10 things you don't know about my mom

My mom's friend, Cheryel Hutton, a great horror and romantic suspense writer, tagged me to write 10 things people don't know about my mom. Ha, my mom sez, not too many details

1. My mom's latest favorite movie is LEMONADE MOUTH. You can see it on Netflix.
2. My mom's favorite food is NY strip. (mine, too, yuh-um!)
3. My mom loves me more than anything on the planet and universe...okay, maybe everybody already knows that so I'll add an extra thing on the end.
4. My mom has a broken nose from a rock fight as a little kid.
5. My mom's uh 'bird' finger on her right hand was broken in a softball game...when she was a little kid.
6. My mom fell at work and her shoulder muscles pulled a chip off the bone. Can you say workman's comp? No matter. She says it hurts less everyday and work did pay for her care. Hmm, I don't know...am I sniffing a pattern here??? Like Fight Club kinda pattern???
7. My mom loves cold, snowy wintry days. We can cuddle by our fireplace.
8. My mom says she loves RED as her favorite color. I don't know. Everything is pretty much black & white to me.
9. My mom had carpal tunnel (?) surgery which she says didn't help her hand and hurt like hay-ell.
10. My mom wants a big ole honkin truck for her birthday...no one knows that but they do now!
and finally:
11. My mom intends to be a rich writer. Hah! Who knew??

We would like to tag a couple friends if they would like to do this: Khyra, Pedro, Daisy, and Beaglebratz.

Thanks for reading! My mom sez I haven't embarrassed her too bad!
River

Sally the Wonderdog

RIP Sally the Wonderdog

We met Sally online on one of the dog cancer discussion groups. She had the same cancer as River -- MCT. We had hoped to have a long time to discuss our various treatments and hopefully successes with her family. She was 13 1/2 years old and the light in her family's eyes. You can see the happy smile she has. We were only able to know her for a month and then she was suddenly gone.

I wanted to write a little about her to celebrate her wonderful life and to let everyone know how generous her family has been to us. They sent us the supplements they had bought for her all the way from another continent. Supplements that I could not afford because I lost my job--so it is extra wonderful. River is doing well and with the supplements hopefully beat the oncologist's prediction for him (about 6 more months). Thank you to Sally for sharing, her family says she was good at sharing.

River's mom

Bad news, good news part deux

Belle 1992-2011

Since the last post we lost Belle. We've lost Daisy, Bailey and Belle just in the last few months. It's been tough on my mom's heart. Belle was the first dog my mom adopted when she moved to TN. She found Belle at PetSmart. The local humane society was sponsoring her. Belle's foster mom needed to have her moved so my mom paid $30 and took her in. She was part of our family for 16 of her 18 years. I liked her. She was a sweet, shy girl, so gentle. My mom loved her so much she almost waited too long to let her go--she admits it...but Belle told her it was time to go to the Bridge and that she would wait for us.

Last week my mom's job went away, too. Librarians are seen as a luxury and she knew it would happen...but it was 1 1/2 years short of retirement...so close and yet...but she always plans for things. She has a consultant job on the internet that supports us just no benefits for her. Ha, it means she needs to stay healthy until retirement, like lose weight...just sayin', Mom.

Meanwhile, good news I am still here! This is me and Baby in the sun--wow, Baby looks like a little pig there and she doesn't in real life. I know that the future is uncertain so we really enjoy each day together now. They have not cured my bladder infection yet. We're waiting for a week without anti-biotics to get a better culture. Because my mom is not making as much money we cannot do chemo anymore. That stuff is expensive! There are other options--a good diet and prednisone. MCT type cancers are somehow related to overproduction of histamines so benedryl is a large part of the treatment and that's cheap. Lots of dog moms choose this path so it is not better or worse than chemo just different.

Don't worry...working at home lets my mom do her creative stuff which she really enjoys. She has her old book published by Random House up on Amazon as an ebook now. It is selling a little bit (it's for a small readership of historicals called Regencies).



MAID OF HONOR-ebook
Because she is a computer librarian she formats all styles herself and designs covers, plus designs websites (one way she makes money). She plans to have something like 4 more books up for sale before the end of the year. Her plan always was to write when she retired, we're just starting early. The plan is to supplement her retirement with a LOT of money from writing lol. Hey, just wait till she gets her YA paranormals up...and all her books have dogs in them so we serve as characters, too.


More good news--we took in a mama beagle named Rumor. She had her pups in the bottom of our bathroom linen closet. Here is a video of them at about 5 weeks. They made a LOT of noise:

They are all up for adoption. I think two are promised already but 4 are left. They are gorgeous little beagles. I know I probably looked like them when I was little bol.

Look for them on http://www.sosbeagles.org/. My mom often fosters for them. How did she end up not keeping all of them? She doesn't know.

And someone asked about the weim puppies. The mama, Luna, has been adopted. She was a goofy, funny girl. Selena, the girl, has been adopted. Her brother, Simon, had problems from the start--we thought maybe he had 'failure to thrive' but it turned out he had some weird problem with no bacteria in his stomach. He has been moved to another foster mom who has more time and experience to take care of him. He is thriving now and will be adopted out soon. So it ended happily for everyone.

I hope that everyone is enjoying the summer. It's finally gotten a little cooler here and the storms are not so scary. Yes, we had a tornado come by in May. It shredded our woods but did not hurt the house. Left our area without electricity for ages. We learned to live with little battery operated fans. Next year we're getting a generator so we can run a BIG fan. Or maybe we'll all go stay in a hotel with air.

I miss everyone very much but with my mom being home we will be able to keep up better!

River

Good news and bad news

The good news is that I'm okay. I have a bladder infection and we are treating that. The cancer has not returned although it can at any time.

The bad news is that we lost Bailey yesterday. He was about 18 and not doing so well so my mom decided to let him go. He came to us long before I did. His owner surrendered him because he was digging holes in the yard--not because she wanted to but because her landlord made her. He dug a lot of holes in our yard, too, his first couple years but stopped and just became a couch potato. My mom says he was always a silvery gray beagle. We will miss him.

Me  & Bailey when I first came to my mom's house. I still had a cast on my leg.

Some of Bailey's critter craters.

                                                   

Angel Bailey -- 1993-2011

Today my mom went wild with her phone camera and made some weird pictures of me:

This is the AQUA setting:

SEPIA:

REVERSE:

 POSTERIZE:

 MORE AQUA:

And NORMAL... me resting at my mom's side.

Backyard fun in sun

Meet some of our gang and fosters on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Very pretty sky. My mom thought of Daisy. Daisy died last weekend when it was cold and rainy. Even though she was blind, Daisy loved being in the sun. We celebrated her life today.

Here is a fun video of Beau and Humphrey roaching in the sun.

Miss Daisy -- 1990-2011

She was just a baby running loose at a craft fair 2 decades ago. My mom caught her and drove her  home and sang "How much is that Daisy in the window?"  so Daisy would feel better and not be scared anymore.

She was always at my mom's left side and guarded the position with some mighty chomps on anyone who came near. She and Pongo were best buds for 15 years until Pongo died 2 years ago. Now they are both running and howling together again at the Bridge.

My mom and I will really miss her.

We're doing good!

Here I am looking at my mom as she is typing. Mousse is right behind me. He's always by my mom's side, too.

We think I look much better. The oncologist vet changed my medicine to 3x a week and added a stomach medicine called Cerenia. My appetite is good. My mom is still working on my diet. Stanislaw my beautiful shiny cocker friend suggested B-naturals site with some great recipes for home-cooked meals.

Uh, except my mom is no cook. Her mom is a terrific cook but my mom didn't inherit that gene. However, the diet is simple like hamburger, broccoli, squash and supplements;sometimes chicken and vegetables, sometimes salmon. My mom thinks she'll go on my diet except for her she means to lose weight. For me, it's to be grain free--for a while. This is a test to see if it will help defeat the cancer.

Look at this!! My mom is fostering a weimerainer (sp?) she is named Luna. That dog has RED eyes--not!

Nobody and we mean NOBODY suspected this dog was going to have puppies. She was skinny and we were plumping her up to have her spayed. But wow! PLOP!! PLOP!! Yesterday morning suddenly we had 2 beautiful grey brown babies, a boy and a girl.

We are so surprised we can't think of names yet. Luna is a crazy happy girl, very smart but we can't adopt her out now until the puppies are old enough. So we get to have her 2 more months. This is a happy thing.

My mom will soon have a book or two up on Amazon. I guess that makes THREE jobs but writing is what she loves after me.

Okay, Mom, I'm taking away the keyboard now. Time for some serious cuddling!!

First re-check

I look drugged don't I?

I'm okay. My first checkup was very good. And no new lumps. This kind of cancer can come up very fast so we look everyday.

My only problem is a lot less energy. I am lethargic according to my mom. So my oncologist vet said to give the kinavet just on Mon., Wed., & Fri. That helped a lot. I was dancing round when my mom came home tonight.

My nose is shiny.

My eyes are bright--uh, well, they look glassy but the vet said 'bright'.

I am comfortable right now. We appreciate all the thoughts and prayers. Right now is good and we are happy with that.

Who knows about tomorrow? We will think about that another day.

The start of the treatment

Here I am at RIVER--the clinic named RIVER.

Oh no they are coming to get me.

 Hide me.

They can't see me, right?

From River's mom:

River was taken to another room while I sat in the patient's room. They took blood, x-rays, ultrasound. The oncologist came into the room to speak to me without River so he does not know all this.

He had a grade 2 Mast Cell Tumor. The pathologist said the edges were fairly clean which is good but he couldn't guarantee perfectly clean. The oncologist gave me 3 options for treatment--prednisone/chemo, Palladia, or Kinavet. With River's cancer I could have elected to hope for the 50% non-return but I chose to treat it with a hard punch. Kinavet is the toughest since it is specifically designed for MCT.

It's not cheap and I am working 2 jobs to treat him as long as I can. I am researching holistic lifestyle/diet, supplements, etc.

His first Kinavet pill was yesterday. His energy took a hit and he was sort of unmoving all night. But by this morning he was back to normal. I have already started him on colostrum.

He is happy now and well. I can only pray it will stay that way.

 

A nice weekend

I feel good although the benedryl makes me sleepy. My appetite is good. The weather was fine--almost 60 degrees so my mom was washing quilts and blankets and hanging them outside while we played in the yard.

 This picture looks kind of weird because my mom put a blue towel over my boy bit but it is the picture of my scar--about 3 inches long just above it. My vet is a jolly girl. She said it looks like I was SPAYED!! Wow, that's kind of funny...not! She said I had plenty of skin to close the opening so I didn't become a SIDESHOOTER. Oh, haha. She's a nice lady, very smart.  She sent all my information to a specialist.

I will be going to RIVER next Tuesday for a consultation. Vets come from UTK (Univ. of Knoxville) vet. school to take care of us. RIVER stands for Regional Institute for Veterinary Emergencies and Referrals.

Here is an interesting thing--I am named after this clinic! I was hit by a car and broke my leg 3 years ago. A nice lady took me to RIVER. SOS Beagles took me in and my mom was my foster mom. I am a failed foster. Everyone at the clinic is excited to see me again--not happy because of the big C but because they really liked me.

Out in the yard--all snow is gone. Then back in the house to sit on my mom's lap while she works on the computer. She is working 2 jobs to pay for my treatment. She says she will do all a human can do for me.

Please visit my friend Daisy the pink pitbull. She was also just diagnosed with the big C. She is a sweet and beautiful girl.We are going to fight this together!