Houseguests

I know, I'm totally crazy for posting three blog posts in one afternoon. But I finally have the time to write, may as well do it now right?

Saturday around 5:30pm or so, we finally made it back from visiting my mom in the hospital and I walked across the street to get our mail. Just as I'm about to approach the mailbox, I see three dogs run down the street, around the corner from my house. Two of the dogs, the ones that were doing the chasing, came back and laid down on one of my neighbor's lawns. I immediately called Matt to tell him there were dogs outside then I saw a little kid sitting on his porch. I asked if they were his dogs.

"No."

I asked if he knew where the dogs came from.

"No."

Okie dokie. So I headed inside to put my purse down and grab some treats, see if they were friendly and if I could get close enough to see any tags. When I returned with the treats the dogs were gone. The boy said they got outside our circle and we found them a little ways away. With some serious luring with treats, and getting yelled at by many neighbors for not having my dogs on leashes and letting them roam people's yards when I clearly didn't have control over them (to which I yelled "THEY'RE NOT MY DOGS! I'M TRYING TO GET THEM TO MY HOUSE SO I CAN SEE IF THEY HAVE OWNERS". Buttheads. They seemed sweet, but clearly had been walking for a while and needed shade, water, some food and a nice place to sleep. I have no problem sharing my yard with dogs who need some shelter, so they stayed. Our neighbor said he saw the dogs early that morning, so they had been walking for at least a day.

We had an extra water bowl so we filled it up with water and let them sleep for the night. I started calling everyone I knew who might live in the area to spread the word that we had found dogs and Animal Control was closed, so we couldn't get them scanned or picked up.

Sunday morning, I got to work. I had made a flier the night before so we could post them around the neighborhood and Matt was great and put them on all the mailboxes. Unfortunately it was Saturday evening, people probably wouldn't be checking their mail til Monday afternoon. It was a warm, sunny day which is wonderful unless you're a dog with lots of hair. Matt and I had talked about buying some sort of covering for the backyard anyway, so this finally gave us the push to buy an inexpensive pop-up tent. You can see they're shaded in the picture above. Happy boys!

So no calls about these boys. There is a vet down the street who is willing to scan the dogs for free, so we're going to take the German Shepherd down there this afternoon. Not sure how he'll handle being in the car, but he should be easier than taking the lab, so we'll take just him and hopefully he has a microchip that can tell us where his owners are. If not, we're going to have to call Animal Control tomorrow and have them picked up.

Those of you who know me might understand just how hard it is for me to let go of a German Shepherd. These boys are not neutered, so we'd have to get that done if we adopted them, and who knows what their health is like. The lab is a little chubby while the German Shepherd is a little skinny, but we can't really tell how old they are either. I'm guessing the lab is about 5, German Shepherd is about 1-1.5. Both calm as can be. Not trained, but that can be fixed.

Wish me luck, this won't be easy considering the emotional state I'm in at the moment...

Obsessed

Yeah, I'm kind of obsessed with this little boy. Story to come later.

Go go go go go go...

Whew, sorry to be MIA for so long again. To say that my plate has been a little full would be a total and gross understatement. We got back from Hawaii on Sunday evening, March 21st and quickly went to bed at my parents' house. Monday morning Matt drove back home while Dad and I went to the hospital.

My mom had been going through a battery of tests to see if the lumps on her legs were anything serious. Though she had a diagnosis of Leukemia Cutis, there was no proof of cancer in her blood or bone marrow so they continued to monitor her to see if anything changed over the days, weeks, months. The day before we were supposed to take off to Hawaii to see Doug and Angela get married, I got a call at work saying my mom had less than 4 hours to get herself checked into the hospital and that chemo was necessary right away. The cancer was spreading. Is spreading. So I spent the rest of the work day calling people and trying to decide if leaving the mainland was such a good idea at this point. There was really nothing I could do at that point, mom was going to have to go through another round of tests while at the hospital before chemo would actually start, and she literally insisted that I hop on that plane and enjoy myself.

And I did. Hop on the plane. And enjoy myself. To an extent.

But I had to visit when I got home, so Dad drove me to UCSF where she is being treated. She had started chemo, but she hadn't hit her worst point yet so she was ok with a visit. Thrilled, actually. She's definitely tired of the hospital - especially since she had back surgery just a few months ago.

She's finished her first round of chemo after being in the hospital for two weeks. The doctors tell her she'll be there for another 3 weeks recovering from the full effects that should happen in the next week or so. Then she gets to go home for a bit before returning for another battery of chemo. I'm doing little things here and there, trying to help her get more comfortable with the idea. She is doing much better, health wise, with the chemo treatment, and while she has a long road ahead the prognosis seems good. She's tired, she's sick, but she's a trooper and so far so good. If you have any space in your prayers or thoughts, please send one into the Heavens for my mom, would ya?

More later... I have lots of stories.

My health saga...

Those of you who read this blog probably know that I have suffered from a mild cough for about 6 weeks now. During the last week of January, I developed a really bad sore throat. Thinking maybe the air was dry or something I let it slide for a few days but then developed a cough the next week. I tried over-the-counter cough syrups and cough drops to no avail. I went to the doctor who said I had a cold, but he would prescribe a cough syrup so I could sleep. He also gave me a nose spray to help with the swelling in my sinuses and ear canal. After a week or two, I showed no signs of improvement. This time the doctor prescribed antibiotics over the phone so I did not have to go in to see him, he diagnosed me with bronchitis. The antibiotics made me feel better, but with only a 5 day supply the symptoms didn't go away completely. They did, however, go away long enough for me to enjoy my birthday weekend for which I was very appreciative!

I would later find out from my pharmacist that the 5 day antibiotic is a "go home" drug - meaning it's not too powerful and doctors basically prescribe it to get rid of minor infections and get the patient THE HECK out of their office. 

So a week after my birthday my cough returned and so did the ear ache - though neither really ever went away, they just became easier to deal with. Back to the doctor who told me I must have a touch of asthma and gave me two inhalers. Used them for two weeks - nothing. Back to the doctor AGAIN. Notice a trend? I'm getting tired of paying copays and taking time off of work to go to the doctor only to be told it's nothing serious. He sends me to a radiologist to get a chest and sinus x-ray, which comes back negative for infection. So the doctor then says that I must have allergies, not asthma, so he puts me on Allegra D - which of course is not covered by my insurance so he changes it to the regular Allegra and told me to add regular over-the-counter Sudafed with it (essentially the same thing as Allegra D when combined). After a week of that not working, I finally went to Urgent Care. I needed a second opinion. CLEARLY. The urgent care doctor tries to prescribe me two antibiotics, one I've never taken and the other is the go home drug, but prescribes two doses so I would take both for 10 days.

Here comes the shocker.

The pharmacist at Target says that the two antibiotics interact negatively and could give me heart problems (please, I have enough problems), so he called the doctor - keeping in mind it's 8:50pm and both the pharmacy and Urgent Care close at 9pm. So by the end of the night they're leaving me on the antibiotic that I've never had before and luckily I didn't have any negative side effects. The hope is that I'll feel better before hopping on the plane to Hawaii, otherwise the next step is getting a CT scan of my chest to see if there is something more serious going on.

If you made it this far I want to apologize for how long this post is!

One year

Today is officially the one year anniversary of Matt and I living in our new house. The house we OWN. I'm 25 years old, I cannot believe I own a house. March 10, 2009 we officially closed on our house and got the keys! Of course, that was a Tuesday and we had to be out of the rental house by the end of the week, so we packed up as much as we could and moved it over that night. By the end of the week we were exhausted and completely overwhelmed. After all, we were supposed to move in a week or two earlier than this date which would have given me plenty of time to clean the house from top to bottom (shampoo the carpets, bleach all the bathrooms, mop the floors) and paint all the bedrooms, but instead we had to do a rush job after work hours which meant making several trips in the dark. To this day we have had the downstairs painted, painted one of the bedrooms, and I have yet to steam clean the carpets or even properly mop the floor downstairs. But it's our house and we love it! I'll try to post some updated pictures later!

New look...

Do you like? I was bored with the old background. I have a lot of things to talk about. Boring things, but things nonetheless. Like how odd was the finale of The Bachelor this season? And have you tried Reebok's Easy Tone shoes? My feet felt so much better after walking in those, I was actually impressed that they did what they advertised. Oh and this weather? Out. Of. Control. It's full on raining today but it was 70 degrees yesterday. Gotta love spring! Plus I've been sick for about 5 weeks now. I'm not even exaggerating, I got sick during the last week of January and here we are March 2nd and I'm still sick with, yet again, new symptoms. Another trip to the doctor might be in order but I want to see if this continues to stay bad or if it gets better.

I've had a few photo shoots lately with a few promising opportunities coming up, I'm having a blast with it all but it really scares me... I've always taken photos for myself, not for someone else, but I'm trying very hard to keep it as MY art, and hopefully my clients will like it because it's something unique and my style and it just happens to match their style. Anyway I'm slowly adding pictures and getting used to blogging my professional pictures and updating my website.

As I said, nothing too exciting but I wanted to tell you all that I am alive, I'm still here, and I'm planning on blogging more in the near future. Stick around!