Tuesday

Tuesday was a regular ol' "work around the house" day.  I needed to do a bunch of little things:  

-small load of laundry (how did something that was sticky and looked like lollipop drippings get on my house shoe?)

-got together all the dog food and treats that Milo can no longer have so I can donate to the local humane society

-washed the dog food container and let it dry all day in the sun

-planted some fall seeds--broccoli, turnip greens, collards, lettuce, kale.  Will they grow?  I'm hoping at least the kale and turnip greens will, because my husband really likes those.  

-pulled a few weeds.  One type of weed has been trying to take over my pollinator bed so every time I'm near the bed I pull a few to try to keep on top of it. 

-I made a quick trip to the vet to get Mr. Picky Pants (aka Milo) some canned food that works with his new "protect the gallbladder"diet.  He hasn't always been so picky.  In the last few months he's decided he doesn't really love dry dog food.  I'm mixing the dry and wet together to make the wet last longer.  He will begrudgingly eat some of the dry food if he can't avoid it.  Ha. 

-cooked a dinner of tempeh, brown rice, and broccoli.  The tempeh was in a marinade for several hours, and it was poached before that, so the taste is more mellow.  

-sat outside on the deck to read and got bit by a red ant for the first time ever.  It climbed inside the leg of my shorts and got me. I don't know the difference between a fire ant and what I would use call a red ant, but I know the dang thing hurt like I was stung by a wasp, although it went away a lot faster than when I was stung by 2 wasps last year.  

Didn't See That Coming

We had an interesting end to this past week. First off, the foundation work is done for now.  We have one more area that needs some steel under it, but that will wait until we get the encapsulation done in our crawlspace sometime next year hopefully.  Quite a bit of my flower bed was destroyed but I knew that was going to happen.  This year was a transition year in that bed anyway, as I am converting it to a pollinator garden.  Hopefully some of the perennials I planted in that now-blank area will come back next year.  

On Friday, we went to a vet appointment for Milo.  He has been showing some cognitive changes for a while now but lately there has been more pacing and panting, so I wanted to make sure he wasn't in pain for another reason.  Our vet started checking Milo out and immediately said he needed an ultrasound.  It turns out he had a tumor in his spleen the size of a softball!  It was pushing against his intestines and I can only imagine how much pain it was causing.  Splenic tumors are very vascular and his was a ticking time bomb, so he was in surgery about an hour later. We got to see him for a minute before surgery, and tell him we loved him and what a good boy he was.  He's an anxious dog anyway, and now at nearly 15 his hearing is gone and his eyes aren't great.   

The day after surgery 

The biggest worry was that they would open him up and find a cancer that had spread.  In that situation, we would have made the decision to let him go.  You can imagine how it felt sitting by the phone and waiting for a call.  Thankfully they didn't find any other tumors, he did well, and only needed to stay one night.  

He does have an enlarged gallbladder and removal in a dog is a risky surgery with high mortality, so we are doing all we can to avoid that possibility.  Milo is now on a low-fat prescription food and 2 meds for life.  He's also got 4 other new meds right now (2 antibiotics and 2 for pain) so we are still getting used to all of that.  The splenic tumor has been sent off for pathology so we can see exactly what it is.  If it's benign then we don't have to worry that it could be what is going on with his gallbladder as well.  He goes back in a little under 2 weeks to have his sutures (there must be 20) removed and we should find out the pathology then.  

3 days after surgery

My husband had to work Labor Day weekend but was off Labor Day, and I spent the weekend at home making sure Milo was OK.  Hopefully this week will be a quiet and boring one!

 

This Week

 This week we have been having foundation work done on our home.  We knew for a while this was coming, and decided it was finally time.  Apparently the people who built the house made the spans too wide, so it allowed the house to sag.  Ah, the joys of home ownership.  

The men have been working hard for 3 days out in 100+ degree days with jackhammers and shovels, and installing steel beams in the crawlspace, so I am definitely not going to complain about noise and/or expense.  Milo the dog will complain about strangers walking in HIS yard and coming into HIS house though.  He can't hear anymore but he can feel the vibrations.  Apparently they dig underneath the foundation, and then they insert steel until the house is back to where it should be.  

The cats are also freaked out.  They walk around quickly and low to the ground.  Norman spent the first day hiding under the bed covers, as he usually does if there's any kind of stranger in the house or working outside.  

Here I am checking on Norman, after he's been hiding for 5 hours. Please note the panting of the anxious dog in the background.  

After they left yesterday, it still felt like 105, but I was determined to get some time out on the deck.  I had my patio umbrella open and brought the fan outside to give a little air circulation.  

 Reading is a big love of mine, and I especially enjoy reading outside while watching the hummingbirds zoom around the feeder that's a couple feet away from my chair.  One often will fly right by our heads when they are chasing another hummer off.  We call that "buzzing the tower."  

Currently I'm reading "The Good Life" by Scott and Helen Nearing.  I've had this book since we went to our very first Vegetarian Summerfest in PA.  It's pretty good.  I'm about halfway through.  I'm also reading the most recent Thursday Murder Club on Kindle from Libby.  I try to have one fiction and one non-fiction book going at the same time.  

Also this week, Cosette, 13 years old and mom to the 3 "kittens" who are now 12 years old, and also big fan of the RBF, had a dental.  In the end she needed 7 teeth removed, including all 4 canines.  Three had cavities and one had an abscess.  With an abscessed tooth most of us would be begging the dentist for antibiotics and pain meds but Cosette never drooled, stopped eating, or acting like anything hurt.   Cats:  hiding pain and/or sickness since they evolved probably.  She is currently zooming around the house due to the transdermal opioid pain med she has.  Yesterday she loved up against me over and over in an aggressive way.  Ha!