krong

i am not really going to post here anymore, the catchup entry kind of thing is too daunting of a task and i am really more of a quick hit and run thought type of person anyway. i think most of you are facebook friends with me, if not leave me an email or something so i can add you there if we ain't.

:)

she's finally back in philadelphia, and the only way to describe how i feel is blissfully happy.

:D

head in the clouds as always



some mule deer



sandia point



cactus flower in bandelier national monument



bandelier again



on the way to los alamos

i had to have ben franklin put to sleep yesterday. it was unrelated to his previous illness.

this really, really fucking sucks.

i fly to new mexico friday, and there won't be an a&p within 2000 miles, and nothing could make me happier.

i forgot how wonderful it is to have someone to say something sweet to, just because.

i am looking a more shoulder surgery, i have developed a nasy bone spur and it's fucking shit uo.

related to the first injury. still in work but expect to go out again soon. just fix my shoulder this time, guys.

i have a great friend that i went to high school with. i had lost touch with her for a few years, and then around november or so she found me on facebook (perhaps not so easy given my name). she lives out of state now but was coming home over the holidays to spend some time with her family. we hung out twice, and as always had a fantastic time.

we continued to keep in touch and i guess one thing has led to another and now we're together. she's moving back here in the near future. i couldn't be happier. i don't even remember the last time i was this happy.

i was - despite the fact that i hate my soul crushing job - in a pretty good place. this is like exponentially better though.

here we are at the philadelphia zoo tuesday:

still out of work, still in PT, ben franklin is doing much better than expected*, and i had some real earth-shattering news in a good way for once. i can't really share it yet though because i don't know what will happen.












*what none of my vets told me is that they didn't expect him to recover.

i have a different view of life and death than most people, it seems. i'm not all hat much of a pessimist but to me death is just another part of life.

but i digress.

my aunt karen had a severe stroke on saturday. she is not going to recover from it. she is only alive now by machine, until one of her sons manages to get back from wherever he is. she's gone though. i just saw her thursday. i was probably closer to her than either of my other aunts.

what breaks me up the most about this is how terrible i feel for my mom.

it's snowing out today and it's really beautiful.

this is the day i brought her home




my shoulder is doing pretty ok. PT sucks.

so when i came out of surgery of course they did the pain scale thingy where they ask you where how much pain you feel on a scale of 1 to 10 blah blah blah and of course you're all sorts of groggy. so anywhow, i say:

"this one goes to 11."

nobody got it.

i probably would have been disappointed, had they not shot me up with something at that point.

it's amazing how much better my shoulder feels already. while it is sore, it no longer feels like it's sloshing around in the joint (well, that and the dilaudid, anyway).

front of right shoulder:


back of right shoulder:

surgery was [retty much a best case scenario. no tear, just debridement and cleaning up of the joint. i'm really not in a whole lot of pain (due to meds) but obviously my range of motion is pretty limited.

so 4-6 weeks or so of recovery and i should be back at work (boo).

surgery is tomorrow at 11:30.

on the plus side, i got a wonderful card from girlwhowaits today. thanks!

surgery.

i was really hoping to avoid this. now i feel like i wasted the last month of my life going to PT.

the upside is that i likeley won't have to return to work until january.

jon passed away wednesday morning. it's weird because i already experienced that roller coaster of emotions.

i only wish they had never rescucitated him, because what good did those couple days do him?

shit.

i have never mentioned this here but one of my uncles has been battling a particularly nasty cancer for a couple years.

we all know that we can get the call at any time.

my uncle jon is my mother's youngest sibling. she's the oldest of 6. jon is only maybe 10 years older than me and he babysat us a lot when we were kids. jon played me the who and led zeppelin and rush for the first time and without those introductions at that young age who knows how long it would have taken me to find out what music i really liked.

in 1981 for the family christmas polyanna i drew his name. he wanted pink floyd the wall and that's what i bought for him. my aunt debbie drew my name and bought me hungry hungry hippos.

my uncle jon was the first person to say "smells like fish tastes like chicken" to me. i was maybe all of ten years old.

well anyway we got the call today that he had passed away and let me tell you, knowing it was coming didn't make it any easier. so we had a few drinks without calling out a toast for my uncle jon because it would make us break down and cry when we get another call:

he's not dead. he stopped breathing and was resuscitated.

so yeah, today was really weird. the range of emotions i went through were undescribable.

so ben franklin is on medication. it's a somewhat uncommon med, so it comes from a compounding pharmacy (they offer liver, beef, chicken and fish flavor). because it's in another state, they UPS it to my house, addressed to:




for some reason, this really cracks me up.

started physical therapy for the shoulder. it sucks. and it's still sort of up in the air as to whether or not i have a torn labrum. oh well, i guess it beats going to work.

ben franklin, while not better better, is now better enough that he only needs to go back to the vet monthly. his fur is even starting to grow back now. he's pretty much back to normal behavior.