A Pep Talk in Every Drop?

A very annoying co-worker came to work VERY sick last week.  Instead of keeping quietly to herself ,she was her usual in-your-face talking, snotting, sneezing, coughing, disgusting germy self.  No wonder that in the next few days 5-6 other people got sick, including Skott.  I have managed (so far) to fend off most of it except the raw sore throat and slight sniffles.

I don't get sick very often (thankfully), but when I do, I want nothing more than a hot cup of chai tea, my fizzy Alka-Seltzer meds, a blanket, and a little sympathy.  The last thing I want is to see this:

I don't want a cheesy "pep talk" on my cough drop wrappers.  I want to be miserable and lose myself on the couch in a huge pile of blankets.  This wrapper ranks right up there on my annoyance list with the outrageous slogan "Always" uses for their commercials and panty liners: "Have a happy period". 
Seriously?
This was obviously written by some poor man in a last ditch attempt to cheer up his hormone crazed monster/wife.  I'm pretty sure no woman in her right mind would agree to telling another female (whose uterus was on fire) "have a happy period".  There is nothing happy about feeling like a sobbing psycho who just wants to  curl up and die for a week....

I think I shall invent my own "pep talk in every drop" wrappers that say things such as:
*Go take a nap
*Sleep it off, you'll feel better
*Forget the laundry
*Cereal for dinner is ok
*Indulge in some hot chocolate or chai
*Pajamas are acceptable if you're not leaving the house

...anyone else care to add to my list? :)

To try and sum up my past week with a simple blog title left me staring at the screen for a full five minutes and not typing a single letter....

Today is one of those days where I feel just a little bit crazy, -like the thoughts in my head are going so many different directions and as much as I would LOVE to pinpoint just one thing to blog about, I cant.

Last weekend we went crabbing and Skott's iphone took a fatal dip in the ocean when he went out after one of our traps that had broke free.  He feels awful, and I feel awful for him. So, we either pay $199 for a new phone/repair OR we sign a new 2-yr contract and pay $199 for the brand new iphone5.  We have been waiting to just sign a new contract anyways, when ours is up next month.  So Skott is without a phone for a few weeks.  It's weird how much you come to rely on technology.... and slightly disturbing at the same time.  I like to think I can function just fine without it, but truth is, I would go NUTS without my lists, calendars, appointments, email, etc. available at the touch of my fingers.  We also use the icloud feature of our phones which means we can share grocery lists, calendars, photos, etc and everything is also uploaded automatically to our computer when we are home (documents, photos, email).  When something like this happens, it always makes me think of the book "Alas, Babylon".  It's an easy read but makes you think about the things we have come to rely on and take for granted.

I had a crazy old lady fill out a complaint form about me last night.  It upset me because these things go in our files, regardless.  And lately management has been on a suspension/firing spree and you never know who they might chose to make an example out of.  Anyways, said crazy lady (you know, the crazy hair and bright red lipstick smeared waaaay outside her lip line crazy) kept playing with her bet, touching her cards, etc.  Two big no-no's.  I kindly (and discretely) asked her three times to stop and the third time she got all indignant and said she was just sitting there and she was NOT doing the above-mentioned things.  I smiled sweetly and said, "Yes, as a matter of fact you were.  Now I am asking you nicely, but the next time it happens, I will have to call my supervisor and they will not be as nice about it".  Oh boy, did I ever cross the line in her book.  She got all upset and left the table and made sure to make a big scene about getting my name and how to spell it, etc.  The rest of the table was appalled.  We were all having a good time up to that point.  The rest of my players all talked to the boss and gave me compliments but still, talk about a fart in a carload of people....

I tried my first attempt at sewing with my new machine (thanks for the early birthday present babe). 

I still need to hem them, but this is one of the curtain panels I made for my sister Josie.  It is all out of extra material I had. I am enjoying this new creative outlet and now that I seem to have finally mastered correct bobbin threading, I think I will enjoy it more :)   I am currently drying the lavender from the pots on my front step.  When its dry, I am going to make some lavender dryer bags.

Skott has been working on driftwood bottle toppers.  He has some beautiful ones completed already!  Our biggest challenge has been finding some kind of sealant that won't darken the wood. Any ideas???

Skott is battling a horrible cold/sinus/sore throat while I am tyring to fight back a terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day...  I woke up and started heating some chai for myself.  Decided to make scottish oatmeal for breakfast.  I switched over the laundry while cooking the oatmeal in the microwave (cuz all of the stovetop pans were dirty).  I was being careful and stirring it every minute so it wouldn't overflow.  Got the toast going, got my first sip of hot chai, turned around to stir the oatmeal and when I opened the microwave, half the oatmeal was exploded all over the place.  I take it out, tray and all and when I set the tray down on the counter, I bump my 20oz mug of chai over and it swamps the entire counter and then proceeds to run off and fill the drawers and one of the cupboards, not to mention soaking the front of the stove and dishwasher and the rug!  Take a deep breath and start cleaning up sticky mess.  Ignore the burned toast and try again.  Clean the microwave and tray, transfer remaining oatmeal into a bowl, and proceed to heat up more chai.  After chai is done, I attempt to make more oatmeal.  This time I use a bigger container and decide to cook in 30 second increments.  I leave the room to go get another load of laundry going and when I come back, yep, more oatmeal all over the microwave.  This time, I did NOT spill my chai when I removed the tray :) and I decided to hell with the oatmeal, I 'll just have toast.  The bright side of this story:  My cupboards, counters, and drawers are sparkling clean and my sore throat was soothed by the chai.  Here's hoping the rest of my day goes better!

I saw an awesome bumper sticker that has become my sort of mantra lately.  It was a palm tree and underneath it it said "No bad days".
On days like today, I repeat that over and over in my head -"No bad days at the beach".  It helps me shake off the "small stuff" and keep the bigger picture in focus.  Despite all the crap things life throws at us, we will always have eachother and our walks on the beach to keep things in focus.

One year already?!

Sunday marked the one year anniversary of the day we made it to Lincoln City.
Wow!
I can't believe it has been a year already.
-Can't believe it's been a year since we've seen my Wisconsin family....

-Can't believe it's been a year since I've had any deep fried cheese curds :)

So much has happened in this last year both physically and emotionally. 
I feel contentment and peace. 
I feel inspired and creative.

To commemerate the day (since we were working), we made our coffee to-go, grabbed Fucie, and drove down to the beach. 
We walked a short distance and found some rocks to sit on and enjoy our surroundings.  We had a lovely reflection of the past year and reminded ourselves how blessed we are.

Isabella

Yesterday we had to make the very difficult decision to have our French Bulldog, Isabella, put to sleep.  Our first frenchie, Rori, died on her own terms, in my arms.  So this experience with Izzy was new for both of us. We had a consultation with the vet about two weeks ago when we took Izz in for a bad bout of diarrhea.  We discussed her quality of life and the options that were left after it was determined the medicine to treat her Cushings disease had failed.  We knew this day was not far off....

I'll spare you the long explanation of Cushings Disease but in a nutshell, it is a tumor that is either pituitary or adrenal that ultimately causes the body to produce too many steroids.  This causes a host of problems and compromises the immune system. The difficulty with Cushings disease is that it's early symptoms appear to be signs of old age.  Looking back, they started before we even left Wisconsin, but we didn't know what we were looking at -excessive drinking and urination, ravenous appetite, muscle wasting, hind end weakness.....  It didn't help that Izzy was a puppy mill rescue that came with "issues" anyways and we thought a lot of her "quirks" were just her being crazy Izzy.

Her first real symptoms appeared the end of January.  My initial thought was that she was having some kind of environmental reaction to something here in Oregon.  She had some weird "crusty" patches on her back.  Two weeks after her first vet visit, her back looked like this:

Test after test was done.  Antibiotics, steroids, shampoos, ointments, .... we tried everything, and everything came back negative.  Even the normal telltale signs for Cushings in the bloodwork came back negative.  Things quickly accelerated and got much worse with her skin.  A month after her first vet visit, we had five skin biopsies taken. The results came back:  calcinosis cutis (hardening of the skin, classic Cushings symptom) and osteoma cutis (skin cancer).  We had to wait a couple weeks to clear all the meds out of her system before we could run a low-dose dex test to 100% confirm the Cushings.  (This is also the same point in time that I stopped keeping track of the vet bill... we were well over $1,000 this early into the game).  In the meantime, Izzy is battling infection after infection and looking like this:

We got her started on on Lysodren two months after that first initial visit.  Lysodren is a human cancer drug and acts on dogs by eroding their adrenal glands so they can't produce the high level of steroids.  The "loading" phase scared the crap out of me because you are basically overdosing your dog on this medication to flood their system.  Unfortunately, in Izzy's case, because she is such a "healthy" eater, she didn't show signs of being loaded (their appetite decreses) until she was overdosed.  We almost lost her over Mothers Day weekend.

The pictures are too graphic from here on out.  It turns my stomach to look back on them.  The calcinosis cutis worked it's course from her back end all the way up to her face and ears.  It was heartbreaking.  She was mostly bald, her skin was very pink, and as she healed, her skin hardened. 

But she seemed in good spirits and it appeared the Lysodren was working.  She started to regrow hair on her behind and sides.
Then she went deaf.  Like, in a matter of a week went from hearing the treat jar, our voices, etc., to not hearing anything.
Then she just kind of spiraled down.  Her behaviors got more and more strange.  She was always a "digger" -she liked nothing better than a big pile of blankets to dig and bunch up into the perfect bed.  But this digging became obsessive.  She would dig until she bloodied her feet.  She would disappear into the dark corners of the bathroom and dig and hide.  She would hide in our dark closet and just sit there and shake.  We resorted to putting her up on the couch first thing in the morning, as she would usually calm herself and sleep as long as someone was in the room.
We ran more low-dose dex testing and determined that her steroid levels were rising again.  We upped her Lysodren dosage.  Hair loss resumed and she now had more skin that was hardened, than not.  She was panting all the time and would often just sit on the couch and shake violently.  Her appetite was hit and miss.  Three weeks pass and no sign of improvement in symptoms.  We upped dosage one more time and within a week, she had overdosed again, although this time we caught it a bit sooner.  It was at this point that we all agreed that the Lysodren was no longer effective.  The dangers of switching to another drug were high, not to mention the bouts of testing and monitoring along with it.  When switching drugs, dogs need a "wash out" period to get all the old meds out of their system.  This is usually a month wait.  Izzy was getting worse every day and we decided it wasn't worth the risk, and in light of her obvious discomforts, we had to accept the inevitable.

I have no doubt in my mind we made the right decision.  That doesn't make it any easier.  I am glad we gave her a fighting chance and I would like to think that these 7 months were good.... but if I had it to do over again, I don't know that I would have put her through the Lysodren treatment.  There was an 80-85% success rate, so our odds were good.  And I know we had to try.  But seeing her discomfort these last two months broke my heart.

So rest in peace my crazy little Frenchie, you will be missed terribly!