Day 1555

It's still dark when we leave for the cancer center in the morning. By the time we arrive, the sun is just starting to rise. I get Dash checked in and then take him to pee in a grassy area near the building. The people at the clinic are smart. They let the dogs stay in a doggie-day-care environment where they can play with other dogs until it is their turn for treatment. Then as soon as the anesthesia has worn off after the treatment, they feed the dogs. This is all to build up a positive association about coming to this place over and over again. The plan seems to work. So far, Dash actually seems to like coming to the cancer center. Both dogs hate going to the regular vet, where they are frequently kept isolated in cages while they wait.

I've spent enough time around doctors to realize that they always surprise you with something after your treatment has started. I'm convinced they gloss over a few details, just to make sure you won't freak out and abandon your treatment plans altogether. Today's surprise was a pair of special purple gloves in the bag with Dash's chemotherapy pills. I asked what the gloves were for and the nurse told me that I was to wear them to avoid touching the pills. I was also to keep Dot in another room while I administered the pills to Dash, just to make sure she didn't eat them by mistake. Yup. These gloves would have definitely freaked me out, if I'd known about this procedure in advance. I guess I've always known that chemotherapy drugs are basically poison, but I never thought they were so dangerous that you couldn't touch them with your bare hands. The nurse said the gloves were no big deal, but that was just like my own liver doctors telling me that the occasional heart attack patients have a while taking the Hepatitis C treatment is no big deal either.

Dash didn't seem to have any side effects from today's treatment. There was no coughing at all today. He had plenty of energy on his evening walk with Dot as well. We'll see how he does with the chemo pills. I put on the purple gloves and gave him his first pills with dinner this evening. So far, everyting seems fine.

Tomorrow, Dash gets to rest and won't go back to the cancer center until Friday. Thursday will still be busy though. The landscaping guys are coming over in the morning to clean up the back yard and plant new grass. Later in the day, I need to go to Baylor and have some more blood work done to monitor the progress of my Hepatitis C treatment. Janet's coming home tomorrow too, so I'll need to go to the airport and pick her up.

I need to find an effective way to manage all the pills that are accumulating on the kitchen counter. I take thirteen different pills every morning and another seven every night. Dash takes phenobarbital, thyroid supplements, and allopurinol, in addition to the three new chemotherapy pills. Dot takes a couple of pills to boost cognitive function and ward off dementia. If I ever get these pills mixed up, we're all in big trouble.

Pringles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1500

My visit with the hepatologist today was very encouraging. The new treatment for Hepatitis-C is far superior to the old interferon and ribavirin treatment. The new treatment only takes 12 weeks. It is almost always successful. And there are no horrible side effects. The old treatment could take up to a year, involved injecting yourself with very expensive interferon every week, and it almost always made you feel like you had a bad case of the flu. You also had to worry that the medicine would destroy your white blood cells.

Sovaldi, the major component of the new treatment, appears to be an amazing new drug. I'm glad someone finally invented it. The only downside is that I have to get approved before the pharmaceutical company will start sending it to me. The first part of the approval process involved getting new baseline blood work done. That part was a piece of cake. The next part involves getting insurance approval.  Lets see. A brand new advanced drug and an antiquated approval system that doesn't even understand some of the regular medication I take. What could possibly go wrong?

The best part of this new treatment is that my reluctance to inject myself with interferon has actually worked in my favor. Apparently Sovaldi works best if you have never had the interferon and ribavirin combo before.  We'll see what happens. My medical team wants to see me again in March. They say that I should be halfway through my treatment by then.

It was so cold today that the dogs and I were both reluctant to go outside. Nature calls though, so we had to bundle up and make the best of it. I found some new dog coats that are much easier to get on and off and the dogs seem to tolerate them pretty well. Getting them to wear their old sweaters was often an exercise in futility. Luckily, we didn't have to stay outside as long as we used to. Dash has finally learned to poop in the yard on cold days. Thank god! I don't know why it took him five years to learn this simple trick, but I'm glad he's finally acting sensible.

The tree service is supposed to come out and remove the tree from my roof tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the tree trimmers never show up. The tree has been sitting up there on the roof since well before Christmas, despite several promises of a speedy removal.  When the tree is finally gone, I'll move on to my next big project: doing my taxes.

Chloe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1139

I woke up feeling strange this morning. I couldn't pin down the feeling, but I suspect that it had something to do with the medication the team of hepatologists had me discontinue last week. I remember that there was a warning on the side of the bottle that clearly said Do not discontinue this medication without consulting your physician. Here's where things get difficult. A reputable doctor actually did tell me to discontinue the medication. Unfortunately it wasn't the same doctor who told me to start taking it in the first place. So which doctor is right? Which organ is more important, the heart or the liver? You can see why I get frustrated with medicine at times.

We took a gamble on the dog park today. It had rained at our house overnight, but there were indications that the rain never reached the northern part of town where the park was located. Weather is often like this in Dallas. It can be pouring rain in one part of the city at the same time it is sunny and dry in another. I wish the dog park had a webcam on a pole where you could just get on the Internet and see if there were dogs in the park before making the journey yourself. There are no webcams in any of the local dog parks unfortunately. The city must have spent all their webcam money putting stop light cameras at every intersection. Fortunately, the gamble paid off today and the dog park was open. Dot and Dash had a great time and both dogs have been calm for the rest of the day.

It's hard to believe that January is already coming to a close. Didn't we just celebrate Christmas? Apparently, a lot of my neighbors are having the same problem with time getting away from them. I still see Christmas trees being tossed out by the curb almost every time I walk the dogs. It's time to take down the Christmas tree folks. Pretty soon it will be time to start fretting about taxes again. With the simple life I lead, I don't know how my taxes have become so complicated. Selling a house this year probably won't help matters either. If I could have a say in where my tax money actually went, I wouldn't mind paying taxes so much. No such luck though. I'm sure that every cent of my tax dollar goes to fund something I hate. 

I'm glad I live in Texas. The temperature was over 75 degrees today. After watching all those dismal pictures of cars sliding around on icy East Coast highways this weekend, I'm happy to report that I wore a t-shirt up to the dog park today. Our chilly, foggy, days seem to be over for a while. Hey, t-shirt weather in January is just fine with me. T-shirt weather all year long is fine with me. That's all I ever wear anyway.

Sophie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1137

Why do people want to get me involved in their legal troubles? I already have plenty of doctors who are trying to scare me. The last thing I need are a bunch of lawyers trying to do the same thing. It was hard for me to get anything done today because attorneys on both sides of this lawsuit I got the subpoena for were calling me to ask what I'd told the other side. My answer was simple. I just did exactly what the court order told me to do. No more, no less. At least both attorneys agreed that this was the best thing to do. One of the lawyers asked me who the opposing lawyer was. When I told him, he said "Oh, I went to law school with him. He's a great guy." Small world, isn't it.

Sometimes I think I'd make a good lawyer. This is usually just when I'm watching old episodes of Perry Mason though. Janet, who knows much more about the law than I do, tells me that I'd make a terrible attorney. She's probably right. I can't even get picked for jury duty. When I tell people that I'm a writer during voir dire, the attorneys from both sides shun me like I had the plague.

It was another foggy day today. The fog didn't lift this time though. It was grey outside all day. I meant to take my car to the Land Rover dealer this afternoon, but ran out of time. I went to Autozone instead and bought another quart of oil. This is probably how the roof problem got so bad. I just keep putting things off.

Did any of you buy Apple at 700?  I'm sure glad I didn't. I was very tempted to buy the stock several times when it seemed invincible. Reluctantly, I followed my financial adviser's advice and resisted the temptation. I think I owe the guy an apology, because he apparently knew a lot more about Apple than I did. He kept telling me that Apple was going to fall, while I kept thinking that it was headed straight toward 1000 like some of the analysts were predicting on TV. Oh well, live and learn.

I almost took the pills that my new doctors told me to discontinue this morning. I need to hide these pills away somewhere, so I won't take them by mistake. I'm a creature of habit, just like my dogs.

Bones is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 993 - Labor Day

So, what did I do on Labor Day? I worked.The sad thing was that I didn't have to work. I just couldn't think of anything fun that I wanted to do. On the plus side of things, I did manage to finish a charity website the I've been postponing for months. I'm getting closer and closer to getting caught up on everything.

Dot continues to get better. I'm thinking now that she actually did have kennel cough, but since the treatment for kennel cough is exactly the same as she is currently receiving, I don't think it matters what the vet actually called her condition. I think that kennel cough can turn into acute bronchitis, which in rare cases can turn into pneumonia. At her worst, she was probably somewhere between kennel cough and bronchitis. The meds are working though and she is definitely improving.

I'm about to give up on AT&T U-verse. When it works, it's great. The only problem is that it doesn't work properly very often. I've already had tech support out to the house three times. Next week will be service visit number four. The problem is always the same. I lose the broadband signal for the TV, phones and Internet. The router automatically reboots and the signal returns. About five minutes later, the whole process begins again. I've even lost phone service while I was talking to tech support. The technicians have certainly been nice enough. So far, they've replaced the router, added special line filters, and done some repairs to the wiring at the switch. The problem always returns. One particularly honest repairman told me "You know, your distance from the switch puts you right at the limit for this type of connection." I think that is the problem, even if AT&T won't officially admit it. I was too far away for DSL, and I'm probably still too far away for U-verse. Maybe U-verse just is DSL with a new name.

AT&T wasn't the only technology problem today. I'm having some problems with my hard drive. I have an invalid directory item count and I can't get my normally faithful Apple Disk Utility to fix things. Sometime when I wasn't looking, Apple in it's infinite wisdom moved the disk repair utilities to the Cloud. Now, you're supposed to be able to boot your computers from Apple's remote servers and let them fix things. There's only one problem. It doesn't work. I can't even access whatever is in the cloud. I hate the cloud.

Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day. Unfortunately, it's just a regular work day. I shouldn't have squandered my vacation working on websites. There will be plenty of time for that later. I think Dot appreciated me being her nurse this weekend though. I'm a pretty good dog nurse.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 991

How do you keep a Dalmatian completely calm? I think it's impossible. Dot woke up sick this morning. She seemed to be having some trouble breathing and was coughing a lot. When she was completely calm, she appeared just fine, but as soon as she got excited about anything, she started coughing, gagging, and throwing up what looked like mucus. I made an appointment to take her to the vet right away, but it wasn't easy to keep her calm until her appointment. It just isn't in Dot's nature to be calm. When she looked out the living room window, she got excited and started choking. When she thought she was getting breakfast, she started coughing. Of course, she still wanted her walk too, even though she really needed to be sleeping.

The vet agreed that Dot had a nasty cough, but didn't think it was anything serious. She didn't have bordetella. She didn't even have a fever. It appears that she severely irritated her throat last week while the dogs were being boarded. I think she just barked all the time at the kennel. We left the vet with some antibiotics and a cough suppressant. Hopefully, she will get better soon. I tried my best to be a good nurse today, but Dot is not a very good patient.

While I was trying to keep Dot calm this afternoon, I did get a chance to watch a couple of Dr. Who episodes I hadn't seen before. The new season premiers later this evening and there was an all day Dr. Who marathon on the BBC Channel leading up to the big season opener. I wonder how I completely missed two of last season's shows. I've seen virtually ever episode of Dr. Who at least five or six times. At any rate, as soon as I post tonight's blog entry, you know what I'm going to be doing.

It doesn't look like Dot will get to go to tomorrow's rescue event. She needs the rest anyway, but we couldn't take her to a public event when she was coughing like crazy. People would think she had kennel cough and probably wouldn't even come near our both. Dash will probably be happy that he'll have all the attention to himself while I stay home and nurse Dot.

At least all the dog activities today allowed me to postpone mowing the grass a for a whole. The grass in the front yard is getting pretty long after last week's rain. I guess I get a reprieve. Nobody expects you to mow the grass when a you've got a sick dog around the house.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 946

I found out today that one of my clients is considering sending me to Las Vegas to cover a big fashion event next month. That's certainly an improvement over yesterday's dismal news. I just wish the good news was more consistent. If I had known what a roller coaster ride owning a small business was when I started my company in 1990, I probably would have been a lot nicer to the creative directors I used to work for.

Hey, I've got my freedom though. Today it was the freedom to be stupid. I mistakenly took my evening meds this morning instead of my regular morning meds. There is a reason that I'm supposed to take the evening meds just before bedtime. One of the pills I take is Simcor. This drug causes the small blood vessels near the surface of the skin to expand, resulting in a pronounced flushing sensation. All morning I felt like I was burning up. My skin was bright red and blotchy and I felt like I had a bad sunburn. This is normal, but usually you're asleep when the flushing occurs and you never notice it. It didn't help that I had four cups of coffee this morning either. You're not supposed to have hot beverages right after you take the pill. Oh, well.  I'm fine now and I'm less likely to absent mindedly make this mistake again.

If I can get my work finished in time, I'm planning on going to a video production seminar hosted by Panasonic tomorrow afternoon. I used to go to these type of things quite often when I was doing more video production. Now, it is becoming harder to justify the time away from the office when I'm bogged down in website work. I think I'll go anyway though. For some reason I still think video production is fun and you've got to take your fun wherever you can get it these days.

Dot and Dash did well in training class tonight. It was hot this evening, but that didn't seem to slow the dogs down. They both had one of their better nights. I'm proud of the little rascals.

Beemer is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 485

I went to the AT&T store today to see if they had practical a way I could upload really large video files straight from my laptop while I'm in Houston next month. They did have a nifty little 4G dongle that would provide me with the speed I require, but the only way they would sell it was with a two year contract. They had another broadband dongle that featured a pay as you go 3G plan, but it was too slow. When I was complaining to the salesperson that I already received three AT&T bills every month and didn't really want to add a fourth, he seized on the opportunity to try and sell me on scrapping everything and having the house wired for fiber. Usually I hate these hard sell pitches, but the price for switching everything from a combination of copper wire landlines and cable to a single fiber optic system looked pretty good. If the system worked, I would save a considerable amount of money. That's the problem. I wouldn't really know whether it worked until I had it installed. We have friends who have these U-verse fiber optic systems who tell me they only work reliably about half the time.

Everything is complicated these days. I've been having some problems with side effects from one of the new medications my doctor put me on recently. My solution would be to just stop taking the medicine. I felt fine before I started taking it, and now I wake up every morning feeling like shit. My doctor didn't agree though. He wants me to cut the pills in half and just take half as much of the medicine. He said my body just wasn't used to the medicine yet. Maybe. I have a feeling though that I'll still wake up half the time feeling like shit.

My taxes are finally done and ready to mail. Oops, I forgot. You can't mail your taxes anymore. Everything is e-filed now. Even the refund, if you get one, is deposited directly in your bank account. This is probably the last year that I'll take my big ring binders full of records and receipts over to my accountant. Next year, he told me to just e-mail him my Quickbooks files.

Everyone really liked the finished poster at the animal rescue meeting tonight, although one person was a bit worried that Peta was going to get after us for putting lipstick on a cat.

Dalmatian of the Day

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