Four years ago today, Sam adopted us. He was a seven month old puppy at that time.
Looking back, Mark and I didn't know much about taking care of a puppy but we quickly learned.
In some ways, I can't believe that he's been with us for four years already and, in other ways, I can't remember what our lives were like before he got here.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
the sickness
Our house has been under a cloud of grossness for about a week now. Last weekend, after returning to Kingston from a whirlwind road trip to Toronto, I started feeling like I was coming down with something. Couldn't put my finger on it but I was cold and tired and grouchy. By Monday afternoon, I knew I was sick and I spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, tucked up in bed or under the covers on the sofa.
I had a flu I think. Really harsh headache, body aches, fever, congestion. Add to that, lack of sleep and it was really pretty horrible. Unfortunately, it would seem like a walk in the park compared to what was around the corner. In the wee small hours of Wednesday (at 1:18 a.m. to be precise), Mark woke me up to tell me he was having a kidney stone attack. He was practically paralyzed by the pain so I had to get up to get him some of his pain killers (he's had the attacks before and is currently awaiting an update from our local urology clinic about next steps for treating them).
As I type this, it's Sunday evening and he's still not passed the stone. It's been absolutely horrible to watch him in pain like this over the past few days. He's been in touch with his doctor's office and the urology clinic. Unfortunately, when it's "march break" it's not possible to connect with anyone about your condition. Tomorrow he'll go back to his family doctor to try to get this moving along. It's been almost a week now and it's no way to live.
So we've made a great pair this week. Our pact that only one of us is allowed to be sick at one time has been blown to smithereens. I've been trying to take care of him while I'm still getting over the flu. The poor dogs don't know which end is up because one or both of us has been home with them almost constantly for the best part of a week.
To add insult to injury, the weather has been unbelievably gorgeous outside and we’ve not been able to get out to enjoy it (unless you count me running to the grocery store for 30 minutes after work on Friday, which I don’t think you should). Once spring officially starts this week, I hope we are both feeling better. This week has been a blur and I think that’s good. It would be really depressing to be able to actually remember much of it.
I had a flu I think. Really harsh headache, body aches, fever, congestion. Add to that, lack of sleep and it was really pretty horrible. Unfortunately, it would seem like a walk in the park compared to what was around the corner. In the wee small hours of Wednesday (at 1:18 a.m. to be precise), Mark woke me up to tell me he was having a kidney stone attack. He was practically paralyzed by the pain so I had to get up to get him some of his pain killers (he's had the attacks before and is currently awaiting an update from our local urology clinic about next steps for treating them).
As I type this, it's Sunday evening and he's still not passed the stone. It's been absolutely horrible to watch him in pain like this over the past few days. He's been in touch with his doctor's office and the urology clinic. Unfortunately, when it's "march break" it's not possible to connect with anyone about your condition. Tomorrow he'll go back to his family doctor to try to get this moving along. It's been almost a week now and it's no way to live.
So we've made a great pair this week. Our pact that only one of us is allowed to be sick at one time has been blown to smithereens. I've been trying to take care of him while I'm still getting over the flu. The poor dogs don't know which end is up because one or both of us has been home with them almost constantly for the best part of a week.
To add insult to injury, the weather has been unbelievably gorgeous outside and we’ve not been able to get out to enjoy it (unless you count me running to the grocery store for 30 minutes after work on Friday, which I don’t think you should). Once spring officially starts this week, I hope we are both feeling better. This week has been a blur and I think that’s good. It would be really depressing to be able to actually remember much of it.
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Happy Birthday Nana
Today is my nana's birthday.
She passed away in 1997 but I still miss her, every day. I've been going through my old photos again and found an album containing photos from Christmas 1985. They would have been taken mostly by me, with my first 35 mm camera.
This particular photo is one I'd forgotten about, all of my cousins with my Nana, in her house on Jasper Avenue in Smiths Falls. We didn't all get together very often so when we did, it was extra special.
She passed away in 1997 but I still miss her, every day. I've been going through my old photos again and found an album containing photos from Christmas 1985. They would have been taken mostly by me, with my first 35 mm camera.
This particular photo is one I'd forgotten about, all of my cousins with my Nana, in her house on Jasper Avenue in Smiths Falls. We didn't all get together very often so when we did, it was extra special.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
a drug free butt
Sam has now been drug-free for a week. Hopefully the drugs are now out of his system by now. He was given his last dose of antibiotics a week ago. At breakfast and dinner, for three weeks, I crushed up pills and put them into a tiny bit of wet dog food for him. Of course, Gracie had to have some wet food too, just to keep things fair.
His poor bum really went through the ringer in January. He had 4 visits to the vet, two courses of antibiotics and probably more fingers up his butt than he would have like (like, 1 would probably have been too many). After a week, he was definitely on the mend and at the first follow up appointment, he was healing well but still had some infection, hence the second course of drugs. The new ones were stronger than the first and I was afraid that his stomach would be pretty upset (mine usually is with amoxicillin) but he seemed to tolerate it pretty well. He still had two small holes where the abscess had happened and there was some puss coming out. Infections in the butt area are nothing to mess with and fortunately, he’s a pretty healthy and hardy guy so he was improving each time we went back to see the vet.
Last week, we had our fourth and final checkup and he was totally healed, completely free of infection (yay!). He even got the all clear to go for an overdue grooming appointment (which we did on Sunday). Gracie is still wondering why she’s not getting a tiny dish of wet food at mealtime but Sam doesn’t seem to be missing it. I can’t imagine that the food tasted as good as it should, with crushed up pills added to it!
His poor bum really went through the ringer in January. He had 4 visits to the vet, two courses of antibiotics and probably more fingers up his butt than he would have like (like, 1 would probably have been too many). After a week, he was definitely on the mend and at the first follow up appointment, he was healing well but still had some infection, hence the second course of drugs. The new ones were stronger than the first and I was afraid that his stomach would be pretty upset (mine usually is with amoxicillin) but he seemed to tolerate it pretty well. He still had two small holes where the abscess had happened and there was some puss coming out. Infections in the butt area are nothing to mess with and fortunately, he’s a pretty healthy and hardy guy so he was improving each time we went back to see the vet.
Last week, we had our fourth and final checkup and he was totally healed, completely free of infection (yay!). He even got the all clear to go for an overdue grooming appointment (which we did on Sunday). Gracie is still wondering why she’s not getting a tiny dish of wet food at mealtime but Sam doesn’t seem to be missing it. I can’t imagine that the food tasted as good as it should, with crushed up pills added to it!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Happy News Year
I feel like I start almost every post with an apology for not having posted recently. This time, I'm not apologizing, I'll just acknowledge it. It's been a while, hasn't it?
I decided that it may be easier to do a category driven update, it'll be easier for me that way and I'm all about keeping things easy / simple for me.
Work Stuff
Just before the Christmas break, I moved into a new office space. It's so nice, I can't get over what a difference it is making. The room my office mate and I were in before, was an “inside” room – we did not have windows which opened to the outside and lacked fresh air. The building I'm in was constructed in 1837 and has been added onto a couple of times. The room I had occupied previously was next to a stair case which had been added sometime (likely) in the 1960's or 1970's when the building stopped being a home and became offices. Our windows faced into a stairwell and thus needed to be sealed shut for fire regulations. My new space is gorgeous and features a large, deep window (I love large window sills!) and a view of Lake Ontario. Our old space has been turned into a meeting room and we've been working at getting organized.
Last week, I returned to work on Tuesday. It was very quiet around here because most of my colleagues with school-aged children took the week to be home with them. It was quite nice to ease back into things last week
Home Stuff
We had a really lovely holiday season this year. I convinced Mark to take the few days off between Christmas and New Years and stay home with me. Normally he works that week and business is so slow that it turns him into a miserable grump. We spent the week doing very little. Visits with some family and friends, vegging out, sleeping in and watching all four seasons of "Sons of Anarchy" is how we spent our holiday. By the time it was over, we both felt well rested and recharged for the new year.
Pet Stuff
Unfortunately, poor Sammy fell ill last week. Thursday night, his bottom seemed to be bugging him and I was a little concerned about him as we went off to bed. Through the night, he woke us all up, pretty miserable. Eventually we were able to get him into bed with us and he seemed comfortable. He'd never had a problem like this before and I thought that he may have been constipated. He wouldn't let me get anywhere near his bum so I couldn't see if anything weird was going on (with two long-haired dogs, we're very familiar with back-end clean ups or “dingle-berry-ectomies” as we like to call them – they're more “fun” that way!). We got him an appointment to see the vet on Friday afternoon and discovered that he'd had an abscessed anal gland. Once they expressed it and packed it full of antibiotics, he was like a whole new guy. Fortunately, the wound wouldn't require sutures/drains but we did need to start him on a course of oral antibiotics and pain meds and try to keep him away from his butt! Not easy if you know anything about dogs. The drugs were easy to disguise but helping keep the wound clean was difficult. The first time I applied the cold compress to it, he yelped so loud that I thought my heart would just break. Last night, for the first time, he didn't make a sound when I did it (although he did flinch a bit). I can tell that it's healing nicely and he's done with the pain meds. He's going back to the vet for a follow up on Friday and he'll be taking the antibiotics until Monday but it's over the worst of it. Thank goodness. I have to say, the only thing I HATE about dogs is their inability to tell us when they are not feeling well.
Sam's butt aside, we're starting the new year off well. We've got some goals and plans for 2012 but I wouldn't call them resolutions. They are really more like projects. I hate resolutions because I never keep them. Projects though, I can do!
I decided that it may be easier to do a category driven update, it'll be easier for me that way and I'm all about keeping things easy / simple for me.
Work Stuff
Just before the Christmas break, I moved into a new office space. It's so nice, I can't get over what a difference it is making. The room my office mate and I were in before, was an “inside” room – we did not have windows which opened to the outside and lacked fresh air. The building I'm in was constructed in 1837 and has been added onto a couple of times. The room I had occupied previously was next to a stair case which had been added sometime (likely) in the 1960's or 1970's when the building stopped being a home and became offices. Our windows faced into a stairwell and thus needed to be sealed shut for fire regulations. My new space is gorgeous and features a large, deep window (I love large window sills!) and a view of Lake Ontario. Our old space has been turned into a meeting room and we've been working at getting organized.
Last week, I returned to work on Tuesday. It was very quiet around here because most of my colleagues with school-aged children took the week to be home with them. It was quite nice to ease back into things last week
Home Stuff
We had a really lovely holiday season this year. I convinced Mark to take the few days off between Christmas and New Years and stay home with me. Normally he works that week and business is so slow that it turns him into a miserable grump. We spent the week doing very little. Visits with some family and friends, vegging out, sleeping in and watching all four seasons of "Sons of Anarchy" is how we spent our holiday. By the time it was over, we both felt well rested and recharged for the new year.
Pet Stuff
Unfortunately, poor Sammy fell ill last week. Thursday night, his bottom seemed to be bugging him and I was a little concerned about him as we went off to bed. Through the night, he woke us all up, pretty miserable. Eventually we were able to get him into bed with us and he seemed comfortable. He'd never had a problem like this before and I thought that he may have been constipated. He wouldn't let me get anywhere near his bum so I couldn't see if anything weird was going on (with two long-haired dogs, we're very familiar with back-end clean ups or “dingle-berry-ectomies” as we like to call them – they're more “fun” that way!). We got him an appointment to see the vet on Friday afternoon and discovered that he'd had an abscessed anal gland. Once they expressed it and packed it full of antibiotics, he was like a whole new guy. Fortunately, the wound wouldn't require sutures/drains but we did need to start him on a course of oral antibiotics and pain meds and try to keep him away from his butt! Not easy if you know anything about dogs. The drugs were easy to disguise but helping keep the wound clean was difficult. The first time I applied the cold compress to it, he yelped so loud that I thought my heart would just break. Last night, for the first time, he didn't make a sound when I did it (although he did flinch a bit). I can tell that it's healing nicely and he's done with the pain meds. He's going back to the vet for a follow up on Friday and he'll be taking the antibiotics until Monday but it's over the worst of it. Thank goodness. I have to say, the only thing I HATE about dogs is their inability to tell us when they are not feeling well.
Sam's butt aside, we're starting the new year off well. We've got some goals and plans for 2012 but I wouldn't call them resolutions. They are really more like projects. I hate resolutions because I never keep them. Projects though, I can do!
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