Strbellysneetch’s Weblog

Try crazy. Really. But it’s worth it.

This weekend I was met with another bout of sickness from Sadie. Without going into gross details suffice it to say that she was really sick. I wasn’t going to spend $90 just to walk into the door of an ER vet so I took Monday off to take her in. Only I went to a place in Ballard because 1) I was not going to drive to Lynnhood where she’s been going and 2) even if I wanted to drive up there they’ve never been able to give me an actual answer about why she gets sick (which is absolute crap & now I have the evidence to actually prove that their non-answers were crap).

After $240 worth of new exam fees, blood tests, puppy pee tests and whatnot I was sent away with some antibiotics and a genuine promise from an awesome vet to figure out what was wrong with her. Fast forward to today after I got to work.

I got a call from the awesome vet at about 8:30 asking how she was doing-I answered that she was pretty much okay, better than yesterday to which he replied with shock and awe. Her blood tests were done and what they indicated was some really not normal stuff. Doggie platelets are apparently supposed to range from 200,000 to 500,000…hers were at 8,000. They asked me to bring her back in so they could monitor her for the day and try some different drugs with her and do more tests. I asked for an estimate at what that would cost and was told that it would be another $240. What was I to do? I brought her back in. And cried on the way to the vet (my worst case scenario brain was ruminating on what I would do if she had some kind of cancer or untreatable disease and the possibility was just too horrible to really imagine fully). And worried the rest of the day. And called my Dad to beg for his mercy in loaning me rent money (seeing as how I had just about spent mine in two days). Thank heaven above for family, is all I can say. Also thank heaven that I have a job now where they understand that this type of stuff happens, and where I don’t have to sound alarms the exact milli-second that I return from emergent things like this.

I was ecstatic to go get her after work and to get some answers. Again, the most awesome vet ever. A most careful explanation was given to me that at this point they’d ruled out a few things. Her screen for tick-borne diseases still has to come back but the probability is that she has what is called Immune-Mediated Thrombocytopenia. Essentially it’s an auto-immune disease where the body, in effect, attacks itself-in this case, her platelets. She gets more drugs, both for the IMT and what they would give in an incidence of tick diseases (just in case). The hope is that she’ll respond to the stuff for IMT and her platelets will get closer to a normal level within the week.

Currently she is zonked out on the floor and is barely moving a paw. The thing is, I’m not under the impression that I will never have to deal with her death-it’s a normal part of having a pet…the probability that you will outlive them is pretty high. It’s the idea of her untimely death that I’m not prepared for and if it were to happen I’m not really sure what I would do with myself. She’s been my most loyal best friend for 5 & 1/2 years. No one else growls and raises their hackles when they hear atypical noises outside. No one else is so excited to see me every single time I come home that they can barely stay still. I’m just not sure what I would do.

Side note; should you live in Seattle and need a vet I highly recommend the Ballard Animal Hospital. They’re the best ever. They called me throughout the day today to let me know how she was doing, and they didn’t even get irritated that she spent most of the day "talking" (whining, yowling a bit) at being left there in a strange place. I heart them.

But in a really good way.

Let me just start by saying that I now love this website. Heartless bitches is right-about ten times over.

I’ll continue by pointing out a quote on that page that says:

I do get called a bitch quite often. What I do NOT get called is pushover, stupid, sweetheart, dear or doormat. Works for me. Rebecca M.

I’ll end by pointing out this link which is a statement by a man discussing what mysogyny really is in every day situations.

Once I figured this out, many things about misogyny became clear. A misogynistic value system would favor women who put out and are easy to control. Misogynists would talk about women in a dehumanized way, i.e., nice legs, great ass, etc, as if women were nothing more than a collection of body parts. Dating and relationships would become a game of manipulation fraught with various seedy techniques and ploys designed to get women to have sex. Something else I noticed as I browsed the web is that although misogynists try to control women, they are ironically dependent on women for validation in front of other men and society. This dependence is disempowering and only adds to the anger and resentment misogynists feel towards women.

Thank you. Thank you, and thank you.

It certainly helps you appreciate your down time that much more.

I’ve spent the week meeting my new coworkers and the team I’ll be working with. I’m definitely in the right place. My license was updated successfully and just in time I might add. It’s all come together quite nicely and I’m proud of being able to get here.

In conversations with coworkers I’ve shared my crazy plan of working five million hours as well as completing my BA. At first they sort of look at me like my eyes are a bit swirly but then I think they’re a little impressed. I have to admit that in the most horrid self-righteous way I enjoy it a little bit. I am capable of a lot when I am dedicated to something.

It’s amazing really, the way things work out when one starts making the right decisions.

This is what I loved about today:

• Walking into a building where people care what I think
• Despite hearing ‘welcome back’ too many times to count and getting hugged-never getting sick of it
• Hearing someone say ‘we’re so glad it was you that was coming back’, and knowing that they genuinely meant it
• Looking up in the middle of cleaning out my new office to see the face of My P…and not really believing for a second that I was finally back working with her again
• Feeling like I was at home again
• Having the right to add ‘drug court liaison’ to my new outlook signature
• Friends that anticipate my anxiety about new/old situations and tell me that I’m going to do great anyway
• Realizing the faith that they have in me to be putting me in charge of an incredibly important contract situation (drug court)
• Realizing that this second time around, I have a supervisor that has confidence in my ability to ‘police’ myself-who doesn’t micromanage every breath I take as was the case last time
• Neighbors/friends that are willing to help me take care of Sadie during the week when I’m trying to balance the whole 5 million jobs/school thing

I made the right choice. Only, if the dept. of health doesn’t step to it and finish my license crud I might freak out.

The first thought I had when I woke up this morning was ‘what if I forgot about drug stuff?’ Seriously. Tomorrow I am expected to begin being knowledgeable about addiction and such, something I haven’t been really required to do for almost three years. It makes me nervous to be quite honest. I’m not even returning to the same branch which also makes me nervous. The only thing diffusing that at this point is the fact that My P will be there as well. Well, maybe there’s two things-one of my supervisors who I hear will be mentoring me the first week is also someone I know from back in the day and he’s nice. It will be okay and I know that.

Case and point. Friday afternoon brought freak out mode re: my license situation. New job place is appropriately closed today so I was aware that there would be no one available to warn that, even though Washington has taken my money, they still haven’t gotten around to issuing that little piece of paper required for my job. Of course, it was a Friday kicking off a three day weekend there-no one was easily available. Most of them were, in fact, not even there. I called P and thankfully she was there, and kindly tracked down the only supervisor that was there at the time, who told me to go ahead and come in tomorrow anyway. Crisis diverted.

On a side note, it’s a damn good thing today is not my last day at what will now be referred to as ‘the part-time job’. Mainly because hardly anyone is here today. But also because the day began for me by locking my keys in my car. The best part about it really, is how I now react to things like that, or rather how I don’t react to things like that anymore. I drove my car today for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the fact that I can park anywhere for any length of time and not get a ticket as it is a government holiday. Since I had so much time to spare (time not spent poking my eyes out trying to find parking) and being the dutiful student that I am I studied for a bit before going in to work. Big mistake. It threw off my whole habit of getting out of the car and only at the second that my car door clicked shut did I realize that the keys were still in the ignition. It hardly phased me and I just kept walking. I do things like that-I’ve accepted it because it does no good to fight it anymore. See, I’ve spent 29 years on this planet carefully constructing back-up plans to everything and it’s paid off because now instead of getting upset I automatically default to the most appropriate back-up plan.

At any rate while I can’t wait to be finished here with FT junk, I’m simultaneously nervous about where I’m going.