scuba-a-go-go
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Active

in 8 hours, 12 minutes, I'll be sitting in a dark, wet cold place somewhere south of Chicago under water.

 www.haighquarry.com

 3 days of intense reading

3 long days of lessons

followed by two long days at the bottom of the quarry. Scuba certification, here I come.

 Australia, you better be worth it!

 Thanks to www.chicagobluedolphins.com for teaching me how to swim in the first place! Fitz, couldn't have gotten this far without you.

Oh Thank God! Space is going to be safe!!!!
Topic: America the Beautiful

This is the dumbest thing ever. US is drafting security procedures for space travel. Kind of like the airlines.

Okay, the whole airline thing is so stupid: it's just to make it seem to the general public that they are more secure: that I have to take my 1/2 flip-flops off at security to go through? Or a suit jacket top? Anyone can sneak in plastic explosives; Anyone can use a pensil to attack someone on an airplane.

Also, duh, what about people who know martial arts? Can break down locks and doors? I mean, a blackbelt can probably take out everyone on the plane easy. No guns necessery. The general public's preception of safety is what's at stake, none of it is real. It is so dumb and speaks to how our public is stupid enough to accept it and our government knows it.

I just don't get how most of the airline rules make it safer for us to fly.

And this is the stupidest thing ever.

Anousheh Ansari is Hot
Topic: Hot People

Anousheh Ansari is hot because she is the first space tourist to visit the internaltional space station and everything. She's also really really cool and stuff. You can read her blog of the trip too! 

I've been following this since it started but had no time to blog all about it.

ethanol and other types of biofuel not a good alternative to gasoline.
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Day to Day
The other day I was discussing with husband wanting my next car to not be dependent on oil. I said to him, what about ethanol? He said - bad idea - and sited that it takes more energy and it has a worse impact on the environment per galon, but didn't have any facts handy as we had the conversation while walking. BBC read our mind and published this article that gives all the facts. Thanks BBC! I love BBC. I'd read it every day if I could.

Bansky
Topic: Hot People

Bansky is hot. If you haven't seen Bansky's work, go look. I'd like to go to wherever just to see it. If I could meet anyone on this planet I'd pick Banksy. Heck, people may have met Banksy and not even know it. Banksy to me represents a true artist. You don't see someone doing something so fresh and so new consistently. I define art to myself as something that sparks emotion or recognition in the viewer AS the artist intended. Now, depending on who the viewer is, the artist may intend them to preceive/feel different things from the art. And then the art sticks with you forever. You could be doing some mundane task 10 years later and you can think of a piece of art that you saw and smile or just remember with the emotion. Art causes a feeling that you then remember when something else gives you that feeling, or art that teaches you something new about the world or youself. Banksy takes all that to a new, exciting, elating level. Bansky rocks my world. On On, Bansky, and if you are ever in Chicago, Illinois, please please please tag us.

Also I have a special interest in temporary art. Art that is positioned in an area where it is in danger. Art that only exists for a fleeting moment. Example: sand, ice sculputre, soap foam sculpture, chalk or water color painted on a sidewalk. When it rains, it's gone! It's beautiful, and fleeting. Vulnerable. It is the relationship that it creates between emotion, beauty, and the very fabric of our existence that I find so intriguing and valuable. I wish I had more time to seek it out, to study it, but in the mean time, I'll just enjoy it as it comes.  Music performance - you had to have been there, an act of a gymnast, same... but these can be recorded. It is when things are not recorded in the traditional sence, and are only preserved in memory without effort when they are most valuable.

Bansky is saving the world, one mind and heart at a time. Infectious, inspiring, but never aspiring because it is already there. Surprizing, fun and clever. Go Bansky, go!

Care and treatment for the sick animal
Topic: Immune-mediated thrombocy
(article in progress, I am going to add more info as I get it or as I have time) If your dog is immuno-suppressed due to medications, my advise is that you take the following care.

• Limit the dog's contact with others as much as possible: anywhere where there are other dogs around - ex: parks, groomers, pet stores. Limit contact to the vet office. If you have two pets, one of them sick, the other should probably stay out of those places too, because it can carry something home
• Watch out for any signs of infection - the dog is likely to pick up other infections from the environment - there is no immune system so something that would normally not "stick" with the dog can become a life-threatening problem.
• This specific condition and its treatment, I believe, lends itself to the dog becoming hypercoagulative - fancy word for likely to throw a clot. My dog threw two. Speak to your vet about the dog going on blood thinners if you are out of the immediate risk of the disease if the dog is taking Prednisone.

The articles I pasted in the links have the majority of the treatments and things, but there is stuff I found missing that I'll add here. What I think is missing in the articles is overall care for the dog with this disease. This is my blog entry to try and capture that.

Prednisone and sideffects that my dog has experienced:

• alapecia
• increased appetitie
• increased lethargy/ups and downs

Increased thirst from Prednisone.

• My understanding (I'm not a vet) is that dogs on prednisone are more thirsty sometimes. Or at least mine was.
• When this side-effect first started, when we first went on a high dose of prednisone, we let the dog drink as much as she wanted. The result - she couldn't control her bladder and would go every few hours in the house. After a day or two of this, we ended up taking the dog out every few hours day or night to try and help her. This was veyr hard but unnecessary. We were mentally exhausted from learning about the disease and freaking out about the poor initial response to treatment and we had other things going on, so we weren't acting as rationally as possible. This was the only thing we could think of to do.
• I was so worried about the hydration that I was adding pedialite and gatoraid to the water. Unnecessary and is an example of what dog owners do to make themselves, not the dog, feel better, I guess.
• This is before we saw the specialist that helped us with understanding more of what was really happening, or maybe was due to the fact that we had a rough time getting the specialist to call us back. I wasn't keeping a journal of this then, in fact, I stopped doing anything but eating, sleeping, working, and taking care of the dog really.
• We thought that was a separate side-effect of the disease or the medication. We were afraid to not let her drink because we thought that she was going to dehyderate. Finally our internist explained that she is not getting dehyderated, she is just thirsty from the steroid.
• We found out that we can give the dog the normal amount of water, or maybe just a bit more then the dog would normally drink. Because she'd drink all the water we'd give her right away, it took us a while to develop a routine and a strategy with this: give small amounts of water every few hours. Walk dog a bit more often so that you can find out how often the dog will need to go. Dog will pee huge amounts - good gage of how often the dog needs to go and how much water she's getting. This helped us control the thirst and the bladder and the hydration level. On 20 mg of Pred we were giving her about 3 bowl-fulls a day, during the day only, and were walking her every 3-4 hours. That worked out pretty good for us, but may not be the perfect frequency for your pet, of course.  What else helped is that we only sleep about 5-6 hours a night anyway, or at least our bed times are staggered so that at least one person is up the rest of the time. So what helped was this: don't give any more water like an hour or an hour and a half before bed time, and walk the dog right before bed time. Then in the morning, walk the dog right away. Also, keep all toilet lids down, and if the dog figures out (they get pretty resourceful on the drug) how to open the lid - if you hear banging in the bathroom, that's probably the sign that the first attempt is in progress, then lock the bathroom door. If the dog drinks too much, it may be losing electrolites, so then maybe the pedialite is not that bad of an idea, but limiting the water intake is the best way to go to begin with. Hope this helps!
• We've had to go up and down a bit on the drug. Dog weighs 50 lbs. The thirst was real bad when she was on 40mg of "Pred" as we all now affectionately call it, but got real manageable on 10mg or less. She's still drinking more water then when she was not on any medication. But she's also on Imuran, so who knows how much of it is the Pred now, and how much of it is the Imuran. Initially though, when the thirst first started, she was just on the Pred, so I know it was due to the pred.
• On a related note, watch for: blood in urine, urinary infections - dog tries to pee many times, nothing comes out. Go to vet immediately if any of the above happens, especially if your dog has ITS.

Some treatments are missing from some of these articles as well - I'll include things like imuran/azathioprine in the treatment blog when I create one. Supportive antibiotics - that's missing too. Chances are, the dog will get other issues as a result of this condition. What to look for. Sidefects of the drugs that treat the disease - liver enzyme toxicity, lethal doses, bleeding in the lower intestine and how to stop it, clots and how to look for them, swelling, alapecia (sp?) will go back and check the spelling of this one... etc. Other things that can be done due to strange side-effects - viral papiloma, clots in spleen and lungs - ultrasounds, xrays.

Psychology of the disease on the owner.
Topic: Immune-mediated thrombocy

The purpose of my blog overall is to bring a daily focus to living life out to the fullest, without fear. So, this is an interesting twist in my life. How to cope and live through this too.

I didn't try to read any studies of people feeling guilty about the condition of their pet due to a disease, or parents about same for their kid. I do know that I get these feelings all the time. It is probably normal to feel guilty or bad and to second-guess yourself and shift through the history to see if it was something that you or someone else did to cause the disease, and my personal answer to that is:

• you'll never know what happened and why
• you couldn't have stopped it because you couldn't have known
• it is easier, I think, to hold someone responsible, even yourself, then to have no one at all to blame.
• Accept the fact that the animal is ill, and focus on spending time with the animal, enjoying the animal, and on getting the animal back to health. You can't change anything that already happened.
• If the treatment doesn't go well, don't blame the doctor. Treating this disease is more of an art then a science, a ton of complicated factors to consider. And it's a rare condition that responds poorly to treatment. There is a limit to what anyone can do. You are confronted with physical, human, time, and money limitations and you have to accept those limitations and work within them.
• Just keep telling yourself: this too shall pass. Not necessarily how you like, but you'll move out of this phase in your life to something. Whatever that is. You have to live through this too.

I also want to share that it has been a mental challenge to:

• Cope with the constant threat that the dog can just drop dead at any second.
• Dealing with the fact that we've spent a small fortune on treatment.
• Dealing with the demands of every-day life - work, family, friends, while taking care of the dog.
• My parents are worry warts. I've had trouble telling them about the disease and the different stages because they'd just worry and cry. I've not told them what she has. They already call to check on her a lot. The care for her has added 1-5 hours of time to my and my husband's day, and taking daily or hourly phone calls from family to give the latest worrysome update just didn't seem like a good idea.
• This is the first big animal I've owned. When I got her, when she was shivering inside my jacket when I was carrying her home for the first time, I vowed I'd never let anything bad happen to her ever. Have I failed? Did I fail her? This part is very hard.
• I have a tough, demanding job. Lots of travel and stress. Being able to care for the dog/deal with the dog possibly dying has been tough.
• I am lucky to have my husband to help me get through it in the mental, emotional, physical, and financial way of it.
• Dog has to be medicated sometimes several times a day, depending on what's happening with the disease. Making time through this is hard.

Timeline of the disease
Topic: Immune-mediated thrombocy

(article in progress, I am going to add more info as I get it or as I have time) The purpose of this entry is to chronicle the events preceding to and following the diagnostic, with specific treatment that we were given (again, please note, all this depends on size of your dog, agressiveness of the disease, don't follow this for your dog, get a vet to tell you what to do). By reading this you absolve me of any responsibility for your dog's treatment.

about my dog
Topic: Immune-mediated thrombocy

About my dog:

My dog was born on December 14, 1999. She is now 6 years old. She is a 55lb dog when healthy, and a mutt. She was one of 12 puppies. Her father's name is Vlad and he is a coon dog in the ozarks, looks like a mix of a rot or some sort of a hound with shepherd. Her mother is a light brown dog that looks like a mix between a shepherd and either a pit, or a golden. Some of her siblings are smaller then her, some are larger, some resemble shepherds completely. I picked her out when she was just a few days old, and have had her since the day she turned 8 weeks old. Before she was given to me, she was raised in a loving home on mother's milk, oranic food, including quinoa porridge that the owners of the parents made. She's had the best care all her life. I do not know if any of the other dogs in her family have developed this disease. We initially had reunions for the dogs, but have since lost touch with the others. My dog is therapy certified, has had agility classes, obedience classes, fly ball. She is great with people and children and our cat, but is not so good with many other dogs after a bad play fight that left us fighting to save her eye when she was just 6 months old. A boxer punctured her eye with a toe nail by accident when playing. We made it to the doggie ER in 15 minutes and the eye was like new the next day. Molly's a typical dog. She's eaten a cell phone, a tv stand, and lots of other things that dogs shoudn't eat. She's good with shoes and hasn't eaten one yet, which is a better track record then our cat, who's torn up a few. She eats Nutro Max adult dog food, and gets no human food, unless she manages to steal it and frame the cat. She has an extra special affinity towards lemon infused wedding cake with passionfruit filling. She knows about a 100 words and can do lots of tricks. Not a very organized list, but the bottom line is, I'm confident Molly has always had the best care and that as an owner there is nothing I could have done to prevent this from happening. Why my dog? Why this? Just because it is what it is.

Immune-mediated thrombocytopenia
Topic: Immune-mediated thrombocy

The purpose of this series of blog entries is to describe my personal experience with my dog having Immune-mediated thrombocytopenia. I will update this blog as we progress. I am writing this to provide emotional support for other dog owners who are going through this or through similar conditions, and to help me cope as well. I in no way am advising an owner on how to treat the dog or what your particular dog may expect. My only advise is to seek, first and formost, the best possible veterenarian in your area to deal with this condition, one that ideally has had at least some exposure in treating the disease, ideally, a lot of exposure.

At the date of my writing this blog, we are about 4 months into the disease. I'll give a detailed timeline somewhere here eventually. We are currently taking meds, but the good news is that my dog Molly is alive and well, and her quality of life remains almost perfect.

I will try to have a separate blog entry for different topics and add to it as I find more info or as time goes by.