Eight miles and runnin'.

Some of you have asked for a Shady update - I guess it has been a while. The latest news is that we are trying a longer needle, and we just increased her insulin dosage again. It's been over 3 months now and she's still nowhere close to being stabilized. I can't tell if the longer needle is helping - supposedly absorption may have been one of the issues. Last night was the first reading we've had in a few weeks that has not been in the 300-500+ range. That was encouraging. She doesn't seem to feel bad though, and besides being thirsty and hungry all the time, seems to be ok. I think that's the important thing!

Tom is in Raleigh tonight at Amra's. So far he's gotten a lot of publicity from the radio show - I am still so impressed by how well he did! We will be busy for the next couple of weeks getting things finalized for the benefit show... I think it's going to turn out really well. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Hey - Wait! I've got a new complaint.

I am NOT a fan of Daylight Savings Time. At least not the way it works right now. Why do they take away an hour of my weekend? Don't they know that the weekends are the only time I can get ANYthing done?!? I would be perfectly happy if it happened on a Monday, say at 3 pm or something. Why does it have to be an hour of sleep I miss out on? Or an hour of doing something productive, or even relaxing? Not cool. Not cool at all.

Yesterday there was no relaxing. I was a nervous wreck about the game and put all of my nervous energy to good use, doing some spring cleaning. OH - in case anyone needs clarification... the Carolina/Duke game. The first time they play in the regular season is still a big deal, but for some reason I don't get as worked up about that one. It also depends on how the first meeting goes - if Duke wins, the next game is HUGE, because we have to win. Anyway... that was yesterday. And we won!!! I am a little bit superstitious so now I will have to wear the shirt I had on for every game they play now (:

Shady still has an infection, is still taking antibiotics, and as of this morning, is not eating. And I can't give her insulin until she eats. Her blood sugar has not come down yet... it's like a catch-22... the blood sugar being high causes the infections, and the infections/antibiotics keep the insulin from working effectively. Something's gotta give but I don't know what it will be.

Just started reading Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri. So far it's really good...

Tom is headed to Raleigh today for a show tonight at Amra's on Glenwood Ave. Then Monday night he'll be at Crowley's, also in Raleigh. Things are exciting right now - we have a publicist working with us, and right now she's at South by Southwest doing some promotion. Hopefully some good things will come of this, I am excited about it.

xo

She's going the distance.

I debated over whether to keep my travel plans for this weekend. I had planned to go see my family... my mom, my sisters, Jayla and Chase, my grandparents. I'd decided to take Shady with me (Tom had to stay for a show), for a few reasons. When I leave her, even though she looooves Tom, she gets kinda depressed. And I would've worried about her. But I kept feeling these bad vibes and I decided to listen to my gut and stay home. It crushed me though because I was sooo looking forward to seeing everyone, esp. Jayla. I have not seen her since her birthday, the first weekend in Jan. To be only 3 years old though, she was very understanding. I talked to her for almost an hour yesterday and she kept asking me if I would come to her house when Shady felt better.

Anyway it's a good thing I stayed, because after going to the vet yesterday, it turns out Shady has a "raging bladder infection." (The vet's words) He gave her a stronger antibiotic than usual and said that the infection could be why the insulin does not seem to be working. And it explains why she hasn't been feeling well this week. So I am glad I stayed, it seemed to be for a reason after all. We have to check her again next Friday to see if the infection has improved any.

I ran 7 miles yesterday! My farthest run yet. I felt great afterwards but it definitely took a lot out of me! I had to stop for water and food a few times, otherwise my little hypoglycemic body might not have made it. I feel a little bit more prepared for the St. Patty's Day 10k now.

I'm trying to figure out what book to start next. I think maybe Into the Wild. Tom just read that and loved it. I just finished Water for Elephants, which I highly recommend.

Can't you see my walls are crumbling?

I know that worrying does no good. Whatsoever. I know that. Yet, all I have done all day is worry. I just feel so helpless and lost and I have this ominous feeling that things are not going to get better anytime soon. Shady tested at 342 last night at 10 pm, which is a little high for that time frame, but it was expected since she had missed a dose and was switched to a new type of insulin. So I wasn't alarmed. But this morning, twice, she tested LOW. LOW as in the tester did not even give me a #, it just said LOW. Which means it's really low. So she ate some honey and some turkey and then I tested her again before I grudgingly left for work and she was at 40. Which is still super low, esp. for her. So Tom tested her again later and she was up to 110, and then before he left she was at 250. So she got better, but what scares me is the unpredictability and inconsistency. There is no pattern, no reason behind any of the readings. I feel so uneasy all of the time. I never feel like things are just going to be fine. It's like I'm always waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. I hate that feeling.

The vet mentioned testing for Cushing's again. This is something else that is weighing on my mind. Say they test her and she does have it. The treatment, as far as I know, involves chemotherapy, radiation, etc. She's an 11 year old dog of a breed whose life span averages 9-11 years. How could I put her through that? It would be so selfish of me to do, wouldn't it? But how could I live with the guilt of knowing I might have been able to extend her life a little bit longer? But then, does she even want to live longer? Is she miserable? I just don't know.

I heard today that William F. Buckley died. I am not too familiar with him, but I do know of him because we had a dog once named William F. Buckley. My dad named him that. I'm not sure why. Was he a big fan of Buckley? That doesn't seem logical because my dad was a liberal hippie musician, and wasn't Buckley like the poster child of conservatism? I am puzzled but may never know the answer to this.

"I'm big in Japan."

Last night during his show, Tom told a story about how his music had been on a show in Japan, whose title translated as "Texas Fight, Man of the House." It paid $0.37. Yes, thirty seven cents. But unfortunately the check he got was for $0 because all of the money was used for processing fees.

The show was a lot of fun and Tom was great as usual. It was really good to see everyone who came, it felt like it had been forever since I'd gone out. It's actually only been a month, but that's a long time to go without seeing some of your friends. Anyway, we all had a lot of fun last night, thanks to Tom Rhodes and the Rhodes Squallers.

Shady is getting ready to start a new type of insulin. After two months trying this first type, there is still no sign of stabilization and even after switching her injection site, (from her neck to her side which is supposed to have better absorption), she's still all over the place. Hopefully this new type of insulin will help.

So refinancing is done, after a dramatic week that included losing my homeowner's insurance due to their No Rottweilers Policy, and frantically trying to find new coverage before the loan closing. I'm glad that's all over. I can't believe Feb. is almost over. 2008 is flying by so far. I keep waiting for life to slow down a little bit but it never does. I don't think it's going to anytime soon either... I think I am going to be doing the Battleship Half Marathon in November. I haven't fully committed yet because right now 13.1 miles still sounds like A LOT to me, but I am going to start training for it and see how it goes.

Speaking of running, I'm going to go for one now while Tom is still sleeping (:

You put the grey skies outta my way.

Today was Shady's belated birthday trip to the beach. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the wind was blowing so much. I tried to capture it in the picture, you could see the sand blowing across the beach and it looked really cool. I think Shady had a good time.

I went for a run outside today but it was so windy, the wind blew my earphones out of my ears. No kidding. It was ridiculous.

I tried to do my taxes yesterday. That was challenging for a lot of reasons. Basically there's a lot of deductions, like interest paid on student loans, that I can't claim unless I file with Tom. We were going to each file separately, but apparently we get a lot of breaks for filing jointly. Soooo we'll see how that goes.

Jen gave me her recipe for buffalo chicken dip which I made today and it was delicious! Yummmm. It was a great snack. Tonight is the Grammys, which I feel are becoming less and less relevant. But the Foo Fighters are performing so I'll at least watch that. Or record it. AND a new episode of The Wire! I can't say enough how good that show is. I don't know why this is the last season of it, if it's because not enough people watch it or what. But it's good. Oh, the writer's strike is supposedly over. Yay! I haven't really missed TV all that much but I would like to see the end of Scrubs. That's another great show that no one watches. Anyway, it was a productive weekend overall but it went by way too fast, as usual!

Lay me down in sheets of linen

This week has been much less chaotic than last week. So far it's been good... our house appraisal went well and I'll be closing on the new loan in a week. Tom came home late Tuesday/early Wed. and I'm glad to have him back. He's playing tonight at Front St. Brewery. Oh, and I dropped the ball on the Whittaker Bay thing... his song 'I'll Wait' was featured on the show last weekend. I had so much going on that I just forgot... I recorded it though and I really hate to say anything bad about the show because obviously they have great taste in music, but... the show is just hard to watch. I'll leave it at that. However, there is some cool stuff going on. We're working on the breast cancer benefit show that I think is going to be great and we should have a date confirmed in the next couple of days. Also, a management/publicity company that I sent Tom's press kit to contacted me today and said she LOVES his music (how could she not?) and wants to know what she can do to help! So we'll see how that goes. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much because the music industry is very tough, but I'm encouraged by the fact that she is interested and actually communicates -- that's a start! I'm also submitting him to some festivals and working on some other things.

Tomorrow is the day I send Shady's #s to the vet for analysis... this week has been up and down again. But I hope the vet sees progress somehow. I just wish I could find a pattern to why the lows are low and the highs are high.

I was glad for Tom to come home, but what made his return even sweeter is that he came bearing a gift from Sean... a super duper awesome iPod docking speaker system thing! Tom set it up last night and the sound is crystal clear. It's shiny and awesome! I'm speechless, really. It was so unexpected and so generous and thoughtful. I feel so lucky to have inherited these great friends of Tom's!

He also brought some boxes of books from his mom. I am looking forward to going through them, she reads a lot of the same stuff as me and even though I am behind as it is on the book club books, I am always excited to have new books.

Ok, I'm exhausted. The game last night wore me out. I'm trying to forget it even happened.

The trick is to keep breathing.

This has been a crazy week. Tuesday I got home from work and I felt like I might be getting a urinary tract infection... I'm all too familiar with that annoying feeling that you have to pee all the time. It was bearable though so I decided to go to the dr. Wednesday. Some friends of Tom's were staying with us and they were playing a show downtown, so we were getting ready to go to that. But then I decided it was too annoying to wait to go to the dr., and I was going to go to Urgent Care and then meet Tom at the show. So I am driving to Urgent Care and my right side starts hurting, not terribly but just like a little cramp. I check in and fill out paperwork and the nurse takes my vitals and then the dr. tells me that my urinalysis was fine. By this time my side is hurting more, like it hurts to breathe, and I tell the dr. that. He does some pressing and poking and then decides to do an x-ray, because my lower right side is where my appendix is located and he wants to make sure everything is ok. So I call Tom and tell him and he rushes to Urgent Care. By the time he gets there I can barely stand, I am going in and out of consciousness because the pain is so bad, and I start throwing up. Since the x-ray was fine, the dr. says it must be a kidney stone, although nothing showed up on the x-ray it could be too small to show up. Which is a good thing that it's small. So the nurse gives me two shots, one in each hip, one for pain and one for nausea. They are THE MOST PAINFUL shots I have ever gotten in my life. My left hip just stopped hurting yesterday. The dr. tells Tom that if I am not better in an hour, to take me to the ER. It took about 45 minutes for me to feel better, but by then I was passed out. Since then I have been taking antibiotics and hopefully the stone is gone, who knows. The medicines make me feel groggy and tired and out of it and nauseous and they make me burp. I will be glad to be done with them. I am still in disbelief about having a kidney stone, I kinda thought they only happened to older or unhealthy people, but apparently they can happen to anyone, even babies or children.

Shady had an up and down week too... there is no pattern or reason to her blood glucose numbers. In the morning, when she is usually at her highest, twice this week she has been really low. Sometimes it's like the insulin doesn't help at all, and sometimes it helps too much. And it's getting harder and harder to test her, because for some reason her lip just will not bleed anymore. I have to prick the inside of her lip to get blood, and I HATE doing it. But I know I have to, so I do it. I have a rule though that if I don't get it within 3 tries, I give up (for then, anyway). I just can not bring myself to keep doing it. And this #!$%* tester is so picky about the amt of blood it gets. Just now I was testing her and I FINALLY on the 3rd try got a small drop of blood and got it on the strip and then it gives me a *%$#! error message. So 3 tries and a wasted testing strip. It is frustrating.

Yesterday was Shady's birthday too. She is 11 years old. That's old for a Rottweiler, esp. one that has been through so much in her life. Hip dysplasia, arthritis, cancer, now diabetes. Every year on her birthday I take her to the beach, but we didn't go yesterday since I am not feeling so great. So we're going to go next weekend, which works out even better since Tom will be back by then.

So I guess I'm going to go watch the Super Bowl and finish cleaning up. The house is getting appraised tomorrow for this refinancing stuff, so I'm trying to make it presentable. It's a challenge! Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Thoughts meander like the restless wind inside a letter box

Shady has a friend over this weekend! We are dogsitting Denise's dog Mailei. It was an adventure trying to walk the two of them this morning. Even though they are the same age (Shady will be 11 next Saturday!), Mailei walks sooo much faster than Shady! She was basically running circles around us. It is fun having her here though.

It's been a busy couple of weeks. I'm trying to refinance which means it feels like I have been buried in paperwork, but I think we will be closing soon. That will be good. Shady is doing ok... her insulin dosage has been increased twice since the last update... her lows are getting better, but the highs are still pretty high. So we are going to try the new dosage until Friday and then the vet will re-evaluate. It's encouraging though that they think the insulin is working enough to keep trying it rather than testing for other illnesses.


Katie was just here visiting and we had a good time even though it felt like she was only here for 12 minutes. She got here Thursday afternoon. We went for a run in the park, then went to dinner at The Oceanic, her favorite seafood restaurant. Friday we worked most of the day, then went to Tom's show at BlackHorn that night. Nicole, Greg, Denise, Erin, Nate, Tara, Dmeza, Scott and Jeremy all came too. It was a fun night. We stayed out much too late and then Katie had to pick up her rental car at 8 am Sat., she drove to Winston-Salem to see her parents, then was on to Charlotte to see her brand-new week-old niece Ashlynn who is absolutely freaking adorable! So while I wish she could have stayed longer, I know she was DYING to go see Ashlynn, and I will take whatever I can get. Now it's my turn to go see her in Atlanta... hopefully we won't have to go 9 months before seeing each other again!

Yesterday I had all these plans to get this work done... booking shows, submitting Tom to festivals, putting together media kits and creating an EPK (electronic press kit). However I got nothing done... we started watching The Wire and there was no hope of me getting anything done after that. That show is just really amazing -- honestly the best show on TV. The final season is on right now. Why is it that all of the best shows never last, esp. on HBO? Arrested Development, Deadwood, Extras, Rome, now The Wire.

So now today I have to make up for all the time I wasted yesterday. I've got two snoring dogs laying at my feet, a snoring husband in the bedroom, and I just started reading Love in the Time of Cholera. This could be challenging...

P.S. Nicole and Greg are engaged!!! I am soooo excited for them. When you are in their presence, you can't help but feel true love all around. Congratulations to you two!!

Painting without colors tends to make it better.

So I found a really informative site about Cushing's in dogs. I want to learn as much as I can about it. I am trying to be optimistic, but after 3 full days of testing Shady at home, the insulin still doesn't seem to be helping much. So I am trying to be realistic while also being optimistic. We'll see how the next couple of days go and what the vet decides, but I have a feeling we'll be doing more tests this week. If you're at all interested in learning about Cushing's, you can read it here.

Tom and I and Kristine and Mike went to the movies yesterday to see Juno. If you haven't seen it yet, you should go ASAP. It was so good. I really needed to laugh and even though the movie deals with a somewhat serious subject matter, it is completely freaking funny. And of course it stars two of the Bluths, so that just makes it worthwhile right there.

I also just downloaded the soundtrack from iTunes. The music was so great. Just take my word for it.

Jayla is starting dance class on Tuesday! I am really excited about this, because the girl obviously has talent (if you haven't seen her Dirty Dancing video yet, you need to go watch it now.

Tom's in Raleigh tonight playing at Amra's. I always wish I could go to his shows there with him, but he gets home around 3 am and it makes for a very long day for me on Monday after only getting a few hours of sleep. I used to be able to do that when I was in college... seriously, I might have gotten 8 hours of sleep once during my whole four years of college. Oh, how things have changed.

Whittaker Bay, the show that will be featuring some of Tom's music, premiered on WGN last weekend. We recorded it and watched it the other day. I'm not going to comment on the show... not really because I don't want to, but I had a hard time following the plot. I think the 5th episode will be the first one with Tom's music on it. I'll keep you guys updated.

The crown you've placed upon my head feels too heavy now.

Shady was at the vet again all day today. They tested her blood sugar at different times of the day, doing what is called a curve. She is up to 20 units twice a day (double her initial dose) and her levels were still off the charts. She was sent home and we are to try giving her 20 units twice a day and testing her regularly and keeping a chart of all of the information. After a week of doing this we're supposed to let them know what we've found out and see what they think. If she hasn't improved, they are going to do testing for Cushing's. I am trying hard to not be discouraged but it's hard when it doesn't seem to be helping at all. I would do anything I could for Shady, anything in the world, but unfortunately I don't have endless money. I am worried that even if or when they find out what's wrong, that I won't be able to afford to fix whatever it is. But I'm still hoping for the best because that's all you can do. Now I have to get used to all of the shots and pricking and blood and testing. I found one helpful website today though that I'm sure I will be checking a lot... www.caninediabetes.org. I made the mistake of reading the pet stories today and was bawling at work. I should have known better.

Such a beautiful kiss in the face of fear.

I took Shady to the vet this morning. They wanted to keep her all day and do more tests to see if her insulin dosage needed to be increased. I had a feeling that the dosage would have to be increased because she has been drinking soooooo much water. Well the insulin isn't helping her at all. Her blood sugar was actually higher than it was last time they tested her, even after giving her a slightly higher dosage than usual. So they want her to come back tomorrow and test her some more. They said it could be that she just needs a higher dosage, or a different type of insulin. It could also be that she has a disease in addition to diabetes which prevents her body from absorbing the insulin, possibly Cushing's. They said it could take 2 or 3 weeks of tests and stuff to figure out what's going on. I really hope that all she needs is just a higher dosage. So hopefully we'll get good news tomorrow afternoon.

And i'll be awful sometimes, weakened to my knees...

... and I'll learn to get by on the little victories.

Finally home from Shady's vet appt... she had an infection and they also confirmed what they had suspected for a while, that she is diabetic. Her blood sugar was extremely high... normal high is 143(per ML or MG or something), and hers was 415. So we have to start injecting her with insulin twice a day. I feel really sad about it right now but I hope she will be ok. I mean, she will be ok. She has to be. That's all there is to it.