Day 3176

I got this check from the Federal Trade Commission today, along with a note saying that it was my share of a class action settlement involving light bulbs. What? I wasn't aware of being involved in any sort of class action suit. My first thought was that this was a scam. Have you ever received a check in the mail that has a small disclaimer saying that by cashing said check you agree to a lifetime of magazine subscriptions, a debit card from a foreign bank, or a ridiculously expensive term life policy? I am very suspicious of checks that mysteriously arrive in the mail. There are so many scammers out there. I did some research online and it appears the check is legit. The government recently mailed out fourteen million dollars worth of these checks to people like me. But how did they know I bought the light bulbs? I didn't tell them. I feel sorry for the light bulb company. The suit claims that the company made false statements about the light bulbs brightness and reliability. Jeez. I've had these LED bulbs in my bathroom for over five years and they work great. They haven't burned out and they're pretty bright. This pretty well sums up my feelings about class action suits. For the most part, they're just a way to make lawyers rich. They probably put that company out of business. That being said, I'll go ahead and cash the check. It might pay for gas next week. No, it wasn't a large check. I just don't drive very much.

I've got to figure out how to cure Dash's digestive problems. The loose stools and diarrhea are driving me crazy. I had to clean up another big mess last night and then had a hard time getting back to sleep. The first thing you're supposed to do if your dog has loose stools is take a sample to your vet to test for parasites. Done that. There were no parasites. We're read that a diet of chicken and rice can help cure the problem. That's what he's been eating for over a month and it hasn't helped. Dash is also taking a probiotic the vet prescribed and that isn't doing much either. It's frustrating. We've read that diarrhea is a known side effect of heart disease. If that's the case, there probably isn't much we can do. Diarrhea and incontinence is a really bad combination. At least when Dot became incontinent, her poop remained firm.

I got a letter from the phone company saying that my account had been compromised. So what else is new? This is almost a routine occurrence these days. By now, probably everyone in the world has had an account compromised in one way or another. The letter apologized for the inconvenience, but said that no sensitive information was revealed. Easy for them to say. They apparently did get my phone number though. Maybe that explains the increase in robocalls I've been getting lately. My landline is almost 100% telemarketers and robocalls now. I feel like the phone company should be paying me.

I walked Dash and paid a few bills today. That was about it. Someone got killed last night riding one of those rental scooters I've started seeing all over town. It was only a matter of time. I've seen people riding these things on busy city streets. Nobody wears helmets and the flimsy scooters go pretty fast. Why did the city approve these ridiculous things? I really need to move to a small town. City life is becoming increasingly strange.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3162

I injured my wrist again. I have no idea what happened. Yesterday, my wrist felt stiff when I woke up. By this morning, things had gotten worse and I could barely move it at all. Did I overdo things at the gym on Sunday? Did I pull a tendon trying to get the fitted sheet on the bed? It could have even happened while I was trying to get Dash's rubber boots on for his morning walk. That's what sucks about getting old. Just about anything can lead to a major problem.

I still have the brace I wore while I was recovering from last year's dog bite and started wearing it again this morning. Somehow, immobilizing your wrist goes a long way toward alleviating the pain. Without the brace, even drinking my morning coffee was painful. With it, life proceeded more or less normally. I definitely couldn't climb up on the roof today. I'm not going to be able to do that for a while. Here's hoping that our hot August weather will help the standing water evaporate.

I guess I should make a doctor's appointment, but I'll probably wait a few days to see if things improve. I've injured my wrist at least four times before and I know exactly what the doctor is going to do. They'll take an x-ray and tell me that no bones are broken. They'll ask me to move my wrist and discover that I can't. It's inflammation, they'll say. Then they'll tell me to wear the brace for a week and give me a cortisone shot. I've already got the brace and I hate taking steroids, so I'm just going to try to take it easy for a few days and see what happens. I can always go to the doctor later.

I hope that Dash doesn't need to go to the doctor again. His stools are still loose and his appetite is decreasing again. Most of the symptoms he's experiencing now are consistent with heart disease, so I'm not sure there's much we can do. I'd hate to change his diet. The homemade meals we're fixing now are very healthy and should be good for a dog with a sensitive stomach. I'm not even sure a trip to the vet would help. We've been through this so many times before. When the dog has nausea or diarrhea they'll give you some Cerenia pills. With an upset stomach, they'll want you to feed him canned Hills ID. If all else fails and you keep coming back with the same problem, they'll recommend a MRI. We've done all this. If Dash's leaking heart valve was treatable, we probably wouldn't be having a lot of these problems. The vestibular disease doesn't help either.

I contacted another auction house today. I'm discovering that consigning the second tier art is much harder than my initial experience with the desirable stuff. If there's something the auction houses really want, they'll treat you like royalty. If you have something they know won't sell, you'll be lucky to even get a reply. Ultimately, an auction house is just a business like any other business. They want to make money.

Dash and I looked pitiful this morning. He was wearing a brace on his leg and I was wearing a brace on my arm. We're troopers though. We both walked a mile and a half. I'm going to wear the brace to bed tonight. Maybe it will help me sleep better. That's probably just wishful thinking. I'm almost certain I'll be standing outside waiting for Dash to poop at 3 AM.

Cookie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3150

Dash is so slow now that the weather forecast can change during our walks. That's what happened this morning. When we left the house the weather radar looked OK and I wasn't expecting rain until this afternoon. Things can change quickly in Texas though. The dark skies on the Western horizon began growing closer and closer. I started hearing thunder. It wasn't long before I began feeling raindrops. The surprise storm didn't seem to faze Dash. He kept inching along at a snail's pace, stopping to smell every bush along the way. Dash used to be frightened by thunder, but he doesn't hear well anymore. He didn't even appear to notice that we were starting to get wet. Amazingly, we made it home before the storm arrived. Usually we aren't so lucky.

Dash seemed unusually tired today. He slept for most of the day and wasn't interested in eating at all. He didn't finish his breakfast until 4 PM and we're still working on dinner. Dash's good days and bad days are totally unpredictable. As recently as yesterday I was feeling that he was getting stronger. Whenever Dash is lethargic like this, I start to worry. There's not much I can do, but this type of fatigue is usually a sign that his heart condition is getting worse.

I'm still trying to downsize, but it appears that the low hanging fruit is gone. When I began this quest, I purposely looked for items that would appeal to other collectors. Now that the good stuff stuff has all been consigned, I'm having a lot more difficulty unloading the second-tier collections. I apparently has a discerning eye for art back in the 1970's. I had good taste in model trains too. Not so much with the watches I began collecting a few decades later. My taste in vintage watches turned out to be terrible. The only things I was interested in were early tuning fork watches, LED watches, and calculator watches. Very few people work on these things anymore. I had a guy in California who used to fix my Accutrons, but he died. A lot of early electronic watches used mercury batteries and never worked reliably using modern replacement batteries. Parts for LED watches are almost impossible to come by. All these problems could be overcome if people actually desired these geeky timepieces. They don't. Everybody wants an old Rolex instead.

We ended up getting a lot of rain today. There is no point in removing the water from the roof though. It's supposed to continue raining for the next several days. Let's hope that the roofers did a good job. I really don't want to deal with a leak again. I'll go up and inspect things when rain is out of the forecast, but there's no point in doing anything now. I'm going to just keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

I hope the forecast is wrong. Dash does much better when he gets his morning walk. I can't go out for breakfast if it's raining either. Dash is just too unpredictable. We'll see what happens. The forecast wasn't very accurate today. It probably won't be tomorrow either.

Nautica is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3142

Dash got some bad news this morning. He has had a heart murmur for a long time, but his doctor told us that it had become significantly worse. He has what is called a mitral insufficiency, which means that the mitral valve doesn't close properly when the heart pumps out blood. This causes blood to leak or regurgitate back into the left atrium every time the heart contracts. Take away the fancy name and this is basically some pretty serious heart disease.

There is drug called penobendan that is often quite effective in helping the heart beat normally again, but unfortunately Dash can't take it. The penobendan would very likely cause the blood clot in his left ventricle to break apart and travel to his lungs or brain. If this happened, he would be dead in minutes. The doctor thought that increasing his enalapril dose would be safe and could slow down the progression of the disease. We are going to try this. Dash is already taking enalapril to control his blood pressure and he tolerates it well.

Today's diagnosis certainly explains why Dash has been so tired recently and has started coughing in his sleep. I thought the vet would want him to stop his daily walks, but he told us that slow walks were fine as long as Dash didn't become overheated or do anything too strenuous. I don't think we have to worry about doing anything too strenuous. We walk at a snail's pace these days.

Dash's exam took up most of the morning, so I didn't get much done today. I went to the bank and picked up a prescription, but that was about it. It was only seventy-nine degrees when I woke up, so we did manage to have a very pleasant early morning walk before we left for our vet appointment. I'll really be glad when Summer is over. You've really got to take advantage of the early morning hours. After that, it quickly becomes too hot to do anything.

My model train collection is starting to sell. So far, I've been pleasantly surprised. There have been consistent sales for the past three months. Four more models sold in July. At this rate, it might take years to liquidate the entire collection, but that's OK. I'm not making much money designing websites anymore. I'll take any extra income I can get.

I must be getting lazy. The sky was very clear last night when I took Dash out to pee at 1 AM. This was the day that Mars was in opposition. It wouldn't be this close to Earth for another fifteen years. I could see the planet clearly overhead, but I didn't go back inside and get the telescope. Why bother, I thought. I'd already looked at Mars through the telescope less than a month ago and all I saw was a little bright orange disk. Maybe the disk would have been slightly larger last night, but I doubt that I would have noticed the difference.

I can't decide whether to bleach away the stain in the living room ceiling or drag the roofers over to take a look at it. I'm doubtful the the roofers would come, no matter what I said at this point. Maybe I'll just mow the grass tomorrow morning. It's starting to look pretty bad. I guess it all depends on how much sleep I get tonight. Dash has had a pretty big day. Maybe he'll sleep well tonight. I certainly hope so.

Snoopy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2611

Dash was released from the hospital today. He's still a little shaky, but he is much better than when we visited him on Saturday. Dash has never traveled well in the car and I definitely shouldn't have agreed to pick him up during the evening rush hour. It was a stressful drive home to say the least. Dash was causing such a commotion that I figured if he didn't have another stroke on the way home, he was cured. I still don't have a clear idea what caused the seizures. Three highly regarded specialists examined him during his stay at the cancer center and each had a slightly different opinion. Does Dash have vestibular disease? Did high blood pressure cause a capillary to burst in his cerebellum? Were these seizures new or have there been subtle signs that this was about to happen for a long, long time? We may never know the answer.

Dash came home with a big bag of meds.  Admittedly, some of these pills were the same ones he was already taking when he was admitted to the hospital, but it was still a bit sobering to see how much medication he needs to take every day. Hopefully, we'll never get these pills mixed up with the ones Dot needs to take, or with my own. Our kitchen is already starting to look like a pharmacy. Dash needs to stay calm for the next couple of weeks. That's a tall order to say the least. I couldn't even keep him calm on the way home from the hospital this evening.

I haven't been asked to do a complicated photo shoot for quite some time, but that's about to change. I was on the phone this afternoon, trying to work out the logistics for a photo session this weekend that involves teenagers, dogs in costumes, and a leftover set from Erykah Badu's latest music video. I kept trying to tell my client that I was getting too old for this sort of thing, but she kept insisting that she had faith in me and wanted me to do the job. Janet says she'll watch the dogs while I'm gone, so I guess the shoot is a go, whether I'm ready or not.

I finally got all the rugs cleaned that Dot peed on the other day. Every time I complete this task I feel a bit like Sisyphus, eternally pushing the rock up the hill. I know that within a day or two, I'll have to repeat the whole process all over again. I'm still trying to figure out how my complicated routine is going to change, now that Dash needs extra attention. If Dash would just stay calm, my job would be a lot easier, but calm is not a word you would normally associate with Dash. For most of his life, he has been high strung and nervous. Along with all his other problems, we discovered today on one of the new scans that Dash has an enlarged heart. I always knew he had a heart murmur, but there was no reason to assume that he automatically had heart disease. We rescued Dash and will never know his entire history, but I'm willing to bet he was a puppy mill dog. He has way too many health issues.

Dash was quite excited and very happy to be home this evening, but he wouldn't eat his dinner. I'll need to call the cancer center in the morning and find out what they were feeding him. Apparently, his appetite was quite good while he was away. Dash has always been a finicky eater. If he's decided he likes something new, it's going to be hell getting him to eat his old food again. Of course, I may be overthinking things. Dash could easily gobble down the same food he rejected tonight when we feed the dogs breakfast tomorrow morning.

I hope we all get a good night's sleep tonight. Dot seems happy that Dash has returned and our high strung boy has finally calmed down and is taking a nap on the bed. I'm more than ready for life to return to some semblance of normality. Picking up poop in the house is no big deal, but having two dogs that might drop dead at any minute is a bit stressful.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day