BobbiTainerCarcass

The inner portion of the lid was cut out, then cut down to sit down inside to make the “water table/planting medium support tray”, and holes were drilled to allow drainage. Most of my 10 ‘tainers have cut-down 1 quart Dannon yogurt containers for the wicking basket – but this one has a scrap piece of the perforated drain pipe my cohort in building decided would be a great support… then we decided to cut longer pieces and lay them horizontally.

The wicking basket is held in place with zip-ties, and the water fill-tube is just standing in the corner, through a hole cut with a hole saw.

TainerWFillTube

My garden area/container 'farm'

Red Rooster's Pumpkins & Spice Fabrics by Whimsicals

Brenda, from Pumpkin Patch Primitives Quilting, is having a Halloween giveaway of a whole FQ bundle of these oh-so-scrumptious fabrics. So hop on over and check it out.  They are just too perfect!

Thanks, Brenda, for having such a wonderful give-away!!!

It’s been hard enough trying to keep her quiet while the wound heals where
they removed the tumor – and she can’t understand that is for her own
good, and that we’re only keeping her quiet this week so that she can run like a
crazy dog next? I know that none of us have any promise of tomorrow, so
why should we expect more in relation to our funny fur-baby? We shall enjoy
her while God lets us, and while she enjoys life – be that weeks or years -
and with a diagnosis of Stage 2, it could be anywhere in that range.

We will be treating her with Benadryl 50 mg twice a day – Dr Pat says that
this will minimize the effects of the histamine that the MAST cells will
continue to produce, and hopefully keep them from going crazy and
producing another tumor. We will ask about Prednisone, as that was listed as a
common treatment in the information I read. Other than that, we will let Ginger
be Ginger, and thank God for each day we get to enjoy her.

Adoption Picture

In short, she is our funny, short, furry 4 legged “baby girl” – and like “normal parents” we were concerned when she came bounding back onto the front porch one day this summer with more insect bites; but, since Ginger always has been an infamous target of stinging insects, we didn’t give it too much thought.  When the  bites shrank, we were thankful. When one came back, we were puzzled. Poor Ginger – pitiful luck to get stung in the same exact place over and over.  But Boxers being Boxers, and bumps being bumps, we didn’t give it too much thought, until it kept coming back then shrinking, then came back and started getting bigger. Being good “parents,” her “dad”  made an appointment with the only vet we’ve ever taken her to, and we didn’t give it too much thought. Boxers get bumps – Ginger really is a boxer, NOT a human.

Imagine our horror when Dr Pat told him of MAST Cell Cancer. How could something that looks like this:

MAST Cell tumor

bring our world crashing down around us? Ginger was scheduled for sugery a week later, and is doing relatively well… At least as well as a Boxer can do in a world where she can’t lick the owie…and can’t run and jump and climb and be a crazy dog, as she is so wont to do. This is what her haunch looks like now:

Poor Ginger!!!!

Now we are faced with a waiting game. Hoping and praying that the pathology reports come back on Tuesday as Stage 1 or 2.  That our Catholic friends were correct, that having this diagnosed during the feast week of the patron saint of animals was a beneficial thing. That Rabbi Segal’s prayer, that Ginger’s doctor would have hands guided by G_D, and that this little doggie will live to be a happy old doggie, will be answered. All the people of whatever faith that have met Ginger seem to love her, as she seems to have endless love for the humans in her world. May all their prayers be answered.

The primary reason for this post is to warn you – if your dog has a bump that looks like a bug bite, but it seems to go away then come back, RUN – don’t walk – to your vet. MAST cell cancer in dogs is much more successfully treated the earlier it is diagnosed. Dr Pat’s face told us that she would have much rather that we’d brought Ginger in when it still looked like a mosquito bite, but is hopeful that she was able to excise the evil tumor and enough surrounding tissue that it won’t come back, ever again, and so are we.

And if you have a little doggie sized spot on your prayer list, please put in a word that Ginger’s pathology report comes back good. Like any parents, we just want to “make it all better” – but it’s really hard to make her understand right now why we seem bent on ruining her day, by calling her down when all she wants is a really good run on a brisk autumn day – a lovely autumn day which makes me hopeful that I’ll be getting Boxer kisses and hugs for many more autumns to come.

Liz Vining 12/22/1959 - 8/18/2009

 

 

Today has been a day for reflection.  My prayers are with her family. My heart hurts, but knows that Liz is not suffering – rather, she is resting in God’s loving embrace.  And I believe that I will have to celebrate our shared birthday for both of us each year, just before Christmas. 

Then I remembered this poem, which I found as a newspaper clipping, tucked away in my mother’s wallet, after she was gone… And thought this was an appropriate place to save it.

To Those I Love

 If I should ever leave you whom I love

To go along the Silent Way,

grieve not,

Nor speak of me with tears,

but laugh and talk

Of me as if I were beside you there.

(I’d come  – I’d come,

could I but find a way!

But would not tears and grief

be barriers?)

And when you hear a song

or see a bird

I loved, please do not let

the thought of me

Be sad…For I am

loving you just as

I always have…

you were so good to me!

There are so many things

I wanted still

To do – so many things

to say to you…

Remember that I

did not fear…It was

Just leaving you

That was so hard to face…

We cannot see Beyond…

But this I know:

I loved you so – ‘twas heaven

Here with you!

- Isla Paschal Richardson

Good night, my friend. We’ll see you in the sunrise!

So hurry on over to BumbleBeans and answer this question:

In my dreams, if I’m not sewing, I’m _____________________________… It looks like she’s been gardening because she has all these gorgeous pictures of a lush garden – it’s been so dry here that everyones’ gardens just turned brown and blew away. So I’ll just keep following her blog and continue to have both garden envy and string envy… <VBG> It’s amazing that she’s got that cool of a garden all while living in NYC!!!!

Run, now, run! The give-away ends August 1!!!!

And I don’t know whether it’s our ever changing weather or whether something magical, called healing, is finally taking place inside my knee. After our Sunday drive, in search of bluebonnets, my foot swelled up something awful – spent the rest of the day with it elevated as high as… well, you know that story too… and Monday morning it was good as new. I spent much of Monday at work with it elevated a bit, as well… and noticed when I got home that my leg seemed to feel stronger – less… different from  my other leg. And this morning, for the first time, my knee did not feel stiff or achey when I got out of bed… It may only be a fluke or it may be because of the weather changing – but a relatively pain-free morning is such a wonderful new experience that I had to share!!!!  Maybe… just maybe… life may be starting to settle into something that can be tweaked a bit and known as “normal!”

Mid-way through my knee rehab, I had to have my knee aspirated and went almost back to square one in the healing process.  The wonderful Nurse Practitioner at my Ortho Clinic worked with me to teach me how to get the persistent swelling down,  and advised that, because of the osteoarthritis of the knee, it could just take quite a long time for the knee to heal completely. I’ve managed to get it to the point that she agreed I could return to work, with pretty strict light duty restrictions, and she re-injected the visco-supplementation stuff they washed out in the ‘scope and WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!!! The first go round was sheer torture – likely because the little particles in the viscosupplementation stuff (ground up rooster combs or whatever it is) got wedged in under the tears I turned out to have in my meniscus. This time, I iced and elevated as directed, and had 2 almost completely pain free days. What a change!!!!

But I must go get my lunch packed, and gather all the things I need to take with me  to make it through a day with this knee, like my cane, ice pack, ace wrap, and the work releases… And find my truck keys – they would likely come in handy!!!!

Wish me luck.

For the past 2+ weeks, I’ve been mostly “in my nest” on the corner of our sofa, with my leg elevated and iced. Well, in the past week, it has come down for trips to the physical terrorist (sorry Jeff – you really aren’t so bad, and I know that you are doing this torture stuff for my own good!)… I have not been completely incommunicado, because I’ve had my DH’s old laptop, but sometimes it and I do NOT communicate too well. So, I started a blog post back on January 13 – 5 days after having 2 meniscus tears repaired, and other flotsam and jetsam cleaned out of my knee, but it disappeared into the bowels of the laptop without letting me know that it’d been saved as a draft… And there was no wonder my knee hurt so much – there were way too many “tenants” in a single tenant dwelling. So without further ado, I’ll leave you to read the slightly zany, slightly drug induced ramblings from back then, so I don’t have to re-write the whole dumb thing:

Wow – how did it get to be 2009 already? I suppose when one is distracted by getting a vehicle repaired, and dealing with work while coping with knee pain, time just sneaks past you.

Yes – the knee thing is official. I had the arthroscopy on my knee last Thursday, and I didn’t have a torn meniscus. I had TWO tears. Both of those have now been “repaired” and, unfortunately, the other diagnosis of osteoarthritis of the kneecap has been confirmed. Doc told my DH that I will eventually need knee replacement surgery – could be 2 years but could be 20. I’ll opt for the 20 year plan, thank you very much.

Now I’m busy with what I describe as “Combat Knitting.” Because of allergies to some analgesics, and a chemical resistance to others, pain relief seems to be an issue. So I have taken up sock knitting. Because I must concentrate on the pattern in knitting, I have learned that I can knit my way through some of the pain. In my head I chant “one more row – one more round….” I’ll take something for pain when I finish this section – and before I know it, I’ve gone past my “mini-goal” and haven’t had to take anything more than the anti-inflammatories that I’m suppose to take on a regular basis.

That concludes the ramblings of a deranged knee-repair victem… and, if I can find it in this computer, I’ll share a picture of the first of my sock knitting successes. I called them “Grinch Socks” because, while just learning to knit socks, I certainly did NOT want to waste money on yarn when I have boxes of the stuff in the closet. I just didn’t have a lot of variety in the baby or sport weight, and nothing in “sock weight”… But the Grinch Socks do keep my feet warm, as long as I have another pair of “real” socks underneath to keep them from slipping off my feet! And I’ve almost finished a pair of much prettier socks, done in Baby Bernat Jacquards “Easter Basket” yarn. But you’ll just have to come back and see those next time. Look for them labelled “Bobbie’s Knee Socks” – they are only anklets, but…well… there’s this knee thing that I have working here LOL

First Ever Completed "Grinch" sock

Oh yes, you must excuse the attire – I only had a few pairs of PJ pants that would fit over the lovely foot to thigh bandage that I came home with, and had to endure for 3 full days… What a relief it was to get that thing off!

Later~~~~ I have a pretty sock to finish knitting!

Warm wishes from our house to yours

Sorry that I’ve been so bad about posting recently. I’ve been fighting a problem with my knee since mid-October, and it’s made it uncomfortable to sit at the computer for very long at one stretch. Consequently, I’ve spent my computer time “lurking” on my yahoo groups, collecting tutorials for Christmas giftees, and trying to keep up with those of you in Blog-Land who have been prolific writers.  The doc finally decided this week that what had been treated as osteo-arthritis of the kneecap is really probably a torn meniscus, so they will ‘scope my knee and hopefully it’ll be almost good as new. Unfortunately, because of the upcoming holidays, I have to wait til January 8th, so I’m hopping around with a cane to catch me on those times that my step is not solid, to prevent my landing from being so!

Wednesday of this week found a very unusual phenomenon here in SouthEast Texas… SNOW!!!! I love snow, but much prefer it when I’m safe and warm at home – NOT when I’m trying to get home. It turned my 50 miles commute into a 2.5 hour endurance match, made even more uncomfortable by the fact that I’m in a rental car, instead of the Toyota Tundra that normally provides me a feeling of safety during my commutes. It’s in the shop because it did it’s job well last week and protected me from THIS:

Not Ford Tough

Thankfully, the driver of this truck was not injured, and though I was shaken and sore, neither was I. Tundra did sustain some injuries, but NOTHING like Mr. Ford. The nice Toyota people said that they should have Tundra back, good as new in a week to 10 days. Then I can relax a little on my commutes, instead of nervously occupying the “rent-a-can!”

Gotta head off for work now, but I promise to try real hard to be more diligent about updating this here blog more regularly!!!