Month of July, 2005

MY House

As of yesterday, I am the proud owner of a house in Phoenix, Arizona. It's been in the works for a number of weeks, but I didn't want to jinx it by blogging about it. Considering what a tough real estate market Maricopa county is right now, I'm very lucky to have this house. I made an offer on the first day the house was on the market. The same day, the seller received three other offers. The following day, he recieved another two offers. People really want houses in this town and they go fast! Anyhow, it all worked out perfectly and I just love the place.

As you can probably tell from the pictures, it's a two story home. It's a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath. It is approxmiately 1500 square feet. The bedrooms are upstairs and the living area downstairs. It was built in 1989, but the seller refurbished much of it. The house has brand new tile downstairs and new carpet upstairs. The appliances in the kitchen are all new. The landscaping is new. The bathroom fixtures are new. Even part of the roof is new! It's been freshly painted and it's totally ready for me to move in. I can hardly wait until my stuff arrives!

This is truly a dream come true for me. I live in the desert and I own my first home. I am the luckiest girl in the world!

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Arizona Pictures

I finally went out last night to take some pictures. It rained this weekend and the temperature came down quite a bit. It made being outside enjoyable.

These are pictures around my apartment where I'm living temporarily. I'm in the process of getting a permanent place, but for right now I'm really enjoying the apartment. Well, the location at least is ideal. I love having the mountains and desert so close. Yesterday morning I looked out the window and saw a fox! Last night, I saw hummingbirds flying around just past my porch. It's very beautiful here, I feel very lucky.

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Roadtrip Pictures

Got a few pictures from the drive from Texas to Arizona. I'll work on more pictures of Arizona this weekend. Right now it's so hot all I want to do is stay indoors.

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In Arizona

It's official, I'm living in Arizona. Spent the weekend driving and arrived on Sunday afternoon. The dogs are in good shape but still adjusting to the change. I'm happy to be here and at the same time a little sad to be away from my family. The temporary apartment is perfect even though it was a little tough to find. (What idiot thought it was a good idea to have two buildings with the same number in the same complex?) Coworkers are excited that I'm joining them in this office and I'm getting immediately into the swing of things. It's hot here (115 degrees yesterday), but at least the air conditioner works. I still haven't adjusted to the time change - two hours different this time of year. Remember, Arizona doesn't do daylight savings time. So I'm off to walk the dogs and tumble into bed. Just wanted to post a little something to let everyone know where I am. The picture is from the desert during our drive. More pictures to come.

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Self-Portrait Day

Today I'm featured on Self-Portrait Day.

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Small Bits

Tiger and I went for a short walk this morning. He still gets really excited when I get the leash out. That's exciting. I kept it short - just to the end of the street and back. He acted like he wanted to go farther, but I'm not sure what he can handle right now. Since I'll be living in an apartment when we first arrive in Phoenix, Tiger and I will be walking on a leash a lot more. I'm sure he'll quickly build up the stamina for longer and longer walks.

Karen went to a U2 concert in Amsterdam last night. I'm sure she and Jason had a great time. Wow, I wish I could have been there!

LucciHouse has been on the market for almost two months now. We've had people see it on a fairly regular basis but have not received any offers yet. This afternoon we have a woman looking at it for a second time. Cross your fingers, that's usually a good sign!

I had dinner with Journalism Josh last night. We decided his knight name is Sir Crabwalk of Rayne. It has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Josh is a really good friend. I like the way he verbalized it last night - we don't hide anything from each other or put on airs. He took me to La Duni and we had an incredible dinner. Then he introduced me to Calexico, which I really loved and hope to see perform in Arizona someday.

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Kristen & Chris' Engagement Photos

This is Kristen's official engagement photo. Chris, Kristen and I took photos at the Fort Worth Botanical Garden on Sunday, July 3. Here's the set. It was very, very hot that day, but we managed to get a few good photos. Aren't they a beautiful couple?

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Scorpions

I'm really excited to be living in the desert. I absolutely love the dry, crisp air and the incredible sunsets. The desert has such a subtle beauty.

The one thing I don't love about the desert is scorpions. Honestly, they scare me. I don't know why, but I've recently been concerned about scorpions in my living space. According to a co-worker, they're very territorial and difficult to remove. But I suppose it's just one of those things that you get used to...kinda like giant cockroaches in Texas.

In situations like this, I think the best way to handle fear is to educate myself. The more I know, the more comfortable I can be. Plus, I'm bigger than them, right? So I started reading up on scorpions. I'm very pleased to learn most scorpion stings are not lethal. I was very displeased to learn the one poisonous scorpion in the United States, Centruroides exilicauda a.k.a. the Arizona Bark Scorpion, can be found all across Arizona. Luckily education again trumps fear and I've learned that no one has died from this type of scorpion since 1968. So even if I do get stung, it'll just hurt a lot. But the dogs might be a different matter.

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Tiger is Up and Around

I know everyone has been wanting to see pictures of Tiger standing up. Rest assured he's up and getting around just fine. I'm quite pleased with how easily he's adjusted to only three legs. I suppose a lot of it has to do with the fact he had been favoring his fourth leg so heavily in the past weeks.

There are only two things he seems to have a hard time with. The first is jumping on the bed. He can't quite balance on the back leg to feel comfortable jumping on the bed. But after a couple false starts, he makes it up. That is a great sign because it's been weeks since he even attempted to get on the bed. The second thing he has a hard time with is shaking all over. You know how dogs shake after a bath? Well, he does that sometimes as part of his stretching ritual. Right now he doesn't have quite enough balance to shake as hard as he used to. I'm sure that as his back leg strengthens he'll be back to normal in no time.

It's been a great weekend because Tiger is doing so well. The whole family is happy to seem him back to his (almost) normal self. I feel confident that I made the right choice about the surgery and feel blessed to have every day with him! Now I'm really looking forward to moving to Arizona since Tiger can come with me and enjoy it. We leave on Saturday.

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Tiger After Amputation

Tiger came through the surgery on Thursday just fine, but he had to stay at the vet until today (Saturday). I was very, very relieved on Thursday to learn he was waking up from the anesthesia and appeared to be doing well. Because of his age, I was worried he might not wake up.

The poor thing had to stay at the vet another day and a half for them to make sure he was recovering and to keep him on heavy pain killers. Luckily he got to come home today. I'm sooo happy to see him!

He's doing quite well considering he just had a leg removed. He's getting around on his own three legs. He's getting up and down on his own. He's using the bathroom outside on his own. He's drinking plenty of water. And he's eating a ton! That's very encouraging that he has an appetite. I think the best part is he's not crying like he was before the surgery. It's obvious he's in a lot less pain.

I'm posting a couple more pictures of Tiger so people can see what he looks like. His stub won't always look like this. Right now he's swollen and has a lot of bruising. Later his fur will grow back and it will be a lot easier to look at. I didn't know how I was going to feel seeing Tiger without a leg, but honestly, I'm not bothered. I'm just so happy that he's alive and has less pain. I love this dog so much that one less leg (as weird as it looks) simply doesn't phase me. I know I can't expect the same of other people, but we'll deal with that as the time comes.

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Tiger Has a Bone Tumor

Tiger got worse over the weekend. Just when I thought it was as bad as it could get. Note to self - it can always get worse.

Sunday morning, we woke up to Tiger's ankle and foot extremely swollen. It's the same leg that he's been favoring and the hip with arthritis. Initially I thought it was a symptom of the new medication Tiger is on, but I couldn't confirm since the vet doesn't work Sundays. He wasn't available on Monday either since it was a holiday. So we just waited it out and took Tiger to the vet today.

Tiger was in a lot of pain this weekend. He just laid around and moved as little as possible. He's not eating well either. Sometimes he just cries when he's laying there. It breaks my heart.

I was in a lot of pain this weekend, too. I haven't cried this much in ages. Seeing my dog like this and thinking about life without him makes me overwhelmingly sad. It definitely made for a poor holiday weekend. I did my best to distract myself though there was very little I could do for Tiger except try to comfort him.

Finally we went to the vet, Dr. M, this morning. Naturally, Dr. M was very surprised to see Tiger with such a swollen leg. Though, Tiger did have some bruising on the inside of his leg on Friday when I took him in. At that time, neither the vet nor I could explain the bruises. Right now, the whole inside of Tiger's leg is bruised. Dr. M immediately took him off to take more x-rays.

The x-rays of Tiger's lower leg show that he's got a tumor on his ankle. We didn't catch this before because we were focusing on Tiger's hips. Now that he sees this, Dr. M believes this is the true reason for Tiger's pain and that the arthritis is simply a secondary issue. It explains why the previous medicines weren't really helping with the pain.

Tiger has bone tumors, which is probably osteosarcoma because it's the most common kind. It's very aggressive cancer and is common in the limbs of large breed dogs. Basically, I have two choices in which to deal with this. 1)Euthanize Tiger so he will no longer be in pain. 2)Amputate the leg to give Tiger a little more time without pain. I asked a few questions about both options as I fought back tears. It wasn't a decision that I could make in the vet's office so he gave me some pain medication for Tiger and we went home.

From the start, I've been leaning towards amputation. Tiger simply isn't all that sick. Besides the leg pain, he's been a completely normal dog. He still eats normally (just significantly less in the past week which I suspect is due to the pain) and can make it outside to go to the bathroom. He's been getting around fairly well on only three legs. He drags the hurt leg behind him and I know he could get around a lot better without it in the way. To me, it makes sense to remove the pain. Because there is hope that Tiger can live a normal life again without the leg, I've chosen to have it amputated. Tiger goes in for surgery on Thursday and will get to come home on Saturday.

The biggest concern about the surgery is that Tiger may not come out of the anesthesia. The first thing that causes concern for this is he's old. Older dogs don't do as well. I'm hopeful this is not the case for him because he had mild anesthesia on Friday and he came out of it just fine. The second thing is Tiger has a tumor in his chest. It's about the size of a golf ball and it's near the heart. Before doing any surgery it's common for vets to x-ray the chest to see if the cancer has spread. Dr. M said he didn't know what the tumor is and that it may or may not be cancer. He said he usually sees cancer in the lungs spread out in small bits. This was definitely one large mass. It may cause a complication to the surgery or it may simply mean that Tiger doesn't have that much longer to live.

I've decided that even if Tiger only has a couple more days without pain, amputation is the right thing for me to do. If Tiger doesn't come out of surgery then it's simply his time, but at least I didn't give up on him.

On Saturday, I was getting really depressed that I hadn't seen Tiger wag his tail in a couple of days. That's when I knew things were really bad. Tiger has shown such immense happiness even in the darkest of situations. (Like the time I slammed his tail shut in the door over four years ago. He came inside the house and wagged his tail to show me that things were OK. What he didn't realize was that he also wagged blood all over Mom and Dad's cream carpet!) I told myself that I really just wanted to see him wag his tail in happiness one more time before his life was over. Luckily, I was blessed to see that happen on Sunday. I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk and he did. He hobbled over to the door and wagged his tail as I put on his collar. He has always loved those walks and even in all the pain he's in, he still wants to go. Since I got to see that one last time, I feel that whatever happens with the surgery will be OK. None of this is easy, but I do have peace in the fact that Tiger and I have shared a lot of happiness together.

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Tiger Update

Tiger had a traumatic day at the vet yesterday. He was put out to have his teeth cleaned and his hips x-rayed. Plus, he had one bad tooth pulled.

The real story is the x-rays. Unfortunately, the worst that could happen did. Tiger has hip dysplasia. Basically he has arthritis so bad that it is causing his hip to come out of the joint. The vet said it progressed a lot quicker than he would have expected and there's little that can be done for a dog as old as Tiger. Typically hip replacement surgery is done for dogs as young as one or two. It costs two to three thousand dollars and certainly isn't an option for Tiger. He probably wouldn't recover from such extensive surgery, even if I could afford it.

Basically at this point, our goal is to keep Tiger comfortable. The vet indicated that with greyhounds who had been runners typically don't get any older than 11. Tiger is 10 1/2 so he's near the end of his life. We just want him to live the rest of his life comfortably. So we've put him on a more aggressive mediation for the next week to see if it helps. We also discussed the next types of medications we would try if necessary. Cross your fingers everyone, I want Tiger to be comfortable.

The hardest part of all of this is definitely facing the fact that Tiger is an old dog. I just haven't been ready to admit that to myself. I broke down and cried in the vet's office yesterday...poor guy he's such a sweetheart to just accept that I needed to cry. I cried in the car the whole way home and then for awhile when we got home. Tiger is my baby and I'm not ready to give him up yet. I want a couple more years with him. I want him to enjoy the desert with me! But I have to accept that any time I get with him is a gift...no one is promising any more than today. So I'll try to make him comfortable and hopefully he and I can get through this together.

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