WARNING: Too Much Information For Most Readers

Posted on November 16, 2008
Filed Under Tips and Tricks, Todays Mood | Leave a Comment

so that post i made about my work complaining that i was always sick, turns out there was something wrong with me… my nose was almost completely blocked.  the turbinates were so inflamed and my septum was so deviated that i only had about 15% capacity of my nose to breath out of, which for me meant that i wasnt ever breathing out of my nose.  which also meant that every drop of mucus that was made was staying up there and turning into a culture medium for bacteria and viruses.  that was why if i had even a hint of a stuffy nose, i would immediately get a sinus infection and then bronchitis.  so surgery was on the 10th and my nose is killing me.

and now, back to the normal puppy talk.. if you ever get surgery and you have a lab puppy in your household, make sure you have enough pain killers on hand to deal with the pain that comes with puppies accidentally bumping surgical areas.  its bound to happen and its going to feel like someone stuck a knife in you.  who knew a dog that looks so cute when sleeping could inflict so much damage?

This Dog Is Driving Me Bonkers!

Posted on October 22, 2008
Filed Under Care, Service Dog Laws, Todays Mood | Leave a Comment

two and a half weeks of confinement to a crate has changed liame into a dog that i dont know. he is rude, jumpy, mouthy - even with his vest on. thank god he got his stitches out and has been cleared for some light exercise. he is driving me bonkers. i now know what people experience with a dog that has not been allowed to exercise his drives. i cant even give him any work to eat puzzles because that will make him too active! on the other hand, its been kinda nice to lock him up in his crate and get some things done around the house without worrying about if i dropping something he can eat.

i saw some utube videos on service dogs. i saw a video of a 5 month old performing tasks and the only one liame wasnt trained to do at that age was turn on the lights. im now feeling more inspired than ever to work on task training. even though i dont necessarily need him to pick things up or carry things for me, they are simple tasks to show people that he is trained if i am ever asked to do so in an airport.

The Day After

Posted on October 8, 2008
Filed Under Care, Firsts, Major Steps, Todays Mood | Leave a Comment

i picked him up yesterday evening. the way that they shaved him for his surgery made him look like a poodle. he was bald from his shoulders all the way down to his dew claws! he didnt seem too overly exited to see me but when they told me of his morphine patch it kind of made sense. i was really surprised to see only a small bandage over his morphine patch and no casts. he was walking around fine and seemed no worse than when he came in. infact, he even pulled me down the stairs to try and go smell the grass outside the building. im so glad he is OK. i cant even tell you how worried i was that he wasnt going to wake up from the anesthesia.

in all honesty, i was hoping for the cheaper surgery option and hoping that he only had bony fragments in one elbow. but as it turned out, the doctor said he was a “classic” case, with the fragments being in both. no wonder why these guys charge so much - they actually gave me the vial of what they took out of his elbows as well as a cd with arthroscopic photos of the insides of his elbows and a mpg movie of the operation!

since he cant go up and down the stairs for 3 weeks and has to be confined to a small space (essentially a crate), i bought a cheap air mattress and am now sleeping in our office next to his crate. i didnt get much sleep last night because i had to make sure he didnt pull off his pain patch, bandages or stitches out. he was pretty good about not licking/itching things so i didnt have to put on the elizabethan collar they gave me.

Today Liame Goes Under The Knife

Posted on October 6, 2008
Filed Under Care, Class, Mistakes, Tips and Tricks, Todays Mood | 1 Comment

both my mother and liame are scheduled to have surgery today and i am surprisingly much calmer than i should be. last night i stayed up way too late and took some photos of liame - just incase. i know. i know. he is getting so skinny i have started calling him my little gazelle. he bounces around the house like a little baby deer dancing in an open field. its so very cute.

my canine studies instructor has given members of the class the opportunity to be assistants in 2 of her classes. this will give me a great opportunity to work with other dogs and learn how to motivate them with more than just food. it will also give me the opportunity to make up for the leash popping i did to liame the first month or so i had him. i read about it in the monks of new skete book and in all honesty really didnt know how ineffective it was until i was fully engrossed in my classes at ahimsa. the monks made it seem like it was going to work quickly, in all honesty, it didnt work AT ALL no matter how many times i did it. assisting in this class also gives me hours towards my CPDT. since ahimsa used marker training and that isnt the focus of seattle dog works, its going to be interesting to see the difference between her methods and those taught at ahimsa. christine has an amazing wealth of knowledge and a great sense of humor, something which was grossly missing in all of the classes i took that were not led by amanda brothers of side kick dog training.

update: he made it!!!!!! they took bone fragments out of both elbows. more info to follow at a later date.

One More Absence And You Could Be Terminated

Posted on August 26, 2008
Filed Under Care, Firsts, Mistakes, Mitigating Symptoms, Things That Make Me Want To Cry, Todays Mood | Leave a Comment

my boss sat me down yesterday and gave me a formal warning about my attendance. in all honesty, i was kind of expecting something to be said about it due to the fact that i am frequently sick. the thing that really surprised me was that this entire time i thought that making up the time by working late the next couple of days or working on a saturday negated the fact that i was absent because i was getting my work done. apparently i was in the wrong. they want someone who consistently shows up to work every day. at this point with my current health status i dont know if i can do that and am really worried about losing my job. depression and immunity are intertwined and unfortunately very unpredictable - thats why its called a disability. they have asked me to get with my doctor and come up with a plan to help with the anxiety attacks (i think because they finally witnessed the full blown one last week) and come up with a plan to try and improve my health. last september my doctor told me that i should go to a rheumatologist because my sedimentation rate was high and i had been getting sick over and over again. i sort of stuck my fingers in my ears and decided that i just didnt want to know anything more about anything that could be wrong with me. its enough to have 4 major health problems, i dont need another one. but now i guess i am forced to find out what is wrong and come up with a plan to start feeling better. in all honesty i was hoping that they would just understand that immunity in depressed people is f uped and try to accommodate me by flexing my schedule when i get sick. i thought thats what they were supposed to do but in all honesty i am now swimming in unknown territory. i will play by their rules right now and provide them with the doctors information they are requesting since they have been so accommodating in the past. im just hoping that in the mean time, that if the “you have one more unexplained absence and your terminated rule” is just a threat and wont become a reality. its not like i am playing hookie here people, i have been legitimately sick. im never 100% even several days after a sick day. when i come in after being sick most people dont even want to be around me because i look and sound so horrible and they dont want to catch anything. im worried and dont know what to do. i will be doing some research on this level of accommodation because right now i know that my only weapon at this point is knowledge. i will share the information i have gathered with you bloggers because i GUARANTEE you, if you have depression, you WILL run into this issue at some point with your employer too.

Full Blown Shut Down, Stare Into Space, Drunken Body Movements Panic Attack

Posted on August 22, 2008
Filed Under Care, Firsts, Jasper, Mistakes, Mitigating Symptoms, Things That Make Me Want To Cry, Todays Mood | Leave a Comment

i had an anxiety attack at work yesterday. i dont have normal oh my god im going to die, my heart is going to explode, cinematic anxiety attacks, i have shut down zombie stare at the walls, absolute brain and body shutdown attacks. i had no medication available since i took it to go to the dentist on monday and forgot to refill my bag and liame was not trained to help me like jasper is. when i finally made it to the ground liame came over to me, tried to play with me for a couple of minutes and then decided he had other things to concentrate on. it took me a long time to come out of it enough to be able to just pack up my things and head home. liame practically dragged me out of the building, stumbling and bumbling all the way like some drunk trying to walk the line. ive had attacks at work before but thanks to medication and jasper i have never gone into a full blown shut down, stare into space, drunken body movements panic attack. it was weird that no one said anything to me while it was happening but i could tell that people were staring. i still cant help but be embarrassed by it.

Always End Your Training Session On A Positive Note

Posted on August 5, 2008
Filed Under Class, Tips and Tricks, Todays Mood | Leave a Comment

im trying to teach liame the “which hand” trick. i cant understand what i am doing wrong. he seems to want to slap his big old paw on any hand he can get to and sometimes hop up and hit both hands at once. this wouldnt be so much of a problem if he had soft nails, his paws weren’t the size of frying pans and i didnt have an allergy to dogs. every single time we play this game i end up with scratches and hives and wondering why in the heck do i keep trying to train this trick. yesterdays training session also cemented for me how much my mood is affected by this new little guy of mine. because he just couldnt seem to get it i was so frustrated at the end of our session that i didnt want to return to work or be near anyone. only after i calmed down did i remember that wonderful piece of advice from our 100 or so puppy classes, ALWAYS END YOUR TRAINING SESSION ON A POSITIVE NOTE. i forgot all about these words of wisdom because liame has picked up everything that i have trained him in a session or two (weve been working on “which hand” on and off for several weeks). remember if you dont keep your training fun and positive neither you nor your dog will want to continue.

A More Confident Puppy

Posted on July 23, 2008
Filed Under Class, Firsts, Things That Make Me Smile, Todays Mood | Leave a Comment

we skipped the last canine good citizen class tonight due to the fact that i was really really really sick. he was supposed to take the cgc test today but heh, its not like he was going to pass it anyway - the little guy cant be alone without me for more than 30 seconds without freaking out. he did something very interesting today too. while i was in the bathroom at work someone knocked on the door and he sprang up into the air and started alert barking. i cant tell if he learned this behavior on his own or has learned it from jasper. alarm barking means that my baby is growing up and feeling more confident in himself. awe, theres part of me that wants him to stay the cute little fuzzy puppy he was, but then theres part of me that is so tired of pulling garbage out of his little puppy mouth.

Going To See The Specialist

Posted on July 15, 2008
Filed Under Care, Clubs And Organizations, Things That Make Me Want To Cry, Todays Mood | Leave a Comment

tomorrow i take liame in to be evaluated by a specialist about his leg. he is still limping on despite large bouts of rest and crating. it seems to act up after exercise and when first rising. he will limp for a few seconds and then be back to his old puppy self jumping at jasper, play bowing and leaping down the stairs. his foot turns out like a duck, which i hear isnt a good sign. i was going to go back to my vet to get evaluated and then go to a specialist but decided to head straight for the specialist. i didnt want to have to put liame out for 2 sets of xrays because my normal vet didnt get the right angle needed or have to put him out for xrays at the normal vet and then mris at the specialist. since i am not dealing with insurance i might as well go right to the head honcho who can tell me what is going on immediately. i hear the service dog club i am interested in joining wont certify dogs with hip or elbow problems. man, thats going to really suck if i cant get the paperwork to certify my little guy. i want liame to be official with real licensed paperwork. ive sort of been having anxiety attacks over this entire situation (money for the surgery, not getting official paperwork and the possibility i wont get 10 good years out of this guy). im trying to tell myself that its all going to work out OK, but each time i see him set down with his paw turned out i get another reminder about the reality of the situation i am about to get myself into. im in love with this guy and i hope they can do something for him.

A Younger, Less Experienced, Cheaper Model

Posted on June 25, 2008
Filed Under Jasper, Things That Make Me Want To Cry, Todays Mood | Leave a Comment

today i feel like i am outsourcing, like somehow i am downgrading the level of service that i receive from jasper in exchange for a younger, less experienced, more energetic and cheaper model. i feel a bit like i am betraying him. i know, i know, it has to happen but it doest make it any easier.

i almost didnt go to work today. i feel like crap. im glad liame and jasper pushed me to finally get my but out of bed but i dont know how much longer i can keep fighting this episode. all i want to do right now is lock myself up in a closet and stare at the walls. i havent felt like this in a long time. im trying to push through this, hoping its just a temporary set back, that somehow if i just wait long enough and keep exercising and eating right that i can work my way out of it. my meds have been upped to their max and i dont want to be put on another medication just to experience its roller coaster ride. im going to ask my doctor if there are any nutritional supplements that i can take that wont interfere with my current medication load.

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