MissingIntellect.Net

Well, it’s about time to dust this thing off already. Yeah, I know it’s been quite some time since I’ve posted here. I could probably come up with a ton of excuses, I’ve been to busy or something, but although I have been busy, it’s not like I was so busy I couldn’t take a few minutes and post here. It’s not like I haven’t had anything to write about, I could’ve posted many times since my last entry, but I’ve just been lazy. Well, I’m finally ready to get back into posting. Here’s a little bit that’s happened since.

Well, my grandfather wasn’t the first death in my family. I wrote about my precious dog Maggie’s near-death a few months ago. Well, on January 18th she was vomiting up blood, so we took her to the vet. The vet thought she had probably somehow gotten into some rat poison (who knew where from, we didn’t have any) and gave her a shot and sent her home. She seemed to be a little bit better until later that night, when she went into the other room and laid down in her air kennel–face first. She didn’t move for a while, and we got worried. We opened up the air kennel, and she was unresponsive, so we rushed her to the animal hospital across town. Well, unfortunately, we were too late. She had stopped breathing by the time we’d gotten a block away from home, and she was pronounced dead when we arrived. She had suffered from “bloat” a condition not uncommon in older large-breed dogs. It was sudden, but fortunately she never suffered; she just went to sleep. As devastated as I was at losing her, realized that she spent every waking moment thinking about this. In the twelve years we had her, we received more attention and affection that many people received more attention than many people receive in their entire lives. Rest in peace, puppy.

Unfortunately, losing my dog wasn’t the only loss that life had in store for me. On New Year’s Eve, my 94-year-old grandmother (on my dad’s side) suffered a heart attack and stroke. Miraculously she survived, but she never recovered. She was sent home from the hospital to die. The doctor thought she had a week. She didn’t even make it a full day. She passed away early in the morning on the 20th of January, 2 days after losing Maggie. That same morning, we scattered my grandfather’s ashes at sea. At Christmas she said she knew it was her last one, and we knew her passing was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier. On top of that, we no longer had Maggie to comfort us.

In posting this, I’m not looking for pity or encouragement. I’m just posting about what’s happening in my life. Sure, it’s been hard. Sometimes you think you’ve had it hard, until life gives you everything you’ve got. All you can do is take it the best you can. It’s a hard road, but once you make it through, you come out a better man. It’s those though trials, and how you take them, that make you who you are. As hard as it’s been, I’m a better man for it.

OK, this is probably my longest post ever, by far. I have plenty more that I could write about, but I’ll leave that for another post.

Well, earlier I posted about problems I’d been having swallowing because of esophagus. I saw the doctor, and he wanted to “stretch” my esophagus again. So this morning I got up early to be at the hospital for the surgery. Yes, it is surgery, but it’s about as minor as it gets, and it’s all outpatient. Anyway, I go in, they get me all ready, give me an IV and everything, and wheel me into the operating room. I receive anesthesia, and the next thing I know, I wake up and it’s all done, and I’m back where I started.
Apparently, however, the doctor didn’t find what expected when he put the scope down my throat. There was no web in my esophagus for him to stretch this time around. Instead, there were two swollen ulcers that have been what are the cause of me having trouble swallowing. Though I’ve never had heartburn, I’ve probably had gastric reflux all along, and the web was keeping the acids from coming up into my throat. Since he stretched my throat to get rid of the web about a year ago, acid has churned up into my esophagus, causing the ulcers. So now, I’m going to be taking some medication, and after a couple weeks they should hopefully go away.

The great thing in all this is that I can have a normal diet. When I had my throat stretched before, I couldn’t eat normal food for days; I could only have liquids at first, and then only very soft foods, and that just plain sucks for me, since I really like good food. But now I can eat whatever I want, as long as I’m still careful about not getting anything stuck again. (I definitely do not want to go to the emergency room again.) I’m still a bit groggy from the anesthesia, but if you’ll excuse me, I’m starving, and I’m going to have a real lunch. Woohoo!

Well, I had another trip to the emergency room last night. Why you ask? Well, sometimes I have a problem swallowing food, and it gets stuck in my throat. No, it’s not because I take bites that are too big or I don’t chew my food enough (but still, always be sure to chew your food, kids!), it’s because I have a narrowing of my esophagus. It’s a genetic condition that I apparently got from my grandmother. At the base of my esophagus, right before my stomach, I have a web of scar tissue which constricts the passage of food. I had a procedure done about a year ago that “stretched” my esophagus, but apparently the problem has come back, otherwise I wouldn’t have had to go to the hospital.

So I’m eating dinner with my family last night, and I have another “episode.” I wait, hoping it will pass on it’s own as it sometimes does, but this time it doesn’t, so my dad takes me to the emergency room. They give me a muscle relaxant through an IV, and thankfully, it relaxed my esophagus enough for it to pass. Otherwise I would’ve had to wait until the morning until they could get a doctor and technicians in to perform an endoscopy to remove it. I don’t think there’s any way to explain to someone how miserable it is to have something stuck in your throat like this. I constantly have the subconscious urge to both swallow and gag at the same time, and I can do neither. Normally I’d be embarrassed to have this happen, but it’s so uncomfortable I just don’t care. One of the first things I did this morning was schedule an appointment with the gastroenterologist (who performed the procedure I had) and we’ll see what he wants to do. This sure sucks for a guy who likes to eat food.

Well, for this of you who don’t know, I have a German Shepherd, Maggie, and she is going to be 12 years old on October 20th. For us, she’s way more than “just” a pet, she’s a part of the family, just as much as any human is. Well, she had been a bit lethargic the last couple days, so we scheduled an appointment with the veterenarian, because she was due to have some things checked anyway and has had colitis before. Well, today she’s a lot better and is acting like herself, so I feel kind of silly when we bring her in.
Well, we describe how she’s been acting, and the doctor looks her over, and then examines her gums, says that they’re pale, and frowns. She gets a syringe, sticks it in her abdomen, and it fills up with blood. It appears that Maggie has massive internal bleeding, probably caused from a tumor on the spleen rupturing. This is almost the exact same way that our previous dog died, at the relatively young age of 8. She suffered from massive organ failure, and by the time we got her to the vet, it was already too late. (We never even got to say good-bye to her.)
The vet tells us that she has to perform emergency surgery to stop the internal bleeding or Maggie will die over the weekend. We are warned, however, that the doctor may find that the cancer has spread throughout her body, in which case there’s nothing that could be done. Well, the doctor comes out to tell us what she found much quicker than I had expected. (Apparently she spent more time sewing Maggie back up than the surgery itself!) She removed the spleen and stopped the bleeding, and the cancer did not seem to have spread. She even showed us the spleen, and you could see where the node had burst and you could see others on it. (I’d never realized how large the spleen is!) All in all pretty much the best case scenario (considering the circumstances) but Maggie will need constant care for the next couple days at the animal hospital. I must say that even though she’s had to stay at the vet overnight a time or two before, she’s never been gone two nights in a row, so it’ll be weird not having her around for a few days. Still, the more time passes from the surgery, the better her chances are of recovering. She may be the dog, but she’s a part of the family, and the fact that we almost lost her today (and still could) is though.

Phew, that had to be my longest blog post ever, by far. Well, I’m tired, and I’m going to bed now. (I hope everything made sense.)

Well, the days of having to drive around in my mother’s mini-van are finally over. I’ve finally got my own car, a 2000 Honda Civic LX. Went down to La Crascenta and got he deal finalized and picked it upjust the other night. Considering it’s only got about 72000 miles, it was positively a steal for only $5,500–bluebook for it was $8,100! It’s got air conditioning, power windows and locks, and a CD player, the whole deal. Techincally it’s not mine–i.e. it’s not in my name–but I get to drive it. My parents are paying for it up front, and I’ll pay them back half later. Granted, it’s not brand-new, but it’s my first car, for goodness sake! It’s new to me, and that’s good enough as far as I’m concerned. It certainly beats having to work around my mom’s schedule for when I need to drive her car. If I really want that “new car smell” I can buy a can and spray it all over the interior.