My Lovely Conehead

A day of movies and rest with my little bear.

Tired Sleep

I found a new really great song, but I can't find my checkbook. It's here somewhere, I know I saw it... but I will find it as I put other things away. I love my shirt and my new bracelet ($2.98 on clearance at Target) and Riley seems not to even notice her cone (The Cone of Shame, my neighbor called it). Her ears get folded down a bit by it, and she is not fighting it. I stayed up reading a new book that is quite readable and not terribly long, which provides relief because I am reading and actively working on my goal of 30 books this year. It's also a relief to stay up late and actually get tired before I go to bed and know that if I wake up early tomorrow, I can stay put.

It's not much to write, but it feels better now than it did earlier, and the no was eventually voiced. Several this week, actually. Maybe soon I will learn to schedule a no day into the calendar.

 Quick! Take a shot, cookie the dog, brush teeth, fall asleep and that's it- nothing extra. Do the bare minimum or risk finding a second wind...

Goodnight.

Downtime

Today I was talking with a coworker who is also dealing with the decline of an elderly dog. The conversation made us both sad. At one point she said, "But isn't this the goal? For them to make it this far?"

Yeah, it is. It's sad to lose them no matter how or when they go, but it is nice to be able to let them grow old with us.

And I wonder why I'm not right this week, and why I need alone time. Not alone. Alone with Riley.

Fantastic Day for a Beating

Ok, so took a small boat ride with Amanda and one of the lunch couples through Emerald Bay, and that was a glorious ride. Patti turned on some of her favorite songs, we all kicked back, and looked at the beautiful scenery from the new perspective of the water. The sun was out, there were nice, big, puffy clouds, the green and brown of the trees, gray rocks, the blues and greens of the clear, cool water, some silly, some awesome music, surrounded by seriously wonderful people. All I could do was look and smile and sigh.

After we dropped off our passengers at Camp Richardson, we started across the lake. The water was getting rough, and Jon stopped about halfway there along the shore and said if we were going to get dragged on the raft, this was the place.

See me stretching out my wings, trying to figure out how I was going to stay on? Can you hear me making high pitched EEEEEE noises?

I am amazed I didn't fall off. If they had kept it up for much longer, I would have. It was rough out there. Sparky said he was pretty sure he spent more time hovering above the raft than actually on it. If that's the case, then I must have only touched the raft when I smacked into it. We were BEAT UP. I woke up Sunday from some horrendous knee pain- had to ice it for hours before I could move.

Patti said she knew I'd had enough when I stopped laughing. The whole time my head is down, I'm telling Sparky, "I'm going!"

As we were towed in, I slipped off the raft to pee in the lake. The water wasn't freezing, but cold enough that I had to take a minute to breathe normally, let alone pee. Once that was taken care of, I bobbed around in my life jacket for a little while, enjoying the water. I had never- in the entire ten years I have lived here- swam in Lake Tahoe before. I always heard about how cold it was and had no interest, but now I would not only do it again- I can't wait. It felt SO good.

Smorgasblog

I have to hold Riley's bowl when she eats. The water bowl is pulled away from the wall. Our trips outside are pretty much just potties. If her hearing was getting bad before, it's all kinds of messed up now with the cone. I'm going to put clean sheets over the dog beds because I'm paranoid about her Frankendog wound getting infected.

By the time the cone comes off, the poor dog's going to have a food colored circle around her head.


Ok, you've been so well-behaved.

Random picture of Mini being allowed to sit out on the porch because it's cool enough to keep the door open.


So on Saturday, Sparky and I joined my coworkers at Lake Tahoe for a beautiful day of fun.

 

That's me, Amanda, and Patti...

 



...and Sparky and I at lunch. Also in attendance were Patti's husband, two of our multi-day volunteers and their wives, plus our other work study, Alonso. It was a beautiful, crowded day at Tahoe. We rode across the lake on Patti and Jon's boat with them and Alonso, 3/5 of us drank tequila, we watched Alonso and Jon wakeboard, then met up with everyone else over at Camp Richardson for lunch.

Don't want to go

I would rather just sit with her today.

The Cut

Sorry, Mom.

 

 

I cried when I saw it- I wasn't expecting there to be this big of a hole. The spot that was removed was less than an inch big, so I expected a couple stitches and a bandage. I was not prepared for this.

The lady who brought her out to me and my neighbor (who works there) were great- they were very comforting to me and assured me that Riley is going to be just fine (as they handed me Kleenex.) Debbie, my neighbor, walked us out to my car and made sure Riley got in ok. She gave me her cell number and encouraged me to call with any questions and asked me to text her to say how Riley was doing.

At home, Riley drank a LOT of water and I fed her some peanut butter, then went off to Petsmart to buy her a donut to replace her cone. I went to talk to Deena, my trainer, who was also phenomenally supportive and gave me her number in case I needed emotional support. She expressed concern about switching to the donut, though, and pulled it open so I could see how big it would be inflated. She felt like Riley would be able to reach over the donut to lick her hip (Can you imagine being that flexible?), as Riley is a kind of a long dog. Riley is often between sizes on these kinds of things, so maybe it would work for other dogs. What I LOVED about today was that both the folks at the animal hospital and my trainer know my dog and me. Debbie didn't know Riley was going in today- she just saw Riley in one of the rooms and went to say hi to her. Debbie checked in on her throughout the day, giving her love from a familiar face/scent.

Deena knew what size donut would fit my dog and why it wouldn't work on her. She suggested that I stick with the cone and assured me that Riley would learn to stop banging into things. She also told me that it was good Jasmine isn't here, because other dogs tend to lick wounds, which can create infection and then Riley and I would have to deal with draining the wound. I cried again after leaving Petsmart, thinking about these people I have met on my own who are so kind and supportive to me and my little girl.

Riley is resting now. She had a nice dinner with some meaty gravy concoction, we're going to take a small potty walk outside, then bed. We're both exhausted.

Riley Update

I just got a call from the vet- Riley is doing well. They took off the lump on her hip as well as the one on her front leg. They also scraped her teeth while she was sedated and said she was a perfect angel- didn't try to bite anyone, just sat still and let them work on her. They said she was the sweetest dog they worked with today.