Saturday's performance went well. It was a friendly audience, and everything came off more or less like we wanted it to.

I spent the whole day sucking down throat coat tea and being in deep denial about being sick. That worked for the day, at least long enough to get me through the show. This morning I woke up with a full-on cold, and I'm pretty whiny about it.

I'm spending the day sitting very still (except for a little laundry and dishes, but nothing too serious). My sweetie was kind enough to take my list and go grocery shopping for me. She is good to me.

Current Mood: tired

I wonder how long 75% of the browser ads being pushed at me will continue to be for plus size clothing. Perhaps I ought to be clearing my cookies.

Current Mood: nostalgic

I took the results of the 2004 election really personally. It seemed so clear at that point that the direction the country was being steered was disastrous. I couldn't imagine how a person with a conscience could vote for four more years of the Bush administration. The only logical conclusion was that most citizens of the country are deeply stupid, just evil, or some combination of the two. For an extra kick in the teeth, nobody gives a damn about, or is even discussing, my civil rights except to heartily agree that gay marriage is a threat to society. It was emotionally wrenching to watch the last embers of youthful idealism extinguished.

Due to the trauma, I have managed to at least somewhat avoid the super-saturation of this election. I have barely turned on the television in months. I never sit through campaign ads. I have listened to only a limited amount of NPR coverage - enough to know what's going on, but not too much. I have refused to discuss the election with people I would normally talk about this sort of thing. I just haven't been able to stand it.

This morning, I was in line outside my polling place at 6:35 am. It actually felt kind of exciting. Maybe there's just a little idealism left.

Tags: election trauma
Current Mood: hopeful

I just don't know why I don't ever allow myself a reasonable amount of time to do all of the things I am trying to do. Possibly, the answer is do less things. I hate that, as I want to be doing more things all the time. There is so much I could be accomplishing if only I didn't have to limit myself to doing one thing at a time.

Current Mood: busy

Thursday night Clifford was acting strangely. He kept moving from place to place, not really getting comfortable anywhere. When he went outside, he laid down in the snow, which is totally not normal for him. He was limping, and when I checked his legs, he seemed to react when I touched his rear right foot. In the morning, I dropped him off at the vet to be seen during the day.

The first time the vet called to check in with me, they said that they hadn't found anything wrong with his leg or foot, and that they really weren't sure why he was limping. They would do some blood work to be sure, but they couldn't really find anything wrong.

An hour later it was an entirely different story. His white blood count was elevated, and they had done an abdominal x-ray. It turned out he had bloat, meaning his stomach had filled with gas and twisted on itself, causing nothing to be able to escape and ripping his stomach from its blood supply. The choices were to have immediate surgery or to put him down. Of course, I chose surgery.

I was able to see him for a few minutes before surgery started, but then I had to go home and wait. They called shortly after surgery started to say that the news was worse than they had realized before. There was a mass of some sort on his spleen, and his stomach had been twisted for long enough that some of the tissue had become necrotic. Again, I was presented with a choice: continue with surgery and try to remove the dead tissue or have him put down? They told me that at this point, he had only a 40% chance of survival even if they did everything possible. I asked them to continue with the surgery.

Friday afternoon, I was able to spend a couple hours with him as he came out of the anesthesia. He was on a ketamine/morphine drip, and was verrrry relaxed. I laid on the floor of the office with him so that he could see my face when he came to every now and then.

Over the weekend, he has seemed to improve rapidly. He was able to come home today, and is acting as if he'd never had major surgery just a few days ago. There are lots of medications and special food for him for a while, and it will be over a week before the results of the biopsy on the spleen mass will be back. All is not necessarily rosy just yet, but I am so happy to have my puppy back at home.

Tags: clifford
Current Mood: relieved

I have created a livejournal, solely for the pleasure of viewing super-secret friendsy things. Who knows, maybe I'll even write something in it every now and again.

Current Mood: exhausted