Day 1686

We hit a little snag today. Incontinence. Dot began having urinary incontinence when she was hooked up to IV tubes in the ICU. Now that she's recovering from surgery and beginning to eat normally again, we expected the incontinence to stop. She doesn't wake up in a puddle of pee every night, but last night she did. What a mess. Despite the fact that Dot was sleeping on top of three waterproof baby crib liners, all our bed linen got soaked. I'm glad I had the forethought to get a waterproof mattress pad years ago when we bought the bed, or the mattress would have been ruined as well.

Until we can resolve this issue, we need to be a lot more diligent about getting Dot outside in the middle of the night to pee. Three hours seems to be the maximum amount of time she can hold it. Needless to say, we didn't get up last night and I spent most of the day doing laundry. If I didn't need to keep a constant eye on Dot, I would have gone to a commercial laundry. The bulky comforter and mattress pad took forever to dry in our dryer. Everything is fine now, but I must have done ten loads of laundry today. If you think the solution is just to have Dot sleep in a crate or on the kitchen floor until her condition improves, you haven't owned a Dalmatian. They all insist on sleeping in the bed with you. Heaven help you if you try to get them to sleep somewhere else. Dalmatians are very stubborn and tenacious dogs.

When I was throwing away junk mail and trash today, I came across some financial papers I should have signed and returned three weeks ago. That's the trouble with the mail these days. So little of any importance finds it's way to our mailbox anymore that I tend to ignore all the mail. Checking the mail had become just like checking the spam folder on my computer. Mostly it's all junk, but you still have to check, because every now and then something important winds up there by mistake.

I got a call from my hepatologist this morning telling me that the lab results from last week's tests had come back and I was still virus free. This is probably as close as I'm going to get to being declared officially cured of Hepatitis-C. Since I was one of the first to receive the new Sovaldi treatment, I'll probably continue to get tested periodically indefinitely. That's OK by me. With all the advanced testing the dogs and I have been subjected to recently, I've become somewhat addicted to test results.

Sometimes technology is just too complicated. There is no sound on the TV in the bedroom. The sound works fine on the TV in the kitchen though. My deductive mind tells me that either something is wrong with the TV, or something is wrong with U-Verse. Hmm. The TV in the kitchen is receiving the U-Verse channels, so U-Verse is apparently working. The TV in the bedroom gets sound from the Hulu channels, so there's nothing wrong with the TV itself. Why am I getting cable on only one of the two TV's when they are getting the same signal from the router? It's a mystery. I guess I'll just go to bed and hope I remember to get Dot up at 2 AM to pee.

Queenie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1602

When I went to pick up Dash at the cancer center this afternoon, the nurses had made him a special graduation scarf, which they all signed. It was a sweet gesture and at one point I found myself wiping away a tear from my eye. It's been a long journey and successfully completing radiation therapy was definitely a milestone. Before we left, I has a nice talk with the head oncologist, who explained what to expect next. Like all cancer patients, Dash will probably never be declared officially cured. If cancer treatment is successful, you just remain cancer-free for longer and longer. The radiation burn on Dash's neck should begin to show significant improvement within a week, although it might take up to six months before all the hair on his neck grows back. He will continue taking his chemotherapy pills for another three months, and go back to the cancer center every two or three weeks for follow-up blood tests. I think our boy has done very, very well.

Dash wasn't the only one who received a thumbs up from the doctor today. I got a call from the liver center saying that for the second time, a comprehensive blood panel showed no trace of the Hepatitis-C virus. There will be one more follow-up blood test three months from now, and then my doctors are officially done with me.

All in all, it was a very good day. I got my new website prototype finished and uploaded to the server so I can present it to the client tomorrow as promised. I wrote another article and submitted it, as well as completing all of today's normal website updates. I didn't really expect to get this much accomplished today, but I'll take it when I can get it. You never know. Tomorow, I may feel like doing nothing again.

Now that there aren't as many transportation issues, I need to start catching up on some other things. I need to take my car to the dealership for a scheduled service visit. I need to get a haircut. And I need to get an electrician to come over and fix the blinking light in the bathroom. I'm sure there are other overlooked things as well, but that's all I can think of at the moment.

Dot has her acupuncture and water therapy tomorrow. Janet wants me to ask if they'll give her a bath too while she's there. Why not? It's already kind of a spa day. Dash can't have a bath yet, which I'm sure is fine with him. His day will come though. The oncologist told me today that after a scab forms over his neck burn and starts to flake away, I should just take him outside every few days and gently spray away the dead skin and debris with a garden hose. Easy for him to say. The cancer center folks have seen a lot of Dash lately, but I don't think they've seen how he reacts to water. We'll wait a while before I try this ill-advised idea.

Sadie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1574

I got a call from my hepatologist today. He told me that on my latest round of blood tests, my viral load numbers had gone to zero. This meant that for the first time in almost thirty years, the Hepatitis C virus was completely undetectable in my body. I continue my treatment for three more weeks and I'm done. The treatment worked! My doctor wasn't quite willing to officially declare me cured yet, but he did say that these were the results they'd been looking for. I still find it ironic that the very same hospital that gave me a transfusion of contaminated blood back in the 1970's was now home to the world renowned liver clinic that cured my disease. Life is funny that way. Everything eventually comes full circle.

My quest to lower my cable bill today was a dismal failure. I hate cable companies. They lure you in with a low price and a two year contract. The initial two year contract is essential because they know in advance that it will take almost two years to get all the kinks out of your system and ensure that everything is running smoothly. Once you are happy and everything is operating the way it should have in the beginning, your contract runs out and the price goes up. If you are willing to upgrade to a more expensive plan when your contract runs out, they will often give you a artificially discounted rate for three to six months, so your bill doesn't seem like it's going up so dramatically. Eventually, you've taken advantage of all the special upgrade offers and the deals run out. Then your bill can double almost overnight. When you try to downgrade your service, you get no deals at all. The cable companies know how much trouble it was to wire your house and get the WiFi running smoothly. They know you don't really want to start over and go through this instillation hell again with another company, so they stick it to you. It's hard to unbundle services too. I really need the Internet portion of my bundle. Without the TV and phone, the Internet component would be much more expensive though. The worst thing is that the cable company isn't even embarrassed to charge you double for the same services they lured you in with in the beginning. It's just their business model. They know exactly what they're doing. They make a calculated bet that your will just shut up and pay more, because it's so much trouble to rip out the wires and start over with a different company.

I'm still amazed that Dash actually likes going to his cancer treatments. He thinks he's going to doggie day care. These guys are so good at giving anesthesia that I don't think Dash even realizes that he's out cold three times a week. He's not even groggy when I go to pick him up in the afternoon. I used to panic when Dash needed anesthesia, because he was what was known as a "hard wake up" dog at my local vet. I didn't realize then that all anesthesia isn't the same. A wide variety of drugs can be used and patients can have a different reaction to all of them. I'm really happy that the folks at the cancer center have managed to reduce the anxiety and risk associated with anesthesia to an absolute minimum. These guys are pros!

It looks like the rain is ending. It should be a nice day tomorrow, even though I'll be inside working on websites most of the day. Maybe I'll take a break and go up and get all the water from this week's rain off the roof. That's probably as close as I'm going to get to going to the gym for a while.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1556

Such a busy day. It wasn't a bad day though. Even though I had way too much to do, the day was full of encouraging signs. I was happy to see that Dash seems to tolerate his chemotherapy medicine. So far, I've seen none of the possible side effects that the oncologist warned me about. Dash didn't start vomiting today. He doesn't have diarrhea. And he doesn't appear overly tired. A bad reaction could still appear over time, but at least we're off to a good start. If Dash was going to have an immediate adverse reaction to the drugs, I would have seen something by now.

My own Hepatitis C treatment seems to be going equally well. I learned today that my viral load numbers have decreased from a baseline of over 5 million IU/ML in January to just 18 IU/ML today. This sounds pretty dramatic, but the numbers have to go all the way to zero and stay there for two months before I am considered cured. If even a small amount of the virus remains, it will eventually start replicating again and I'll be right back to where I was when I started. Considering that I'm only halfway through my treatment, I'm very encouraged though. I have every reason to believe that my numbers eventually will go to zero

The back yard looks much better now. The landscapers spent most of the day planting new grass, putting fresh gravel on the paths, and removing all the Winter leaves. Just getting rid of all the leaves made a huge improvement. The landscapers are pretty good about sticking to their estimate, but I've got to remember that everything is à la carte. If you think of something extra you want them to do once they're here, you're going to get charged for it. Needless to say, as the yard starts to take shape, I always think of additional things that need to be done. So, the job went over budget today, but I guess it was my fault. A least the yard looks nice for a change.

I wish work wasn't keeping me so busy this Spring, but I'm definitely not turning any jobs down. I need the money. Now, when a check comes in, I think "this will help pay for Dash's surgery," or "hey, here's a month of pills." With Dot's carpet eating incident and Dash's cancer, the vet bills are pretty staggering. As high as the costs are, I'm still amazed at how reasonable they are compared to what the same procedure would cost for a human. The veterinary specialists Dot and Dash see are every bit as good as any human doctor I've seen, and their equipment is even better. The difference in cost can all be attributed to health insurance and malpractice insurance. Everything about human medicine is hugely inflated to cover these costs.

Dash resumes his radiation treatment tomorrow. I think he enjoyed his day off. I know I enjoyed the day off. A trip back and forth to the cancer center can make a busy day much busier. I picked up Janet at the airport this evening, so life should return to a semblance of normalcy. When you've got problems, it's always good to have two people to solve them.

Baxter is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day