Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Wanna Feel Old?

Remember when this Nirvana album came out, way back in 1991?



Well here's that cute little baby now, age 17. And here's a link to a recent news article about him in case you want more info.




Where does the time go?

(pics courtesy of www.npr.org)

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Screaming

Had an interesting morning today. I had the windows and patio door open enjoying the cool morning air when I heard this creepy, almost human screaming coming from outside. I've heard this sound before, but it's always been late at night when I'm out walking Shelbe and it's always been a lot further away. This time it sounded like it was right outside.

So I grabbed the camera and recorded a quick video of the sounds. You can't see anything in the video except the neighbor's back yard, but you can hear the sound quite clearly. It was echoing through the entire neighborhood so it was hard to ignore. It even had the local wildlife a bit upset; you can hear the sounds of the birds and several dogs going crazy in the background. Around the 0:10 and 0:58 sec marks you can hear The Shelbster grunt out a little bark too.

I checked around online a few weeks ago and I'm pretty sure it's the sound of a red fox screaming.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Shelbster

Figure it's time for an update on The Shelbster. Overall she still seems to be doing ok. Especially for a dog who was diagnosed with Cushing's Disease and diabetes almost 2 years ago. When I took her to the vet initially, he didn't think she'd survive the weekend since she had an extreme case of ketoacidosis from the unregulated diabetes. The worst case he'd ever seen, actually, and he had already given me the "talk" about making a hard decision that night. She pulled through it though and is still kicking. She's a tough little dog.

I have been noticing a few things with her lately however. Her appetite wavers occasionally, she'll have low blood-sugar from time to time (and all the fun symptoms that go with that), and she's started dragging her right hind-leg a bit when she walks. When I got home from work this afternoon she appeared to be having some problems with that leg and putting her full weight on it. After a few minutes of walking around it seemed to clear up though and appears to be fine now. Weakness in the hind-legs is a symptom of Cushing's though, so that combined with her arthritis may be what's causing her problems.

After discussing everything with the vet, loads of online research, and long hours of internal debating, I opted to leave the Cushing's untreated in her. And I don't regret that decision at all. Given her medical history and health at the time, that was the only choice I could make.

She has good days and not so good days, but the good ones far outnumber the bad and overall she seems to be doing as well as can be expected. And hopefully that'll continue for a long time.

[EDIT (12pm): All of the above is true, but I can't get the feeling out of my head that something's wrong. There haven't been any big warning signs, just little things like dragging her foot, so I shouldn't be concerned. Yet I am. I'm convinced she only has at most, days left. Why do I always look for the absolute worst possible outcome in everything?]

Monday, July 7, 2008

Books

I stopped by the bookstore after work today and picked two new ones...Ray Raphael's "Founding Myths", a book about the real stories behind some of our most famous tales from the Revolutionary War, and a book containing Thoreau's "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience", neither of which I've ever read. I can't believe it's taken me almost 40 years to get around to "Walden", and the "Founding Myths" book looks extremely interesting.

Big decisions to be made in the next few weeks. I'm hoping to get lost in these two books for a while to help me clear my head and make the right choices.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Catching Up

Yeah the updates have been spotty and I haven’t been here much. I’d like to say I’ve been busy outside enjoying the nice summer weather, but that’s not even remotely the case. The real reason is pure laziness. Maybe I’ll do better and keep things moving at a better pace.

MRI Results 1: My brain looks normal. Cool, I’m ok (but damn it, was hoping for a medical excuse for my lazy attitude and lack of goals). Diagnosis: get off my ass and stop looking for excuses.

MRI Results 2: I have an almost complete occlusion of my left subclavian artery with some retrograde flow, possibly from capillary feed and my left vertebral artery. Translation: the artery in my left arm is almost completely blocked off; there is some blood flow through other vessels, but not much. That’s why my left arm gets “tired” after 15-20mins of constant use and is weaker than my right. All of which I’ve known about since I was 12. Diagnosis: there isn’t much to be done unless it gets worse; then it will involve taking a piece of "extra" vein from my leg and using it in my shoulder to bypass the blockage.

The vascular surgeon was very cool and talked to me like a real, live person instead of an interesting case study. Plus, he’s a decent amateur photographer with some really cool shots of his hiking treks on his office walls.

It’s been chilly (in the 40s this morning, in June!) and raining a lot lately. I love it.

The annoyingly loud downstairs neighbors have finally moved out! Hopefully some sweet little old lady who doesn’t own a stereo capable of shaking the building at 7 o’clock on a Sunday morning will move in now.

I found out indirectly that my services will no longer be needed. Sucks that I wasn’t given the courtesy of being told directly, or even told why for that matter, but I had a feeling something was amiss from our interactions (or lack thereof). On the up side, large chunks of my free time are my own again and I don’t have to worry about holding my tongue about certain subjects anymore.

I finally saw “Iron Man” at the theatre. Holy shit, what a good movie. Much better than I ever expected it to be, especially since I don’ really care for Robert Downey Jr. By far the best movie I've seen at the theatre in a very long time.


Wonder if I'll find something to post tomorrow or if it'll be another week or so.