Thursday, April 22, 2010

Gah, I feel like I'm nothing but a downer lately. I'm not always unhappy, really.

The latest - Hubby fucked up his knee during his martial arts class. He threw a new student, who supposedly had martial arts experience. The guy didn't know how to be thrown, so Hubby held him longer than he should have and the guy fell on Hubby's leg, so POP went the knee. The new student is well over 6 ft tall and a big guy, naturally.

Hubby had an MRI yesterday and won't see the orthopedic specialist till next week. He just happened to drop our kids off at the same time as one of Peanut's friends was being dropped off and they boys got talking about his knee. The other dad asked if Hubby had testing yet and Hubby replied in the affirmative and mentioned the medical clinic we use. Other Dad is a radiology tech there and offered to call Hubby today with the results. He called this morning and it's bad. Completely torn MCL + one of the other ligaments and a torn meniscus. We won't know if it will require surgery until the doctor sees him.

Please, no surgery.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

What a week.

Lily took a turn for the worse overnight Tuesday. She had tarry stools and fluid in her abdomen on Wednesday morning. We knew things were bad, but Hubby decided to take her to the animal hospital for the ultrasound, just to be certain. She had stomach cancer. I went Thursday morning to say our goodbyes and be with her. She was so much worse than when I had last seen her Monday morning. Afterward, the vet asked if I wanted to feel the tumors. I'm not a vet, but I could feel the lump. I'm a bit upset that our vet missed it, but I don't know how easy it would be to find if it wasn't something you already knew was there.

Peanut took her death much better than we thought he would. He's already asking when we can get a new dog (not anytime soon).

I also found out that the woman who babysat me from babyhood into early school years passed away last week. I was happy to hear she was at home with her family. She was one of those very special people. She loved us as if we were her own grandchildren. For some reason, she especially took to Mom and me.

One of my friends/coworkers lost her grandmother this week and another's has cancer.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

A couple of my comments disappeared. Blogger is doing weird things.

Meadowlark - I can't imagine a pet dying from rat poison. What a horrible way to die.
Lily is back at the vet's. Based on her symptoms, the vet believes she either has pancreatitis or something (bad) wrong with her liver. She wanted us to take Lily to a well-outifitted animal hospital for an ultrasound and biopsy of the liver. Hubby and I discussed the cost, how much we've already spent (around $800 in the past two weeks), logistics of getting her to and from another town, and Lily's age. He spoke again with the vet and decided to go ahead with treatment for pancreatitis to see if that helps her. If it doesn't then we'll probably go with the high-tech place (which will be another $350-$400 just for the ultrasound), knowing what she has will likely be lethal.

I hate to sound like it's all about money. It's not. But we are very tight right now. We finally, FINALLY paid off both credit cards in February with our tax return. I thought we'd be able to focus on building up our savings account/emergency fund.

Then our primary car needed $2K in repairs, finishing off the tax return, followed by Dad getting sick and my trip to visit him. Then we got the bill for Bean's overnight hospital stay, requiring a payment plan. The boys currently have more in their little savings accounts than we have in ours.

We had to add the in-patient vet care to the card.

Hubby and I had a couple of heart-to-hearts about the way we spend money and that it needs to change. We must cut our grocery spending. Our personal spending must be for needs and not wants. A couple things he wants will have to wait until he can save up for them. I hate it. I'm always the "bad cop" saying "no". I'm the one who forgoes my fun money when we're short. I'm resentful about that part and it's something I need to work out (charting last year's spending and comparing his personal stuff vs. mine was an eye-opener).

We make decent money and should be able to follow our budget with a small cushion for emergencies, but we don't.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Hubby's on call this week and it's already been interesting. The latest "customer" was a dude who got drunk and pissed off his girlfriend by being a drunk asshole in the middle of the night, so she told him to leave. He decided it would be a good idea to get in bed with a neighbor after climbing in her window. Unfortunately for him, she lives with 3 other young women, including her lesbian cousin and the cousin's girlfriend who didn't take to kindly to the dude and beat the crap out of him. He ran back to the girlfriend's house and tried to hide from the cops, but got tazed trying to sneak out a window.

Of course I cracked up when I heard about the ass-beating and tazing. He had that and more coming to him.

I do not think it's funny that he broke into the neighbors' house. Getting into bed with the young woman was downright creepy and wrong.
We're not doing so well on the pet front.

We had older momma cat put to sleep about a month ago. She was on thyroid medicine and had been slowly declining. I went out of town on a family emergency, and when I came back she could no longer eat, smelled terrible, and had an eye infection. Hubby took her to the emergency vet (of course this happened on a Sunday) and she was put to sleep once we learned she had a huge tumor in her neck that was preventing her from eating and had pressed against the nerve that controls blinking -she could no longer move the eyelid causing the eye infection.

Peanut took it very hard. We talked about heaven and how she no longer is sick. How the angels are looking after her and how she can watch over us. I pulled out our copy of Cat Heaven by Cynthia Rylant and it seemed to be a comfort for Peanut (although I always cry when reading it.)

Now I'm afraid we need to add Dog Heaven to our library. Lily's had vomiting spells for the past couple of months. The vet couldn't find anything wrong when it first started and gave Lily a round of antibiotics and anti-nausea meds. It worked for a while, then the vomiting episodes started again. Two weeks ago it got worse and I realized she had lost a good bit of weight. Again she was given anti-nausea meds and another medication for her liver (I think). Last week she was tested for Cushing's Disease and came back negative. She's miserable, nauseous, week, and not eating even after another visit yesterday with anti-nausea shots and pills. The vet doesn't know what's wrong, her liver enzymes are off, and if she continues like this I don't think she'll last much longer, nor do we want to prolong her misery. Hubby and I feel terrible and we're worried about how the boys will handle it when she passes.
So, it's been a while. Where to begin?

We transferred the boys to a new daycare and love it. It's 10 minutes from our house, is a certified Pre-K provider, and provides after-school care and transportation from the elementary school. Win-win. We met the director a while back at church and were very impressed with her. Hubby checked out the center about a week after talking with her and it's incredible. They don't plunk the kids in front of the TV in the mornings and afternoons and the director is not afraid to let go of any staff who aren't nurturing and kind to the children.

Peanut made two new friends on his first day there. Both boys are happy at drop off. The only days we've had crying were on the first day and one day when Bean was sick (and I ended up picking him up two hours later).

Peanut frequently talks about his school friends. We found out one of them is the grandson/son of the bible thumper family down the street. Peanut talks about him all the time and Hubby recognized the grandma one day when she was picking the littly boy up. Just to be sure, he asked Peanut what his friend's mom looks like.

"She's tall. She has long hair. And she has a squeaky voice."

Yep, it's her. Hubby and I cracked up (she does have a high voice).

***

Bean keeps us entertained as always. He's now using 2-3 word sentences, sings along to "Twinkle, Twinkle" (as much as he can) and says hearty "Amens" in church and after bedtime prayers. He can count along fairly well to 1-10, too.

***

Peanut has learned to read!