Living is a gamble, baby. Loving's much the same.

I have so much to say and no time to say it. Curly Joe is being released from the hospital in a few hours. It has been one big roller coaster ride of emotions these last four days. Curly Joe was in such bad shape that we almost euthanized him. I called them to let them know we were on our way, and the tech put me on the line with the doctor. She said another specialist had taken a look at him and offered (at no charge to me) to take radiographs to see about the blood that was collecting in his chest cavity. "He doesn't see a dog who is ready to die," is what she told me. So I gave them the OK to do a chest tap and autotransfusion. The short of it is, after an unsuccessful surgery, a blood transfusion, a plasma transfusion and an autotransfusion (draining the blood from his chest cavity and putting it back into his system via an I.V.), Curly Joe is alive and (mostly) well and ready to come home.

We all knew he was special. Now I've seen firsthand just how strong he is, and I will never give up on him so easily again. Yes, the doctor was unable to repair his shunt. Yes, he developed serious complications post-op. But the doctor said if we can just get him past this, we can maintain him on special food and medications until we can find someone who can fix his specific problem.

So that is what we are doing.

Thank you to all of you who have supported me and Curly during this difficult time. It was really, really close for a while there. I'm anxious to get him back home where I am sure he will continue to improve. Tank will be so happy to see him again, as much as he hates to admit it.

Reg is our coach.

The good, the bad, the Curly.

The good: I GOT THE JOB. My schedule is Monday - Friday (some Saturdays) from 9:30 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. Yeah. It's going to take some time to figure out sleeping, working out/running and working, but I'll manage. Now I can afford to get fitted for good running shoes, and I won't be in pain anymore.

The bad: I still haven't been working out.

The Curly: I had Curly Joe in for his post-surgery bile acid test yesterday. This afternoon, we dropped him off at the NW Vet Specialists. They'll call me tomorrow before he goes into surgery and again when he's out of surgery and in recovery. It was hard dropping him off. He was having such a great time being around all the other dogs in the lobby, but when we said goodbye and the tech took him in back, he didn't want to go. He looked back at me like, "Why aren't you coming with me?" and it KILLED me. I cried when we left. I'm a nervous wreck already and they haven't even started operating yet. I shouldn't feel bad, I know. Despite the risks, he had to have this surgery or he would have died.

When they called to offer me the job, they said I could either start September 29th or October 6th. I picked October since it would give me about two weeks to look after Curly while he recovers from surgery. He's going to need careful monitoring to make sure there isn't any fluid collecting in his abdomen again.

-:- Happy thoughts for Curly. Positive, happy thoughts. -:-

A voice from the end of a leaf.

Hey. Whaddya know? I’m alive. I haven’t run in I don’t even want to know how long, but I haven’t given up. I’m still a runner, I just haven’t had time to hit the track for a while. A lot has been going on, some of it (a very tiny amount) good.

Tank and Curly Joe have finally settled into a nice friendship, though I’ll be damned if I can figure out which one is dominant over the other. Seems like they take turns. Curly has gotten a little bit bigger, though he has lost a couple of pounds recently. As you know, I had lab work done on him and his liver values came back funky. My vet suggested I take him for an ultrasound, so I took him to VDIC last week. Turns out Curly Joe has a problem with his liver shunt. Intrahepatic are harder to fix, and that is what he has. I took him to see a soft tissue specialist at the Northwest Veterinary Specialists this past Friday and we had an incredibly long talk about Curly Joe and how we can go about fixing his liver. All this time, we thought he had seizures and brain damage from being poisoned when he was three months old, but it turns out those are all symptoms of shunt problems. Quiet demeanor, head pressing, staring off into space. Those are all signs and symptoms. It even stunted his growth; he’ll never grow to full size because of this.

This will eventually kill him, so there is no choice but to operate. I will be setting that up sometime this week. For now, I’ve got him on special food (low protein) for his liver. He loves it, though he has been having diarrhea for the past couple of days (another symptom). Aside from a bad patch a week or so ago, Curly has been doing really well. He’s got such an amazing spirit, nothing gets him down. He reminds me of Luke so much. A couple of weeks ago, we were walking down the kitchen stairs when Curly spotted a cotton ball. He dove off the stairs and landed head-first on it. He’s a crazy puppy. (Holy crap is it raining right now.)

So that’s what’s going on with the puppy.

Now for the good news: I’ve got a lead on a job. My friend, R, told me about a position opening up at her work and said she would pass my resume on to her manager. I got a call from said manager a couple of days ago and have an interview with her tomorrow afternoon. The only downside to this job is that it’s in NE Portland and it’s the night shift. Stephen King night shift, yo. But I don’t really care about that. Traffic won’t suck at those hours, plus I’d get a $1.50 shift differential. I would also get benefits (medical, dental, life insurance, 401k, free lab work for my pets, etc.). So right now the pros are outweighing the cons. The biggest pro being MONEY. Steady paycheck. Paying off bills. Getting out of debt. All good things. I really hope I get the job. It’s going to do wonders for my crazy brain. I need routine and stability and working very, very part time (from home) for a transcription company wasn’t good for me at all. It was and it wasn’t. I would still do it part time as needed, but I can’t live on eight cents a line.

Exciting! My sister even bought me a little bento lunchbox (just in case). Aw.

Hawkeytown
Originally uploaded by orclimber

Finally, and this made me so incredibly happy, I dragged my sister to the Winter Hawks’ season opener last night at the Memorial Coliseum. Cheap seats were six bucks; how could we not go? I got the tickets yesterday morning and spent a few minutes going over the seating chart with the guy at Fred Meyer. (They sell Ticketmaster stuff in the electronics section.) At first he offered me some seats right behind the goal, but I passed because then that big damn net would get in the way. I aimed for seats to the left of center, in the nosebleeds. If you look at the picture up there, all the way up at the top left, that’s basically where we were sitting except at the opposite end of the rink. Pretty good seats (as I mentioned in the voice post).

The whole place is so much smaller than the Ice Palace; even from where we were sitting, we got a great view of the entire game. It wasn’t even close to being full capacity, so when I sat down and a pole was blocking the goal, I moved a couple of seats down. No biggie. Sis was a little concerned about the Hawks’ mascot, Tom-A-Hawk. He was wandering around below us, and she was convinced he was going to come over and she would have to push him over the railing. I told her he wouldn’t leave the main floor, but a few minutes later, he walked up the stairs and started mingling in the nosebleeds. At that point, Sis jumped out of her seat and moved to the other side of me. ”If he comes this way, you deal with him.” Lucky for me, he stayed away, but she and I argued for a while over whether or not he was a chicken or a hawk.

The game itself was fun. Nothing exciting, but I’m a bit spoiled. I’ve seen the bulk of my hockey games during the Cup playoffs, so I’m used to a completely different type of play. There were a couple of scuffles each period. Nothing major, but one or two ended with a guy from each team spending two minutes in the box. The Hawks beat the Chiefs (ooooownnzuh!) for shots on goal, yet they didn’t get a single goal.

Midway through the game, the Jumbotron (or, as I like to call it, the Minitron) fritzed out and then went dark. Oh, and there was the blimp that flew around and dropped paper (coupons?) on people. The one at the Ice Palace doesn’t go very far, but this one went allllll over the place. At one point it was floating in the air, pointed directly at us. Felt like Close Encounters. And then there were the two guys in the Hanson/Chiefs jerseys. So awesome.

The Chiefs won 3-0 (the third goal was scored during a five-on-three power play) and with 3:12 left in the third period, one of the Chiefs hit a Hawk. The Hawk took exception to this and shoved the Chief. The Chief shoved back. The Hawk hauled off and popped him right in the face. Then there were helmets and gloves all over the ice and the crowd was roaring. It was beautiful. It went on for quite a while. Not a bench-clearing brawl, but there were three fights going on at once. The goalies stayed out of it. At one point I looked at my sister and she said, ”Ok. Fights ARE fun!” They put two guys from each team in the penalty box (one of them practically had to be dragged) and then the captains spent a few minutes talking to the ref. Eventually, three guys from each team were led off the ice, and there was much cheering. I tell ya, when those players walked by without their helmets, I was struck by how young they are. BABIES! The lot of them! The oldest on both teams was 20 and the youngest was 16. Oy.

Anyway, the rest of the game played out and everybody went home.

All in all, a very good night. Even though “my” team lost, I still really enjoyed my first WHL game. There’s a person in this internet hockey community that mentioned enjoying the high school and beer league games more than the Hawk games, so I’m hoping to find out when and where those local beer leaguers are. So I can go to the games. She called them old-timers. I hope that means there’ll be lots of fights.

The Hawks play the Vancouver Giants next Saturday. I reeeally want to go.

So that’s what I’ve been up to. Hope you are all doing well. If I get this job, the first thing I’m doing (after paying off some bills, of course) is going to get my feet evaluated for good running shoes. I miss running. A lot.