Life Update Sunday, er Monday, (v. 1.20.14)

Sorry for the delayed update this week!  Things have been hectic, in both a good and bad way, here in our household.

I spent Monday with Sara, as I updated earlier this week.  We're having a craft day on this Thursday if all goes according to plan.  I need to catch up on THIS IS NOT A BOOK, so it gives me the perfect opportunity to do so.

Eventually, I'll start a regular posting of completed entries when I get a spare moment.  Also, to Kasey, the book is a lot of fun now that I've been through about five or so pages.  You definitely need to reserve some time for it (I find about an hour a page is adequate), but it's worth it!

I went walking with Mike on Tuesday night.  We ended up cancelling our Thursday walk and Coffee Coven is taking over our plans for tomorrow night, so it looks like it'll be next Thursday night before we can walk again.  Boy, Thursday's going to be nuts.

Thursday of this previous week, Aaron and I received our Les Mills Combat DVD set in the mail, so we've been working on that.  It's tough.  I have to remind Aaron to modify often or he overworks himself in a hurry.  However, I'm excited to get started on a program that will help me achieve my goals.

Of course, on Tuesday and Thursday, I volunteered with TARA, as I do every week, cleaning out the cats' pods at our local PetCo.  We have four cats left, though Jerry and Cosmo are definitely being adopted.  Jerry just has a small UTI that needs to clear.  UTIs seem to be very prevalent lately, between Artie and Zeus, as well as other stories I've heard.  It's strange!  Nonetheless, they're getting along well.  We added a new Calico to the mix - Holly.  She's gorgeous and loving when she's not trying to make an escape run.  She'll get used to the set-up though soon enough.  Hopefully she'll be adopted not too long after!

On Friday, as I was packing my laptop to visit Charli, I discovered that Hermes, aka Asscat, had chewed through my laptop's charger.  My brand new laptop.  You know, the one I got for Christmas and hadn't even had a moment to use yet?  Yeah, that one.  Ugh.

I discovered it as I followed the cord to the plug in only to see a giant spark and it fall in two.  No wonder he'd been acting strange lately.  I'm kind of surprised we didn't re-enact National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

The night with Charli and Mel was fun.  I actually learned with them how to play Munchkin.  The last time I'd played, I loathed the game because it seemed so complicated.  It didn't help that the only people playing were people who knew it incredibly well.  Charli and I had never played before, and Mel still needed to remember the rules, so she slowly walked us through it.  Surprisingly, it's a lot of fun!  Definitely not what I remembered from that one experience.  Can't wait to play it again!

Saturday, I volunteered with ESFOA.  We had two dogs from other organizations: Darlene, a gorgeous golden retriever mix (I think), and Auggie, a three-legged Australian Cattle Dog with blue and brown spots in both eyes.  He was absolutely beautiful!  And so mild-mannered.  Someone loved him in his previous life.  Unfortunately, I noticed a few symptoms of a UTI spring up while we were there, including some whimpering when I took him outside to go potty.  On the bright side, I think we caught it very early and it'll be an easy treat with some Clavamox.

ESFOA also received an amazing donation from KU MICU.  I'll let the donor describe it for me:

"My company recently had their annual holiday party.  Most of us are animal lovers, and most of us share a home with a rescue or two, some even have three.  We decided that this year we would collect items for an animal shelter.  Some of us went and bought items, and some of us had extra toys, cleaning supplies and treats at home, that our pets no longer needed or had way too much of. Today I was  at Petsmart in Liberty.  While waiting in line to check my dog in at Banfield, for her comprehensive exam, I watched your volunteers interact with not only the animals, but every person who walked by them.  It was then that I knew that the items I had in my car ( from my procrastination to contact a shelter), had found a new home.  When I approached the ladies about bringing in this bag of goodies, their gratitude, and shock shined.  Although it was not much, it was as if I had just donated a million bucks."

It's things like this that make me love volunteering.  Well, that and Auggie's lovable smile.  And Darlene's deep love of belly rubs.  Every animal I meet makes me love my volunteer work.

He did this all on his own - and got stuck.

Sunday, Artie woke me around 6 in the morning by licking my arm and smacking his lips together.  I thought he might be thirsty, since we've had to keep the door shut to the bedroom because of Zeus's UTI.  I got up, let him out and he paced in front of the door.  Usually we keep Artie to a strict schedule as far as his potty runs go, but if he's pacing like that, I'm more than happy to walk him.  I turned to get my coat and I was already too late - he was going on the carpet.  This is not typical Artie behavior, and it was punctuated by the fact that he was excreting smoothie-consistency dog food.  Poor guy.  I cleaned it up, walked him and went back to bed.

We then woke up to another incident at 11:30 am.  This is when I took away his food for a short time and we started checking him for dehydration and fever.  By 4 pm, we had to keep him in the bathroom since we didn't want to ruin our carpet.  At this point, we'd also had one vomit issue, and a bit of gagging/coughing.  However, otherwise, he seemed happy and excitable.

In 2011, he had an allergic reaction to medication which produced similar results.  When that happened, he was shaking, lethargic and didn't want anything, not even water.  This wasn't quite the same.  He was still playful, excitable and happy - he just had other things happening.  Aaron and I ran through a list of suspects for causes and settled on some cooked lamb fat he'd received the previous day as long as things didn't get worse.

Between all of this on Saturday and Sunday, I had caricature gigs, which means I was running in and out all the time.  It made it so much harder to leave on Sunday afternoon and again on Sunday evening with Artie's issues.  However, when I came back home late Sunday (technically early today), he hadn't had another incident.  And this morning, when we woke up, he was hungry.  We'd given him some low-sodium chicken broth the previous day to help with any dehydration he might be experiencing, but held off till this morning to give him dry kibble.  So far, he's held that down just fine.  We've even walked him a few times and nothing out of the ordinary has happened.  I figure I'll feed him again this evening and, if he can hold that down, then we're in the clear.  Hopefully it really was that the lamb fat was just too rich for him and not something else.

This is why I don't give my dog table scraps.  He's allergic or intolerant to practically everything.  Aaron and I might give him a bit of cooked protein or meat fat at the end of a meal, but that's the most he gets.  And he'll certainly never be getting lamb again.  Poor guy.

This is pretty much why I didn't update yesterday.  I was so busy and so concerned for Artie that it completely slipped my mind.

Other than that, things have been going well.  I believe Zeus is over his UTI, but he's still got another week of medication and I'm determined to keep him on it.  Apollo has also been doing fine after his surgery last week.  He's a crazy little guy, but we love him.

I think that about sums up my week.  I hope everyone's doing well out there!  Feel free to drop me a line and update me on how you are and what's going on!