It's Been Soooooooo Busy

I've been super duper busy since before Christmas. The kids to keep busy during their holidays, prep work for Christmas itself and post holiday decompression. I didn't manage to get everything done that I had wanted to for the holiday season, including knitting people's presents, which I'm still working on, although what I did manage to get done was we.ll received.

Tigger has been doing much better since he had a relapse a couple of days before the vet closed for the holiday. We've had him on hypoallergenic food since then, and he's been doing so much better - no throwing up, less stinky in the litter box, and he's been gaining weight back!! So, it looks like the initial diagnosis of pancreatitis might have been incorrect. He might actually just have a food sensitivity that has gotten worse as he ages.

The kids have been doing well, a few bumps in the road at school, but good. Caleigh had a big test last week on her Word Wall Words from before Christmas, and she got 22 out of 25 right!! However, she's having troubles with her reading. She can read at her level during class time, but during a test, she falls behind. We just need to work on her confidence and get her to take learning risks. Aidan is doing well, he does have a few issues with letting others help, and pushing and arguing to be first in line. We've got things in place, either that we've thought of, or that others have suggested, to try to help both of the kids with these issues.

Brynna has her 18 month appointment next week, and there are some issues that Kevin and I need to work on, but life is relatively good, especially when we keep in mind that there are other people who are worse off than us.

We also have a new hamster(yes, our third :( ), whom we adopted from the Humane Society a week and a half ago. She's very, very friendly, but a bit on the silly side because she keeps plugging the tube up to where she's nesting to the point where she can't/won't dig it out to come down and interact.

Tigger gets the thumbs up!

Tigger had his u/s on Tuesday morning and it apparently turned in to one of the least exciting scans the doctor had done on a cat. Which is a good thing for Tigger(and us). There were no masses, and his intestines are moving very well(he was supposed to be fasted, but it worked out well, as they could rule out IBD). His pancreas wasn't even showing any signs of inflammation. So, now we just have to wait until his tummy hair grows back in, lol. And keep him on the gastro diet, and if he has a flare up, we just give him the sucralfate and pepcid to get it under control.

Tigger's not so good

Tigger and Patches in their fave chair

This week, Tigger had a flare up of his pancreatitis severe enough to warrant an early trip to the vet. He's in so much pain that Dr Murray put a fentanyl patch(he said morphine, I think because I would know what that was, but wouldn't know fentanyl) for it, gave him some more fluids, another injection of zantac and more sucralfate for at home. We also have an u/s appointment set up for Tuesday morning to see if there's something else going on, as Dr Murray is not happy that he's had such a severe flare up so soon. He's thinking it could be a tumor, hoping that it isn't. Unfortunately for Tigger, and us, his suspicions aren't usually wrong when it comes to stuff like this. If it is cancer, I think it will be time to say goodbye to our fuzzy friend.

Less than 1 month to go

I can't believe that it's less than a month to go until Christmas!! Things have been super busy around here. People have been sick for the past week with various illness, including pinkeye, laryngitis, and general coughing and sniffles. I've been busy baking, ripping out carpet, rearranging furniture in the living room and generally trying to stay at least a little bit sane for now. The kids have been doing very well at school, and Brynna is just growing by leaps and bounds. She has gone from just learning to walk at the beginning of September to being able to walk all the way home from the bus stop on her own!

We're awaiting Tigger's follow-up testing in a little over a week. Those numbers will tell us how he's doing on the course of treatment he's been having, and whether we need to do more, or if all we can do is make him a little more comfortable. I'm not putting him through a whole pile of testing or surgeries at his age(he's 12 and has had a very nice life so far). I'm hoping he has lots of time left with us.

Lots of Fun

This week with Kevin at home has been interesting. It started off with an emergency trip to the vet for Tigger who began throwing up blood early Monday morning. A bunch of blood tests later reveals he has severe pancreatitis :( He's on meds to see if we can get it under control by December. If not, I'm not sure what the outcome will be.

We picked up the second portion of our firewood, got some sand and had the gravel for the patio delivered. Kevin is almost finished the woodshed, and we've got it full(which got most of the wood off the driveway, which was the intended goal). Next up is trying to build the patio. Not sure how much of that will get done with tomorrow's weather forecast of rain.

I'm also contemplating a new name for the second hamster: either Bitie or Meanie. I now have a nice puncture wound in my right index finger from him or her.

Not the Best Week

But I guess it could've been worse. I did finally manage to get ADE working on the computer using another piece of software made to make ADE think you have Windows. Kevin being away has led to earlier dinner times, which means earlier bedtimes too. Brynna had her 15 month checkup and immunizations. She's now 20lbs on the nose and about 31 and a half inches tall. I asked about her whether we should worry about the fact that she's over the height limit for rear-facing in her carseat, and the doctor said that we should look into the why of the limit. Read on a carseat safety website that as long as there's at least an inch of shell above the top of her head, she should be fine for rear facing still. That's a good thing, since she's just barely into the weight range for forward facing(plus it means we don't have to worry about whether the seats will all fit in the back seat for a while yet).

I'd found one cat-poop mark too much this morning and decided that if I could move the table, the carpet would be gone, I got almost all of it out(the only piece of carpet left is the one that's under the cabinets where the china, silverware and crystal is, and I'll need help with that I think).

Tomorrow is Christmas shopping day for the kids at Scholar's Choice, and then Kevin will be home later in the day.

Mostly Sold

On Ubuntu, that is. My only issue so far is that I can't get Adobe Digital editions to play with it. There's apparently a way around that, I just need to figure out how to get it installed and running.