Andi’s exciting life.

Sorry for my silence this week, but we have been facing a very serious and unexpected illness in our whippet, Adelaide. Sunday she had an episode of stumbling around for a few minutes in the evening but then recovered and seemed OK. It happened again the next morning, and we took her to her regular vet. They kept her for observation for the day and said she seemed normal but advised we see a specialist because of some abnormal blood work.

When we picked her up from their office Monday afternoon, she was walking but didn’t seem quite herself. By Tuesday morning, she could barely walk, and I had to carry her in to see the internist. They hospitalized her, and a spinal fluid analysis led to the diagnosis of steroid-responsive meningitis or granulometous meningioencephalomyelitis (GME). Wednesday morning, she had one seizure, which was an alarming sign of her condition worsening. She went on to have more seizures and had to be started on a constant infusion of valium by Wednesday afternoon.

She has now been on steroids for 24 hours, and her valium is being tapered off today. The hope is that she will respond to the steroid treatment, and we will see an improvement as she begins to wake up. There is concern that, even if she does improve on steroids, she has suffered brain damage and will not be herself again. The biggest worry is that she will not respond to treatment at all. Today is a day of waiting to hear from the doctor letting us know what happens when the sedative begins wearing off.

This is so painful and heartbreaking. She is only six years old, and this happened so fast that we barely had time to know something was wrong before she was hospitalized. I haven’t seen her since Tuesday morning, but I’m planning to go visit this afternoon while a friend watches Falco. He keeps calling Adelaide at home, and he can’t understand what is happening, which is probably for the best.

I will post an update here tonight or tomorrow when I get the next update.

1. Brie. I try to avoid it, but it’s so heavenly good, especially with No Knead Bread.
2. Wine. You mean this stuff has calories? And five ounces is a serving?
3. Super burritos. I do get “no cheese,” but it probably doesn’t counteract the guacamole and sour cream and carne asada.
4. Salmon. Yeah, I know it’s supposed to be the “good fat” and all, but not when you eat six to eight ounces at a time over a mound of rice on a weekly basis.
5. French fries. How can a vegetable be anything but good for me?

There are plenty of foods I avoid like real mayo or scones or premium ice cream or Snickers, but the foods in this list are staples that I don’t want to live without. Why must they be so delicious?

Just when I thought I couldn’t despise Rosco any more, this morning he crossed a line that should never be crossed. I was undertaking the lovely job of changing Falco’s dirty diaper, which has to be done on the floor now so that I can pin him down with my leg to inhibit him from leaving the scene or involving his hands. The offending diaper was off, and I set it down behind me while I cleaned him up and put on the clean one. I turn around to pick it up when the job is done, and there is Rosco, licking the dirty diaper. That’s right. My dog was eating human excrement. I was ready to throw him out on the street right then, even more so than after he has destroyed yet another of Falco’s toys. As far as I’m concerned, if you are eating human shit, you are not domesticated. Unfortunately, since he is nearly blind and deaf and dumb as a rock, I don’t think he could live off the land if I set him free to live like a wild animal.

ETA: Before anyone attacks me, this post was sarcastic if that wasn’t clear. Obviously I am not really going to let my 12-year-old shit tzu fend for himself on the streets. Sheesh.

It was a nice Thanksgiving at The Gleeson House and Falco’s first! I
started cooking about 7 a.m. while Matt took Falco to the playground
to keep him out of the kitchen. The new kitchen served me well and
was such a pleasure to cook and hang out in. Our friends Michael,
Lynne, James and Ruby came over for an early afternoon feast. Falco
didn’t like much besides the turkey, mac and cheese, and Lynne’s
sweet potatoes, but it was very fun to make him his own Thanksgiving
plate with lots of different foods to try. He was a good boy at the
table and had a nice time despite the fact that he has been
struggling with teething lately. After eating we broke out the
Guitar Hero (I) for some fun and embarrassment for all. Good times!

The cook.

GBD.

Ruby looking thrilled about her Thanksgiving Kraft single feast.

Falco ready for some turkey.

The guests.

Rosco started squinting his only remaining eye yesterday, which I was not happy to see. That’s always how his problems started with his right eye, and eventually it got so bad that it had to be removed. We got him in to see the ophthalmologist, and he has a corneal ulcer. She wasn’t clear on why this happened except that it’s an “old eye.” I told her that I was very worried because if he loses vision in this eye, he doesn’t have a spare. She seemed sure that it wasn’t the same kind of problem that he had in the past, but we’re not feeling very confident about that. They did a debridement, which is rubbing the dead tissue off his cornea with a rough Q-tip (with local anesthetic), and this seemed to make him feel a lot worse than when he went in. Now he is wearing an E-collar to keep him from rubbing it and on antibiotic drops, and he goes for a recheck on Wednesday. He’s just lying around taking it easy, and we have to carry him in and out of the house because it’s not clear how well he can see. Hopefully it won’t take long for him to feel better and get his already not-so-great vision back.

We already had to be careful with Falco around him because he will snap if Falco reaches for his face, but that situation is worse now because Falco wants to touch the E-collar and Rosco is in pain and can’t see well. We have to be extra vigilant about keeping them separated, and I think it’s likely going to be like that from now on. Such is life with a baby and an old dog I guess.

…kinda. Our kitchen is done for the most part, but we are
waiting on the countertop, which means we are also waiting on the
sink, dishwasher, and range. Without all those key elements, the
kitchen is still not functional. It looks great so far! We are very
happy with the cabinets, appliances, and floor. I can’t wait to see
the finished product! See more photos here.

Yesterday was Matt’s birthday. We had a good time overall, though
there were a lot of chores involved. We had to paint the laundry
room so that it would be ready for them to move in the washer and
dryer this week. That was a pain, but it’s great that our kitchen is
finally coming together. We also went out to breakfast and Chinese
lunch. Matt wanted a PSP for his birthday, so we made a run downtown
to the only store that had the new one in stock. Overall it was a
good day and good weekend.

Lots of new things are going on in our kitchen. We have cabinets,
and the tile is being laid as I type this. Check out the gallery for
updated photos.

Here’s my most exciting news: Falco cut a new tooth on the top! I saw it today when I was hanging him upside down, which he loves and is the only way I can get a glimpse of his top gums. It is the tiniest dot of tooth just barely poking through his gum. It is the far left top incisor, and the area over the left center incisor is very swollen, so I think that one will make its appearance soon. Overall he has been doing well, but he did have a very hard time getting to sleep last night. He usually does great at bedtime, so we’re thinking his mouth was probably sore.

In other news today, he got himself to a sitting position by himself three or four times today. This should be bigger news than the tooth I guess, but he hasn’t quite figured out how to do it anytime he wants so it’s still a work in progress. It’s great that he is starting to get the hang of it because until now the only way he could sit was if we plopped him down that way. When he did it today, he looked so proud of himself and got really excited when I cheered for him.

On Friday he went in for his 9-month well-baby visit, and it was good except the doctor was a little concerned about his weight. On his growth chart, his weight went straight across this time instead of curving upwards. She said he looked good on exam but to try to get extra calories in him where possible. So, we’re trying to give him more high-calorie foods like avocado and cheese and add butter to his sandwiches, things like that. He will only eat as much as he feels like though, so we can only do so much. She said that he wasn’t grossly underweight or anything but to just try to increase his caloric intake if possible. He goes back at the end of September for a weight check.

The kitchen project is ticking along slowly but surely. We had inspections yesterday and today, which kind of held up the work. They are out of the way now though, so tomorrow the insulation will be completed and then sheetrock put up. Cabinets should be up by the end of next week and everything done by early the following week. Everything, that is, except the countertops and backsplash. The counters will be installed after all the other work is completed, and the backsplash will be the very last thing to be done. Hopefully it will all be complete by the end of September and then we will be living like kings in our palace of a kitchen.

Now, here’s for the fun stuff if you made it this far. I took this funny video of Falco yesterday. He thought it was hilarious when I put his hairbrush in an empty box and shook it around. Be sure to have your sound on so that you can hear him laughing.

I’m a little behind on sharing the news here, but Monday started our kitchen remodel. Yesterday and today were demo days, so Falco and I have been out of the house all day. He has done very well with only naps in the car and visiting friends all day. So far everything has gone well with the kitchen project. The contractors found that there was a brick chimney in the wall behind the range, so that added a little extra work to take that out. We won’t be able to use the fireplace anymore because we wanted the chimney knocked out to give us more space in the kitchen. Probably at some point down the road we will have the nonfunctional fireplace taken out of the living room, but we decided not to deal with that right now.

I have a photo album of the project here, which I will update daily. Here is a before and after of the work so far:

In the past two weeks, Falco has changed a lot. First, he started being able to drag himself a couple of feet to a toy, and in the past week he has started doing this combat crawl anywhere he wants to go. He can go pretty fast when he wants something and tries to get into everything. His favorite things to go for are shoes, dog toys, and electrical cords, which are all forbidden. The only child proofing we had really done was plugging empty electrical outlets, but he goes for cords and unplugs them if he has the chance. We’re working on making all cords out of his reach, and I am constantly moving Rosco’s toys out of sight. It is very fun to watch him get around, but I find myself much more exhausted at the end of the day after keeping up with him!

Also in the last two weeks he has started babbling. I think he’s a little late on this, but that’s OK. Now he says babababababa or mamamamama or dadadadadada. Today he looked at me and very clearly said, “Mama,” but I know he doesn’t know what he is saying. Maybe in another month or two he will call us Mama and Dada, which will be so sweet.

He is a very good eater most of the time, and he seems to especially like Asian food. The night before our trip we went out for sushi, and he tried a few things. As soon as he tasted my miso soup, he got very excited and couldn’t get enough of it. Then we fed him sushi rice and avocado from a roll, and he really liked that too. Yesterday I got a BBQ chicken rice plate from a Vietnamese restaurant in our hood, and he shared it with me, eating a heap of rice and chicken. He is getting better at feeding himself, though he still hasn’t mastered the pincer grasp. He does manage to get food in his mouth with his fist or eating directly off the table. His table manners are generally pretty good by 8-month-old standards, and I am usually very proud of how well he does.

Coming soon: Our kitchen is soon to be demolished!