GRACE UNCENSORED

HAPPY MAY DAY!

trying to be positive and full of happiness today.  i’ve secretly packed a pig ear, mollie’s #1 favorite treat, and another treat in my purse for the car ride home from the vet at the U of I.

meanwhile, it’s may first and no banner yet.  i hate that.  maybe i’ll bring the computer and work on it in the car.  i suppose if i had some sort of tablet or some kind of more portable thing i could carry that, but i hate the fact that those things are small, plus NO REAL KEYBOARD.

ok then,

mrs. may hughes.

tuesday, the LAST DAY OF APRIL,

and i found some photos on my camera from the end of march.

whoops.

but first, here’s a photo of poor little shortie, a very sweet and good little dog.  dad loved him so much, and i know he’s heartbroken and misses him terribly. here he is, earlier in april, sleeping with his eyes open.

poor little fella.

there was a huge assemblage of deer in the back yard the evening after the giant snowstorm.

a couple of morning later, the ducks decided to march on the house.

and at the end of march, les watches me from one of his most favorite perches, on top of the picnic table. most of the snow was already gone.

and now the snow is ALL GONE and tomorrow is MAY, and it’s supposed to be 83 today, so i probably won’t have time to post the few april photos today because i wanna do a bunch of outside stuff.

tomorrow, back to the U of I with mollie, who continues to feel fine.  then on thursday the temperature plunges yet again and it’s going to be 30 degrees colder on friday, so i should have time to sit around inside once again.

ok ok ok ,

gh on tuesday morning.

it WILL be a better week,

because i am going to MAKE SURE IT’S BETTER.

the day after we found out the news about mollie, dad’s dog shortie, died in his sleep.

this week is GOING TO BE BETTER.

yes it is.

mollie is doing totally fine, and today’s the last day of the week that they said side effects might occur.  of course, she’s getting another treatment on wednesday…

dad’s birthday is friday.  SEVENTY SIX YEARS OLD, and he’s doing incredibly well for somebody in his shape.

hanging in there, one and all.

ok then,

gh

something that made me laugh

ballard street, the crazy people at ballard street…

is there anything good out there, anywhere?

and just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse…

they didn’t do the CT scan on mollie because they found that the reason her lymph nodes are so enlarged is because she has lymphoma.  this is such aggressive cancer that if it’s not treated, she could die in a month.

she got her first chemo yesterday.  they said it’s not like chemo for people, it shouldn’t be bad, she might throw up or something, but many dogs don’t have any reaction.  we’ll find this out in a few days.  right now she’s sprawled out on the couch, happily sleeping.  so there’s one good thing.

because they can’t give animals the high doses of chemo, it could go into remission after a month, but then they give her more chemo, because it can come back.

it WILL come back – the average life expectancy is one year, and then the lymphoma will come back, more aggressively.

so we’re going to try to make it mollie’s best year ever.  lots of treats and walks and whatever she wants, hopefully not letting her put on 300 extra pounds.  doggie cocktails.  doggie amusement parks.  doggie dinners at dog-friendly restaurants.  doggie campouts.

we have to take her to the U of I every week for six months for the chemo – i think it’s only every two weeks after some period of time.

we took her yesterday at 11:30 and didn’t leave the hospital til after 5:00.  they did an ultrasound on the big liver mass – the vet had thought it was part of the lymphoma, but it’s not, it’s yet another kind of cancer.  the vet was concerned that it could be something aggressive, but i don’t even remember her saying that last night.  maybe we were too over-saturated already with bad news.

the vet called this morning to say she felt good that the liver tumor is NOT aggressive, it could, indeed, be a harmless growth, and it’s slow-growing.

after a month of chemo, they will evaluate how she’s progressing, and then they could do the CT scan and remove the mass.

oh boy.

here she is, waiting to get the hell outta there last evening.  she was SO HAPPY to see us when they finally brought her out that she kept leaping up on me.  we had to go back into this room, and wait for the vet to get some drugs in case of side effects.

we waited probably another half hour, and mollie was so exhausted that she fell asleep for a little bit.

we bought her a mcdonald’s hamburger on the way out of town, and kevin and i also had burgers, then i gave mollie the sack so she could tear the wrappers to shreds.  then she slept quite a bit all the way home.

so…that is all for now.

ok then,

gh

pins-n-needles

my short term goal: to not wake up feeling anxiously anxious.

i have no long-term goals right now.  just gonna try to get through today.

monday, after waiting and waiting and carrying my phone around and losing it and finding it again, finally, the vet called.  she talked to the oncologist at the U of I, and that doctor said that just because our vet didn’t find any cancer cells in mollie’s liver, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any.

so, this morning we are taking her to the U of I where they will do a CT scan to see if there are any other suspicious cells lurking anywhere else.  if they can operate on the mass, they will do so.  this is if it’s neatly contained in one liver lobe and not wrapped up with other organs.

after they do the operation, i think that’s when they study the tissue to see if it’s cancer or not.  i feel that my vet said that even if it is cancer, if they are able to remove it all, mollie could still have a prognosis.

unfortunately, i can’t be entirely sure that’s what she said.

i’m sure they will tell us everything they know there at the U of I, and our vet seemed very optimistic about the whole thing.

oh boy.  kevin got up with her (mollie, not the vet) this morning and she was dismayed that she didn’t get any food.  she went back to bed, and that’s where she is now.

things to be happy about…well, it didn’t snow!  they kept saying on the news that it could snow this morning.  that would be a LITTLE MUCH now that the end of april is in sight.

another good thing is that on monday i made it through my third intermittent fasting day.  in the book they said it’d get easier, but i still got pretty darned hungry by the time i was allowed a bunch of vegetables and healthy stuff for dinner.  the really good thing is that last week i lost two pounds…on the five days of not fasting, i ate plenty.

here’s a link to michael mosley’s PBS show about his explorations of different kinds of fasts, and all the health benefits he thinks there are in doing it.  i highly recommend watching it.

micheal mosley\’s eat, fast, live longer on PBS

here’s mollie at petsmart, where she stuck her nose under the shelving all around the perimeter of the store, searching out stray bits of food.  she found plenty, and was very happy.

shortie, chillaxing at our house.

i was going to get this little dog bed from mom and dad’s house, and while it was lying in the middle of their floor, mollie decided it was the perfect size for her.

attentive doggie on a walk.

oh boy, she just woke up now and is probably going to be wondering where, exactly, all the food is.

wish us luck today.

ok then,

gh.

hopefully hopeful on saturday morning

the vet called, YAY for that!

the news wasn’t perfect – mollie isn’t perfectly fine – but we are now hopefully optimistic.  they didn’t find any cancer cells, but there is the big liver mass in one lobe.  could just be a benign mass.  the vet is gonna contact an oncologist to see what the next step should be.  it sounds like the next step will be taking her to the U of I to get a CT scan, which would show more of what’s going on, plus if it would be OK to do surgery. and then, maybe surgery?

she’d have to spend the night there, at least for one night.  i wonder if they let relatives stay in the room with the dog, like we did with dad at the hospital.

i feel that they probably won’t.

and mollie is sleeping soundly on one of her two living room beds, oblivious to the angst that has been all around her.

shortie, too, sleeps soundly.  my goal for today was to SLEEP REALLY LATE, but at 7:30 shortie started making noise, so i took him outside.  a couple of fishermen floated past, and i’m sure they could see my cause i’m wearing my bright red fleece jammies.

i hung out with shortie for a while, and at least there wasn’t a fierce wind blowing, like last night at three a.m., plus it’s sunny and the day is looking up.

whew.

ok then,

mrs. grace hughes

just another exciting friday night…

this evening, when the sun finally emerged, we took mollie for a walk.  she was delighted, but kevin and i wore our winter coats, and i was very happy that i’d decided to also wear my hat and scarf.

kind of crazy, but at least everything is that fabulous vibrant green, and, really, it HAS to get warmer eventually, right?

it has been a week of waiting and waiting and waiting some more.  today we were hoping that the vet would call about mollie, but no word yet.  so more waiting, and i have to remember to keep my phone with me, but i don’t have any pockets in what i’m wearing today, and i keep randomly putting it down wherever i go, and then i lose it.

so, waiting.

today, to take my mind off worrying about mollie, concern about dad, etc etc, i decided this would be a good day for day two of my 5:2 diet.  have you heard of it?  when i was staying overnight with dad in the hospital one night, this show on PBS was on the TV, with the sound muted, and it was this Dr. named michael mosley.  he has different interesting shows, about different things – one of them was “the myth about exercise,” and they hooked him up to all kinds of stuff to measure how many calories he really burned when exercising, plus they took all kinds of blood samples and it was all very interesting and scientific, but not over-burdenly so.

but the night with dad in the hospital, i saw a little of his show about dieting.  somebody at the U of I in Chicago did some study about “intermittent fasting,” whereby the subjects ate a really restricted diet one day, then whatever they wanted the next.  the results were surprising, in a good way – even when people ate whatever they wanted, pizza, ice cream, etc, on the non-fast days, they lost weight and all their cholesterol, etc, numbers were highly improved.

so michael mosley tried eating 600 calories a day, for JUST TWO DAYS out of the week (women can only have 500), and then whatever he wanted the other five.  the fast days are supposed to be nonconsecutive.

he had great results – his BMI went way down, his pre-diabetes levels were much better, he lost a bunch of weight.  all was good.

so, after dad got out of the hospital, kevin and i watched the whole show and i said I’M GONNA TRY THAT.  i ordered his book online and have skimmed it and tomorrow hope to have some free time to read it all.

my first fast day was monday, and it wasn’t so bad.  but i didn’t exercise, and i didn’t give any massages.  i had 487 calories in all.  i was pretty hungry when trying to sleep, but also agitated about mollie, etc, anyway.

today i felt i could do the fast again, but this morning i went to weightlifting class and then gave two massages and then, later, I WAS PRETTY SURE I WAS GONNA PASS OUT AND DIE.

i didn’t.

i had a big plate of veggies and an egg and a piece of toast for dinner and i may, i just may, make it til tomorrow morning.  i still have THIRTY FIVE WHOLE CALORIES left tonight, and am debating about having a jello (10 calories) with some cool whip (20 calories), or maybe a clementine (40 calories for one, which would put me five calories over, but i figure it would be better for me and more filling than JELLO.

i’m still pretty skeptical that i could actually lose weight on this diet, because last night i had lots of french bread slathered with butter, plus much wine and other things.

but i’m already feeling thinner.  but that’s probably just wishful thinking.

plus, tomorrow i can eat whatever i want.

not so bad.

plus, mollie continues to be full of energy and happiness.  at least she’s not worrying about what could potentially be wrong with her.  one advantage of being a dog.

i’m going to sleep really early tonight, so it will be tomorrow sooner.

ok then,

g.h.

so, no matter what, whatever you do,

if there’s something going on with your beloved dog, or cat or whatever kind of cherished pet you might have, or a loved person, for that matter…don’t start looking stuff up online about it.

i started doing that just a little yesterday afternoon and really quickly realized that i could find many many instances where things turned REALLY REALLY REALLY bad.

so i’m just gonna wait til we hear the results of the samples for poor mollie.

meanwhile…i’m gonna take her to petsmart this weekend, so she can do lots of sniffing and having a good time shopping.  i have to buy a bunch of senior dog food for shortie.  plus i’m gonna take mollie for a good long walk at washington park, where she will be able to sniff herself into a sniffing frenzy.

this morning, a robin has been continually bashing itself into one of the living room windows.  what’s up with that?  i thought it was building a nest, but kevin said it isn’t.  he thinks maybe there’s some kind of reflection that it’s attracted to.  lester and chester are crazed with excitement.

that’s it for saturday morning.  now, i HAVE TO DO MY PART OF THE TAXES.

because time is really, really running out.

ok then,

gh

mollie

she has a big mass on the right central lobe of her liver.  also on her left adrenal gland.  the vet sent the biopsy-whatever-thing to the U of I, and we’ll know the results in a week.

everything else is good.

it’s going to be a very long week.

ok then,

gh