Month: July 2008

Yes, I am writing again. I average just a few hundred words a day but at least I am writing. You can see the progress in the sidebar. I upload the manuscript every other day or so and Lorna downloads it and reads it. (I can’t get the two laptops to network together and I can’t find my ever elusive memory key) So far, she likes it and has only a few comments. She had to suspend all her thoughts of the previous version(s) before I would let her read it.

I am working on my part of the workshop I am participating in. I am the moderator as well as panel member (sort of). I glanced at the calendar and realized how close everything is. I have to call the Phoenix wheelchair place (and hope they hold the chair and charger without a deposit until I get there) and call the shuttle that has a wheelchair van and arrange for transportation to and from the hotel. Ack! I have dinner plans now for Friday with the Thudders (long story and, after I told you, I’d have to kill you). Thursday evening is still open so that may be when I explore. Sunday after everything is over, I will be putting notes and stuff together and basically recuperating until I leave Monday morning.

Oh! Flight info. Got the ticket set. Here’s the wonky thing. We are going to drive over to Johnson City TN where I will take a puddle jumper to Charlotte and get on a big plane for Phoenix. I take flight 2570 out of Tri-City Airport and flight 1505 out of Charlotte. Then I take flight 1546 from Phoenix to Charlotte and flight 2559 from there back to Tri-City Airport.

Here’s where it gets weird. If I drove to Charlotte and got on flight 1505, the ticket would have cost me $452. BUT, the same flight but first coming from Johnson City, is $249. SAME FLIGHT! It is just $46 more for my entire round trip ticket. SAME FLIGHT!!

The airlines are crazy. For one, they shouldn’t do the nickle and dime thing. USAirways charges $7 for in-flight meals (when available) and, starting 8/1, non-alcoholic drinks will be $2. First check through bag will be $15 and $25 for additional ones. This will drive people away. What they should have done is just raise the price of tickets by that much. People will still fly. They’ll fork over the money for the ticket. But they won’t eat and they will bring just one bag. So the airline won’t get those nickels. Flying is still cheaper than driving, given the ghastly price of gasoline lately.

I’m going to ship several things to Phoenix rather than lug them through the airports. The chair’s charger I hope to be able to rent while there. I can’t ship my CPAP and laptop but I can ship meds and some other things. So I’ll have the rolling duffel to check-through, then carry on will be my CPAP (which doesn’t count toward my onboard bag limit of 1) and my laptop bag (note to self: find laptop bag). On my personage will be money and ID. I may recycle a previous convention’s badge holder to hold ID. Sigh. It is time to get the details taken care of, ain’t it?

Well, we lost Sparky this morning.

Sparky was a big fuzzball, a Norwegian Elkhound. Fuzzy. And barky.

That’s him from late last year. He was a beautiful silver and the older he got, the more white he got on his muzzle. I’ve got other photos but they’re on the other computer.

About a month ago or so, Sparky was not too keen on eating and we figured it was his teeth. He was nearly 15 so there weren’t that much left of them. We took him in and they wanted him on an antibiotic and a dewormer before they’d do his dental. All precautionary stuff and quite normal. The vet also wanted him on a pain drug called Rimadryl (or something like that) due to his arthritis. None of that went well. We managed the dewormer but stopped the pain drug and the antibiotic. He was vomiting and eating grass and not eating. After the dewormer was done, we waited a few days then did the antibiotic again. Much better. A few days after it was done, he had a seizure. Back to the vets we go. He was horribly anemic and the vet’s thought was it was a tick disease. A likely scenario given the tick season here has been horrendous. Most of his symptoms fit that. But that antibiotic made him worse and his stool turned black from the blood. Back to the vet. This time, we finally reached the conclusion it was either cancer or an autoimmune blood disease, something like doggie leukemia. He didn’t quite fit the cancer profile since he wasn’t losing a huge amount of weight. Massive steroid and Pepcid was the treatment for the autoimmune thing. We took him back the next day to test his blood to see if the red cell count had improved. It had risen from 14 to 17 (low norm is 35) so we all agreed it was working.

Sparky had two great weeks. He was even eating regular dog food. He was barking for the first time in weeks. He had that little swish to his walk again.

Then Saturday he started having trouble getting up. We figured it was his arthritis again (we’ve been having sudden, quick, nasty storms which has caused me a lot of pain, too). He stopped eating. He could barely walk. By Sunday, he was extremely weak, could not stand up on his own, and was having a lot of trouble breathing. Red blood cells carry oxygen to the body. His tongue got paler and paler.

We wanted to take him in to see his vet vs another who we’d have to explain everything to. She wasn’t in on Monday so we opted to wait until Tuesday. But last night, we knew he’d never make it to the appt. We’d both been up with him since Sunday morning and we were exhausted. He was whining and grunting and nothing we did was making him better. At 2:30 this morning, we took him into the bedroom (we carried him on his bed) and put him where he normally slept (right where he blocked everyone in and he got to grumble when they stepped on him). We fell asleep listening to him breathe.

The alarm went off at 4:30 and when I turned it off, I checked on him. He’d slid off the bed (he seemed to be more comfortable laying like the sphinx, vs laying on his side) but was breathing. I spoke quietly to him then went back to sleep. I considered putting him back up on his bed but moving him had seemed to cause him so much pain, I decided not to.

When we woke up at 7, he was gone. He’d died right where he lay. While we were not awake to be with him at that moment, he knew where he was. Everyone was in the bedroom with us last night, including the cats. When I’d checked on him earlier, PopCorn was curled up on his bed. As we got up and said our goodbyes, the dogs went around him. Joella, who is very sensitive to my moods, had been close to me for the past few days. She sniffed his body and kept whining. Sam wouldn’t come back in the room. PopCorn was nervous.

We took him to the vets to have him cremated. We’ll get the remains back in about a week or so. We have all the dogs cremated since it is so difficult to dig a hole that big.