Day 3031

Good news. When the doctors reviewed Dash's latest echocardiogram this morning, they were unable to detect any signs of the blood clot in his heart. There's always a chance that the clot just didn't show up during today's scan, but the folks at the cancer center are usually very thorough in their exams. We think that Dash's dangerous blood clot may have finally dissolved. Dash's doctor wants to give him one more scan in June before he gets a clean bill of health, but things are looking very good at this point.

I wish Dash were better behaved during these exams. The tests are non invasive and completely painless, but Dash freaks out whenever we take him to the vet these days. It's embarrassing to sit in the lobby and hear your dog bark and whine during the entire procedure. Everybody else's dog was sweet and well behaved today. Not ours. Maybe Dash would be happier if he realized that he only had to endure one more scan. We won't tell him that he's going to need his teeth cleaned when it's safe to sedate him again.

The day always gets off to a slow start whenever there's a vet appointment. We try to make the appointments as early as possible, so Janet won't miss too much work, but our normal routine still gets delayed quite a bit. By the time I finished my breakfast and got Dash ready to walk, it was well past noon. I don't know why I even try to keep a schedule. When I finally turned my computer on around 1 PM, there was still noting but junk mail in my inbox. I would be totally shocked if I found myself looking at a new assignment these days.

With Dash taken care of and nothing else on my plate, it was hard to avoid mowing the grass. I thought it might be better to care care of this task today, because it's expected to rain tomorrow. The good news is that the mower still works. The bad news is that it seems even harder to push this year. All my trips to the gym really haven't produced any dramatic results. What has happened to me?  Mowing the grass used to be easy.

I installed some music production software on my laptop this afternoon, so I could use the new keyboard outside the office. I probably never will, since the laptop is slow, but it's nice to have options. I was pleased to discover that Logic Pro and GarageBand have a new "teaching" mode where you can learn to play guitar and piano from within the software. Cool. I'll have to try this. I'm certainly pretty rusty playing the piano. I hope I can maintain my interest in music for a while. It would be nice to start writing songs again.

I'm still amazed that Dash's blood clot seems to have disappeared. There was always the possibility that it would, but I wasn't very hopeful. I can't even remember how many echocardiograms Dash has had now. We've been monitoring his condition for many months now and until the scan we had a month and a half ago, nothing ever changed. I'm glad we never lost faith and kept up with his treatment even when it didn't seem to be doing any good. The good news we heard today reminds me how important it is to be patient. Some things in life just take a lot of time.

Nellie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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