, on her belly and slightly smaller around than a dine, and he was surprised I’d noticed it while it was still so small. I told him I do weekly full-body dog inspections.

So the boyfriend’s sister got here last Saturday for a weeklong stay. Literally the first thing that happened was our downstairs neighbors started world war 3, and at 5 am were chasing each other around in the middle of the street screaming at each other. The first legible words we caught were “you sent naked pictures of yourself to a married American man!! You have two weeks to get your shit out and I never want to talk to you again!” None of us could figure out why it mattered that this guy was American (the neighbors are too, so it really makes ZERO sense) but after about an hour we called the cops. And then we called them the next night, and the one after…. But by Tuesday night he apparently had a new girlfriend, so we had a whole other range of noises to listen to. I’ve taken to moving chairs around on the non-carpeted areas of our living room every morning before I make coffee. So I think we all finally slept for a few nights, and then at 3 am Thursday night our toilet randomly started flushing.. And didn’t stop for about 45 minutes. I guess that’s better than it backing up, but again, no sleeping. Plus there was an early morning vet trip and my usual ‘omg Honey’s going to be sick’ flip out. Poor kid, it couldn’t have been a very cool spring break.

Honey did flip out when the bf’s sister left to fly back to Florida. It was my fault, we left her at home and took luggage for the airport trip, but I figured she’d chill out by that evening. Nope, she was still totally convinced that we had lost a pack member. Honestly, that dog is never happier than when we have overnight guests, she gets to move from bed to bed and lick lots of faces. Its quite cute, she just gets really nervous when they leave. I can’t wait for bf’s WEEKLONG trip to NY to lecture……. I’ll have to lay in a supply of nonperishable foods so I don’t starve, cause you KNOW I can’t leave her alone for a trip to the grocery store.

Tuesday Morning

2009-01-27T11:38:00.000-08:00

Honey's doing really well this week. She's bouncing around and doing her berzerker mode happy dance and bounding up and down the hall every chance she gets. There's been very little arthritis limping and lots of happy Hun rocketing around barking madly or laying on her back on the bed or couch licking our faces while her tail goes thumpthumpthump. Her radiation start date anniversary is February 5th - and this week last year she had a biopsy and we sat in a vet's office and were offered a choice between agressive and palliative care. I don't think I've ever cried harder. There was one moment I remember really clearly, she was trying to play fetch and couldnt breathe through her nose, it was the saddest thing, an old sick dog bringing the ball and then going to get it at this slow walk. She was standing right in front of me and looked at me with this awful hangdog look and i reached out and touched her nose and said 'its going to be ok, we're going to fix that thing' and her entire countanince changed. she cocked her head and her tail started wagging and her ears went up and it was like a different dog stepped in to finish the game of fetch. We weighed her the other day and she's a solid 57 pounds, heavier than she was before cancer treatment.

2009 - year of the Hundog

2009-01-22T14:03:00.000-08:00

Sorry, it’s been a while. I had laundry to do and accidentally spill bleach on, cell phones to hurl across the room, break and reassemble, dishes to wash, dry, shatter and clean up, and holiday dinners to make, fingers to burn, flu’s to catch and the entire country to drive across. Twice. I’ve been busy, people! First things first, the cytology only showed inflammation and a course of antibiotics cleared up the swelling, so I guess it was an infection. Honey had a blast on the cross country trip. We put her memory foam bed in the back seat and she napped from LA to Tallahassee. The drive took 3 days (LA to Fort Stockton TX the first day – 1,055 miles, to Baton Rouge the next day and Tallahassee by 2 pm on the third) each way (on the way back it was Houston, Lordsburg, LA) and we stopped a few times every day to play fetch and sample local beef jerky. Honey got to meet cam’s parent’s dog Fiona and my parents dog Susan, I really expected Hun to dislike Susan, but by the end of the trip they were napping side by side on the couch. Really cute. She also got to see her extended family and get thoroughly pampered. The weirdest part of all of this is that it was warm almost the entire time we were home. There was one night that was cold enough to have a fire, but other than that it was total jeans and t shirt weather, so Honey got to nap in the sun in the back yard and didn’t have to wear her sweater. The only bad thing happened the last night, in Lordsburg NM. She got a UTI at like 2 am and demanded that she be taken out NOW, which I did without realizing it was snowing. So I’m standing behind a hotel at 2 am with a pacing uncomfortable dog in a snow storm wearing a t shirt, jeans and flip flops. That was no fun. By the next afternoon we were back in LA though, and went directly to the vet before we went home. We got new furniture last weekend, but other than that it’s been pretty boring around here. Lots of fetch, cam and I cleaned the house and I cleaned out my closet. Honey doesn’t like anything moving around and we kept having to coax her out of the bathroom, which is her hiding place, while we were cleaning. Some duck jerky reassured her we weren’t moving, just killing the horrid orange couch and getting an actual grown-up model. She’s a fan of the new couch now, so it all worked out for the best. I’m posting some pics of her on the trip. My dad took a studio portrait of the three of us, but I haven’t seen it yet.

Hun in the sun

Waking up on day 1 - in Arizona

Honey with her cat Arlo

waiting on the phone

2008-12-17T14:42:00.000-08:00

this time for a cytology report on fluid taken from her left hind foot, outside toe, which is swollen to about 3 times its normal size and obviously painful, and the lymph node at the back of her left knee. Could be ‘several things’ according to the doctor. Not least of all a tumor. Doesn’t help that we're supposed to leave for Florida (driving, so Honey can come, and looking forward to spending some time just the 3 of us) Friday earlyearly. Like as early as my dad used to wake me up to go fishing. Part of me thinks whatever is wrong that she will feel better once we’re home and she sees family, part is freaking out at the thought that this might be her last time to see them.

Cameron took her in yesterday and they took fluid from the toe and the lymph node. We noticed the lymph swelling Monday night. I have been able to actually fall asleep, but the dreams are horrible. They're exactly like reality, it will be me standing at the sink doing dishes and Cameron standing next to me telling me that the vet said "at her age, its really unlikely that an infection would react that way" when in reality he said "the vet said it's not that uncommon for a lymph node to swell like that" but the dreams are so real that I have to wake him up and ask him which version actually happened. I also made the mistake of watching ‘I Am Legend’ and now I can’t listen to Bob Marley without crying.

Que my mother's heart attack

2008-12-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

I was scanning recipes earlier trying to decide what I wanted to make for dinner, and had just about decided on kale-apple soup until I read the directions and the pancetta was discribed as "a little naughty" which is either the sickest thing I've ever heard or the author lives with a vegan. Either way, all I could think was "ahahahahahahahahah I have actual SALT PORK in my fridge"

If my mom ever sees this it'll take me at least 45 minutes to calm her down. Her idea of indulgent fatty horrible dath-inducing food is about maxed out, I admitted to eating a frito last week.

You have three layers of thermal undewear, I have tan toes.

2008-12-05T10:51:00.000-08:00

The weekend in naps

2008-11-17T17:33:00.000-08:00

Napping on 'bill' my stuffed dog

(I'm truly shocked she hasn't eaten him)

Snoozing on the couch on Saturday

I cannot understand how that's comfortable.

Wonderdog & the 9 Month Checkup

2008-11-14T11:31:00.000-08:00

This is an old photo, but I love it.

I never really realize how worried I am about things until they're over. Honey goes in every 3 months for chest xrays and a checkup at her oncologist, and every time I get all flipped out. I think I've slept a total of 9 hours this week. Her appointment was Monday but we had a dead battery so it got pushed to today. This had the added advantage of letting my blood pressure increase for another 4 days. The boy took her in without me 'cause I had bunches of stuff to do at work, but he just called and not only did she weigh in at 58 pounds (from an all-time low of 42.5 in the throws of radiation side - effects) but her lungs are STILL CLEAR, and the lump we found on her side is a “fatty mass” which is a pretty gross thought but also way better than anything else it could have been. Her eye, which had started looking particularly nasty within the last few days, isn’t a retinal detachment or bleed, she cut her cornea scratching. They gave her some antibiotics and sent her hone with the ‘all clear’. The only downside is that since radiation she’s become downright mean to other dogs. I think it’s a combination of her knowing she’s not in great shape, her vision loss, and her insane level of spoiled that’s only increased since she got sick (prime example was last night, when we wanted to go to bed but she was laying across ALL our pillows, so instead of moving her, we each found about 6 inches of headspace and just toughed it out). I’ve never been happier than right now with my lumpy fat injured mean dog.

I do have some bad news. One of our neighbors had a dog named Smoke who was a rescue and about as spoiled as Honey. He died this week. He didn’t seem to have any real major health problems, but he was an older dog. He always used to lean against my legs or nuzzle me, and was one of the 2 or 3 dogs Honey would let near me without trying to eat. I’ve been told that one day Honey will die too, and it’s something I can’t think about without tears.

The election, a boring (but awesome) weekend and the Honeydog

2008-11-10T11:15:00.000-08:00

Waiting in line to vote

'Huns for Change'

Honey ‘barking for Obama’ and the sunset from my office on election night – the glowing buildings are in Koreatown and the sun is setting in Santa Monica. Wish I had cut out the car park... On election day we woke up at 5:30 to stand in line for two hours (in the rain, then in a room that smelled like fish) to vote. After work, I went to book club (we read Bel Canto – if you haven’t read it, it’s one of my favorites) and we were in someone’s living room with the tv and radio turned off. About 8, I think everyone in the entire complex started screaming at once. Berthenia sent me a text message that said ‘Florida went Blue’ and I guess that cinched it. We broke out the Obama cupcakes. I was really expecting another ordeal – I was really shocked it was over so fast. Cam picked me up and we went to this bar, South, in Santa Monica, to watch the speech. About halfway through, I looked around the bar and it was totally packed, completely silent and about half the people were crying. The first song they played after the speech was ‘it’s a beautiful day’. We went home and watched the news.

(Seriously though, they're going to have to repaint the elks lodge to kill that fish stink)

The sunset from our roof Saturday the weekend was great – all I did was nap and wake up periodically to cook. I made game hens for the first time Saturday night, and Sunday I made pear and ginger preserves with rosemary and burned myself (cause I’m that slick). It was really interesting that the tops of the jars popped in record time after I took them out of the canner. Usually I have to wait for them to cool, all 6 jars made the ‘fop’ sound within the first two minutes.

This morning we were supposed to take Honey to the vet for her 9 month post-radiation xrays, but the car battery was dead. This is like the third time that thing has died. We'll reschedule the xrays as soon as we know what's up with the car.

Oh, please let me in... I'm just a poor lost little leaf out in the cold....

2008-10-30T12:14:00.001-07:00

I can't do a whole post and not even mention Honey, I just can't.

2008-10-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

She's totally indifferent to the birds. I thought she would like them, but apparently only long enough to determine that they weren't going to feed her, and she’s now on to bigger and better things, like duck jerky.

Houseplants, and plants that are trying to get in.

2008-10-28T15:30:00.000-07:00

We're lucky enough to live on the second floor of a building with several exactly second-floor high leafy trees directly outside. This is great because it mediates the sun (which can be brutal) our living room gets from about 3 pm till sunset, and makes it possible for me to iron my clothes in a bathrobe every morning without also letting everyone on the second floor of the building across the street watch me drink coffee.

I've been keeping my houseplants on a table in the kitchen next to a window that essentially opens out on a big tree. Since there's a 2 foot wide ledge that has some tree cover, I started putting down bird food and a mini-birdbath, since fresh clean water can't be easy to find in mid-Los Angeles. Anyways, a family of wrens found the goodies, built a nest, and for a few months we had these supercute little baby birds hopping around on the ledge. This grew to about 9 wrens that now spend their days in a bird-gang, hopping around in the tree and splashing water on my kitchen windows. I seriously love to them to bits and the sound of birds frolicking has got to be one of the best parts of waking up. The good part is that they're still terrified of humans, so walking into the kitchen generally causes a massive volley of kvetching and some tree - rustling (I was really worried that they would get tame from being so close to our daily life).

The other day I opened the kitchen window to refill their water and realized that at some point over the last few months the fig tree that’s providing most of the birdbath cover has evidently decided that my kitchen is a better environment than its present locale. It appears to be moving in. My first instinct was to air-layer it and make a clone, cause I collect plants like some people collect movie ticket stubs - instead of "oh, remember the night we saw the Dark Knight?" I'm generally more like "remember how we were on that road trip through Texas and I made you park the car along side the courthouse so I could take a cutting of that huge cactus? See - it's rooted and in bloom now!" Which, I'll admit, causes storage problems, but I really really like the idea of having a tree reaching into my kitchen. I feel like the Swiss Family Lindsay or something, so I started misting its leaves with distilled water when I mist my other plants, and aside from Cameron thinking I'm insane, I like it. It's stuff like this that keeps me sane in this city.

What it looked like about 6 months ago

Directly out my kitchen window

Looking up from the birdbath
Birdbath and fig incursion - you can't even see any other buildings.
There's a bird there, its just blurry. I had to be all sneaky-like to get a picture.

Souvenier plum trees from Big Sur

Sarracenia Leucophylla peeking out of its terrarium

The never-ending flu

2008-10-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

I got a flu shot on September 22 and I've had the flu since the 23rd. Today (Oct 13) is the first day I haven't had a fever when I woke up. I have no voice, I can't taste or smell anything - yesterday I ate a lemon wedge and when I didnt get any flavor I tossed some balsalmic vinegar on my tongue and nada. My mouth appears to be made of volcanic rock.

It never ends...

2008-10-09T11:17:00.000-07:00

Watching Alabama football with Eric, & eating his pompoms.
everything I've canned so far.
The awesome-tastic memory foam bed

We found a lump on Honey's side this norning. I guess maybe a lymph node? I think it's been there for a while, and none of the other ones are swolen. Woo Hoo a trip to the vet is in my future.

Arthritis & Pictures of Honey

2008-10-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

Dumbo Hun

THROWTHEBALLTHROWITTHROWIT

Lets hope no other doggies in the LA area get arthritis in the next month, ‘cause all the library’s book on dog arthritis are on my coffee table. Hon has osteoarthritis in both her knees. We started her on Glucosamine and vitamin C, and we’re adding more leafy greens and cold water fish to her diet. Fortunately, I seem to have the only dog around who thinks collards are just as good as a steak. We started with just a grocery store bottle of glucosamine, but I got a bottle of Cosequin on the recommendation of a friend who’s also a vet tech. She’s also on an NSAID but we’ll wean her off as the G/C takes effect. Last time she was on one of those it made her liver enzymes go all wonky. I got her a new memory foam bed, cause the jumping onto our bed isn’t going to work very well much longer. We have some of those doggie stairs but she just ignores them. The bed, however, seems to be a hit. I brought it in this morning and set it on the floor and within 8 seconds and was all curled up, and Cam says she still hasn’t moved 3 hours later. Hopefully that made up for me going to work this morning (I’ve been in bed for 3 days with the flu, and she got to sleep on me for like 96 hours straight. I think she expects it now).

Honey between Eric & Cam

YEEEESSS! Pet me!

Licking Becca

She was ok with me being sick.

I got ‘retro homemaker fever’ and decided to start canning fruit, and it turned out surprisingly well. So far I’ve done spiced peaches, a spiced blend of peaches, nectarines and plums, and cranberry sauce. I’m really excited about the cranberry sauce, it’s my normal recipe that’s really good anyways, but it’ll have 2 months to mature before we eat it. Like a really long-term marinade. I got the Ball Home Preserving guide and there’s a recipe for BBQ sauce, something that LA seems to be sadly deficient in, and I was going to give that a shot, but the flu had other plans for me. So if anyone needs a Golden Girls synopsis, seasons 1-5 are fresh in my mind.

2 weeks ago, making & canning cranberry sauce.

Friday Honeypicture

2008-06-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

I realized yesterday that the wallpaper on my phone was Honey from like 2 months ago, when she didn't have any hair, so I took one of her with Cam, and I think it's pretty cute. Honey's smiling (she just got to ride with to the grocery store) and she's mid-wag, which makes any picture better :)

She has her right eye closed because of the sun. The left eye is the one with the less than perfect tear duct.

New Honeypics

2008-06-19T10:44:00.001-07:00

Some pics of Honey being a love - she quit giving kisses for a while after she had radiation, I think it was too painful and then she just remembered it as being painful, but she's being a kissmonster again which is awesome.

AWWWWW

For good measure, my cactus about to bloom...

and a pic of the princess on the couch, just before I left this morning. look at all the fur on her face! I love it.

June 18th - 4 months out of radiation and happy as a dog wiht her own couch...

2008-06-18T14:47:00.000-07:00

I seriously can’t believe it’s been over a month since I posted here. I guess it was easier at first, when she was feeling different every day, but now it’s just like we have the Hun back, except maybe a little more playful. I keep thinking that maybe she knows she’s got cancer and is living with a little more energy than before, but whenever I share this idea with other people, they tend to tell me that she was probably feeling a little sickly before we noticed something was wrong.

Quick recap in case you’ve just joined us: my guy and I boarded Honey when we went to FL for xmas/Hanukkah. When we dropped her off, she was fine. When we picked her up, she was so sick. We did two rounds of antibiotics and then the vet found a lump in her hard palate. It was a tumor, and we did a month of radiation, then two weeks of the worst side effects ever. I go back and forth between kicking myself for boarding her, and being glad we did because she would have probably had a much more advanced cancer if she hadn’t developed the secondary infection which initially led us to the vet.

Anyways, Honey’s beyond spoiled. The longest period of time she’s been alone since January this year is about 4 hours. She’s also sleeping on her own bed again and best of all, SHE CAN BREATHE OUT OF HER NOSE so I can sleep. It’s fantastic. Last weekend her Zadie was here for father’s day and she played fetch with him for about 3 days straight, and insisted on sleeping on the air mattress with him instead of on her couch (yes, HER couch. A neighbor moved out and gave it to us, and it’s exactly honey-sized). The only lingering problem we seem to be having is her eye – her left eye was in the beam of the radiation and the tear duct is permanently destroyed. We give her cyclosporine eye drops daily, and they’re actually bringing back her ability to produce tears, but it probably won’t ever be 100%. She’s also learned that the eye drops feel good so it’s supereasy to give them to her. Other than that, the radiation side effects cleared up, and although it took almost 3 months out from the last treatment to get there, she can breathe normally again. She’s also gaining back the weight she lost, and we’re actually at the point now where we can’t see her ribs any more. I think that might have had something to do with all those slices of muenster she’s getting as treats…. She’s also got ALL her face hair back, and it’s about half white half brown. We were assured that if it came back at all it would be all white, so I’m taking the salt-and-pepper effect to be a good thing.

And since she was diagnosed in January, and given 2 months, she would have died 3 months ago. Instead, today I get to go home and play fetch and cuddle with her while we lay around like slobs and watch Deadliest Catch.

YEEEEEEEEEEEAH - best May 7th ever. EVER.

2008-05-07T17:32:00.000-07:00

So 7 days of horrible sleep and calling Honey 'tripod' even though she wasn't in the least fussed by the biopsy were finally over at around 2 this afternoon when the vet called and told me the tumor was BENIGN!! Now I guess we just call her ‘lumpy’ or ‘bride of Frankenstein’ due to the scars that look like stitches. Her breathing has changed in the last 2 or 3 days – she’s breathing out of her nose a teensy bit more, which is fantastic ‘cause its heading the right way, but she’s starting to spit the ball out and her sleep is suffering. We have to wait until she’s about half out before prying open her mouth and sticking the ball in. Fortunately, she’s incredibly tolerant. I have a feeling the cuddling and telling her how good she is for 10 minutes helps, too. Nonetheless, Cam is on an expedition to various pet stores looking for a slightly smaller ball that might let her keep her mouth a little more closed, and maybe a bit more comfy.

For those of you who know Honey, she did two very reassuring things in the last 2 days – Sunday she found a plastic water bottle (god knows where) and would have annihilated it if I hadn’t intervened, and this afternoon she and Cameron found a basketball and Cameron text messaged me “Honey has a new basketball to play with. I think it’s gonna be an awesome toy – very sturdy” at 3:57:12 pm today and then at 3:58:35 I got “never mind, shark dog ate it” YAY HONEY!!

Oh, and this weekend we went to a help a friend move (translation: we sat around and drank wine and looked at her boxes) and Honey made sure to completely and thoroughly inspect every one, then requisitioned the couch throw pillows, made a nest, and passed out. The pillows were destined for Goodwill so she even got to take them home.

I’m going home to feed her some leftover Passover macaroons.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

2008-05-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

So Honey’s at the vet getting biopsy #3 – left rear foot, between her middle toes. So far I have a perfect record on gut feeling knowledge of malignancy - I thought her sinuses were, and ear was not, so I’m at 100%. This one, I’m not sure about, but if I had to guess I think I’d go with benign, but I’m not sure if that’s what I want or what I honestly feel about it. I’ll update when I find out.

*************1:06 pm

still waiting

*************3:12 pm

Cameron picked her up and she seems ok - we have to wait for lab work to come back. Tehy x-ray'd her lungs and they're still clear, she sounds great, and tear production is UP!! WOO HOO RESTASIS!!! now we'll make it through this last lump and we're home free (hopefully).

"If you hadn't told me how sick she was, and sent all those pictures, I wouldn't be able to tell - she's just a little bit greyer around the face"

2008-04-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

That’s a direct quote from my friend Mark who hasn’t seen Honey in about a year. She spent yesterday evening doing the ‘someone came to see me two-step’ around his knees and then (very subtly) rubbing her slobbery orange ball all over him, which is how she entices you to play fetch. It was probably the best thing I’ve ever heard. And it dawned on me that she’s acting almost exactly like she did pre-cancer. Our relationship has changed significantly since she got sick – Cameron and I have altered our schedules so that she isn’t alone normally – Sunday we went to a bbq and we couldn’t bring her (the host had dogs that weren’t friendly) and she was alone for 4 hours, which is the longest she’s been alone since November 2007. She’s definitely more attached to us; she would never sleep the whole night on our bed before and now that’s her primary main objective (this will have to change, because we don’t have AC and 100 degrees is way too hot to cuddle, even if she really really wants to). Also she’s more tolerant of letting me do things to her that she would never have allowed previously. I can stick my fingers in her mouth now, and she doesn’t mind – when that was something that drove her batty before cancer. Last night I even pried open her mouth and stuck a ball in, and she just let me. It was great. It’s like she knows that whatever we’re doing to her, uncomfortable as it might be, is going to make her feel better. She comes to us now and asks to be scratched when her face or eyes itch, when last year she would have just gone at her face with her claws, and her eye drops must feel great because she just holds still and lets me tilt her head and pull her eyes open, then when its done she wags her tail and gives me kisses. Two weeks ago she stood still and let us remove the stitches that were inside her ear from biopsy #2. This dog has had chronic ear infections all her life, and her ears are probably the most sensitive place on her body, and she just stood in the kitchen and let me grope around in there with mini scissors and tweezers. Needless to say she got some serious treats after, but I was still stoked. Saturday we took Hon to Larchmont, this snotty little shopping district near our house and got her pinkberry (its essentially frozen yogurt, and its awesome) from Becca. She wore her new ‘cancer survivor’ bandana, and made lots of friends who were also cancer survivors.

UMMMM, is that for me?

Honey loves her some blueberries

I love that she closesher eyes when she really likes what shes eating.

OMG its so good

THANK YOU BECCA!!!

Honey LOOOOOVES Becca

2008-04-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

and i have no idea how to rotate this video.

New pictures, hairy face.

2008-04-21T14:30:00.001-07:00

Honey sleeping on her daddy

She didn't know what to do - pay attention to the seder plate, the webcam, or the phone

(that sounded like cameron's parents).

Honey in her new KamSew Unique Bandana! They were really fantastic - the only place I could find on the web that had custom doggie bandanas, and they even called me to ask if I'd like her name added to the design.
http://www.kamsewunique.com/

The princessdog way of descending stairs

Us making tuna melts.

She ripped the ball out of the package and refused to let go of it till we were home.

After she healed, before the hair started growing back in.

Honey and I spent our weekend reading and cuddling. We're down to a 1/4 of a prednisone every other day so that's fantastic - she's totally off the painkillers and last night even slept in her own bed and then the couch (!!!). To tell the truth, it freaked us out a little. But just a little.

Cancer Survivor

2008-04-18T10:45:00.000-07:00

Looks like we’re out of the woods depression-wise! We’ve been weaning off pred for about a week now and no bad side effects like lethargy or excessive sleeping. Also, Cameron went to New York for three days and she was ok with it (!!!) which is new and exciting. When she was doing radiation she used to freak out if it got past 9 or 10 pm and cam wasn’t home yet – nights he worked were a real joy, and she’s do the ‘where’s daddy’ dance – pacing, whining, the odd howl, heavy panting, sometimes shaking – just a total freak out ‘oh god where is he’ situation. Nothing I did could calm her down, but we dropped him off at the airport and she wasn’t exactly thrilled, there was some watching out the window and then for the first day she would pull me towards the parking lot whenever we went for a walk, looking for him near the car, but last night she even slept in her own bed all night, which is unfreakingheardof. I worked from home (LOVE that my job lets me do that) Wednesday and Thursday and Cameron’s plane already landed, he’ll probably be home in like 35 minutes. Wish I could be there to see the festival of daddy has returned Honey’s going to throw when she sees him.

Her hair is almost grown in now, I’ll take some pictures tonight of the white-faced Hon. The coolest part, though, is that some of the hair is coming back in BROWN and we were assured that it would be completely white if it came back at all. Wunderdog! She also looks lovely in her new ‘cancer survivor’ bandana – which she is now, a bona fide cancer survivor. I think I even saw her breathing out of her nose a little over the last few days, and she seems to have more of a sense of smell. The only variable that’s still really up in the air is the tumor shrinkage – radiation kills the cells when they try to replicate, so they won’t die until they try and grow, so it can take up to 3 months for the tumor to shrink all that it’s going to. We finished on February 29th so today is April 18th – we have 40 days left until we can reasonable assume it’s as small as it’s going to get. The catch is this – if it doesn’t shrink enough for her to breathe out of her nose, we may have to have it debulked, which is a surgery where they would go in and remove the majority of the tumor so she could have a clear airway. The other thing that would go wrong is if it shrinks TOO much, because it metastasized through the roof of her mouth (that means it ate the bone that separates her mouth from her sinuses – her hard palate) so if it goes away to the point where there’s no tumor to form this barrier, she will have to have surgery to create one and keep her sinuses free of food / other stuff in her mouth. Please keep your fingers crossed for perfect shrinkage.

In new-place news, it’s awesome but our furniture doesn’t fit and Cameron still hates my grey Formica table, but it looks WAY too much like an airstream to throw it away. We’re starting to actually get some stuff settled and decorated decently, but ultimate ‘our house is perfect ness’ is a long way off. However, it is starting to look like a nursery, which I LOVE!

New digs, doggiedepression and indoor fetch.

2008-04-04T13:10:00.001-07:00

We’re finally all moved in. our new place has less closet space and less wall space, so where to put the desk / table is a problem, but we’re working on it. Honey figured out what was up pretty quick and hasn’t tried to walk to the old apartment at all. I can’t tell if her nose is improving or not, I know the vet said up to 3 months for it to shrink, and we finished the 29th of Feb., but I really wish it would totally go away, and fast. She’s snoring a lot more now, so maybe that means she’s getting some sir moving through her nose, but I’m not sure. She still makes the gasping noises and doesn’t like her lip prop. But… she’s starting to re-grow the hair on her face! It’s white and the skin is a really really dark black, so it’s pretty noticeable.

The one bad thing is that she got really lethargic when we started weaning her off prednisone, so we took her in to get her 3 1 month checkup early and they upped her dose again, saying she was getting depressed. They said it was pretty normal, with the moving and the drug levels decreasing but I was still pretty upset. We’re trying to get into a routine asap so she feels more comfortable. We also had some people over which she loves. After we upped her pred she seemed to get over it and is doing honeystuff like destroying boxes and being totally obsessed with a ball that rolled under the bed. I hope we can wean her off it soon – I know she needs to gain weight (she’s 47.5) but I hate to keep her medicated.

In other news, we can now play actual real fetch in the house – which is incredible and sooo awesome. And the windows are really fantastic, she loved barking out of them. I set up a bird bath and a hummingbird feeder, but I think so far no dice, which is weird because I’ve seen hummingbirds checking the feeder out, but that was over a 2 day span, then nothing. I wonder if the feeder is broken…

I took some cool pics of honey playing last night and ill post them later – left my camera at home, but in the meantime check out this vintage Hon at my parents house, Christmastime 2004ish. the top pic is her napping on the couch, the bottom is her 'tasting' the lawn ornament she stole from somehwere in my my parents neighborhood...

Biopsy, New Apartment and Nice Windows.

2008-03-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

The biopsy report on Honey’s ear came back yesterday, and the lump is benign! We’re thrilled. She’s also back to her normal self and being weaned off the pred and painkillers. We had to up her dose of tramadol again after the ear biopsy but it seems like she’s not in pain any more so we can start to back it off again. We’re also moving to a one bedroom on the second floor, a tiny one but at least we get 2 rooms now J we are going to have to get Honey a second bed for the living room. She’s not thrilled about the massive packing up of stuff, and every time Cameron takes an armload of stuff upstairs she greets him like he’s been gone for a week or so. It’s strange; we’ll have more space but less room. Not sure if I’ve figured that out or not yet, but hopefully it’ll work. Plus, the windows are all really big and perfectly Honey-sized, she doesn’t even have to lift her head to look outside and bark at the people walking by on her sidewalk (the NERVE). I have a birdbath to put on one of the windowsill so she can lay on her bed (the couch when we get one) and watch the wrens splash around. It also has 10 foot ceilings and wood floors. I have big plans for a wine and cheese party as soon as we get our stuff settled.

Cleveland

2008-03-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

I'm in Cleveland in work training and Cameron's sitting in the surgeon's office with Honey waiting to see if she needs to have a biopsy or not (the lump has shrunk twice since the oncologist saw it) I'm kinda freaking out.

************************ later

She's going into surgery later today - they're not going to remove her entire ear, just do a biopsy. Apparently these are generally malignant, but its in a good spot (can be easily removed). If there is a lot of bleedign she will have to stay overnight. Poor Hun, I can't handle her being sick and so far away. I'll know more later, probably after 8 pm pst when my plane lands.

CATCH!

2008-03-10T20:50:00.000-07:00

Honey played catch today - and actually hopped up on her hind feet and snagged the orange ball out of the air. She's also ploughing through her third can of dogfood of the day. Her nose is almost free of scabs, and has been passing out licks like there's no tomorrow. we're down to 1 3/4 pain pills per dose, from 2 1/2. We're going to need to step her prednisone down soon and I hope she keeps her appetite. The pics are from her walk earlier today (top) and from last night (bottom), when she played with that ball for the first time in a MONTH - I cried. Now there's a post - dinner headroll happening on the floor that I need to go be a part of.

HOLY CRAP!!! we have bedding rearandgement, chuck it ball playadge and litckatude.

2008-03-09T22:56:00.000-07:00

Today was really amazing - We went to Larchmont this morning and took Honey, had sushi (which Honey loved) and then home - Cameron had to work and Nancy and Tybee and I stayed home, sitting in bed, watching Ab Fab while Honey napped. Tybee went to a show with a friend who lives here, and Nancy and I took Hon for a long walk (like 10 blocks) where she investigated lots o yards and peed on everything. I noticed something about half way through our walk, she was SNIFFING things - like her nose was moving and her lungs were moving in tandem to the sniffage. I was SO PSYCHED. So we let her sniff everything she wanted, because hell, it's been two months since she could smell anything - and after our walk we fed her a can of dog food (2nd for the day) and took her on a car ride to Home Depot and then Ralphs.

After Ralphs, we came home and Honey decided it was high time she was played with - with her CHUCK IT BALL (really hard rubber ball that she can't destroy) and she spent two hours shoving her ball on everyone asking for the fetchatude. Her face looks better than it did yesterday, hell, it looks better than it did three hours ago. She ate a THIRD can of dog food and demanded more fetch, then a walk and more fetch, and she just lay down (when her daddy and grandparents left for the evening). It’s AWESOME. I've spent two months watching her get sicker, and in the past two days she's turned it all around. My baby is gonna be ok.

blue skin nosicle and a 1 week check up!

2008-03-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

I know it’s been a while since I posted about Honey’s progress, but I’ve been hangin’ with the doggiegrandparents and Tybee. The vet said Honey was looking really good, and was indeed starting to heal. Apparently the animals get worse for about a week and then turn a corner and get batter pretty rapidly. She was starting to get pink skin around the edges of her sores, and today (it’s Sunday morning) the majority of her skin (the nosicle area that was raw and sore) is purply and pinkish and it’s feeling so much better she is letting us touch / kiss it. These are healing pictures! - Honey with Becca, her favorite lady, Honey with Nancy, the doggiegrandma, and Honey at the Grove, which is an outdoor mall, rockin' out in the shade (her nosicle is sensitive to the sun).

We’ve taken her everywhere in the last few days, the Grove, the Promenade (both outdoor malls) and a few restaurants where she had to wait in the car, but we checked on her every 10 minutes or so. It’s fantastic; everything we’ve done all weekend has been centered on ‘what can we do with Honey?’ and if we can’t bring the dog, we don’t do it. Honey’s really responding. Lots of strangers are giving her pets and she’s getting to smell lots of new and interesting things. Last night she even slept on her own bed all night. At first we were nervous, but the end result was that I got a whole night of sleep as well, and it’s awesome. First thing this morning she got up on our bed and it looked like she was breathing out of her nose, but we couldn’t be sure.

There is some bad news, though, she has a bump on the inside of her right ear that’s new (in the last week) and we’re going to need to have it biopsied. The vet couldn’t get a good sample of it with a needle so we have to have her sedated so they can get some of it to look at on a slide. It’s in a fairly easy place to get to if it needs to be removed, the inside flap of her ear, but that’s not something you want to hear.

OMG - we have fetchitude!

2008-03-06T20:37:00.001-08:00

Cameron's parents and sister came to visit us from Florida and got here today, they called to say they were out front and we took Honey out to meet them on the sidewalk. She was sort of half whacked out and didn't want to come outside, we had to coax her, but as soon as she saw Nancy, Barry and Tybee she flipped out, wagging and wiggling, and we came back inside where Honey proceeded to nap, demand pets and fetch, and LICKED US ALL which she hasn't done in days. Today she also ate a whole can of dog food and two cans of baby food, with some rice baby cereal mixed in for texture. Tybee and I went and picked up takeout, and Honey came along for the ride and was totally fine in the car while we waited for the food.

I was worried that seeing Honey would freak everyone out, but she got petted and snuggled and brushed and kissed, and it made an incredible difference in her attitude, I’m sure because she loves them so much. We’re so lucky to have such loving doggie grandparents. Also, I think there’s little place on her lip that’s actually healing, but I guess the vet will tell us when we go in for our one week post radiation checkup tomorrow morning. I’m not anxious to see what she weighs, three weeks ago she was eating a can of food for breakfast and then asking for lunch and dinner, so although I’m really excited about the eating of the whole can, it’s not enough for her to start putting weight back on.

Her shaman healer gave me some stuff to spry in my mouth to sleep, because I guess he could tell I’m not (average is about 3.5 hours a night, and 6 months ago I was horribly cranky if I got less than 8) and I used it and was seriously out. So my big plan for the night is to find my sweatpants and fall asleep with Honey while Cameron plays video games.

All the bases. All of them. Every. Single. One.

2008-03-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

Last night we took Honey to a shamanic healer and he gave her an Ayurvedic Analysis. He took some of her hair and looked at the structure; I think to determine if anything was out of balance and then infused her collar with some mantras targeted at the physical areas of her body she’s having trouble with (nose, mouth, skin, feet). I don’t totally understand how it works but Ayurveda literally translates to ‘knowledge of life’ and the goal is to help her body restore itself using mantras and specific chants, whose energy is held in her collar. We used the collar Fiona gave her for Christmas, and when I told my dad his only response was “well, you do live in LA”. I guess Honey is now truly a southern California dog.

This morning her face was really bothering her and she kept trying to paw at it. its so awful when she does that – she keeps opening it up and bleeding and there’s just no way to explain to her that she’s hurting herself more, and I don’t know that she feels it as pain or just discomfort, but evidently its not enough of a deterrent to stop her from pawing. It would be really funny is it wasn’t so sad – “honey – stop that, you’re killing yourself. Really, have a little foresight” I feel bad that we have to yell to get her to stop it, like I’m a total monster because I’m scolding a hurt dog.

Cameron took her to the vet while he went to an audition this morning, because we can’t leave her alone or she scratches at her face. He said she was feeling ok this afternoon, which makes me happy because I was afraid we were going to have to up her meds again. On a related note, I’m not posting pictures of her any more because she looks really awful – out concerns about her face are about preventing infection, and it basically looks like one massive sore. I’m sure the scar tissue is going to be significant, as her lips are already tighter where they’re raw. I promised her I wouldn’t post photos of her that I wouldn’t want posted if it was me, and I’m also a little concerned about freaking people (MY MOM) out, so if you’re wondering what bad side effects (she’s being used in the vet’s book for an ‘this is how awful it can look’ example) from radiation look like, I can email you a picture.

Ding Dong the Dog is Fed

2008-03-04T12:56:00.000-08:00

This is just an FYI - through many many nights of trial and error we finally found some things Honey will eat dispite the pain in her mouth. I'm listing them in case anyone else is going through this and needs ideas. I realize we're in a unique situation regarding her food alelrgies, but I got into a conversation with a woman whose dog had IBS and was going through radiation, and we were able to swap some ideas, so hopefully this will help someone:

Kraft singles (american, extra calcium, good for smuggling pills)
Saifun / rice noodles (made of mung beans or rice, clear, in the asian food section) smothered in butter
Lamb babyfood
Rice baby cereal (its a good medium for mixing in other babyfoods as well)
Assorted vegetable babyfoods
Prunes (as the pain got worse, switched to prune baby food)
Sweet potato
Potato skin cut into strips and smothered in butter
Yogurt
Ice cream / pinkberry (plain or vanilla, no toppings, NO CITRUS)
Raw spinach (washed very well)
Canned salmon (lowest salt possible, in oil)
EGGS!!! an omlete or scrambled egg 'piece' is also really good for smuggling pills. I usually add other stuff to the egg, like some baby food or salmon and finely chopped spinach or other veggies. It also helps to add about a tablespoon of milk per egg when you scramble them, it makes them fluffier.

And because we think the spoon hurts her mouth now, we're hand feeding her. I think this also helps because she likes to lick us so much anyways that it's just a bonus that we happen to be covered in lamb and rice. And we're telling her how good she is the entire time.

fingerbabyfoodstravaganza

2008-03-03T12:07:00.001-08:00

Just thought I'd share a picture of Cameron finger-feeding Honey some strained peas / prunes / lamb baby food at around 2:30am Monday.... It took about an hour but we got some food down her. Strained prunes and opiates - breakfast of champions. (please note the prunesplatter on his leg)

Her painkillers are so high now that she won’t stand up and rearrange if she can’t find a good breathing position. She’ll stay put and gasp every 45 seconds for hours. I can hear the gasp noise even through earplugs (35 db) and that means I have to stay awake to get her to sleep before i can fall asleep. Friday and Sunday this was around 4, Saturday it was 6:30. I feel like I'm 127.

And this would be really funny if it wasn’t so sad – she KNOWS she’s not allowed to rub her face on stuff, so she waits until I’m out of the room. And she’s getting really good at doing it quickly, so I’ll go into the kitchen and pour some juice, and walk back into the living room and she’s bleeding, but she managed to do it when I wasn’t looking. I’ve also caught her mid-headroll on a pile of warm laundry, which then has to be re-washed, but how can you do laundry and not let your sick dog sleep in it? It’s impossible. I seriously can't figure out how she can complete a headroll so fast when walking across the room takes her a full minute. Amazing.

It's like fighting fire. With arrows (Sunday).

2008-03-02T17:36:00.000-08:00

It took us less than 24 hours to completely destroy the apartment after I cleaned it on Saturday. There are bits of foam all over the floor from the inside of her dog bed (I'm washing the cover, and she destroyed the filler while I was downstairs – no more than 3 minutes and she annihilated a twin bed sized foam pad) and laundry everywhere. The kitchen, which I scrubbed yesterday, is now full of dishes that need to be washed, and for some reason a few of the chairs are sticky. The dog won’t sleep, won’t eat, can’t play, if we take her for a “walk” she meanders about 3 feet and stops, stares into space and will stay totally completely still until you make her move or she falls asleep. When we’re in the house, she follows me really close (less than a foot of distance, which makes it impossible to move because I might accidentally touch her), but wags her tail and smiles whenever I look at her. Earlier she acted like she wanted to eat, but it was a clever ruse, she took about two licks each of the assorted baby food flavors I bought and then walked away. I guess it’s another omelet, maybe ill add the lamb baby food or the organic peas with brown rice.

*eight minutes later*

She fell asleep leaning on me standing up in the kitchen, and her omelet is cooling now. She did drop the bone (this squeaky toy she holds in her mouth and can breathe around) and is watching me type, wagging, so maybe she’s hungry and will eat the lamb-green peas-egg concoction I just made her, but probably not. Oh well, tomorrow we start prednisone and there will be a whole other set of issues – apparently she’s going to be so hungry there’s a possibility she’ll start nibbling my fingers when I fall asleep. One can hope – she’s down around 47.5 pounds now, normal is about 51.

In other news, I’m so tired I tried to watch ‘Flushed Away’ this afternoon, and couldn’t follow the plot. That’s a whole new ring of hell – I have a degree in English lit and I couldn’t follow a G rated Disney flick. SIGH.

Saturday

2008-03-01T15:17:00.000-08:00

I've spent today vacuuming the apartment over and over, because Honey keeps shedding fur / skin / whatever and its really, really gross. I can't take the e-collar (the cone-looking collar) off her at all now, because she claws at her face and opens it up more. Ugh. She did eat lunch, a 2-egg omelet with spinach and salmon, which i cooled to room temperature and hand fed her, because she hadn't eaten and was NOT going to eat dog food, thank you. Tomorrow evening we start prednizone, so she will be ravenous according to the vet, and will eat whatever so i'm saving the goopy dog food i made her that she wasn't interested in.

The pain killer dose has increased from 25mg twice a day to 100mg three times a day, and I gave her the pills at lunch (cleverly smuggled in a hunk of salmon). After she takes pills, its really interesting to watch her as they take effect. She goes from standing and being fairly alert to falling asleep on her feet. this morning I gave her a massage, and after lunch she asked for one so while the painkiller kicked in I rubbed her and she fell asleep with me supporting her.

Saturday night we took Honey to our friend Eric's house for an 'end of radiation' party. We took her bed and blanket, and chew toy and we played star wars monopoly and she napped on the floor next to me. She started getting uncomfortable around 12 so we took her home and had a truly terrible night - she simply cannot sleep with the collar on, and someone has to watch her constantly if it's off. I got to sleep around 6 am, when Cameron woke up.

Graduation Day!!!

2008-02-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

The Vet - beautiful banana trees and lots of glass. Good ole' VCG!

The radiation graduation board - Honey is front & center, in the cowboy hat and aviators.....

AWWWWWWWW my honey...

Honey and Jordan with their people.... Jordan's radiation graduation picture is between us.

The sculpture in front of the vet.

Today was Honey’s last day of radiation!! I’m so stoked I can’t even begin to explain it. Her face is looking really really rough, and will continue to get worse for a week or two, but will ‘turn a corner’ and heal. I know this is gross – but what’s happening to her is basically that a scab is forming just under her skin and flaking off, taking her skin and fur with it when it falls off. The end result is that her face is going to be skinless, raw and just really awful feeling for a week or so. The inside of her mouth is just as bad, with tissue sloughing off the inside of her lips and gums, and I can’t imagine that her sinuses are much better inside, although we can’t see them. Poor baby. She keeps trying to itch her face on anything that’s still long enough – the bed, us, the floor, and we can’t let her because we were told horror stories of dogs scraping their faces off. Her dose of the painkiller is going up again – it was one pill twice a day, and we’re up to two and a half pills three times a day, but she can sleep and (sometimes) even eat, and she can tolerate a lip prop so whatever she needs, we’ll give her.

They took her off the anti-inflammatory today, as her liver enzymes were getting really high, and in two days or so (once the anti-inflammatory gets out of her system) we’re going to start her on prednisone, so she’ll eat. Last night we gave her some fresh spinach and a fried egg, but she won’t eat her dog food outside the vet any more. We’re also allowed to use lubricants on her lip props now, except not petroleum based.

Right now she’s standing near me with her head hanging down, I’m relatively sure she’s breathing out of her nose, but she’s half asleep. Nothing is as pitiful as watching a dog fall asleep on its feet. I’m going to sit with Honey on the bed and watch some bad tv on this glorious Friday night. I'm including pictures of her last visit to the vet.

Holding my breath until tomorrow

2008-02-28T13:56:00.000-08:00

In re: moldy orchids, apparently some types of mold are beneficial and this is one of those types. I’m not buyin’ it, and I’m repotting them stat, as all I can find is one stupid photo of mold on orchids online. You’d think a community as obsessed with plants as the orchid community would have made full use of the ability to post photos to the internet, but evidently not. I can find a description of beneficial mold which reads like this – “white fuzzy mold I see on my soil” I mean, really. What is that? Not clear at all. And crazily unhelpful. But the plants look superhealthy so I’ll wait until they stop blooming and then repot in new medium. I’m currently drying them, to help inhibit the growth of whatever it is that’s using my babies as host.

Honey did ok last night, she wouldn’t eat well and we had trouble putting lip props in and keeping them in. she also refused to take her pills and we had to shove them down her throat, which made me cry because I know it hurt her and I hate that. I coated the pills in butter, came at her mouth from the side and shoved them between her teeth on top of her tongue, then held her nose up and stroked her throat so she swallowed them. She didn’t manage to spit any back up but I did bump her gums with my nails a few times and I know I scraped some layers of skin off. It breaks my heart that she lets me do things like that to her that have to hurt but she just stands there and lets me do it. I feel like a monster. Tomorrow is her last radiation treatment, and our final consult with the vet, and then the side effects get nasty. I’m not going to post any more current pictures of her until she starts healing, because I know I sure as heck wouldn’t want anyone to see me if I was that hurt.

OMG I slept! (2 more radiatoin sessions!!!!)

2008-02-27T10:18:00.001-08:00

Last night Honey went to sleep on her own bed for the first time in over a month. She was lying on her side with her head hanging off her bed, sort of with her nosicle pointed down towards the floor, and we stuck a lip prop in her mouth and she went to sleep, breathing well. Unfortunately we were both so freaked out because she was sleeping on the floor (is that bad? Should we worry? Should we call her?) that we didn’t get to sleep until around 1:45, to be woken up by Honey getting on the bed and laying on me at about 2:12 (by ‘on me’ I mean curled up tightly against me, with her chin and a paw on my leg or stomach. That’s her favorite) so I covered her in a throw, stuck in a lip prop and wadded a shirt up under the side of her head, as she cant breathe unless her head is tilted to the side. I woke up at 6:35 with my alarm and neither she nor I had moved. I feel like a total glutton for getting 4 hours of sleep at once. It’s awesome.

The bad news of the day is that my orchids have MOLD in their potting matrix. I have no idea what to do about this – I looked some stuff up online and it says to repot them as soon as they’re done blooming. Shoot, I have no idea how long that will be, as they both just bloomed, and won’t they die in the mean time? it also said to “wash their roots to insure no mold spores remain” apparently these people think mold spores are about the size of small pebbles, because there is no way you can “insure no mold spores remain” without soaking the roots in boiling acid. Anyone know how to fix this??

17 down, 3 to go.

2008-02-26T16:50:00.000-08:00

And the side effects are getting worse. I think a lot of it is her reaction to the painkillers, and it seems like if she gets wound up it’s really difficult for her to chill out again. Last night she was beside herself because Cameron wasn't home, pacing and whining and howling (she’s really funny when she howls - she doesn't make noise, but throws her head back and purses her lips). I got her a really really soft chew toy, one of the kind that would normally last about 2 minutes and then have to be thrown away in pieces, and she just carried it around while whimpering and wagging her tail. I couldn’t chill her out so I lay down on the bed with her and she didn’t seem able to get comfortable, she kept climbing behind me and laying on my pillows and following me when I got up to get some water, so I finally took a nap, and she would fall asleep for about 20 minutes, then wake up and realize Cameron wasn’t home yet and start the freak out dance all over again. I think the best it’s been was the might I was cooking and she was watching me. Maybe I need to do something in the house that’s a little more active and she will be too distracted to do the daddy dance (I’m not actually buying this – just hoping in print).

I had a really bad dream last night, I'm not sure what was so freaky about it but it scared me, my mom and Honey and I had gotten off the train at the wrong stop and were waiting for it at the MacArthur Park station (not the best neighborhood) and I leaned down to pet her and she was panting. It was weird, I woke up and was completely wired and freaked out for like half an hour. There wasn’t even anything remotely scary about that. I don’t get it.

We got to a point this morning around 4 am where it seemed to hurt her to have the lip prop in her mouth, so I can’t wait for Friday when we can give her some topical pain reliever, and experiment with lip props covered in cold Vaseline or something else to make them less abrasive. Or maybe she will start to get used to the pain killers and settle down.

In other news, there’s a hawk riding an updraft outside my window (8th floor downtown L.A.) and the lovely dendrobium Cameron gave for my 27th is juuust about in full bloom. I think I need a saguaro, but then my window garden will be complete.

weight, scale of 10, 4 sessions left, etc

2008-02-25T13:52:00.000-08:00

So she's down again - to 48.6, and looking at her muzzle / mouth where it's getting bad, the inside of her mouth is at a 7 out of 10, and her nose is at 4 / 10. So we're going to see a lot more muzzle skin flush off in the near future. They gave us some cream but we can't put it on her before the radiation, so just at night. There's also a victorian collar involved, and it's stressing her out. My poor baby.

Side effects and Pearl Harbor Specials

2008-02-24T21:35:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe how strong Honey is. Her face is starting to show the radiation effects, and it's not pretty. There are about three places on her face where the skin appears to be peeling off, and you can see red raw flesh. If I had one of those anywhere on my body, I doubt I would be able to do anything but cry and complain. Honey has three, one on her eyelid and she still wants to play. The skin is starting to slough off the inside if her mouth and it seems to be really painful to her to breathe with her mouth open, I guess when the tissues start to dry out they hurt. It's really difficult to put a lip prop in now, although we've switched to neoprene so it's pretty much the lightest, softest stuff we could find. I wait until she's almost asleep and then I slide it in as fast as I can and sometimes it works and she falls all the way asleep. We’ve also started running them under cold water before we use them, and I think that helps. I can't believe this is the same dog that wanted to play fetch this afternoon. It's really amazing. I can never hope to be as strong as she is. She and I spent all weekend lying around alternately eating and watching World War 2 specials on the history channel. If anyone has any questions about Pear Harbor, now would be the time to ask me.

We're anticipating pain while eating, there is already some but making her food a little waterier than baby food and spoon feeding her while telling her how good she is seems to work. She even sometimes bypasses the spoon and eats on her own, but I hold the bowl at face height and praise her anyways. I'm pretty sure she'd endure more pain if we were telling her she was good. Last night we got her frozen yogurt and she seemed to like it, she also likes her food better if it's cold.

This morning her left eye was really dry (it’s in the radiation beam) – full of gunk and the lids were folding in and rubbing against her eye. I don’t know if we’re allowed to put anything in it, we’re not allowed to put anything on the sores because lots of topical creams and drops etc. can disperse the radiation beam, and make it less effective. Cameron’s going to call when the vet gets there at 9 am, so hopefully our eyedrops will be radiation approved. In the meantime, I put a few drops of water in her eye and that seemed to help a little. I can’t believe the dog lets me put eyedrops in, she must know I’m trying to help.

I didn’t get much sleep last night (spent the night making Honey comfy, and unfortunatley she was most comfy on top of me), so I’m off to raid the coffee pot.

Pictures from yesterday

2008-02-22T10:24:00.000-08:00

My little window garden. The other orchid in bloom is older, its an oncidium. the purple one is new and its a dendrobium.
pansy-lookin' dendrobium flowers.

The best coffee ever. EVER
At Versailles

Really - it's that good.

Honey eating!! and me (quickly) getting over my dogfood aversion. When we were done (she almost ate an entire can!!) the entire kitchen was covered in flecks of gruel-consistency dog food and I had to take a shower and do laundry. But she ate, so we're elated.

Iz mah birfday@

2008-02-21T20:24:00.000-08:00

I turned 27 today. We were originally planning a trip to Santa Barbara to see friends and hang out at the dog-friendly beach, but that was before Honey got sick, so instead we slept in (which was AWESOME) and then took Honey to the vet. It was actually neat to be there and meet all the doggies Cameron tells me about, especially Jordan the boston terrier (whose blog can be found at www.wunderdog.blogspot.com) who's unbelievably cute (like, CUUUUUUUUUTE although Jordan seems to have a diabolical plot towards world domination). We went to Versailles for lunch and ate like pigs, but that's understandable because the food is really fantastic, and the cuban coffee is really strong. We also went to a military surplus store (cuz I'm classy like that) and I got a pin of my grandad's division (1st Marines) which I'm going to stick on the front of my 'grandad in world war II' research binder. After we picked Honey up from the vet we took the best nap ever and had 'scrabble beer fest '08' which probably would have been more fun if either one of us could spell, or knew any words longer than 4 letters. When the game was over (when I got bored and started dressing Honey up like my grandma - pics will follow tomorrow) Cameron had like 600 points and I had about 15, but I won because I made the word 'Honey'. Those are house rules. Then we took Honey for a walk and on a car ride to Trader Joe's and I got 2 birthday orchids. Im TOTALLY orchid-spoiled, and will post pics tomorrow, when I'm on a normal computer and not this mac thing I can't really work.

On another note - I've been doing genealogy research for about 4 years now, and recently I found the Northbrook Historical Society in Northbrook Illinois. Since three of the four immigrant families I'm descended from were 'founding members' of the town, they have a lot of genealogical info that pertains to them, and Ms. Judy H. was sweet enough to share it with me. I sent her a copy of the research I've done so far (for the surnames Dehne, Krause, Albert and Nicklas) and today she emailed me a file of info about the Nicklas family, which is so cool I can't even begin to explain it - I knew that Henry Nicklas had married a woman who alternately called herself Lena and Carline, but I couldn't figure out her maiden name or even what her first name really was. Northbrook had the info, so now I know her name was Caroline Helena Brautigan. It's really amazing to be able to give an actual name to someone who was born in 1836 and died in 1918 - she was my 3rd great grandmother, and until today all I knew was that she existed. I also now know the names of her daughters - I knew they were 'Emma' and 'Louisa' but after hours (and I do mean hours) glued to the ancestry computer at the LAPL There was still no records I could definitely assign to them. Today I know they were Emma Henriette Wilhelmine Caroline and Louise Frederike Maria. I'm not saying I love the names, but It's really neat to have into information, and kinda cool that it arrived on by birthday. I know have my family traced back to the people who originally hopped the pond - I'm starting the job of finding their villages and records they left in Germany and Denmark before they decided Illinois was the promised land and packed up their wheelbarrows.

Honey has been stepped up to a whole pain pill, we didn't even realize she was hurting until we gave her the tramadol and all of a sudden we had a much happier dog on our hands. The vet said her mouth feels like it's "full of canker sores" so that explains why she's not eating as well as we would like. The weird thing is she will still play fetch, just not with as much gusto. When I'm done with this post, I'm going to render half a can of dog food to the consistency of baby food and spoon feed her while telling her how good she is. This is going to be difficult because wet dog food is about the nastiest stuff I can think of, and I'm going to have to hand feed it. Oh well! No time like the present to get over my dog food aversion. First, however, I need to go make friends with my new orchids.

Pain pills, hand feeding and even more fetch.

2008-02-19T22:40:00.000-08:00

so we're giving her 25 mg of Tramadol every 12 hours. Its like we have the old Honey back - she was all smiles and tug of war today, which is a little upsetting because we didn't realize she was in pain until we gave her the painkillers and she seemed happier. Last night was better, I think I only woke up 4 times to adjust her lip prop or move her to a better breathing position. Cameron just told me that Im starting to repeat myself, something I do a lot normally, but apparently I've told him my friend Lynn gave me a Hello Kitty cell phone charm six times in the last day. I remember telling him once. Oh well. Please forgive me if I do it here - I try and proof read, and I hate grammatical mistakes, but lack of sleep coupled with the fact that I'm writing this while watching 'Night at the Museum' and doing laundry mean it's not getting my total attention.

Tonight we also gave her wet food for the first time, which is a major for me. I'm not easily grossed out, I've cleaned wounds on wild animals and I can filet a fish, but canned dog food is the most revolting substance on the planet, and 20 minutes ago I was not only hand feeding Honey Science Diet ZD Ultra (for severe food allergies) but we even warmed it a little first, and mixed in some sweet potatoes and squash. So the whole house smells like dog food, and I managed to do it without gagging. This is a big breakthrough.

the good thing that happened this week is that the portion of the tumor that's protruding into her mouth is actually visually shrinking. Too bad it's not the part in her nose, but I'll take whatever I can get at this point. The inside of her mouth is getting really raw (hence the switch to wet food) and the skin between her gums and the inside of her lips is grayish and starting to slough off. The pain meds are helping because she's being more tolerant of the lip props.

ok, Honey just woke up and I'm fairly sure my laundry is dry, so have a lovely night all. Honey sends licks :)

Side effects and fiber yummies

2008-02-18T19:23:00.000-08:00

I spent all afternoon freaking out about side effects, and since I've been home all Honey's done is shove her ball in my hands and lick me so she can't be suffering too much right now. I did make some her some high-fiber deliciousness by boiling a sweet potato, white potato and butternut squash for a while then mashing it all up with butter and heavy cream. I left the skins on the potatoes and apparently it's DELICIOUS but I'm just happy cause she's getting the extra fiber she needed, plus some vitamin c and (fingers crossed) it's good for her stomach.

Ok, I have to go play fetch...

"Right on schedule" 11/9 (11 sessions down, 9 to go)

2008-02-18T15:22:00.000-08:00

Good news always comes with bad, I suppose. It looks like the part of the tumor in her mouth is shrinking, but she’s starting to have side effects from the radiation. We found a small sore on her chin last night, about a quarter of an inch around that had no skin and was raw, but didn’t seem to bother her too much. She also started spitting out the mouth prop all the time, really not tolerating it. We varied our arsenal a little, introducing a neoprene pad for lip separation and a rubbery valve that work for a few minutes before she vetoes it. This weekend was good – she always seems to feel better by Sunday, so it’s especially sad to see her going off to radiation. I’m having real trouble seeing past this – I think part of me thinks she’s not going to get any better, ever. Today the vet told us he’s starting to see signs of the side-effects, such as the little sore and they also said that her gums and the insides of her lips are looking pretty raw – more so than they anticipated. We think this is from the lip props. So we’re facing the prospect of having her unable to handle a lip prop and unable to breathe from her nose. Hello, sleeping in 3 hours shifts. The vet also said she took a while to wake up today, I’m not sure what that means, but I’m impressed that a dog who had only been under general anesthesia once, when she was spayed, is doing so well now she’s getting it every day.

We do have some pain killers – they start with a‘t’ I cant remember the name exactly, I want to say ‘turbinado’ but that’s sugar - I know it flipped her out a little the first time I gave it to her, she actually howled, so we’re thinking maybe if we start giving her when we’re both home that she’ll feel better. Tonight I’m going to start completely pulverizing her food, and we’re going to have to switch to canned soon. Neither of which I’m looking forward to – I think wet dog food of any type is the grossest thing on the planet. Really, when I was working as a wildlife rehabilitator I used to have to actively keep from gagging while I fed baby birds (the baby birds ate soggy puppy food, and the smell wouldn’t come off my hands, even with bleach).

So it looks like fetch will soon stop. I really, really hope the tumor in her nose is reacting the same way the section in her mouth is, and pulling back. It would be AWESOME to sleep through the night again. I think I could manage it even if she was sleeping on our bed – which she started doing immediately after the CT scan – sort of, fine, do what you will but I’m sleeping between you and I’m taking the good throw blanket, so there.

In other news, my parents got a dog, and it’s really cute to see my mom so excited. It’s also weird to be giving ‘here’s how you teach a puppy to sit’ directions in the middle of ‘here’s how we a shrink a dog’s tumor’ training. Sigh.

Something really good and unrelated happened Friday, though, I sent off my family tree to the Northbrook Historical Society. I’ve been working on it for about three years now, and it finally reached a point where it was organized enough for others to understand and maybe benefit from if they’re researching the same families. I’m quite thrilled.

Lip-propinazation (I just made that word up. Just now. Really)

2008-02-14T15:10:00.000-08:00

I mention ‘the lip prop’ on this blog a lot, but I haven’t posted a picture of its exact usage. Let me remedy that. The ones pictured here are made from a piece of a gardener’s knee pad (thick foam) that I got at Home Depot. I cut a piece about an inch wide and five inches long, then folded the foam in half and stitched it so it makes a V shape. It works well because it’s not hard, so it doesn’t irritate her gums or lips, like hard plastic could, and the V shape creates enough pressure that we can wedge it and it provides some traction, unlike the plastic cork, which fell out of its own accord.

We ran out of anti-nausea meds yesterday morning, and the vet is going to see how she does without them. I really hope she will be ok – I hate to think that she’s uncomfortable. And she won’t eat when her stomach is upset. I’m also worried that if she gets nauseous and stops eating, she will have to be put on steroids, and I’m holding out on those as long as possible.

Today was my first day as member of the chondrosarcoma support group, and I got a few emails form people who have it. One was from the mother of a boy who died, and it broke my heart. I’ve been trying to gloss over the bad parts of this, not read stats I don’t like, etc, focus on her ‘cancer buddies’ at the vet. I’ve been told that there’s no change of truly beating this. The vet said that they “can never actually cure cancer” and I’m trying to ignore that. I know if I get down and sad that Honey can sense it, and right now she’s not doing too badly – she sounds like she’s rooting for truffles every time she inhales, but that’s easy enough to laugh at, especially when she’s sticking a ball in my face or licking my ears every five minutes. She also hasn’t had any of the symptoms listed as being hallmarks of this cancer, like nosebleeds and dizziness. It’s really tough to keep the bad news separate from the good, and to focus on the happiness.

On a lighter note, I actually SLEPT last night. Granted, I spelt in our closet (it’s a walk in, chill out, its not that bad) with ear plugs in and I took some benadryl. So maybe I just went into a sensory-depravation coma. Tonight we’re going to cook dinner, drink wine, and play fetch. It’s going to be wonderful. Happy Valentines Day!!

Honey the valentines dog

2008-02-13T23:13:00.000-08:00

I can't believe she let me do this. It probably helped that I was holding her ball.

day 8 (of 20) and some high-fiber yummies

2008-02-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

Apparently it’s all business as usual for the Hunn. She’s at the point where she has the vet figured out (today was day 8). Cameron takes her every day, but I usually call him about 15 times for updates - I’ve heard she walks directly to the scale and climbs up then sits so she can be weighed. She LOVES the staff and will follow the willingly to the back, where I’ve been told she greets everyone and then lays down on a bed that’s under the tech’s desk. Yesterday and today she hopped up on the table where they give her the twilight gas without being asked. I think it probably has something to do with the fact that when she’s coming up from the anesthetic her favorite tech sits with her and pets her “so she doesn’t have a traumatic wake up experience” and then she gets hand fed. I wish I could wake up like that – Cameron usually just throws my phone at my head and gripes about how much he hates the alarm and immediately goes back to sleep. She’s also being awesome about taking her pills; I hide them in cheese that I’m sure she can’t smell , but she eats them anyways, so far it’s just an anti inflammatory, some low grade antibiotics and an anti-nausea. They made noise about prednisone, but that stuff terrifies me. She took it when she was younger for allergies and she was manic. Also, someone I know took it and it damaged her heart.

Last night on our walk she was greeting strangers really exuberantly, and it dawned on me that if she can’t smell them she has no way of knowing they’re not Cameron. So all she wants to do is walk around outside and look hopefully at people coming up the street towards us. Aside from getting really bored with our block, as she doesn’t want to leave it, just pace up and down in front of the building, its freakin cold out there. So I drag her back in and she does the “daddy’s not home” dance which entails pacing around our apartment and whining, periodically licking the door. The only hope for distraction is the ball, and even that’s not engaging enough. Tonight I’m going to try juggling, maybe 3 balls will work.

So after work yesterday we went to the grocery store for fiber to give honey. They also told us not to give her any antioxidants as they could interfere with the radiation, so we’re pillaging the store trying to find the highest fiber foods with the lowest antioxidant content, except they really don’t print that on the box, do they? Whatever, $150 of fruits and vegetables later we’re half way home when we look at each other and say “DUH – Metamucil” in concert. But I’m pretty sure she will be allergic to Metamucil. I mean, she’s allergic to everything else (all meat besides fish and duck, all grains except quinoa and rice, dairy is ok and so are veggies and fruits), why stop there? But she appears to really like dried apricots, so I think we’re home free. And the vet clarified for us that he meant antioxidant supplements, roughage is a-ok.

I really hope this tumor shrinks soon – I’m running on empty sleep wise (can you tell from wander-blog here?), I think 5 or 6 hours on the last 2 days, and its incredibly pitiful to watch the sleep deprived dog – around 4 am I held her lips up and she took a couple of great big lung bucketfulls of air and fell asleep standing up, and promptly fell over on me. She’s such a good sport about it though, all she wants to do is play, go for walks, play, walk, fetch, licks, snuggle, treats, fetch and begin again. Frankly, I’m handling the lack o sleep worse. Externally, the only weird thing is that she’s breathing loudly and snorting quite a lot. Last night I’m pretty sure this woman on the sidewalk thought she was growling, and gave me a dirty look after she hopped out of the path of honey’s ‘IS THAT MY DADDY FINALLY?!?!?!’ frisk happening near her feet. I’m not even going to bother explaining that, or the “tumor war map” drawn on her face in sharpie. They can all bite me.

(the pic is her asleep on my lap in the truck on the way to LA, winter 2006)

Honey, would you like some fresh arugula?

2008-02-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

Honey a few weeks ago, passed out ->

I can’t believe how much writing here is helping me figure stuff out. It’s like two pieces of complimentary information wait until I sit down with a blank word document to attach to each other and all of a sudden, the world is a little more logical. Today’s case in point: apparently Honey needs more fiber in her diet. The vet said we could either give her extra vegetables and fruits or we could put her on a supplement. As soon as I wrote that down and started mentally preparing a list of the foliage I was going to offer her this evening I remembered that she’s been trying to eat grass lately. She used to do this when she was younger, and I was told by our vet in Tallahassee that it was fine as long as she wasn’t throwing it up. She wasn’t, and the grass wasn’t poisonous, so I let her go to town. Here it’s a little different – we live in the middle of Los Angeles and it rains like four times a year. There is NO WAY that grass is clean enough to eat, so I haven’t let her. Those two little tidbits may never have met up if I wasn’t recording everything here.

Now the problem becomes how to get her to actually eat the greenery – maybe she will because she knows her body needs it, but if we have to convince her to do so I think its going to come down to like sauteeing spinach in hot fish oil or some other substance so smelly that it’ll seep into the paint, because the dog can’t smell. Fetch has even changed – she can’t tell which ball (of the 8 matching balls always on the floor) I just threw, or which she had in her mouth last. So she will be determinedly trying to get behind a bookcase, convinced the ball is just out of reach, when the one she’s searching for is at her feet. She’s being an amazingly good sport about it though, I’ve heard stories about cats getting declawed and losing their minds, and I can’t imagine losing SMELL can be less traumatic for a dog, and although it has been happening gradually I expected some personality change. There hasn’t been one, except maybe she sleeps on me a little more, but that’s totally fine by me. On another note, I’m still a terrible juggler but as soon as I pick up three balls there’s suddenly a dog at attention in front of me madly wagging her tail.

<- Honey (at 55lbs) with Thor (weighing significantly more), her big German Shepherd, at the Miccosukee Greenways park in like 2003

One more thing....

2008-02-11T14:24:00.000-08:00

Since it looks like my free time from no until at least the end of February, probably through March as well will involve a whole heck of a lot of sitting at home with Honey, I'm trying to figure out stuff to do to allay the boredom. So far I have compiled this list of stuff to do to stay occupied:

1) alter all the vintage dresses I bought intending to alter
2) try to follow one of those historic patterns I have for turn of the century wear
3) read
4) learn to juggle (honey likes this one – lots of throwing of balls)
5) ???

Problems identified with this list:

1) alterations are incredibly, mind numbingly dull
2) I have no fabric for turn of the century sewing, and doubt very much if the garment would look right if I made it out of old green polka dotted bed sheets.
3) I’ve already read everything in my apartment except the plays / scripts.
4) I can only maintain enthusiasm for this for about 3 minutes at a time.

HELP ME OUT HERE, PEOPLE!!!

1st weekend of radiation treatment

2008-02-11T14:13:00.000-08:00

The doggie antinausea pill works wonders - she's eating again :)!!! We had a really good weekend. Saturday we figured out why she’s being so weird about food – apparently at the vet when she’s coming up from the anesthesia, they hand feed her and she now seems to expect the same service at home, thank you. She looks from her bowl to whoever fed her, and back again, but if we walk away she’ll eat. Freakin’ prissy animal wanting to be hand fed. Jeez. So Saturday Cameron had an appointment to get new headshots taken and his photographer has a mastiff (who is beyond sweet) named Beau and a yard and said it would be ok to bring Honey, so the three of us spent a few hours on his yard (which is so incredibly cool I just have no words) and then he took a portrait of Cam and Honey and I. it was weird, I’m not used to being on that side of the camera. And I can honestly say it was the first photo shoot I’ve ever been on that I didn’t have to hold a reflector card or trip the light meter ( I used to LOVE that little popflash, though, and that transistor box looked directly out of ‘back to the future’ – I remember feeling very important when I was asked to press that square red button…). So Honey spent the afternoon laying in the shade next to Beau chewing his ball, then she went with us to a restaurant called Home that has a deck and allows dogs. Its funny, I can tell she’s losing her sense of smell, or it’s at least intermittent. I had salmon and I took the leftovers home and promptly dropped them on the living room floor, and she wouldn’t eat it. It was sad – I know how much she likes fish and she wouldn’t even smell it. That’s got to be a factor in the wanting to be handfed, as well. Poor thing. Saturday night we hung out with our neighbors Max and Maria, with whom Honey is in loooooove. After about 35 minutes, when she had investigated their apartment to her satisfaction, she climbed up on the couch between them, put her head on Maria’s lap and zonked out. She also gave max more kisses than I’ve ever seen her give anyone that wasn’t directly related to me or Cameron.

Saturday night wasn’t so great for sleeping – I think I got around 4 hours, and Sunday we just sat at home, except for a few walks with the neighbor’s dog, a brief foray to the patio out back for a play date and about 4 hours of fetch. It was great. Until I decided to go to bed. Honey is incredibly attached to Cameron – I think she sees him as the great white hunter, and therefore is not entirely at ease until he’s around. This is impressive because she managed to sleep (quite soundly) every night for seven years without Cameron, and has never cared about the location of anyone but him and me at bedtime, as far as I’m aware, but now, if he’s not home when I turn out the lights, we have a problem. Cam closed last night, so he got off around 1 and then went to hang out with some friends. I was totally exhausted and had been battling the urge to go to bed since like 6:30, and around 10 I figured it could turn in. honey had other plans, namely pacing and whining, standing over me and wagging her tail, pacing some more, and standing at the door with her head cocked to one side. This went on until Cameron finally did come home at like 2:30. Needless to say this did not create an environment conducive to sleep. When he did come home she had trouble breathing and I had trouble getting her head in the right position. At one point I decided to sleep on the floor and it almost worked, but my shoulder started flipping out (I’ve broken it twice and if I get cold it will hurt. A lot.) and the last time I looked at the clock it was 6:10. My alarm went off at 7:25. URGH. I was so tired this morning I actually got lost in the train station and wound up coming out at the wrong exit, then I went to Coffee Bean for some espresso and they were training someone, so although I had worked out my order on the way to the shop – “regular latte, two extra shots please” (I even rehearsed it in my head so I wouldn’t get it wrong) they asked me all the follow up questions – do you want flavor? Sugar? Whipped cream? Sprinkles? And I was so out of it I actually got confused.

This morning Honey had another antinausea pill, so hopefully she’ll eat dinner. And Cam said she was happy and bouncy at the vet’s. I’m so grateful she likes the staff, I can’t imagine how awful this would be if her daily trip to get zapped was something that scared her.

Better than yesterday...

2008-02-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was rough. It was the first day Honey didn’t eat, and she was so sleepy that if we held her lips up so she could breathe she would fall asleep standing up. Cam had to catch her a few times, it really looked like she was

going to fall over. There was also quite a bit of gunk coming from her nosicle, and it freaked us both out. She would only sleep between us, with her head on Cameron’s pillow and her legs stretched out towards me. That may be putting it lightly, her feet were in my eye and I woke up once with a claw inching its way up my nose. Anyways, yesterday morning she threw up and the vet gave her an antinausea injection, so maybe that’s why she was so out – I remember when I had surgery they gave me phenergan and I have never been so zonked. Ever. She didn’t even eat dinner. Actually, she would if I hand fed her, but that is not something I want to encourage, as I can see her deciding it’s much nicer then eating on her own. Around 3:40 am she started breathing very poorly – louder than we’ve heard so far, fast and shallow. It freaked us both out. Cameron went to sleep and I took over ‘watch Honey duty’ and put on the Cosby Show marathon. This might be a really good time to mention that Cameron is, in fact, violently allergic to dogs. Every time Honey gives him kisses he gets all itchy and red. Same thing when Honey sleeps on his pillow, or under the covers, which he lets her do anyways because she has him wrapped around her tail. But around 5 she woke up enough to move to out from under the covers and was panting, so I’m thinking she was panting in her sleep and that’s what the weird noise was all about.

This morning I gave her an antinausea pill at 8 and her radiation appointment was at 11:30. I got home at 6:20 and she wanted to play!! It’s 8:49 now, and she’s been bringing me the ball and moving her bedding around the room all evening. She even looked like she was breathing out of her nose at one point, although she’s now laying next to me with her nose in the air doing the mouth breathe thing, so maybe that was just wishful thinking. My big plan for the evening is to make rice crispy treats (with strawberries!!!!) and then eat them.

No sleep... again

2008-02-06T11:09:00.001-08:00

Last night I went to Home Depot and walked around for like half an hour looking for something that would inspire me towards a more efficient lip-holder than half a cork. I finally got a pack of shims, thinking I’d make something that looks like a capital ‘I’ and the platforms at the top and bottom would hold her lips open, but I would up with some foamy knee pads which I cut a strip off of and sewed it into a ‘V’ shape, the wider end fits between her lips and isn’t so hard that it bothers her. She can also move her mouth easier with it in, her twitching doesn’t move it around or knock it out, and she can still breathe. I’m thinking I might also try to make a small square that fits in her loose-lip area and exposes her teeth, maybe like an inch and a half square, and hopefully that will stay in all night and we can finally all sleep, but I have a feeling this isn’t possible. I’m getting really worried about whets going to happen when she’s in pain and can’t tolerate the lip prop. I just hope the tumor has shrunk enough by then that she can breathe out of her nose and I can give her knock out medicine without worrying.

Honey’s getting really good at telling us when she needs help and much more tolerant of us messing with her mouth than she has ever been. If anyone got touchy with her mouth she used to put her eyes down and lower her ears politely saying ‘I’m not supposed to have human parts in my mouth, and you’re putting them there and I don’t know what to do except move away’ and then leave, but now its like ‘ok guys someone come fix this, I cant breathe’ last night was apparently my night for rearranging the mouth prop when it needed it, every hour or two, and she started out near my feet at like 12 when we went to bed and wound up on my pillow at 6:40 when I adjusted it for the last time. We spent the last hour before my alarm went off literally three inches apart, which actually worked out because I could feel her breath instead of listening for it. Thing is it’s not a set formula, like this position and this pillow. I’m not sure why but it changes every time and I have to figure out the magic combination, usually a mixture of two or three pillows, the comforter and both throws. She’ll be ok for about four minutes then stop breathing when she actually falls asleep, so you have to stay really still and watch to see if the position is going to work when she’s totally relaxed. Then two hours later the position gets uncomfortable or she kicks her lip prop out and we start all over. It’s quite special.

First day o Radiation

2008-02-05T10:01:00.000-08:00

I printed a ‘radioactive’ sign out and stuck it on our front door, I thought it was hilarious but nobody seems to know what it is… oh well.

Honey had her first radiation treatment yesterday – they put her out for about an hour and got her positioning all set up – the marks on her face (you can see them better if you click on the image) are a map of where to direct the proton stream (energize!) and will be there for the entire month. Unfortunately, her left eye will be in the stream at all times – something we really were hoping to avoid, as it causes dry eye (possibly chronic) and increases her chances of cataracts in 5 years or so – but as Cameron told the vet, ‘if we get to experience cataracts in five years we’ll enjoy every minute of it.’ and we will.

Last night she was totally fine – playing ball, catching it in midair, demanding food, she was total Hun. They did say that her mouth will get sore, so we’ve ordered canned food so the hard food won’t hurt her. I’m anticipating problems if her lips get painful, as she still needs us to hold one of them up so she can breathe, if they’re burned or raw it will be really tough for her to tolerate us holding them. I guess that's when the pain / sleeping pills will get used. I’m also concerned that any soreness in her mouth will be exacerbated by dryness which happens when she breathes using the ‘lifted lip’ method. I think I have a schematic for a lip-holder, right now we’re using a plastic cork (from a wine bottle) we’ve sawed in half (long ways) but it keeps falling out. If I can orchestrate the thing I’m thinking of I’ll post a picture. It’s really cute, though, she knows what the cork is and that it helps her breathe so she just lets us do it. Love that dog. I think she's also figured out that if she falls asleep with a ball in her mouth and her head over someon'e leg she can breathe around the ball, as illustrated. This also has the added bonus of insuring Cameron can't leave, as she's sleeping on him.

Today is day 2 of radiation – each session after the first lasts about 20 minutes, with the dog ‘laughingas-ized’ for about 15 minutes and a 1-2 minutes pulse of that tumor-shrinkin’ goodness. She’ll have 20 treatments in total, so every weekday in February. Poor baby. But I actually did manage to sleep last night, which is so freakin cool I can’t stand it. There was a minor cork-readjust from around 3-4 am but other than that all went well for me. Cameron has miserable allergies, and we can’t seem to fix them. No amount of vacuuming or febreze allergen reducer or swiffering seems to help. It really sucks to have two sickies at once, especially as they’re both having trouble breathing , and both from the left sides of their nose…. Maybe we ought to get Cam zapped while we’re at it.

8 years of Honeydog

2008-02-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

Eight years ago today I was standing in the Leon County Humane Society parking lot trying to convince a 4 month old Honeydog to get in the backseat of my 1981 Monte Carlo. This after I had spent 35 minutes convincing the cranky woman behind the counter that I would not, in fact, dump the puppy off in the woods anywhere or neglect to feed it, bathe it, or give it water, and that I would get it vaccinated yearly. It couldn’t have been clearer that she fully expected the dog to be dropped off at the pound again with a few weeks, at most. I’ve thought about sending the humane society a letter a few times, maybe with a photo of Honey in one of the weirder places she’s been, like the Native American Museum in the Painted Desert or the Versace store on South Beach, or one of the many, many National Forests around the country, and thanking them for letting me adopt her. I don’t know if this is motivated by the total worthless feeling I get whenever I think of that evil woman who clearly thought I was going to mistreat the dog, and a need to say to them “see?!?!?! I’ still a good mommy, you meanies” or what. I’m sure they can’t still remember her, she was a little pitmix puppy in a shelter about 2 hours from death eight years ago. I remember also that evening my mother, apoplectic, telling me that I had made a stupid decision that I would “regret for years” by adopting her. You would have thought I was pregnant at 12 or something. I seriously have no idea why nobody thought I could handle a dog. Turns out, though, being adopted by Honey was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ve been incredibly privileged to share the past eight years with her, and it must be that I’m so profoundly grateful for her that I feel the need to thank anyone, the vets, the people at the pound, even though they could not have been plainer that they thought I was a horribly undeserving person, strangers who pet her on the street, and everyone who’s nice to her, from the bottom of my heart. I really should be thanking her, but how do you thank a dog? With veal? With cuddles? With neck rubs and medicine when she needs it? balls or carrides? I’ve been trying to figure that out for eight years. If you have any ideas, please let me know.

I just figured out you can add pictures....

2008-02-03T21:22:00.000-08:00

This is like a hundred years old, no gray hair even. Im my parents house in Tallahassee, Fl.

Honeydog in her favorite baby blanket in our apartment in Jacksonville, around 2004.

Honey and the late, great Champion in my truck in the Aapalachicola National Forest. 2003-ish

On the beach in Jacksonville, 2005 just after we moved there. She used to like to bark at the surfers, and knew a few of them. Dogs aren't allowed off leash on jax beach :(

Here is a teensy selection of photos of my Honeydog. She started radiation today and I haven't seen her since Cameron picked her up from the vet but I've been told she's snoozing on our bed and getting coddled, which I don't doubt. My plan for this evening is to cook and be near my doggiegirl.

First experience with snow, inCouldcroft, NM in 2006. She tried to eat it.

Honey and I in the Painted Desert, winter 2006 moving to LA roadtrip. it was the 100 year anniversary of the park, and we werethe only people there. they let Honey come in and share apple cider and sugar cookies they had as part of the celebration. There is a view from one of the mountains in the park that's 130 miles.

Honey on the beach in Santa Barbara in 2006 or early '07, the first time she was in the Pacific ocean. We finished our cross-country trip, Jacksonville to Los Angeles, in 6 days, then the next weekend we went to the dog beach in Santa Barbara.

This is Lyle Lovett Honeydog "on her way through Houston, headed for L.A." in my truck.

Piggy Hun

2008-02-03T21:08:00.000-08:00

I’m going to start calling Honey 'piggy' because she snorts when she breathes now. I was up all night again holding her lip up (see lovely image) so she can breathe through her mouth, which is something she won’t do on her own. So unless she’s playing, and therefore panting, or lying on her side next to me while I prop her lip up and try not to move and wake her up, she still tries to breathe through her nose, which is completely occluded and therefore impossible. Poor baby. She also really (really) likes it when I rub her nose / face / neck, so I’ve been doing that a lot. Fortunately, we have a cable subscription that includes like 10 movie channels, so I was watching movies (Father of the Bride parts 1 and 2, Anastasia, Harry Potter 4, and Robin Hood Men in Tights) all night instead of infomercials on Lifetime. Cameron had the morning off so I went to the grocery store and I’m planning on making chili and then banana bread. I wanted Cameron to take a loaf of it to the oncologist with Honey tomorrow, but I’m thinking maybe I should send something prepackaged instead? When I worked in the public library insane people used to bake things and bring them to us, and we always threw them away (I know that sounds awful, but they also brought us dead seagulls and used hypodermic needles, so it really wasn't overly dramatic). I remember this one guy brought me fried chicken. Absurd. Anyways, on our first visit to the cancer ver I told them that she had a low tolerance to pain meds that “she must have inherited from me” and produced a chronologically-organized folder of all her medical records, including receipts, from the papers I signed at the pound when I was adopting her to the most recent, and had a corresponding notebook I had my questions for the vet outlined in, and took notes in while we talked (in different colored ink, so I could track who said what) so I’m fairly sure they already think I’m a wacko, but hopefully if I send baked goods they won’t think I’m a loon / crazed killer, because tomorrow is the 8th anniversary of the day I adopted Honey, and I’m encouraged that she’ll be starting treatment on that date. Also, I have a really kickass recipe for banana bread, and I'm grateful that those people do what they do, because without them she would have no chance.

On another note, I’m compiling some of the sources I used while I was researching canine chondrosarcoma. Most of the stuff I could find online was really old, from around 2000 or 2001, and the oncologist didn’t have any journal articles or current research on hand. It doesn’t help that my passwords from college to their knowledge base have expired and I can’t log in and search there. Here are a few of the REPUTABLE sources I have found:

The Merck Veterinary Manual:
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp
standard book for vets, searchable online and current.

Entrez Pubmed:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/
Pubmed was developed by the National Library of Medicine as a free resource for doctors worldwide, and the standard language is English. It’s pretty clunky to search, especially if you haven’t had exposure to it before, but it frequently includes research into canine and other animal conditions as well as those of humans. I once found a study of the long term effects of woman aged 18 – 24 who took Maxalt, a migraine medicine I had just been prescribed. It was great.

Chondrosarcoma Support Group:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Chondrosarcoma/

Remember, if you’re searching for medical information to not look just that the date at the bottom on the webpage, that reflects the update date, not necessarily the age of the information. The first article found on Google about Chondrosarcoma in dogs was from 2000, and terribly outdated. Also, Chondrosarcoma is good for comparative medicine, as it has many of the same characteristics in different species.

Saturday 02/02/08

2008-02-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

Last night we figured the sleeping thing out. Since she won’t or can’t breathe out of her mouth, and hasn’t been sleeping, we were dealing with a lethargic honeydog who made some truly horrible and pathetic noises trying to breathe through blocked nasal passages. So Thursday night Cameron discovered that if you pulled her lip up she could breathe out the side of her mouth and actually get some (much needed) air, and therefore sleep. It was really sad; she was so exhausted that if you gave her a totally open airway while she was standing, she would almost fall asleep on her feet. So yesterday I worked from home and when I knocked off for the day around six I rubbed her ears with some lavender oil (aromatherapy for sleepy) and then held her lip up, and she immediately fell into this deep twitchy sleep. Sometimes her tongue would get in the way of her breathing, and she was so out I could put my finger in her mouth and move her jaw/tongue around so she had an airway and it didn’t wake her up. So we spent about three hours yesterday evening sleeping like that, and then played for a while and then went to bed the same way. She figured out exactly what I was trying to do and is now not only letting me stick fingers near her mouth (normally she HATES that) but also requesting it. So that’s what we did yesterday, how we all (finally) got some sleep last night, and that’s all we’ve done so far today. She clenches her jaw when she sleeps, so that’s why she wouldn’t (couldn’t? I can’t believe that anyone is that stubborn – even her) open her mouth before, and would have probably have to either be drugged to the gills or passed out to actually do it. She’ll sleep for about 2 hours then wake up and demand some food, we’ve started putting warm water on her food so she can smell it and its not so hard in her mouth on the biopsy site, want a massage, bring me the ball, then back to sleep. It also seems like the anti-inflammatories are starting to help her breathe as well, as she seems to be able to breathe a little better out her nose.

Anyways, the water was out in the building when I woke up this morning but it looks like its back on, and I’ve watched like four episodes of Antiques Roadshow, where people seem to get values on how ugly things are – “oh, it’s hideous. Insure it for around $5,000” also, who buys that stuff? I remember one episode where this lady had what she thought was a decorated salad bowl and it turned out to be a ceremonial hat form some completely eradicated Inuit tribe, and was worth more then I’ll make in a lifetime. I’m waiting for someone to respond to the appraiser’s value with “wanna buy it?” that’s totally what I’d do.

An orange ball just appeared in my lap. It seems it's playtime. Since we actually got her to sleep, we have our Honey back.

Cool news

2008-02-01T20:49:00.001-08:00

The aspirate of Honey's lymph node came back "awesomely clean" so it has not moved to her lymph system. That is very, very cool. Like, WOOO HOOOO! And since it's not in her lungs either, double WOOO HOOOO! She also managed to sleep a little tonight - granted I was sitting next to her holding her mouth open, but hey, I’ll take it where I can get it.

Also, we're starting radiation on the 8th anniversary of my adopting Honey (2/4). I'm taking that as a good sign.

And I'm getting a ball shoved in my face, so I’m off for some fetch....

Diagnosis and the vet

2008-02-01T10:23:00.001-08:00

We saw the radiation oncologist yesterday – (http://www.cityofangelsvets.com/) his offices are nicer than any doctor’s office I’ve ever been in, by far, and the staff / doctors were all incredibly nice. Honey wasn’t afraid of it one bit, which was odd seeing as the last time she went to the vet (Monday the 28th) she was sedated, biopsies were taken, and she had to spend the night. The practice ONLY treats cancer patients, there were a bunch of prednisone-chunky half-haired doggies in the waiting room and they all seemed pretty happy to be there, so we took that as a good sign.

We met with the vet for about 2 hours, and he feels she’s a good candidate for ‘definitive radiation’ which means radiation treatment with the goal of remission or tumor elimination. We’re not sure if her cancer is an oral chondrosarcoma or a nasal chondrosarcoma, which means there’s no way of telling if it started in her mouth or in her nose, but it’s in both now. The survival rates for these types of cancers are comparable – 1-2 years for nasal with treatment, 16-24 months for oral with treatment. We decided to go for it, and she will get 20 doses of radiation – once daily, Monday – Friday for 4 weeks. We hope to start Monday, the 4th, which is the 8th anniversary of the day I adopted her from the humane society in Leon County, but it depends on her ‘plan’ being completed by then. They have a 3 view CT scan of her tumor and will enter it into a program (developed for human treatment) that will determine the best angles for the radiation to be directed, and the position she will need to be in for the treatment. Her first appointment should last an hour or so, where they arrange her position and take a bunch of xrays to make sure the tumor is in the target area, but after that the treatments will take about 15 minutes. They twilight her (thing laughing gas, like the dentist) and put her in the position the plan formulated, and then zap her. It’s just gas, so it’s not total anesthesia and not as dangerous.

The doctor is one of like 16 board certified radiation oncologists in the US, and he is directly responsible for the radiation of every animal. Everyone who deals in any way with the radiation and plan design is board certified, ahs had experience in both human and animal radiation treatment and has over 4 years experience of working with him directly, so we’re confident they know what they’re doing. He aspirated the lymph node nearest the tumor to make sure it hasn’t spread there, and gave her some anti-inflammatories and a sleeping pill (she’s having trouble breathing out of her nose, and for some reason WILL NOT breathe out of her mouth) so the plan was the antinflamatories would make it easier for her to breathe, maybe open up more of an airway, and the sleeping pills would zonk her to the point where she wouldn’t worry about breathing and wouldn’t wake up every minute or so to gasp for air, because her body will naturally open her mouth and take care of it. Too bad that’s not what happened at all – she spent the entire night trying to breathe out of a completely clogged nasal passage, and every 15-20 seconds would gasp for air (really loudly) through her mouth, but still wouldn’t open her mouth to breathe. Cameron and I spent the entire night holding her lips up so she could breathe out of the sides of her mouth and maybe get a little sleep. Result was that we got none and she got a teensy bit of gasping snooze.

I just spoke to the vet and apparently we didn’t give her enough of a does, as we only gave her half a pill, so tonight I’m supposed to give her more and completely wreck her so she’ll sleep. He also said that there is a chance the tumor is growing so fast that it’s occluding her nasal passages, which would be “really really rare” but if that were the case it would affect her chances of a remission. There’s just no good news, is there? Anyway, I’m feeling awful for giving her a dose which made her suffer all night, and freaked her out so much, so tonight ill give her a full pill and “watch her closely for the first hour or so to make sure she’s still breathing” well, you can just rock me to sleep tonight. Thank god tomorrow’s Saturday and it doesn’t matter if I’m a totally and complete zombie. Maybe I can get someone to come over and sit with me and the (hopefully sleeping) Hun tonight while Cameron’s at work, so I don’t lose my shit and freak her out in the process.

Canine Nasal Chondrosarcoma

2008-01-31T12:19:00.000-08:00

Honey's biopsy results are back, and it's Nasal Chondrosarcoma. Our appointment with the radiologist is at 3:40 today, and they told us not to give her any food for 8 hours before the appointment, and no water for 2 hours before. I hope this means they're going to start treatment STAT. The weird thing about this is she's not acting at all sick, except that I think the antibiotics (clavamox, causes vomiting and nausea sometimes) is getting to her in the mornings, and the other day coming off the general anesthesia was tough. she’s tired, ill give her that, but last night, I believe 43 hours after her CT scan and two large biopsy samples taken from the roof of her mouth, she was bringing me her ball and catching it in midair.

Apparently Chondrosarcoms has a 10% metastasis rate, and this has not gone to her lymph nodes or her lungs, but the vet did say it was "locally aggressive" I wonder if that means she'll lose her nose? Anyways, I've only had about 25 minutes to do research so I don't have any really good sources yet, but I'm a librarian and believe in the value of facts, so ill ask the oncologist for some info and ill dredge some reliable current stuff up online from somewhere to make available to anyone else who needs info on this.

Honey's sick, I'm an Idiot.

2008-01-30T11:01:00.000-08:00

So Honey has had some issues with her nose for a while, since we boarded her when we went to Florida for Christmas. She went through 2 courses of Clavamox and they didn't fix it, so the vet sent us to get a CT scan, which was done Monday, and they discovered a "mass" in her sinuses, which went through her hard palate. Aside from being completely beside myself because my baby is sick, I'm also having trouble handling the fact that I have to wait for a diagnosis, because that not only keeps me from doing research and figuring out what can be done, it also means that all the research I do is really broad and I keep reading these horrible doomsday predictions and the fact that they were written in 2000, and even though logically I know there is newer better information, and treatment of these HAS to have been improved in the last 8 years, I can't stop myself from imagining the worst scenario possible.

she's having trouble breathing through her nose, as the tumor (or 'mass', whatever) is taking up a lot room, and naturally the area is all pissed off and therefore inflamed and there's a secondary infection. So although she can breathe completely fine through her mouth, she won't, and there's a constant noise of her inhaling, sometimes punctuated by gasps when she is really low on air. She can't sleep because every time she begins to drift off, she remembers she can't breathe and jerks her head up and starts over. Thankfully, we have some more antibiotics, and hopefully that will help her clear an air passage. The vet said there is no way she will pass out from lack of oxygen and suffocate, and Cameron keeps assuring me that her body will take over and if she needs to, she WILL, in fact, open her mouth to breathe, but she sounds awful.

Monday she had a CT scan (and the best vet in the world - http://www.asecvets.com/) and had to stay in their ICU overnight, not because she was really in need of it, but she has never been under general anesthesia, and she had a little bleeding from the biopsies they took. Tuesday we picked her up and brought her home and she was pissed off and sick. General didn't make her feel good and she was groggy but couldn't sleep because of the breathing. Awful. Cameron had a workshop at 7:30 and I went home around 5, so she was never alone, but I screwed up royally; I decided to let her dictate what we did all evening, which to me sounds like a nice thing, but I think it freaked her out that I was getting her to decide which way we walked when I opened the door, and where we sat, etc. she has the pack ranks instilled in her so deeply, I think it was like I was asking her to lead, and while she was sick. Terrible idea and it never dawned on me. I also gave her a pain pill, which I guess she had when she was spayed, but not since, and she wigged out – racing around the house and she actually HOWLED, I’ve never heard her do that before. I seriously considered either having a nervous breakdown or taking her to the emergency vet, but she chilled out. I called the vet and they said some dogs just can’t handle opiates and she may be one of them, I swear I almost told her it was probably inherited because I’m the same way. I’m sure they already think I’m insane.

so I’ve been thinking about it, and I need something to do because I don’t care about John and Kate's plus 8, or who got arrested on Hermosa beach, and that kind of low-involvement crap makes me stress out about her more, as I’m basically just staring at the TV waiting for the next 'inhale' noise. Great, now I’m feeling guilty for doing that to her last night. That’s it; I’m printing knitting instructions off the internet and learning lace tonight.

Her appointment with the oncologist / radiologist (one of 16 board certified in the US – in the Hills, of course, - http://www.cityofangelsvets.com/) is Thursday afternoon, and I really have my fingers crossed her biopsies will be back by then because I doubt we can get another appointment before next week and I cannot sit through another weekend like last one, I’ll lose my damn mind.

I would go into the millions of possibilities about her tumor, but there are literally millions. I do know that it’s probably a malignancy, because it went through the bone of her hard palate, and I know that nasal tumors in dogs aren’t uncommon. I swear, if they had told me that years ago I would have added it to the list of stuff I worried about daily and maybe this wouldn’t have snuck up on us. I hope we got in time to do something – it’s apparently not in her lungs and not in her lymph nodes, so maybe there’s still hope.

Scarlet Fever

2007-11-05T13:05:00.000-08:00

Apparently it's 1842, because I have scarlet fever. Freakin L.A. - it makes you sick any way it can...

so is it 'my' city yet?

2007-10-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

I go through phases when I’m ok with the fact that the only wildlife anywhere near me is a squashed worm on the sidewalk, and then other days I wake up and I’m so depressed about the lack of trees that I have to immediately drive to the nearest home depot and lurk in their potted palm section. I think this explains why I have like 8 potted plants in my office. Anyways, this weekend when I woke up instead of making breakfast I decided I was going to start taking advantage of the new coffee bean a few blocks away, and I even remembered to NOT walk on the block with the dumpster that smells like hot Tijuana cesspool at noon. So I walked to the coffee shop, got my latte and sat around for a few minutes trying to guess what language these people were speaking and watching the news, then I walked home. Then I realized I was wearing a camo waffle-weave long sleeve shirt. Maybe I should have left that one in FL.

Vodka watermelon

2007-10-01T13:17:00.000-07:00

I started making these at parties where there are those annoying girls who say things like "I don't drink...... I'll just eat the fruit..."

yeah, ok, you do that ;)

1 liter of cheap vodka
Medium sized watermelon
3 limes
1 bag of sweetened coconut flakes

cut the watermelon in half, use a melon baller to get all the yummy redstuff out.

let the bite-sized watermelon balls sit in a colander as you hollow out the rinds, so some of the natural juice drains off

put the balls in 2 ziplocs and add 1/2 a liter of vodka to each bag o melon. Let this glorious mess sit in the fridge overnight. Or don't, whatever.

when you're ready to serve it, pour one of the ziplocs into an empty rind (presentation is everything) and top with the juice from half a lime and a handfull of sweetened coconut flakes (you might have to top it off again as it gets eaten).

The best way to rescue the balls of glory from the watermelon - vodka lake that forms as people eat these seems to be (after intense, careful study) bamboo skewers for shish kabobs.

Stressball?

2007-09-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

So I've started having pains in my jaw, which means one of three things according to WebMD -

1) I'm having a heart attack

2) I have TMJ (which i DO NOT Have, or if I do, I'll never know, because that requires a trip to the doctor and/or dentist)

3) I'm stressed out

so I’m goin' with #3, which is odd because I've had a pretty packed and hardcore 2 weeks at work, but I thought I was being remarkably calm. Evidently, I'm being calm during the day while grinding my teeth for like 8 hours a night. Awesome. So like any good librarian, I did research on how to reduce stress levels. Apparently massage, baths, lavender smellie things, puppies, chocolate and meditation all reduce stress. My apartment is too small for a puppy (DAMN), baths are really boring, and usually too hot or too cold, my boyfriend gives lame massages, I'm not wild about chocolate, and whenever I've tried to meditate I've fallen asleep. So it's off to the aromatherapy store conveniently located in the building next door.... where the woman behind the counter tried alternately to sell me a $45 candle – "I think that watching that burn would actually INCREASE my stress level"- and portable lavender roll-on body scent - "I don't want to smell like lavender, I want to small like Chanel. I just want to calm down"- but she just kinda cocked her head to one side like my dog does when i make a cat noise, and wafted by in her fuggy haze of dirt and gardenias to show me a twig diffuser or some such nonsense.

I'm a slacker, I know, I know...

2007-09-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

ok, I know it's been forever and frankly, not posting makes me feel guilty and its easier to just completely ignore this blog.

But I'm going to honestly make a real effort to post, I promise. So far this month I have started going to the gym again and using those festively hued ankle bands the physical therapist gave me and now I can (DRUMROLL) actually wear (low) heels again :)!! The downside is that working out makes me eat everything I can see. Today (it’s 11:30) I’ve eaten a stuffed pepper, 2 cups of edamame, green beans, a slim fast, coffee, and two bananas. In the immortal words of Lewis Black, piggy piggy piggy f*ck piggy piggy.

I am so glad it's finally football season, even though the Seminoles are playing about as well as my VJ soccer team did in 9th grade. We went to some guy's house (a friend of a friend through Cam's work) to watch the Alabama game Saturday, and it was almost like being at a frat party. There were like 5 fat labs begging for food, lots of hotdogs that had been sitting out far too long, somebody's half-good homemade sauce, Vidalia onion dip, and everyone who lost their halftime predictions had to eat a spoonful of dogfood. Plus, I may have actually met some cool girls in LA, which seemed until now to be virtually impossible.

I'm also getting frequent calls from my mother, who is in south Florida helping her parents move to Tallahassee. It's a clusterf*ck of truly mythic proportions, she hasn't moved in about 35 years so her version of 'change the address on their ID cards' involves not only a two hour wait at the DMV but also the joy of being lost in a orange grove. (fyi, http://www.hsmv.state.fl.us/dhsmv/900.html). About two years ago someone told me that men and women didn't get along because of a difference in their approach to problem solving. According to him (and I have seen no evidence to the contrary) men solve problems, and women share. Although I sound harsh towards my sex I have to completely agree. My mom's a sharer, I'm a solver, so when I get a phone call saying she's "lost in the wilderness" my instinct is to googlemap her out, her instinct is to giggle incomprehensively until she mistakenly drives herself back to civilization. Meanwhile, my 89 year old grandparents are in the backseat pretty sure she's become completely unhinged. I'm serious; woman called me this morning to tell me she didn't know where the Salvation Army was. Not to ASK where it was, just toe tell me she didn't know.

In other news, Pear Vodka + blueberry Italian soda = :)

My dog is fuggin' brilliant

2007-07-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

So you know how people say animals have psychic links to people they love? And dogs can do weird stuff like seem to know that their owner’s died from like 3,000 miles away? Well, Honey pulled her inner ESP out this Saturday night and it was really amazing.

I have a friend Ann, who lives in my building with her boyfriend. Honey has known her for like 4 years and LOVES her. Honestly, the dog gets more excited over A than she does me (BTW, that’s Ann’s dog in my rack – Pirate) so Saturday Honey and I spent a good part of the afternoon hangin’ with A and her guy. Then they went to a Fucking Champs show and Honey and I went home to watch the history channel and knit *we live right on the edge*

At about 11:30 I decided I was going to bed and I took Hon for her evening constution (I had to wake her up to drag her outside). When we got back inside she flipped her shit – whining, panting, shaking, drooling. She has done this exactly three times before, two times when she had an intestinal blockage, and the first night Cameron worked late and she and I had to go to bed alone. At this point, Cam’s been out of town for 4 nights and Honey hasn’t cared that much, ok at all, and she’s totally physically fine. I had spent the last 3 days with her and nothing weird had been eaten, no meals skipped, no baths given, no new food introduced. So she starts throwing herself at the door, scratching at it, whining and barking, which she has never, EVER done before. When she needs to go out she simply stands directly in front of me and wags her tail until I take her out. So I take her out again, and as soon as we’re outside the building she calms right the fuck down, just strolling down the street, and won’t go to the bathroom, even though I asked her to. So we go back inside, and she promptly flips her shit again. I try to ignore it but unfortunately she’s stubborn-er than I am. So out we go. Again with the calm walk down the street, not trying to pull or go in any certain direction, and this time we run into Ann’s BF, who’s alone. He asks me if I’ve seen A, because she apparently left him at the show 45 minutes ago. At this point I should illuminate that the show was in a neighborhood so charming that I won’t go there in broad daylight. There was race riot there earlier this year (remember that whole LAPD firing rubber bullets at crowds containing children??). He’s walked home from there alone, which is scary enough, but A is out there (waving arm out behind me, over downtown LA) alone, at 12:15 am, and has only a drivers license in her packet, no keys, no cash, no phone. Great. So now I’m flipping my shit too, I have a sick dog and a lost friend. So I do the only logical thing I can think of, I go inside and call Cam, who’s in Florida, and I ask for advice. As soon as we walk inside Honey starts the hurling herself at the door, and even though I had her talk to Cam on the phone, something she usually LOVES doing, she ignores him and keeps trying to break down the door. So back out we go.

At this point I have resigned myself to the fact that I will not be sleeping at all, but strolling up and down the street in front of our building all night. I tried letting Honey lead, not that she doesn’t always, but if she tries to pull me towards the parking garage I know she’s looking for Cam. She didn’t seem to want to go anywhere, just walk up and down the street and not smell stuff. It was weird. If she had been going to the bathroom a lot, or eating grass, I probably would have taken her to the vet, but she was so totally calm once we were outside that there was obviously nothing really truly wrong with her. This walking goes on, twice more I tried to take her back inside, twice I lost the battle of wills and within 5 minutes we were outside again. God that dog rules me. At about 1:30 I noticed that a cab had pulled up and was parked in front of our building, and I walked back towards it to see if maybe A had come back, ‘cause then at least I could focus all my worrying on the dog. We walk to the (all glass) building front door and I see A’s dog in the hall in front of my apartment, so I go inside and grab his ass before he escapes the building and gets hit by a car (in gratitude, I’m sure, he pees all over me & my favorite yellow “I buzzed my tail off at Tybee’s Bat Mitzvah” t shirt). So I open my front door, stuff honey inside and head up stairs to A’s apt to return the dog and check that they’re ok. I run into A in the hall and return the dog, give her a hug ‘cause she’s ok, then book it back to my place to prevent the Hun from ripping the door off its hinges. I walk in….. and she’s got a ball in her mouth and is wagging her tail. No shaking, drool gone, no whining, she didn’t attack the door when I locked it, just played fetch for about a half hour and then fell asleep on the bed with me.

Now, I know Honey never actually saw Ann, but I know she could smell her and knew she was home. And the timeline of the irrational slip out fits exactly with the Ann-lost-in-a-shitty-neighborhood timeframe.

From now on, I lease cars.

2007-07-19T14:33:00.000-07:00

After about 3 months of waffling I’ve decided to sell my beloved truck. Large block V8’s aren’t as practical in LA as they were in FL. Also gas is like $47 a gallon and who can afford to feed it? So I place a ‘for sale’ add in the LA times and the check engine light immediately comes on. So I take it to the mechanic and apparently it needs a new fuel pump, which is like $800. He also informed me that I had never had my spark plugs changed, and taking into account that I did it myself one time, I think he’s full of shit. But oh well. Maybe somebody who runs a lawn business will buy it and I can spend money on stuff other than parking spaces and supporting sandy countries.

Anyways, aside from learning that my truck is going to cost me a shit ton, yesterday somebody spit on me from the second level of the train station and then when I got home someone else threw about 60 of those annoying little firecrackers that pop really loudly when they hit a wall at my kitchen window and freaked out my dog. I guess I did something karmicaly bad.

Ah, crap.

2007-07-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

So I have this friend who’s always encouraging me to write. And that’s great, lord knows I need it, my fear of being unemployed is so much stronger than my need to create that I just kept my head down and in a book until I had a good stable job, but now I’m in a place where its like pulling teeth cause I’m so far removed from any creativity. I’ve tried to set up a few poetry groups here, since nobody will let me join theirs, but I’m kinda worried I’ll wind up with a bunch of nutters mumbling at me and that’s not good for anyone.

So back to the friend – he has given me a due date for 2 poems, and I’m not going to lie, my first instinct was to snag two old ones and pass them off as new. The thing is, its hard for me to write unless I’m like horribly unhappy, that over caffeinated jittery unhappy, except sometimes then I haven’t done anything creative for months and I get this awful sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, and write completely unrelated words like a list until I feel like I’ve purged it all.

I also think that he may be intending for me to read whatever drivel I come up with in front of people, which is worrisome because I’m always afraid that writing poetry makes me a self indulgent twit, and that’s probably at least a factor in why I never write any more.
I started going through some old journal last night, trying to get a start on something or at least an idea and there were a couple good lines in there, but not all that many – I wasn’t completely let down, but I was hoping for some diamonds, so I didn’t have to think. My main themes seemed to be: things that taste like metal, rotting flowers and drying vines. I think I used to focus on food a lot but it seems to have transitioned into plants, and those odd bits of scrap you’re likely to find at a marina. I guess I’m going to have to come up with something I wont be horribly embarrassed to read to someone I don’t know. Shit. How the fuck did I wind myself into this? I hate it more ‘cause it was my idea. Entirely.

First Post

2007-07-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

Once I had a blog for like 30 minutes and I wrote down all the cool stuff I did, and then someone gave the URL to my dad and I dropped it like it was hot. Maybe it's time to give it another go? Nobody give my dad the URL? kthanks.

I'm going to start by telling you what I did yesterday (the 4th of July)

1) made my guy and my dog breakfast in bed - french toast & sausage

2) made 2 cakes out of the plums KP brought me from her tree. The goal was like plum - almond upsidedown cake, but I should have used marzipan instead of just ground almonds, becasue they made the consistancy of the cake weird. Anyways, I accidentally swallowed a plum pit and started to freak out because I think I remember reading somewhere that they have cyanide in them? So I called poison control (really) and the woman told me that in order for the cyanide in fruit pits to affect you, you have to eat like 4,000 of them and chew them up really well. Good to know. and BTW, poison control is 1-800-222-1222.

3) had the inside of my truck shampooed and armoralled within an inch of its life, and took pictures, so if I ever do actually put it up for sale I'll have nice clean photos to post with the add.

4) bleached the kitchen and the bathroom, drank beer and read Harry Potter #4 during the commercial breaks in the History Channel's Revoloutionary War special.

5) sat on the floor with AW and JM (neighbors / friends) who went on vacation to mexico and brought back this traditional mexican booze that tasted like pollen and sambuca. Tried to keep Honey off the pollen / sambuca liquor.

6) comforted Honey (Honey = the dog) when the fireworks started.

7) fell asleep on C while he played video games (this is like my favorite hobby ever).

and thats about it. I especially like the plum pit - cyanide - pollen / sambuca triangle. Kinda stoked I'm not sick today :D