I have agonized over it, but I think that the right thing to do is to have little Cody's damaged eye removed. I talked to the president of the poodle rescue about the eye surgery. She said that the vet that the rescue uses, which is the one we took Cody to last week when his eye suddenly worsened, is very good with eye removal surgeries and that I would not have to worry. They have done several eye removals for the poodle rescue and they have had no problems. She said that the dogs adjust to it just fine and they are much happier. So that seems the right course to take for our baby. My poor little teddy bear won't look like a teddy bear anymore. It just isn't fair for one little dog to have so many problems.

I think I will schedule it for early next week.

Whew, today has been one of those whirlwind days where I have been on the go constantly. I raced home from work to pick up Cody and drive him down to Melbourne for an appointment with an opthalmologist. Melbourne is about 40 minutes away, so we had a nice little road trip. He is always great in the car, so it was no trouble at all.

The bad news we got from the doctor was that his eye is not ulcerated, it is perforated. Yes, you read that right- there is a hole in his eyeball. From what I can figure out, it must have gotten bumped or poked or something, and there was already the injury to his eye so the cornea was thin there anyway, and it perforated either late on Thanksgiving day or early the next morning, which is why it looked bad then, prompting us to take him back to the vet. This is kind of gross, too, but I found some little droplets of a strange liquid on the floor Friday that I could not identify, and now I know what it was; it was fluid from his eye. Fortunately the fluid from the eye seals the perforation over, and that is what happened shortly after. So it was sealed over and the regular vet didn't realize that it wasn't just an ulcer.

The good news is that he isn't in pain, or not much anyway. The opthalmologist says that you can tell when it is painful because the dog will squint. He did squint for a short time Firday morning, but it was only for a few hours. He's not sure exactly why it isn't hurting him, but he described a few theories he had. I am much more comfortable knowing that he isn't suffering.

More bad news is that we have to figure out what to do. We have a couple of options. One is to get him a corneal transplant, from a donated canine cornea. They would cut out a little hole in his cornea around the perforation and made a plug and sew it in place. It is extremely expensive, and there are a lot of aftercare and follow up treatments. It seems like a lot to put him through, and it seems a bit pointless for an eye that is blind anyway.

What we will probably have to do is have the eye removed, and have it sewn shut. I don't want to do it, but there is less than a 1% chance that the eye will heal enough to be stable, and even then it would be very delicate, so it could easily perforate again, so it would probably be the best thing for him. He is on some medication and eye drops and his eye is stable right now, but he has to wear a stupid cone collar and we have to be very careful of his eye. We have some strong pain meds in case his eye perforates again. We have some time to decide. We can even wait it out and try just treating it with medication and hope, but it will most likely never heal enough that he could go around without a cone collar on, because the cornea is so thin there.

As soon as I got back from the opthalmologist, I had to leave Cody with Andy and take off with Ramona to her training class. After class I talked to a vet tech from my vet's office who is also the training coordinator at the training center. I asked her for advice. She said that removing the eye would be best and offered to get me a recommendation for a surgeon. She still talks to my old vet who retired every day and she said she would call and ask him who would be the best one to do the surgery in this area. My old vet used to do the surgery, but I am not sure about the new vet. We could have the opthalmologist do the surgery, but it would cost close to $1000, and we would have to travel to Stuart, which is where that vet's office is- he only comes to Melbourne two days a week for consultations, but all of the surgery is done at the home office and it is two hours drive away from here. He suggested trying to find a local vet who could do it for less.

So, that is our current quandry. It is horrible, but there are worse things in life. I really love that poor little dog. I hope he is not miserable.

Yes, I know my blog looks all wonky. What I don't know is why it is that way. I didn't do anything to it, it just isn't feeling well or something. I will try to get emergency resuscitation for it. Please pray.

I have spent hours the past two days working on school work and my brain is sizzling. I completed a section exam made up of ten essay questions, and I really labored over it. It was a real struggle for me because there were so many diferent components to each question that needed to be addressed, that I had a very hard time keeping my responses within 200-300 words as recommended. Mostly I went over the word allotment, in some cases blatantly, but I thought it would be better to address all of the aspects of each question than to gloss over some important components and fit within 200-300 words. It is such a relief to have finally finished the exam and be starting on the second half of my class. Hopefully, when I get my grade I will find that I did more than was required and i can ease uo a little for the next exam. Fingers crossed for an A.

We took Cody to the vet this morning to have his eye looked at again. I called yesterday to get him an appointment after I saw that his eye was looking bad again, but our vet was closed. I called around to several other vets and was finally able to get him in at the clinic that the poodle rescue uses and the place where we have taken our dogs when they were fosters with the rescue. It is a bit farther to drive, and that is really the only reason we don't use them regularly- well that and the fact that our regular vet was close by and we LOVED him, but he retired a few months ago.

The birds and torts have their own vet that specializes in birds and reptiles, and we have to drive a little farther for them, but that isn't near as often as what the dogs require. As far as they go, we are kind of in vet limbo right now- we are regularly going to the vet that bought our old vet's practice when he retired, but it isn't the same. She is good and all, but with the old vet I used to be able to call up there at any time, they knew who I was, and they would always find a way to see my babies with little delay. We even had his home number for emergencies, and he met us at his office on a Sunday once when there was an emergency. Scheduling isn't quite as easy with the new vet. Due to Cody's diabetes, we need a vet that can work with us a little more. There is a vet I want to try out that has an office pretty close to where our new house is going to be, but I haven't talked to anyone there yet. When you have six dogs and spend thousands at a veterinarian's office every year, do you think it is too much to ask to get a little bit of scheduling priority?

Anyway, back to Cody's eye. I knew it wasn't looking good. It has been two weeks since the injury and I gave him all of the antibiotics he was supposed to get, ten days worth, and put ointment in his eye three times a day for two weeks. It seemed to be getting better right up until yesterday when it suddenly looked horrible. I would post a picture of it, but I don't think you'd want to see it; it is hard to look at. The doctor examined the eye with several different lights and scopes, then he stained it with yellow stain and looked at it with a blacklight. He said Cody's eye is in trouble. The eye injury has now become ulcerated, and there may be infection inside the eye but he doesn't have enough equipment to be able to get a good look in there. He gave us a stronger oral antibiotic for Cody, and some drops to put in his eye every few hours. We are going to have to be pretty vigilant with the drops, using them as often as we can in an effort to save the eye. We also are going to try to get in to see a dog opthalmologist at the vet's recommendation. The only ones around are far away but come to Melbourne (about half an hour south of here) a couple of times a week, so we'll have to call to see if we can get him in. Poor little guy.

Oh yeah, and today is our sixth anniversary. Happy Anniversary, honey!

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving yesterday. We did the usual and ordered a full turkey dinner form the grocery store and all we had to do was pop it in the oven for about two hours to warm it and there was little mess and no fuss. For just the two of us, it is the best option so that we can enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving meal without spending all day cooking and then cleaning up.

Instead of cooking and cleaning, I spent the day grooming our six dogs, all of which had gotten quite wooly. What a gargantuan task that can be. I didn't even do their nails- I am saving those for later in the weekend so they don't get too stressed out all at once. I was fairly exhausted after six hours of wrangling the fuzzies.

Today we shopped a little- none of the real crazy Black Friday stuff, but we had some good coupons and went clothes shopping and such. Tomorrow we have to take Cody to the vet. His eye that was scratched a couple of weeks ago and has been healing well suddenly looked pretty bad this morning. I have to take him back to the vet to make sure everything is okay. I was able to get him appointment for tomorrow morning, so hopefully they will be able to help him. After that I need to sit down and work on some school work for a while. How was your day? Did you hit the Black Friday sales? Any big purchases?

Only one more day to go and we will have made it to Thanksgiving vacation. Ah, who am I kidding- I am a big nerd that enjoys my work, so it is not as though I am suffering through anything, but a break can be nice.

Things are going really well for me at work and that is a great thing. I am finally making a big difference in a place where it is difficult to do anything but make a small ripple. I hope that you all have a nice Thanksgiving, whatever your plans are. I will be here as usual and posting, so stop by if you have nothing to do. I'll try to post something fun.

Andy was telling me about his trip today. His family lives in a very rural area of small towns. His Aunt was a first grade teacher at the same school for 37 years, and her death was a terrible shock to the community. There was a huge turnout for the viewing, over two hundred people (which is a massive number considering how few people live there) showed up. Andy said there was a couple there that both the husband and wife and all four of their daughters had been in Aunt Deb's first grade class. He said that they found out a lot of little things about her, like how she would bake cookies for the guys from the phone company when they came to fix her phone, she brought cookies to the workers at the post office, all kinds of little thoughtful things she did.

For her funeral, the school officials wanted to close the entire school down for the day. It is a K-12 school so there are quite a few students. Deb's parents asked them not to close the school because they did not want to have half of the town attend the funeral, they wanted it to be a little more for the family. So the school was kept open and they found enough substitute teachers to allow seventeen of the other teachers to attend the funeral. In the afternoon, the school had a memorial service for her as well. She was well loved by many, many people. Her thoughtfulness was remembered by all.

I think that some of her selflessness may have contributed to her demise, unfortunately. She never thought of herself and always spent all of her energy and time on everyone else. After her death, the family recalled a lot of little clues as to the fact that she hadn't been feeling well for some months, but it seems like she took great pains to hide it from them. When they went to clean out her house, it was not kept in the way she normally lived. It wasn't dirty, but there was clutter everywhere and things were a bit of a mess. Andy mentioned that there had been certain activities that she had always enjoyed that in the past year she decided she didn't want to participate in anymore, but the rest of the family really hadn't thought much of it. She just said she changed her mind about going to the events, but now it seems as though she had declined to go because she was sick. It is possible she knew how bad her illness was and just kept it a secret because she didn't want to worry or alarm anyone. No one knows, because she did not share her health problems with anyone until it was too late, apparently. Maybe the outcome would have been the same, anyway, but it is sad that she thought so little of herself to even tell anyone close to her what she was going through. Rest in peace, Aunt Deb.

Andy is due to get back home from Ohio in less than an hour. He just texted me when the plane touched down, but now he has to get out of the airp[ort and drive home from Orlando, which is about fifty minutes away. We are very much ready for him to get home too. Louie and Cody especially missed him, they are his little buddies and I think they are convinced that he left them forever.

The paperweight mementos I posted about yesterday were a huge hit. You would have thought I was handing out fabulous trophies from the reactions of the recipients. One of them said it was the nicest thing she ever got at work. Many discussions were sparked on how I came up with the idea and how to make them. I can't wait until I get my craft room in the new house so that I can make all kinds of neat stuff like the paperweights on a more regular basis.

I am exhausted and headed off to bed, but I am doing so a bit triumphantly, as I succeeded in a small creative endeavor I have been stressing over. Tomorrow is the end-of-year luncheon for one of the extra-curricular groups I am involved in at work. Actually, I am the chairperson of this particular group of employees.

This is probably the last year that this same board of employees will be coming together, as there are plans in the works for our group to merge with another, and all bets are off on what will happen. I wanted to give each member a nice memento, but there is no budget to accomodate me, so I was looking to do so on the cheap.

I wandered around a craft store for hours on Saturday, picked up some cheap glass tealight candle holders, wood rounds and this clear urethane stuff called Quick Water, which is used as the fake water in silk flower arrangements in clear vases. It hardens and is permanent and clear, and guaranteed not to yellow. And here is what I did with it all: at work today, I was hooked up with a laser engraver operator who etched the group name and year plus each board member's name on the little wood rounds. I took them and applied a light coat of stain to the wood to give it a more finished look. I then used the Quick Water to embed the wood rounds into the glass candle holders to make a paperweight for each member. The bottom of the candleholder is the top of the paperweight. They came out really nicely. This is a craft project I just made up off the top of my head; feel free to use it if you like. Each candle holder was $.99, and a package of about 20 of the wood rounds was $2.99. The Quick Water was $9.99, and one package was just enough for about fifteen of the paperweights. You could use any number of other things to imbed inside the candleholder, the wood was just what I came up with, and my end cost was only about two bucks apiece.

While the animals in my life require a lot of work, I feel that they are totally worth it. Right now, with Andy gone out of town, it is up to me to feed the birds two fresh meals a day and change their water at the same intervals, feed all six dogs twice a day, including the diabetic one at exactly 12 hours apart and give him insulin shots, and to keep the tortoises clean and happy in fresh greens and veggies. But they are really nice buddies to have around when I am alone. Actually, I am never alone, as Andy pointed out. It is very hard to be alone with ten creatures counting on you and vying for your attention.

Yesterday afternoon, after a very busy and hectic day, I arrived home to get some new mercury vapor light bulbs in the mail for the tortoises that I had been waiting for. Upon unpacking them, I found that the bulbs were too large for the dome light fixtures I had, and I needed new ones. I decided to run out to Home Depot to get some, but all they had there were a couple of broken ones. I quickly stopped by another store were they had nothing suitable. I was getting pretty frustrated and sick of driving around when I went to the last store, where I knew they had what I needed.

I was pretty much in a pissy mood by that time. I grabbed the light fixtures I needed and headed to the register. Up at the front of the store, I ran into a lady I had worked with before with the poodle rescue, that has her own pet sitting and behavioral training business. She had two parrots with her, one was a Moluccan Cockatoo that I had already made friends with, and the other was a new rescue bird, a Severe Macaw. It was interesting in that upon seeing the birds and talking to Sally, I could literally feel my frustrations and irritabilty melt away. While talking to the birds and interacting with them, my irritation waned and my heart rate slowed, and I felt better. I think this is a true testament as to the fact that I was meant to live with animals. I am sure my life would not be nearly as happy as it is if I did not spend so much time with animals. Isn't that a wonderful thing?

Andy is packing up his things and getting ready to go up to Ohio for Aunt Deb's funeral. It comes at a bad time in terms of things at work, but death is never convenient, so you have to do what you have to do. He is leaving early tomorrow morning to fly out of Orlando and will return late on Saturday night. That will allow him to be there for the viewing Thursday and the funeral Friday. It just sucks all around because she is gone already. It would be so much different if he would be able to actually see her. At least he was able to spend time with her in March when he went up there for a visit. That was when she was still healthy and had no inkling that there was anything wrong, so fortunately his last memories of her will be good ones.

I always hate it when Andy flies somewhere. I am always afraid that he will be taken away from me- it is just the worrier in me. It doesn't help my confidence that Aunt Deb was just ruthlessly taken from us well before her time. But he'll be fine and so will I. I will have the company of a bunch of animals to keep me occupied while he is gone. Actually I should be quite busy taking care of everyone by myself during his absence. They are a lot of work!

Despite the best efforts of the doctors and nurses, there was nothing that could be done for Andy's very special aunt and as of this evening she is disconnected from all of the tubing and equipment and will soon be gone.

Andy's Aunt Deb was one of the sweetest, most thoughtful, and giving people I have ever met and I am very sorry to see her go. She was not my blood relative, but from the first time I met her I felt like she was my real aunt. The trouble came on so suddenly- just over a week ago I got a birthday card from her and a cartoon she had found about alligators "bobbing for poodles" and now she's gone, just like that. I guess you never really know when it will all be over, but it still comes as a shock.

Aunt Deb, we love and miss you; no one was ready for you to go. There can only be better things beyond this world for such a kind and gentle soul as yours.

Cody's little eye is doing better, though it still looks rather nasty. It doesn't seem to bother him at all, and he is thrilled to take the anti-inflammatory medicine because he gets his pills wrapped in cheese and that makes him very happy.

Andy's aunt is stable in the hospital, she is undergoing dialysis to rid her body of the toxins it can't get rid of, and they are trying to remove the fluid from her lungs. They have said that her kidneys are repairable; there is no permanent damage, but they have to get the fluid out of her lungs first. It is anyone's guess how she will do from here on out.

We have spent most of the day cleaning up around the house. I scrubbed the two nasty, icky bird cages from top to bottom and steamed the floors while Andy washed his truck and my Jeep and straightened the garage up. I can't wait until Thanksgiving to have a little more time off work to get things done.

I only posted a quick photo yesterday, because a lot was going on. First was a minor thing, poor Cody had a bad scratch in his eye. He is almost completely blind now due to his cataracts, and I noticed that there appeared to be almost like a chunk taken out of the surface of one of his little eyeballs. It was very watery too, and didn't look good at all, so i took him to the vet. They stained the eye and looked at it under a blacklight, but it didn't even require a blacklight to tell that there was some damage to the surface of his eye. Fortunately it is not too much of a problem. We have to put ointment in his eye three times a day and give him some pain medication, but he should make a full recovery.

When I got home from the vet with Cody, Andy said his dad had called and his aunt was in the hospital. The particular aunt that is not doing well is probably one of the nicest people in the world, a really sweet giving person. His aunt has taught first grade for around thirty years and loves children. She was just this year afflicted with some liver problems and diagnosed with Alpha 1 Antitrypsin deficiency, and was scheduled to see a specialist this coming week after she had been put off for months due to doctors being too busy to see her. She started having severe liver pains late this week and went to the hospital, and then had a heart attack there due to a freak clot- she had no hardening of the arteries or blockages. She was doing very poorly yesterday, but then began to do much better overnight and this morning, when she was actually able to sit up and eat breakfast.

Sadly, she took a turn for the worse this afternoon, when her kidneys began to shut down and her lungs started filling with fluid. She is now on a ventilator, and the prognosis is not very good. She is only in her mid-fifties and we are all very worried about her. Please keep her in your prayers; she's going to need them.

Here is a picture of Discovery coming in high and fast on Wednesday afternoon, right over our heads at work.

The union strike by a certain subset of employes at my company is over, after nearly four and a half months. It actually ended Sunday when the majority of the strikers voted to accept a contract. Sad thing is that they have been out of work since June 14th, and ended up going back t work for a lesser contract than the one they started with. Even though they accepted the contract, the union still declares it to be a "substandard" contract. With all that said, how could anyone expect the strikers to go back to work without incident?

Today was the first day back for the strikers. From what I heard, they had to sit through some sessions of lectures on what types of behavior wouldn't be tolerated in the post strike atmosphere. I just can't see how things can ever be harmonious again, though. How can anyone expect someone who has stood on the picket line with a huge sign declaring "so-and-so is a no good scab" to work beside the person they have disrespected publicly, and have everything be fine? I fully expect there to be fist fights at the very least. Only time will tell.

It has been a busy but fairly non-eventful week so far. Well, I say that, but we did get to experience the twin sonic booms of the shuttle returning home today and watch it glide in overhead, so that was a bit of an event. On my way home from work today I passed the astronaut's Airstream vehicle carrying them from the Shuttle Landing Facility back to the astronaut quarters.

Anyway, today is my little Louie's birthday. Lou is the little black dog that is the first pet that Andy and I ever aquired together (I had three dogs already when we met). He was my wedding/Christmas present in 2001, and is our special little spoiled baby, He has never spent a night away from us since we got him at about six and a half weeks old.

Happy Birthday, Lou!

Due to the change of time of year for Daylight Savings Time, yesterday I had my first 25 hour birthday ever. Not that it made much difference, as I went to bed pretty early anyway, but it is nice to be granted that extra birthday hour just for the principle of it.

I had a wonderful birthday weekend, though. I have been really tired of the hot nasty humid weather we have had here since about May. That and the incessant annoying rain we have had. All I wanted for my birthday weather-wise was some nice cool, dry weather. Amazingly, I actually got it. It cooled down considerably and the rain completely moved out of the area. The nice weather is sticking around, too, so that is a bonus.

My little sweet baby tortoise seems to be doing very well. She likes to bury herself and hide a lot, but I kind of remember Virgil doing the same thing when he was a tiny hatchling as well. It makes sense for a little itty bitty animal like that to hide a lot from predators, so it is no real surprise.

I finally figured out for sure what her name is going to be. The new baby tortoise is Emma. I kicked that name around with a few others and it just seemed to fit her the best. One of my friends at work says I am completely nuts after hearing she is called Emma. Shoot, what am I supposed to name her, Fluffy?

It has been a fun-filled day today, the beginning of my birthday weekend. This morning, I took Michaela to her final dog training class where we miserably failed her final test. It is okay; she did improve quite a bit in her socialization, but she is still terrible about walking on a leash. She always wants to jump up and bite my butt to get my attention, or she chews on the leash out of nervousness. She never learned the stay command at all. But, she got out of the class what I wanted for her; she is more comfortable around other people and dogs, so I am happy. I am not enough of a glutton for punishment to put her through any more obedience classes, though!

This afternoon we went to our scheduled visit at the Turtle Farm. We got to look at all kinds of hatchlings and it was very hard to pick out just one. The choice was made easier because I knew I was going to get another Hermann's tortoise so it could eventually interact with Virgil, and there were only two of them. Still it was very hard to pick one. I chose the smaller of the two. Hermann's tortoises can' be sexed until they are quite a bit older (we don't even know if Virgil is a boy yet) so we just have to guess. Since we guessed boy for Virgil, we are going along as though this baby is a girl. I haven't named her yet, but I have a couple of names in mind. I kind of like Violet, and it goes well with Virgil, but I also like Emma. I will think about it more tomorrow and come to some sort of decision then.

This is the little baby here. She is really cute and looks almost just like Virgil did when we got him last year. She has to be kept separately form him for a sort of quarantine period for a while, so I can't show the size difference in them, but he is a LOT bigger than she is. It is hard to believe how much he has grown in a year. Below is a picture of the house we have set up for her in a wine crate. I have to go get her a few things tomorrow from the store; the correct lighting and such, but we had most of the things she needed like a water bowl and a hut to hide in because she can use the ones Virgil outgrew. I just love her.

To finish off the day, we went to another bird class at the bird store here. We took Charley with us in his carrier, and he said "Hi" "Hi" "Hi" during the presentation because he was nervous. I got him out and held him for part of it. Several other people were there wiith their birds and it is fun to see the different ones and how they interact with their owners.

And that is how I spent the day, surrounded with animals just as I like. I hope you all are having a great weekend!

What a fabulous afternoon we had at work today! This weekend, there is a big event being hosted at the space center, called World Space Expo. One of the draws of the event is that there are airshows Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The airshows started this afternoon, and the building where I work was right in the flight path, so we got to see some neat things. The USAF Thunderbirds performed, and there was a C130 refueling (or at least simulating) two helicopters in flight. Then there was an F22 Raptor that buzzed by us really low several times.

From inside the building, it was as though we were working in a war zone- the building would rattle from the noise. But of course we went outside to watch as much of it as we could. The weather wasn't perfect; we got a few glimpses of blue skies, but it deteriorated as the afternoon went on.

These are the pictures I took with just a regular little point and shoot digital camera I had in my Jeep. They aren't too bad, really. It was hard to take pictures because the planes were so fast and due to the clouds they seemed to come out of nowhere.