Roominiscing

She was the best dog in the history of ever.

And I almost missed out on getting her.

Friday, she could barely get down the stairs, even the way I'd been doing it for a couple days, walking with my legs right up against her head, holding her collar, steadying her, guiding her. Down on a flat level, she was okay, but still bumped into the occasional chair. It was obvious she was having trouble with depth perception ... I'd give her a treat and she'd stick her mouth past it first and then realize it was to the left. She didn't seem in pain, per se, just perplexed. Stop the world, she needed to get off.

I brought her into the living room so I could put on my shoes and asked her to lie down so she'd stop spinning and rubbing into things... I was instantly taken back to a January evening in 1998 at the Humane Society in Minot, North Dakota, in a small room, when this happy brown puppy, not knowing what to do with a silly cat toy on the floor, gave up and laid herself down on top of my shoes.

I'd finally owned my first home, rather than an apartment or the basement of someone else's house, and wanted a dog. The shelter only had maybe 10 cages, and I spied a yellow lab pup first. It was a yellow lab. Happy, bouncy, licky, soft, big feet. Typical. It'll do, I said. But the staff balked when I told them my yard wasn't fenced in (saying the breed needed room to run), so I went looking for a smaller dog, since that made sense in my head. And the next one down from the lab, in all the hubbub and dogs barking to and fro, was this little quiet thing, leaning against the wall, looking up. Not excited, not timid, just there. Just waiting.

I'd learned that she'd been given up by some folks who said they didn't have time for her; she'd been living in a garage and smelled of oil when she was dropped off.

After gluing herself to my feet, I told the shelter I had a huge porch that I could block off until such time that I bought a fence, and they allowed me to take her home the next day. In the lobby, she suddenly came alive, barking her happy fool head off at the staff, as if to say, "HaHA! I've got an owner, now! Shows how much you know!" The first stop with her was a WalMart to buy toys and bowls and food and such, and I was surprised to find her curled up in the back seat of my Thunderbird when I got back, no worse for the separation. Her expression was more "Oh, it's you again. You were serious." From that point on, whenever I'd leave her in the car, I'd walk back to see her staring out the window at me.

First thing was to get rid of the silly name she'd been given by her first owners: "Fantasia". It didn't take long to equate her golden hue with the Irish Cream Liqueur, and "Bailey" stuck. "Bailey Roo" was just a natural off shoot. You can't explain it. Kind of like "Dover Doodles." It just is. Although Bailey did tend to hold her lips in an "o" shape when she barked at something, an audible "roo! roo! roooooo!"

It was January 25th.

The next day, she ate my newspaper off the coffee table, but it got better from there.

Sanford & Daughter

Why is it that of all the cute things my daughter does, it's her Public Eating Area Garbage Runs that get the most aww-ttention?
I gush internally (in a good way, not like this head cold thing) when I hear people stop what they're doing to tell the person next to them to watch this little girl grab a piece of trash from Mommy as instructed and hip sashay-it over to the garbage can to reeeeach up and push whatever in (Ryan helps by pushing the THANK YOU door) then excitedly go back for more.
When the family came to have lunch with me at the Pentagon, she about busted the DEFCONCUTE scale, especially when I had her walk all the way out into the corridor, clutching an empty Coke bottle, to squeeze into the recycling bin hole.

Now if I could just get her to stop calling me Mama in public, we'll be golden.

Cut me, Mick

After hacking and coughing through another slumber period, I awoke on Sunday looking like Rocky Balboa at the end of Round 14. I was able to pry my eyelashes open with a razor blade and


Kidding! That's just a movie! Used a sterilized cotton swab and rubber gloves and butterfly wings, I swear!

But my eye was still full of goop and pink in the lower hemirant. (Two quadrants.) So I did the noble thing and went to work for 7 hours. No need to be spreading germs at home.

NyQuil was no use to me last night, with wheezing 10- and 12-bullet tight-chested uncontrollable machine gun coughs forcing me to hack into my pillow or sit upright to its eventual halt to get some air in. Speaking of air in, at least my I didn't wake up my daughter a thousand times each night (no, that present is reserved for the wife). Though she was up from 2 to 3:30 after teasing us by pitching a complete game the night before, if you'll allow the baseball analogy (go Nats! 1-8 to start the year!).

So I reported to the flight surgeon first thing this morning, without even changing into uniform first. LOOK AT ME, I said to the person at the window, who immediately grabbed a phone and called a doctor and cowered in the corner behind a filing cabinet until I was whisked away.

Diagnosed with conjunctivitis and borderline pneumonia (pulse ox only 97%, where 95% is trouble), he loaded me up with four more medications including one with codeine, which, it may surprise you to note if you've read this entire post, I've not yet taken.

It only hurts when I breathe or swallow or look

Not unlike the Native Americans unprepared for the viral intransigence of Europe's plague-infected world travelers, I am insufficiently immune to the thundering horde of toddler germs present in your everyday fun factory. I have lost the battle. I fear I may die of botulism. If I knew what that was.

A throat thing started Monday, followed by aches, headaches, then upper respiratory, then re-attacking the throat for good measure, now sniffles and all of the above... orange juice, chicken soup and NyQuil be damned. Every time I rolled over in bed last night, my head, throat, and chest felt like one of those sand and water kaleidoscope framed dealies at Smarter Image, where all the liquid at the top seeps and sloshes down to the bottom.

Fortunately I had my annual physical scheduled for today, although the doctor told me my throat is fine, my lungs are fine, it's just an upper chest buildup o crap trying to shake loose, perhaps I'm just menstruating, and other nonsensical stuff I just couldn't argue with in my state. Particularly since I was still stewing about having somehow passed the hearing test despite my ears sounding like UHF Channel 13 at 2:40am circa 1974, yet being told I failed the vision test ("failed" per flight surgeon standards, that is). You would have thought they would have factored in the glazed film over my eyes from being sick for three days and gotten little sleep, not to mention the small layer of crusty phlegm coating the eyepiece (I asked the tech for a tissue to clean it up). At any rate, I now have to go to an optometrist to see if I need corrective lenses to push me back to 20/20 from my debilitating current rating of 20/25.
I imagine the corrective lenses are the size of a chick-pea.

Hoppertunity Rocks

Our nay-borhood easter egg hunt was canceled for the second straight Saturday due to rain, and back-up plan B to get Ryan a haircut so he'll stop saying Zoinks and solving murder mysteries with his talking dog was foiled by half the county having the same idea (only so many cartoons to be cut in front of, it seems), so we just went to Chuck E. Cheese and tried to shove salad bar food into our children when we could twist their heads hard enough to face their mouths away from the animatronic bandmembers. No dino-ball-toss-in-the-200-ticket-hole luck this time around, our friend's kids were nice enough to donate their winnings to the Ryan and Erin cause, which they traded in for a plastic dolphin and some CEC heads for Ryan's crocs. For the holes. Whatever they're called. Croc hole nobules. Or something.

A 90-minute presentation from Thompson Creek Windows turned into 2.5 hours, but Jodi kept the kids hopped up on Jelly Beans long enough that the delay in dinner wasn't too impactful. Unless you call Ryan going to sleep at quarter to 11 an impact (still not realizing that we have a monitor, I guess, he was up out of bad slapping his wooden puzzle together when I walked in at 10:25).

Today, after the usual overdone Easter baskets from Mommy were opened (I got my Bubba Keg Travel Tea Mug! A full liter of tea tomorrow! Wahoo!), Erin had to back out of a planned Easterfete at Kids N Motion because she's up and down with a fever and has Goop N Hereyes. Seriously. She's crying snot. The hell.
The place had advertised a 'petting zoo' which consisted of three bored goats in a 6 x 10 foot cage, plus a pony and a horse, which happened to buck his first passenger onto her face, so Ryan stuck to the pony. A rabbit and a couple guinea pigs were inside in the waiting room, but Jodi and I were thusfar unimpressed.
Inside, after initially sticking to the standard playground equipment and small floor apparati, Ryan relaxed and got me to climb and bounce around with him in the inflatable slides and obstacle courses, doing my back a world of good, but he seemed to be having a grand time. He didn't even seem to mind the Easter Bunny showing up looking like a deflated ferret, the pre-teen inside obviously loving her job immensely.
Continuing the trend of zaniness, they told the kids at lunch that someone had a gummy bear baked into their cupcake, and whoever had it would win a prize...which turned out to be a one dollar bill. Because the 4-year-old girl can really appreciate that. "Ryan, do you know what a 'dollar' is?" "...what?" he said, between frosting licks. Exactly.

Got home to learn that Erin wouldn't go down for a nap after an hour of nursing, so I gave it a try to allow Ainsley some sleep. She had at least stopped crying when I walked in, deciding to show me all the animals in her crib and how the aquarium worked and babbling on about this and that. Less babble, more (sleep) action, that's my motto, so I started the six-step back-and-forth I've come to know and love, particularly that one squeaky board under the fan. She was still kicking and pawing and pointing and chatting, still not agitated, but still not tired, and my fake yawns and closed eyes routines weren't working, so I started singing songs to her, which backfired because every time I came to the end of a song, she'd start applauding, do the sign for "more" and say "mo" and rub her belly ("please"). I ran out of songs, and she was no closer to la la land, so I just brought her outside with me and the Roo to go dig up dandelions in the front yard (she pointed, I dug).

The inpatient is doing remarkably well, perhaps responding to the prednisone, but her dizzy spells were few and far between today, more sure-footed, more herself. She even rubbed her back in the grass, when a week ago she couldn't even lie down on her side very well. If we can use drugs and keep her at this manageable and happy level, we may just get another 11 years out of her.
;-)

Dognosis

Mass, right brainstem and cerebellum, meningioma is most likely. There is a midline shift of the brain from right to left within the caudal fossa. The mass measures approximately 1.5 x 1.7 x 2cm.

Chemotherapy with hydroxyurea is recommended and usually is helpful without causing harmful side effects, if you decide against radiation therapy.

So sayeth the doctor.

Stop the car, I need to go back and scrape up my heart that just exploded.

She's responding well to prednisone (anti-inflammatory steroid), although she responded well the first day after the antibiotic, too, so we'll see what shakes tomorrow. So to speak. We discuss options with the vet on Monday after reporting on how she's faring after the MRI scan.

She's still eating like a champ (when she can hold her head steady enough and at the right angle to reach the bowl) and oddly can tear off running in the backyard with no issues. Perhaps she realizes there are fewer pieces of furniture out there to run into.

I don't know what else to say. It happens to everyone, seems to happen to us almost every year. Doesn't make it any easier, doesn't make it fair.

She's such a great dog.

Animaladjusted

Bailey's having a better-than-lately day, after having three god-awful ones in a row. Ainsley noticed the right side of her face seems to be sliding off her skull, and she about feel backwards down the stairs last night, the big hulk of Griffin following behind the only thing that kept her upright. We're taking her in for an MRI on Friday, if the appointment time is available.

Meanwhile, Dover has so far not thrown up today for the first time in a while, Jeremy is nursing a bite wound on his butt for which we have to medicate him every night, and Tomas is hobbling along like a three-legged cat after discovering that jumping up on the electric stove probably isn't a good idea.

Just blows our minds to note that Griffin is the only normal pet we seem to have these days.

Buy me some penis and cracker jack

So Ryan needs to learn to enunciate before he starts singing, uh, 'willy' nilly in public.

I think he also root, root, roots for the Nashville.

Probably all that country music Ainsley played while he was in utero.

Bloomin' Young'ns

Ainsley and her friend Toni picked a perfectly blue, 60-degree day to go see this year's infestation of cherry blossoms around the tidal basin and 10K finish line. Not sure the kids appreciated the beauty of it all, but they enjoyed getting out and about and seeing a dead fish and petting a horse and eating hummus-dunked cucumbers by the Jefferson Memorial and playing chasey chase with sticks until Mommies said no sticks.

Zonked kids napt past 4:30, when Dad came over to give the dogs a break from the backyard; because there were so many people up in DC and we had to park a bit far away from the trees, we decided not to have Ryan drive around in his plastic tricycle (he calls a "motorcycle") as planned, so I decided to let him try it out on the walk to the park with the four dogs and Erin in a wagon. We're quite the Motley bunch trying to get up Pocomoke unscathed. Also didn't consider how hilly Rollingwood Drive is, so I ended up carrying his bike half the time anyway. So with that and having Ryan on my shoulders the whole way back to the car in the morning, I pronounced that this weekend would be a Double Hot-Tub Weekend.
Makes one a happily stewed dude.

Erinormous

Erin visited those mean ladies at the clinic with needles the size of number two pencils again, though was able to say thank you ("tenk tink") through large post-immunization tears when said ladies gave her a Dora sticker.

The skinny minnie is in the 25th percentile for weight, despite her affinity for anything on her plate or mommy's or Ryan's or the occasional piece of paper.

This is counterbalanced by the tally wally being in the 100th percentile for height, meaning she is taller than any other 15 and a half month-old child on the planet, which has to be stressful at any dances she goes to.

Otherwise, she's healthy as a clam sandwich.

Speaking of cute brown things, Bailey has actually improved some after taking a couple days' worth of antibiotics, so perhaps this thing is more infection than carcinogen. She may be just having a couple good days, or there's some placebo affect to taking pills, but when I got home yesterday, I was stunned to see her standing erect, head perpendicular to the ground, wagging her tail. Still a little cautious and stumbly, but she did a much better job locating her food bowl and whoofing it all down.

On the flip side, at 9pm and 2:20am she made a horrible gagging noise in the bedroom like she was trying to throw up a windsock.

Our planned neighborhood park Easter Egg Find was postponed a week thanks to yesterday's storms, so we instead took the chicklets to the same mall as last year, where Ryan again behaved marvelously with his friend the freaky bunny while Erin was, well, Erin.

#1 Goes #2

Ryan has been extremely successful making his bowels an international media event; we're thinking of just putting his bed in the bathroom since he seems to want to pop over the pot every 3.8 seconds. 'cause that is one attention-grabbing event, boy. It's a little unnerving how much he wants to show everyone in the neighborhood his underpants. But tell mom you gotta go and WHOOSH everything stops, papers fly up, and Erin spins in the cartoon cloud left behind while we anxiously await the plop plop fizz fizz.
This too shall pass.

Meanwhile, Erin has found baby Ryan's old "mo" for "more", particularly when you zrbert her belly, and I could swear she said "Nemo" this evening, parroting her brother's description of his underwear du jour. Her "hi" sounds a little southern and drawn out ("haaa") and her "thank you" is a her-specific piece of gibberish that doesn't sound like anything else she says, so we're going with it. She's also good at labeling face parts, though you want to be outside arm's length when you ask her where your eye is, lest she also poke your retina into the back of your head. And darn if she wasn't stacking construction blocks four-high the other day just to impress her grandparents.

Have I mentioned lately that I like my kids? Even more than baloney and cheese sandwiches?

Downward Spiral

Bailey has gotten much worse in recent days, going from a dog who occasionally fell over after shaking to a dog who can barely stand up straight. Her head is lilting like a sunken battleship, and she keeps running into things, hugging the wall, unsure of her footing, collapsing up and down stairs. And yet her demeanor, despite looking confused as to what the hey is going on, is about the same as before: happy to see us upon our return, tail wagging, wanting to throw a nerf football around the office.

We took her to a neurologist today to get an assessment. The doc liked that she's still eating, sleeping, behaving 'normally'; that Bailey doesn't seem to have any other symptoms of nerve damage (responds to stimulus, fixes her paw went bent, leans into a push from the side, etc.), and it may just be a severe inner ear infection causing pressure that could go away with meds. But the fact that this started in November and has gotten progressively worse leads her to believe that it's something growing inside or just next to her brain or inner ear, either a tumor or cyst. So we'll get an MRI soon to see what it is we're dealing with. If it's in her brain, there's not much they can do. If it's somewhere else, maybe radiation or chemo, but we'd want to know what kind of life she'd have afterwards. If it's a polyp or cyst, they may be able to go in surgically. A lot of what ifs, but we're encouraged that the doctor didn't take one look at her and start shaking her head.
Still, it's ruff watching her stumble around the house. I even left her downstairs last night just so she wouldn't have to manage the stairwell again.
Meanwhile, we're into week three of pet sitting a friend's dog and cat, so we're creeping into crazy animal people territory again, getting looks from the neighbors, etc. At least the dog isn't brown. That'd just be nuts.