I am dogless and not happy about it. I lost both my dogs this year within 3 months of each other. Pooch was 14 and Ginger was 12. I've never been without a dog for the holidays before and it is not fun.

Yes, Ginger has a Valentine. Awww...aren't they cute?











(I really need to snap a new photo of them! Legolas the cat is an adult now...)

Ginger had to have emergency surgery recently. I had to rush her to the emergency clinic, she was gagging and then I felt her abdomen and it was distended. When I got there I told them I think it's bloat and they quickly too her to the back. They did an x-ray and she had gastric torsion so they had to do emergency surgery (actually they told me to choose between surgery or euthanasia because Ginger is 11 years old...) They said she might not survive the surgery because of her age...

Bloat is a medical condition that dogs get, they're not sure of the exact cause. It's basically what it sounds like, the stomach bloats (fills with gas) and it is a serious condition for dogs. Gastric torsion is a problem that sometimes comes with bloat, where the stomach then twists, cutting off the blood flow and digestive flow. The only way to correct it is with surgery to untwist the stomach and then secure it into place to prevent it from twisting again.

Thank goodness, she went through the surgery well, there was no tearing of the stomach or nearby organs. They did find that a section of the intestine near the stomach was also twisted, but when they fixed the stomach and intestine the color returned quickly. I picked her up in the morning to bring her to my regular vet because the ER closes at 8 am. She did well throughout the day and even was able to eat some canned food while at the clinic.
My regular vet had me bring her home that evening because there is no one at the clinic overnight.They said we had to watch her for complications, especially heart conditions which can develop after surgery. The next day I took her back in to my vet for a re-check and they did an EKG to check her heart. It was normal. She has been doing well since then, she had one more vet visit to make sure her recovery was coming along and they said she is almost out of the woods. She is doing a lot better now but is still working on recovering.

Yes, that's right, kittenS! We have two new kittens!

My brother was on a waiting list for like two years with a Maine Coon breeder. He wanted a black Maine Coon and we were waiting for a litter to be born with a female black kitten. Finally in October they had one! As a bonus, the kitten was polydactyl (extra toes)-- even better!

While we were waiting to be able to bring the kitten home, I found a stray tabby kitten in the alley. The kitten was with his mother, a feral cat who looked very young and skinny. I tried to see if he'd come near me and he came towards me but then decided to run past me instead- straight into my backyard where my dog was! The dog chased him across the yard, but luckily she's well-trained and came back to me when I called her off. The poor kitten was trying to push his way through the garden fencing, and I caught him. The mom had run off so I took him inside. When we went to the vet it turned out he was just about 5-6 weeks old.

To make a long story short(er), I ended up raising the little stray and tried to find a home with no luck. We just brought the Maine Coon kitten home, so now we have two kittens! I named the stray kitten Church, after a Stephen King book. He's a cute little tabby kitty-- well actually not so little anymore, at 14 weeks old he was already nearly 5 pounds! The Maine Coon does not have a permanent name yet, but the breeder called her Roxy.


( Kitten pictures here! )

Poor Ginger is having one problem after another... A few weeks ago I noticed a swelling on one of Ginger's front legs. Ginger's an 11 year old Golden so I was very concerned. I took her into the vet right away. She took x-rays which showed it was in the bone but were not conclusive as to a diagnosis. The worry was osteosarcoma (bone cancer) so we were sent to a specialist for a bone biopsy. The surgeon we were going to see was not available at the specialty center so I made an appointment with the oncologist there instead.

She took a look and did new x-rays because the quality of the others wasn't great... We also got chest x-rays which we clear. She was still concerned about osteosarcoma but she said that the appearance was not the normal look for that condition because the lump was not in the usual place it is with that, the view on the x-ray was not the normal way it looks, and Ginger had no pain or limping. She recommended doing a bone biopsy. The oncologist consulted with a radiologist but still they were not sure from the x-rays what the cause of the bone swelling was.. We went ahead with the bone biopsy which was done about a week later after the doctor consulted with some other vets. When we finally had the results of that, it was also inconclusive, not consistent with cancer cells but the vet said we still could not rule it out. The options were to do another bone biopsy which could cause a fracture and may likely yield the same results (the vet thought she got a pretty good sample the first time) or wait a month and do x-rays again. My regular vet recommended trying a course of antibiotics just to see if there is any result. So now we are waiting to do the next set of x-rays and see if we find anything more then...

Then last weekend I took my dogs to a dog event and I noticed Ginger drooling at the event. I thought maybe she was stressed or hot, and she stopped after we left the event so I didn't think about it much more. Then early Monday morning she couldn't eat. I put her food down as usual, came back and it was still there. I watched her try to eat and she would pick up some food, drool, and spit it back out. I looked in her mouth thinking maybe something was caught there, and found her tongue seemed to be oddly twisted to one side. I was really scared and got an appointment with her regular vet right away. Her regualar vet looked at it and she thought it might be squamous cell carcinoma (type of cancer) and that would explain her leg swelling as well. I was so worried, I couldn't even eat anything all that day and the next morning... When I went home I called the oncologist, and set up an appointment with her for the next day. That night I had to hand-feed Ginger by dropping wet food in the back of her mouth because she could not move her tongue or swallow very well.
When we got to the oncologist, she examined Ginger's mouth and said she could not see any tumor at all, just swollen tongue and mouth. She took Ginger in the back to have a few other specialists take a look and they agreed with her. They decided to sedate her so they could see how it appeared under anesthesia and do a biopsy. She came back out and told me what she found. There was sort of a blood blister on Ginger's tongue way in the back of her mouth and when she opened that up she found there was a pocket of air actually inside Ginger's tongue, which was very swollen. She did a biopsy and culture, and said it may possibly be some kind of infection or even a result of a sting or bite... She gave Ginger a steroid shot and antibiotics. She said she never saw anything exactly like that before so she's not sure of the cause.
Ginger started to improve a little the night she got home from the specialist. She is doing a LOT better now, she can eat and drink normally although her tongue seems to be painful still.
Poor Ginger, it seems that likely the mouth problem and the leg problem are totally unrelated, she is just very unlucky to have both happen at the same time! She's now on 2 types of antibiotics and I am still waiting for the results of the biopsy/culture of her mouth, and then we have to wait a few more weeks to do more x-rays of her leg. It's been crazy the last few weeks, I've been so worried about what's wrong with Ginger's leg I haven't been able to concentrate on anything and then adding the tongue/mouth problem on top of that...poor girl. I feel so bad that no one knows what is wrong with her.

UPDATE 9/27: I finally got the results of Ginger's biopsy and culture. The culture was positive for bacteria and the biopsy was negative but showed chronic inflammation which is consistent with trauma. This means she injured it somehow... My best guess is she tried to snap at a bee and it stung her, because she does like to chase bugs. She is doing a lot better with her mouth but unfortunately this means we still have no diagnosis for her leg issue... She has to stay on both antibiotics for at least a week or two more, and then we will be doing the updated set of x-rays of her leg.

I had a rather busy weekend last weekend. On Friday my family took an overnight trip to Champaign for my cousin's anniversary party. I had fun, got to swim at the hotel and see a lot of my family at the anniversary party. I overheard a sweet comment from my cousin's daughter. She's 9 or so, and I overheard her tell someone "(missucupcake) is my favorite cousin because she loves animals." Isn't that cute? I also got to meet my other cousin's new baby for the first time. It was a great party, I only see my cousins/aunts/uncles a few times a year so it was great to be able to spend some time with them.

Then, I went to a Weird Al concert on Sunday. It was a lot of fun! Weird Al really puts on a show. He does costume changes for most of his songs and while he's changing he shows funny clips such as some from Al TV or random silly things. There is also confetti, smoke, and lights involved.
For an encore, he did "Albaquerque" which is really fun because it's incredibly long (the album version is over 11 minutes) and he makes it adds things when he does it live...
I also bought a t-shirt with a picture of the album cover of his latest album (Straight Outta Lynwood) on it.
Now, if only TMBG would come to Chicago...
Here are some photos and video from the concert:


This was during the song "You're Pitiful" which is a parody of "You're Beautiful." Al started out in a sweatshirt, took it off to reveal a shiny button-down shirt, took it off to reveal the shirt in that photo, and took THAT off to reveal a t-shirt of SpongeBob's face. Then he proceeded to pull his pants off, revealing a tutu...


( More (large) photos and videos here! )

Well I don't even know why I'm posting... Really nothing much to say here but I feel like writing something.
I've been looking for a job for the summer since April or so and have not found anything good. I have resorted to looking for babysitting jobs now...I really should get some type of vet assistant related job but I can't find any of those around, at least not in a place I would a) be able to reach by public trans and b) be in a neighborhood that is not potentially dangerous. I did put an application in at Banfield pet hospital (inside Petsmart) but I never heard from them and actually from their website there doesn't seem to be any job openings there.

We went on a family vacation a week ago, to Wisconsin Dells. It was slightly less fun than I expected. It was me, my parents, my sister, her husband and my dogs Ginger and Pooch. I had been hoping I could bring a friend but that didn't work out (basically because my sister and her husband didn't want me to...) We rented a cottage and we had TWO EXTRA ROOMS so it would have been easy to have an extra person. We even had (a little) room left in the car. I was hoping to bring a friend because usually on vacations I end up doing thing by myself or missing most of the things I want to do because no one else is interested. I thought maybe it would be different this time since my sister was coming and she likes a lot of the same things I do, but nope. I ended up going to a waterpark alone because we got free passes (they came with our cottage rental) and we had enough free passes for everyone but no one would go with me. I missed out on a few other things I wanted to do, but luckily my mom was nice and did some stuff with me. Too much of the vacation consisted on being annoyed, unhappy or disappointed but when I was actually getting to do something I did have fun most of the time. We did a lot of the touristy stuff such as Wizard World, Circus World Museum, the waterpark (Waterworld at Riverview Park), a boat tour of the upper Dells (which allowed dogs), and we visited the House on the Rock. I hadn't been there before and I was surprised that it was a lot more interesting than I expected. If anyone is interested you can see slideshows of the photos I took on vacation here:
http://www.chicagocanine.com/dells/dells07.html

I actually cleaned my bedroom...and by clean I don't mean moved stuff around and threw out some things, I mean really CLEANED it. Amazing, there is nothin on the floor. I also got more creative and put up a shelf and made a display for some of the things I collect (mostly my LDDolls.) Of course the bookcase I made into a display for my dolls only fits about 1/4 of the dolls I have, but at least some of them are not on display. I think it turned out pretty good!

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next three sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
6. Tag five other people to do the same.


Well, two books were the same distance so I will do both. Actually the second one was a little closer I think, but I didn't see it until after I grabbed the first book. The first one I grabbed was 'Essential Genetics: a genomics perspective'--

"From an evolutionary perspective, the unity of fundamental molecular proceses is derived by inheritance from a distant common ancestor in which the mechanisms were already in place. Not only the unity of life but also many other features of living organisms become comprehensible from an evolutionary perspective. For example, the interposition of an RNA intermediate in the basic flow of genetic information from DNA to RNA to protein makes sense if the earliest forms of life used RNA for both genetic information and enzyme catalysis."


Ok, slightly less scientific... The other book was 'Sirius The Dog Star' (an anthology of dog scifi stories.)--
"The beast had survived its partner's misjudgement and Ebbet valued the animal's abilities so highly he'd insisted he must have another such pairing. No Human was available fast enough to suit him-- but a Tidik Finder-in-training, with sufficiently similar neural physiology, was. As easy to flu without wings as to refuse." (Story: Brothers Bound by Julie E. Czerneda

I am walking in the Anti-Cruelty Society's Bark in the Park walkathon this year. Just in case anyone would like to sponsor me and donate some money to the Anti-Cruelty Society here's the link.

So what'll it be with your Prime Rib sub? Gatorade, SoBe, or maybe a nice cold coyote?




This coyote walked into a downtown Quiznos today and then decided to hop into the cooler, where he stayed for about an hour while the police and animal control were called. More photos and video here. I saw a pair of coyotes in Rosehill cemetery a few weeks ago. Apparently there are quite a few in the city.

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Coyote visits Loop restaurant but doesn't eat

By Mary Owen

Maybe it was the smell of the smoked turkey on rosemary Parmesan bread.

Shortly after lunchtime on Tuesday, a docile coyote nonchalantly wandered through the propped-open door of a Quiznos submarine sandwich shop in downtown Chicago.

The handful of startled customers calmly walked out of the shop, Quiznos manager Bina Patel said.

"It was kind of like a medium-sized dog," Patel said. "At first, we thought it was a dog. We don't get dogs walking in, but it's more believable than a coyote."

Officials picked up the year-old male about 2:30 p.m., an hour after it had entered the restaurant at 37 E. Adams St. in the Loop, said Anne Kent, director of Animal Care and Control.

The animal ate nothing and no on was harmed.

Coyotes are more partial to small rodents, rabbits and trash, animal control officials said.

The coyote was the second in less than a week picked up in the city. A 2-year-old male was found near 31st and Wells Streets on Friday. He was taken to the Flint Creek Rehabilitation Center in Barrington, home to all of Chicago's transplanted urban coyotes.

Two weeks ago, a coyote was captured near Sheridan Road and Diversey Parkway in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, Kent said.

About 10 to 15 coyotes are captured every year in Chicago, primarily in April and May when they are most active, Kent said. They usually live near waste containers and railroad tracks, away from large numbers of humans, she said.

Animal Care and Control receives calls of coyote sightings almost weekly, Kent said.

About 1:30 p.m., the coyote walked into the restaurant and plopped down in front of the soda cooler.

"It wasn't aggressive at all," Patel said. "It was just looking around. There were people outside taking pictures. We had a pretty big crowd looking in and taking pictures."

Coyotes typically are not aggressive toward humans, animal control officials said.

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My new favorite song.

(Click the > button to play)



***************************************

Hate is a strong word
But i really, really, really don't like you
Now that it's over
I don't even know what I liked about you
Brought you around and you just brought me down
Hate is a strong word
But I really, really, really don't like you
I really don't like you

Thought that everything was perfect (perfect)
Isn't that how it's supposed to be?
Thought you thought that I was worth it
Now I think a little differently

Hate is a strong word
But i really, really, really don't like you
Now that it's over
I don't even know what I liked about you
Brought you around and you just brought me down
Hate is a strong word
But I really, really, really don't like you
I really don't like you

Now that it's over you can't hurt me
Now that it's over you can't bring me down

***************************************

("Hate" by Plain White T's)

Well I have some good news and some not that good news. The good (great) news is Ginger had a biopsy and the results showed no sign of cancer! The not that good news is they don't know why her spleen is enlarged still. They think maybe it's some type of blood infection, and she is on some supplements for immune system and spleen support which hopefully will help. The other not that good news is that it took over $1000 of vet testing to find that out, which means I am very very broke... Luckily my parents were willing to pay the vet for me and let me pay them back.

Seriously, what else? Or maybe I should watch out about asking that question?

It seems like everything has gone wrong for me in the last few months. The worst is that my dog Ginger might have cancer, but there have been many other things as well.

Oh, and if anyone is even reading this an wonders why I haven't posted in forever, on top of everything else my computer is still not working correctly after reinstalling Windows and losing a lot of my programs permanently!

First our phone line has been messed up for several months now. Unfortunately I didn't even know it at first, I just thought we were not getting a lot of phone calls until I tried to call our house myself a few times and found out no one ever got those calls. This just compounds the other problems.
Next both the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink decided to give out at the same time, they BOTH had rusted out pipes underneath them at the same time! That didn't get fixed for a couple weeks. When it finally did get fixed guess what-- the washing machine died. While we were down there taking a look at it we heard something dripping... There's a broken (dripping) pipe down in the basement ceiling too, unrelated to the washing machine!
A few days after Halloween, someone smashed in our car's side window. Of course our insurance doesn't cover that kind of thing...

Not enough problems, apparently... We're still trying to get those last two fixed and it's not easy when you never know if you're getting phone calls from the repairmen and they just aren't getting through... And what else can go wrong? Last weekend I was supposed to volunteer/participate in an event on Saturday with our therapy dog group. We got all ready, I even made a costume for one of the dogs to wear for this and stayed up till 3 am to finish it. We get out to the car and guess what-- it won't start!! I couldn't even let the people know I wasn't coming because I didn't have anyone's cell phone number.
We didn't get the car fixed for 4 days. Finally we did, had to get a new battery...
Then what should happen THIS Saturday, when I needed to get to the post office to mail something that was already behind schedule, the car would not start again! We waited around all day for the AAA people, when they finally did come to give us a jump, the car still refused to start. So, now it's back in the garage. I'm supposed to take Ginger to the vet this evening for bloodwork so she can get an ultrasound tomorrow to find out if she does have cancer, and I don't even know if I will have a way to get there...

What happened with Ginger is that I took her to my other (holistic) vet and she said her spleen felt really enlarged. So I emailed my regular vet for an appointment, and my regular vet told me that it could be cancer and I should think about what kind of treatment I wanted to do if it was... Ginger had an x-ray done last week which luckily showed her spleen wasn't as enlarged as we had feared, but she is supposed to get more testing done this week. The worst part of that is I don't even know if I will be able to afford any type of treatment... I can't even really afford the ultrasound, I would borrow from my parents and they would allow me to pay them back over time but with all the unexpected expenses lately their funds are really limited right now too--they don't even know if they can afford to do anything for Christmas this year... So I don't know what is going to happen to Ginger if it does turn out to be something that needs a lot of treatment.

Ok writing from school again...stupid computer at home still not fully functional :P

Well I finally went to see the hemotologist (a while ago) and FINALLY got the results back from the blood tests they did (less long ago). It took forever because it took a while after my doctor visit for them to get the results and then when I called I kept getting messages, finally I left a message and they (a nurse) called me back and left me a voicemail about the results. I was pretty sure I knew what they were gonna say because my sister has a bleeding disorder and it's genetic so I figured when they said something was wrong with my platelets it was probably the same as what my sister has. Well, it was, it's called von Willedbrands. It's not really serious it's a mild bleeding disorder kinda like hemophilia but not as severe. This is why I've always bruised really easily and I bleed a lot when I get a cut (and some other things too)... So anyway yeah...at least I know for sure now. Also the doctor advised me to wear a medical alert bracelet.

Today I spent all day (well most of it) waiting and staring at my watch- how fun. I had 2 lab classes and both of them involved a lot of waiting- one (Microbiology) involved placing a tube into an instrument (spectrometer) and measuring, then waiting 10 minutes and measure again. The other lab (Chemistry II) involved mixing chemicals and staring at my watching while waiting for them to change color, then mixing some more and so on... Zzzzzzzzzz........

Ooops, I gotta stop writing now because I was writing while waiting for my ride home from class, and they're probably waiting for ME now and getting impatient :P I just wanted to update about the blood test thingie since I mentioned it before in a past LJ entry...

Hey,
I'm writing from school since my computer is still not working properly...just wanted to let anyone who may be trying to contact me know that I am still working on my computer. We were finally about to reinstall windows (thanks to the resident hacker) but my internet connection is still messed up and it's not letting me install anything that didn't come with Windows, ARGH!!! So I only can use the programs that came with it right now, and whatever prgrams I was able to back up that worked when I reinstalled (most stuff did not...)
So yeah this really sucks. I am having computer withdrawal, the only reason I can even type this at school is because my class ended early (9 pm instead of 10 pm bleh.) So just wanted to let everyone know I miss all you guys T_T I am sorry I can't talk to anyone right now it is driving me nuts but I am still being helped with the computer thank goodness (of course it took forever to even get help!) but anyway hopefully I can get all my programs working soon (I better!!)

Public Service Announcement: Just wanted to mention first that my computer's very screwed up (stupid virus), so if anyone has been trying to contact me I probably did not get it because it won't let me go to my email due to the changes made when I tried to get it fixed-- a lot of stuff stopped working due to the virus having integrated itself into a bunch of different programs, and other stuff stopped working because Symantec Anti-Virus won't let me go to things, blah...basically windows explorer does not work, and windows explorer is used in many programs (not IE, windows explorer) so all those programs do not work, including not being able to open ANY FOLDERS! X_X I'm working on getting things saved so I can start reinstalling Windows. Not fun but no other choice.. :/ Now back to your regularly scheduled program.


Ok now on to the important stuff. I just got back from a concert at Lincoln Park Zoo and it was awesome! Lincoln Park Zoo had this thing called "[URL=http://www.lpzoo.com/events/jammin2006.html]Jammin' at the Zoo[/URL]." It was They Might Be Giants one of my favorite bands (loved em for most of my life, seriously--since I was a little kid) and it was so great... It was a last-minute thing as we only heard about it a few days ago and we luckily were able to get tickets just before the show (they eventunally sold out.) I'm really lucky that I even heard about it, I think my dad or someone just happened to catch them talking about it on the radio and mentioned it.

The weather was good, luckily. It threatened rain all day which worried us, and the news predicted scattered thunderstorms and rain. It got really dark at about 5 pm but we were lucky, all that happened was some drizzle on the ride there and a couple drops while the opening band was playing.
The venue was really nice, they have this large lawn area in the zoo where the concert was held. They kept the building with restaurants open as well as the big cats building, flamingo area, sea lion pool, the children's zoo, and a monkey exhibit. The rest of the zoo was closed off. It was really nice just to wander around the zoo at night-- they normally close at 6:30. The concert had 2 other bands before TMBG so I walked around while the other groups were playing. The children's zoo area was especially nice, it's had winding paths through an area with a lot of trees meeting overhead so it was nice and quiet and very pleasant. You couldn't really see the animals in there because the lights were down, but it was just nice to wander through it. I did get to see some monkeys, a snow leopard, a black panther, and the lions were lounging in their outdoor area. I did a fair amount of wander while waiting for my brother, who decided he'd come at 9 when TMBG was going to start playing. The other two groups were "Tally Hall" and "The Bad Examples." You could tell pretty much everyone was there for TMBG though! We got there about when the doors opened but we still did not have the best seats,(they let people who had zoo memberships in early) we were behind a tree so none of us could see the whole stage. Near then end of the concert some people in front of us left though, and my brother and I moved to stand closer and got a very good view.

I like all of TMBG's songs so the concert itself was great. The last time I saw them was a little toned down I think, it was 2 or so years ago at a summer festival in the suburbs. Their website says their concerts are not for kids-- most of the venues are at least 16-and-up, but the zoo concert was all ages so there were a lot of kids there. I think one neat thing about TMBG is they have a very varied audience as far as ages of their fans. They played a couple new songs from an upcoming CD and a few I hadn't heard before from their recent children's CD. They also had some good banter, including telling everyone the concert would benefit the flamingo exhibit-- 'yes that's right, ONLY the flamingoes. No other animals.'
They have one song that sounds conga-ish (if you're wondering its "No One Knows My Plan") so before they played they started singing like 'everybody conga! I'm really not kidding! Everybody conga!' It was really funny, and a bunch of people formed a conga line and conga-d through the crowd.
At the "end" of the concert when everyone started clapping rythmically for them to come back out after they left the stage, they came back did 4-5 more (long!) songs in the encore. Oh yeah and I got a t-shirt.
I would love to go to more concerts at the zoo, I think it's an awesome place to hold them and a good different use of the space...

If anyone's interested, you can read the list of songs and a review of the concert here:
http://tmbgtalk.1.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=3245&st=0&#entry84536

Ok Nomi I put it up XD
So answer!

1. Name:
2. Age/Birthday:
3. Single or Taken:
4. Favorite Movie:
5. Favorite Song:
6. Favorite Band/Rapper/Artist:
7. Favorite Book/Comic Book:
8. Tattoos and/or Piercings:
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11. Do we know each other outside of Livejournal?:
12. Would you give me a kidney?:
13. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:
14. If you could change anything about your current life, would you?:
15. Will you post this so I can fill it out for you?*: