I Finally Did It!

Well, I'm not 28....

And I don't drink....

But I AM a graduate student now!

Yup, it's official - I started class Monday, taking two courses.

Master's Degree in Educational Administration, here I come!

Resolution 5K Race Report

My sister and I have decided to get back on the horse and resume our "One 5K Per Month" Challenge, so we started off the year with a bang by doing the Resolution Run 5K again this year.

What fun! It was quite chilly (43*, which for us South Texas folk is the heart of winter) but we had our winter-ish gear on so it wasn't too bad.

Last year we did the 2 mile fun walk, but this year we did the whole 5K. Our plan is to RUN the thing next year. We finished with a time of 54 minutes, which is pretty good considering it usually takes us 25-30 minutes to finish a mile. I really need to keep track of our finishing times from now on...

Here are some pics from the day: 

All bundled up - don't see that very often!

LOVE this sign! Made me think of my Forrest pup!

We stepped onto the course after everyone was finished to get our finish line pics

My sis!

Toasting our success with the Resolution Run champagne flutes

This is just so wrong....but SO funny!

Way to go, Chris!

The last photo - this guy's name is Chris. I don't know him, but he inspired me nonetheless. He walked the entire course then ran the last bit to the finish line. I don't know his story, but I am so proud of him for getting out and doing this 5K. Like they say - every journey begins with that first step. Chris, good luck on your journey - you are not alone!

My blog buddy, the amazing KC of "the original" 140 Point 6 Miles...Of Awesome! commented on my Facebook that I should do a 5K a day now...only fair, since I kinda bailed on her "Get Off Your Booty" December mile-a-day challenge. I did great up until Dec. 24th, then EPIC FAIL! I'm not sure about the 5K a day part...but I'll do my best to get out there and keep movin'!

Happy New Year, all!

Forrest Update

Forrest is doing GREAT!

She came through her surgery just fine, and in fact was up and walking around the next morning. Our wonderful vet actually went in on his day off to check on her, and he called me personally to let me know how she was doing. I just LOVE that man.

He said she was ready to go anytime, but really wanted her to stay at the clinic all day for observation, so Sig and I planned to pick her up at around 5:30 or so. We had some preparing to do first!

Since she's so young (estimated at about 8 months, give or take) and we know nothing of her history, crate training is definitely in order. Thank goodness we kept the giant crates we bought when we adopted Bailey...

Rinsing out the crates

Sig is threatening me if I don't stop taking pictures and help clean out the crates

We have two like this - one for upstairs, one for downstairs.

Forrest's new downstairs home

After getting the crates ready, we headed to the vet to pick up our girl. I didn't get any pics of her at the clinic, but trust me when I say she was one happy pup when she saw us. 

We got her home and introduced her to her new sisters. They were all a little freaked out because of the e-collar (cone) she has to wear. Riley was pretty uncertain about her - but Riley doesn't take well to new dogs so that was to be expected. Bailey immediately wanted to play, and Casey ran off in a different direction and pooped. Yup, about par for everyone. They are all getting along just fine.

I took a few shots of Forrest getting used to her new home:

Already figuring out how to defeat the pet gate...

 

Getting acquainted with Bailey

Poor shaved puppy butt

Happy puppy!

Tired puppy

"Helping" Mama Sig with the dishes

Pain meds

Cutting the Rimadyl

Everyone was pretty exhausted after we got home and settled, so at bedtime I put her in her crate and decided to stay downstairs with her. She made it clear she does NOT like the crate, so in the interest of actually getting some sleep, I decided to let her out and spread a blanket on the floor next to the couch for her. After a little more exploring, she plopped down on the blanket and fell asleep. I woke up at midnight to give her a pain pill, and she cried a little but fell asleep again when I rested my hand on her back.

I was not really comfortable leaving her in the crate with her cone on, but since we absolutely must leave the cone on, we tried penning her up in the kitchen so she'd have a little more space. It worked for a while, but when Sig came home for lunch Forrest had knocked the gate down. She tried to pen her up more securely, but by the time I got home she had busted out again. I read up on crating dogs with cones on, and realized it's done all the time, so she'll just have to get used to it. The first test will come tomorrow while we're out with the family for Thanksgiving day.

I'm off for the next few days, so today was spent mostly lazing around. We had a bad moment earlier when Forrest got super excited and went tearing around the corner in the hallway, only to have her legs slip from under her and send her crashing to the hard floor right on her stump. OUCH!! Poor puppy! She whined and cried for a little bit while we loved on her, but soon enough she was up and skipping around again. Luckily, it was only ten minutes until her pain pill dose, so she was feeling better after she got her pill. We'll probably take her in to the clinic just to double check, though.

She likes to go outside

Forrest and Riley

Waiting for her cookie

She has discovered the chew toys - yay!

The rest of the afternoon was spent napping. As you can see, Forrest has not allowed the cone to get in the way of her comfort:

This was one sacked out puppy! I can't wait until next week, when hopefully she gets her stitches/staples/sutures out and we can dump the cone.

Yeah, I know we can't save them all...but I'm glad we were able to save this one.

Mmmm goooood drugs...

Bailey watching over her new sister

Determined pup!

A New Addition...Again...

Meet Forrest K. Gimp

I know what you're thinking...

"Whoops! They did it again!"

Yes, we did. Here's why...

I think it's obvious we are both animal lovers. Our animals are our kids, and every one of them is a rescue. Believe me, if it were up to us, we would save every animal in need that we could.

Sig is an animal control officer for the city, which makes things doubly hard - mainly because she sees animals every day that are neglected, mistreated, abused, and unwanted...and her only choice is to take them to the shelter, where I think we all know what happens to most of them. On the upside, though, she is also able to educate people about how to treat animals ("What do you mean I can't leave my dog in the car when it's 100* outside, Officer? I left the windows cracked!") and remove animals from harmful situations.

Currently, we have three dogs and one cat, so our house it pretty full. Adding another dog to the family really wasn't the plan...until little Forrest came along.

Sig called me this morning as I was dropping some friends off at the airport and asked a very strange question.

"How hard is it to take care of a dog with only three legs?"

Um....what?

My response: "I don't know. I've never had a dog with only three legs. I know people who have, though, and the dog just adapts and lives a normal life."

I thought she was asking in general, but after we talked for a bit, I realized she had something else in mind.

She had answered a call to pick up an injured dog, and when she got to the location, found this black lab puppy who had clearly been hit by a car or, at the very least, someone had run over her back left foot. She said there was bone and tendon exposed and that she was in pretty bad shape, but that she was a real sweetheart and there was just something about her...

Now, to be clear - Sig gives and gives of herself and doesn't really ask for much. I could tell by the passion in her voice that saving this dog was very important to her, so I agreed to go out to the shelter and take a look. I knew in my heart, though, what the decision was going to be.

Here's the thing (Sig is the only one I have told this to until now, because it still hurts me so much). A couple of weeks ago, heading back to my school from one of my feeder schools, I passed a dog that had been hit by a car...and was still alive (at least, its tail was flopping). I won't go into gory detail, but it was awful. I knew there was not a thing I could do short of putting it out if its misery, and even if I'd had the means to do that, I couldn't have. I was devastated and cried all the way back to school, then all the way home, then AT home, thinking about that poor dog and how I wished I could have helped it.

Needless to say, to me, saving this little black dog felt like karma to me. I went to the shelter to take a look, and honestly, I don't know how this dog was still functioning. Her back left foot was absolutely shredded and what was left of it was swollen to about three times its size. In spite of that, as soon as I stepped into the cage to say hello, she wiggled right up to me and leaned on me, put her head right in my hands, and I knew there was no way I was going to turn my back on this one.

Just then, Sig drove up into the bay with another injured dog (a German Shepherd with a mangled tail) and took care of her business, then walked over to me and asked me what I thought.

My response: We're taking her.

So - a phone call to the vet to make sure our guy was there, which he was, and I filled out the necessary paperwork to claim the pup. Mary, the shelter worker who, sadly, is in charge of euthanizing the animals who can't or won't get adopted out, got so emotional about us saving this little cutie that she had to walk away and get hold of herself. .

"You just made my entire day," she said.

Sig and I discussed names for her, and she said "Forest" - thinking of black forest cake. I misunderstood and thought she was referring to Forrest Gump, and since it was pretty clear to all of us who saw the injured leg that it would have to be amputated, I thought that was pretty appropriate. We decided on "Forrest K. Gimp" (K for karma) since she will likely be a three-legged dog after today. We briefly considered naming her "Tripod", but thought "Forrest" was more dignified  ;-)

We got her in the car and I could immediately smell the wound - not good. Luckily, I'm not squeamish or the smell alone would have sent me running, much less the sight of the gruesome injury. Forrest leaned her head on my arm and sighed, looking at me with big brown eyes. I think she knew she was finally going to be taken care of.

I got her to Banfield, our vet, and put her in a shopping cart to get her inside. The receptionist took one look at her and immediately put us into a room after another tech helped get Forrest on the scale to get her weight (33 lbs). We waited for quite a bit, and I think she was starting to hurt - she kept trying to lick her foot and started groaning a little, but calmed right down when I petted her and talked to her. When Dr. Nelson came in, he took one look and said we had two choices: amputation or euthanasia. He said he was only bringing up euthanasia because he knew she wasn't ours, and I responded, "She is now." 

He used a hemostat to check her response and was shocked to see that she still had feeling in her toes. He briefly considered the possibility of trying to save the leg, but after a lot of discussion we determined she would be better off without the leg. I asked him how old he thought the injury was, and he estimated at least 7 days. This poor pup went a week (at least!) with her poor leg crushed and her bones and tendons exposed - and she was STILL sweet-natured and trusting of people.

Based on the amount of necrotic flesh surrounding the wound and the smell of it, the danger now is septicemia and gangrene. She is having tests done to determine whether she has a massive infection and would survive the surgery, so now it's a waiting game to see how she does. Sig and I discussed the options and decided we need to at least give her a fighting chance.

So, please keep your fingers crossed for this sweet little black pup. She deserves a chance at life, even if she is short one leg. Hopefully, we'll get the chance to give her that!

Random Thoughts

My niece, Avery, about 17 years ago

* The above pictured tiny person, who now looks like this...

Nope. Not gorgeous at ALL.

...left for college this past Friday. I miss her, but my pride in her and excitement for her FAR outweigh the missing. She's going to absolutely ROCK college!

* I need new bike shoes.

* I think I have found the answer to my HRM problems. I got one of these from Amazon...

 ...and so far (after about 2 months) I really like it.

* I've been using the Runtastic Android app to track my elliptical and walking workouts, and I'm very impressed. It works beautifully with my Zephyr HRM (Bluetooth).

* School begins next week, so this week is being spent in hell in-service. Actually, Monday's was terrific. Tuesday's would probably have been better if I could have heard the speaker. Today's? EPIC FAIL. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. :-/

* My sister and I will be starting the Couch to 5K program in a few weeks to prepare for running the Fiesta 5K on December 16th.

* We are also trying to get back into doing at least one 5K per month, walking at first and then gradually running so we can be ready for December.

* I am hoping to start graduate school in January. I'll be working toward a Master of Educational Administration. My dream is to teach education majors at the college level.

* I need new bike shoes. I really want to ride a century sometime this year.

* Thanks, Netflix, for getting me hooked on "Damages". I'm only on season 2, so no spoilers!!

* I'm going crazy waiting for "Downton Abbey" season 2 and "Sons of Anarchy" season 3 to be on Netflix. HURRY UP, already!!

* I'm excited about this school year. Considering I spent the beginning of last year dealing with this, I figure I'm ahead of the game.

That's all for now!

Ideal Training Conditions - NOT!! And HRM Blues..

So I've finally decided to get off my a$$ and get moving again, and this is what I'm faced with:

Yup. 5 days of crap. Nice.

Luckily, I never gave up my gym membership so I've been going there in the mornings to get in a good 1.5 hour workout. My sis and I are also doing 2.5 mile walks in the evenings when it cools down to 98F...and I'm not even kidding about the temp!

It might SAY 77F, but that's at like 3:00 a.m. Hmph.

It does feel good to be moving again, though.

My latest frustration is that I can't seem to keep my heart monitor working. I've got a Polar something-or-other, the kind with the removable pod on the chest strap (WearLink). I hadn't used it in a while (obviously), so I got a new battery for it. Replacing the battery was a trial in itself - I got the back cover off just fine, but getting it back on took a major act of Congress. I'm still not sure I have it quite right, although it did register a heart rate today. Sort of. It said my HR was 33, when I know dang well that's not right. Then it leapt from 33 to 209. ALSO not right.

This thing has never been consistent. I guess it was better when it was new, but it still dropped my HR for minutes at a time, then registered impossibly (improbably) high and low rates within seconds of each other. Sometimes it would register a rate, then I'd discover after about 30 min that it had been at 0 and hadn't tracked a thing. I'm pretty sure I wasn't dead for 30 minutes during my workout. AFTER, maybe, but not during...

Since I'm doing a lot of walking and will soon be doing a lot of biking, and since I'm a gadget and stats nut, I decided to look for an app that would allow me to track all kinds of cool stuff. I tried Sports Tracker, Map My Ride, Endomondo, Cardio Trainer, and some others. I dropped most of them because they seem to have a really hard time keeping a GPS signal and tracking my walks, but discovered Runtastic Pro and have had good luck with it so far. Okay - I've only used it once, but it tracked my entire walk with no glitches and I never got that with any of the other apps.

I'm looking for an app I can use with a heart rate monitor. If anyone has any advice for me, send it on! Until I can find something good, I guess I'm going without an HRM at all. It's just too frustrating to look down and find it's not working. I'm looking at the Zephry HxM Bluetooth at the moment. Anyone? Anyone?

Canine Idiopathic Vestibular Syndrome - What You Should Know

Disclaimer: I am not a vet, nor do I play one on TV. This post is based on my recent experience with this frightening syndrome, and I hope it will help anyone out there who is going through the same thing.

I don't know about you, but my dogs are like my children. Actually, they ARE my children. Like parents of actual human children, I take my responsibility for their health and well-being very seriously. I'm sure very soon, my vet's office will dedicate an exam room to me and my critters...

I wrote in my last post about my Casey dog getting sick at the beginning of May. May 1st, to be exact. Casey is a 13 yr. old Golden/Labrador Retriever mix. She's losing her sight a bit and her little stomach sometimes gives her trouble, but in general she's in excellent health.

When I came home on May 1st to see her the way she was, I thought she'd had a stroke. Her head was tilted severely to the right and she couldn't stand up or walk without falling over. She had been fine just a few hours before - had gone outside with the other two dogs, done her business, and eaten her breakfast like always. Sometime in the few hours between my leaving for work and getting the frantic phone call from Sig at about 12, she had gotten sick. Sig said she had vomited and had a couple of accidents in the house, which is completely abnormal. She (Casey) was completely freaked out - and justifiably so. I noticed her eyes were moving rapidly from side to side, but didn't really put it together that her eye movement was making her sick and dizzy until later in the day.

She huddled miserably on the front seat next to me as I rushed her to the vet. I'm sure being in the car was only making things worse, but I had to get her to the vet. Once I got there, I was dismayed to find that the one vet I don't trust - Dr. Condescension himself - was on duty. Still, I had no choice but to let him examine her and try to figure out what the problem was...

Wait...did I say "let him examine her"? That's a laugh. One of the techs who works there very thoughtfully provided me with a blanket for her, so she wouldn't slip and slide on the exam table. When the vet walked in and saw me, bent over Casey, talking soothingly to her with tears running down my face, I was less than impressed with his reaction. He wouldn't even touch her. I explained her symptoms and he stepped forward just enough to be able to see her face, then instructed the tech to take her into the back and get an IV started.

He said he'd be right back and left the room, then was back about a minute later. Naturally, all kinds of scary thoughts were running through my head. When he came back in, he said, in his most infuriating and condescending voice, that she probably had a brain tumor. I was shocked. I've thought long and hard about this, trying to convince myself that maybe he really was gone longer than a minute, which would have given him time to actually examine her and formulate some kind of actual diagnosis...but no, he was gone for less than a minute. How he could determine she had a brain tumor without examining her or anything is beyond me. Maybe he's a super vet and I'm just not appreciating his x-ray vision.

Not.

I was devastated that I had to leave her there. She hates being there as it is, and to leave her there when she was so freaked out seemed cruel to me. He offered to let me see her, and as I walked back to the large cage where they had put her, I heard the most horrible sound. It was sort of a keening moan, and it sent shivers all through me. What made it even worse was that the sound was coming from Casey. My baby! I knelt down and spoke to her, and she seemed to relax a little when she heard my voice. I petted her as best I could through the cage, then the sedative she had been given started taking effect and she calmed down. I decided to leave before I had a complete breakdown.

I went to pick her up later that afternoon, and she had not improved. Her head was still tilted, she couldn't keep her balance, and her eyes were still moving rapidly back and forth. Dr. Condescension came in to talk to us (Sig came with me) and was still stuck on the whole brain tumor theory. As we both sat there, trying to take it all in, he hit us with the old "at some point, we will need to consider euthanizing her" line.

{Okay, here's the thing - I completely understand there are times when euthanasia is necessary. I've been through it with two of my cats, and it remains the single hardest thing I have ever done. However, I also believe it is not something to be considered lightly.}

After he said that, I was stunned. Sig was, too. We sat there and stared at him - his mouth was moving, but at that point I had no idea what he was saying. I just wanted to get Casey out of there and take her home.

When I got home, I decided to do some research online. I learned to my surprise that strokes are not very common in dogs. I thought back to how Casey was acting and realized all her body parts were working - they just weren't working together. I typed in her symptoms and boom! There were hundreds of links dealing with IVD (idiopathic vestibular disease, sometimes known as geriatric or old dog vestibular syndrome). I was stunned. The symptoms were EXACTLY what Casey had exhibited. I read story after story of people whose dogs had suffered through this and had later made a full recovery. I also read story after story by people who, to their eternal regret, had not known of this syndrome and had chosen to euthanize, when in reality the dog would have been fine had they only waited.

The more I read, the angrier I got. This syndrome is apparently VERY common, especially among middle age and older dogs and Labradors. How could the vet not have known this?? I mean, I'm not a vet but all it took was typing in a few words and there it was. Seriously, he couldn't have done that himself?

I had to take Casey in the next day for more observation, but I had already decided not to let Dr. Doom even touch her. There's a new young vet who works there whom Sig and I have grown to trust, and I was just asking the receptionist if he was going to working that day when he walked up behind me. I pulled him aside and told him about Casey. As soon as I listed her symptoms, he said, "Oh, that sounds like vestibular disease." I just stared at him, then hissed, "And why didn't those words come out of Dr. ****'s mouth yesterday??"

Naturally, he couldn't really respond without endangering his job, but the look on his face said it all. He made some recommendations and I told him I wanted him to take over her case. I didn't want to get him in trouble, but I have the right to choose which vet I want and clearly Dr. Death did not have Casey's best interests at heart. 

When I went to pick her up later that afternoon, she was still in the same condition, but talking with my vet of choice reassured me she would most likely be back to normal within a month. He told me he had watched her all day and had flushed out both ears to rule out an inner ear infection, but he could tell by the way her eyes were moving back and forth so rapidly that she did have IVD. It's called "idiopathic" because there's no known reason why it happens. It just happens. Your dog can be perfectly fine one minute then WHAM! The next minute they look like they're having some kind of seizure or stroke. He said she probably wouldn't eat because, to her, the room was spinning and making her feel sick. He prescribed prednisone to help take care of any inflammation in her vestibular apparatus, doxycycline to help with any potential infection, and an anti-nausea med and instructed me to make sure she was drinking water.

I brought her home and kept a close eye on her (well, except when I was in the hospital - talk about bad timing!). It did take a while for her eyes to stop the movement (called "nystagmus"), and once it slowed down she started eating again. Her head tilt is almost completely gone, and although she lost a lot of weight over the month, she is eating just fine and is running around like she always did. My baby is back!

So, if you're a dog owner and your dog begins to display symptoms that might look like a stroke, be aware of this strange syndrome! Don't be one of those unfortunate folks who didn't find out in time that, in most cases, this DOES go away.

Here are some links to some really good information about IVD. Please understand, I am NOT advocating self-diagnosis! Hopefully you have a vet you trust and won't need to look into things yourself - but a little extra information can't hurt. I'm just so glad I found these articles and was able to educate myself before it was too late!

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_vestibular_disease.html

http://lassiegethelp.blogspot.com/2008/01/vestibular-disease-leave-light-on.html

http://suite101.com/article/what-is-canine-vestibular-syndrome-a51752 
http://www.vara.org/VestibularSyndrome.htm

(There are many more, but these are some of the better ones.)