I gotta get back to doing this daily...

Ack! I did it again! This time I managed to go more than a week without posting. I don't know how I manage this.

Ah well... anyway.... updates....

Last I posted, I think Lloyd had just left for Virginia, and I was trying not to be a blubbery wreck.

Lloyd had a great trip, just like I hoped he would. Lori is, of course, the ultimate hostess, with a housefull of relatives for Allie's graduation, and still managed to make sure her Dad was occupied, going places, and having fun the whole time. The girls helped too, fussing over grandpa and making sure he was taken care of all the time. Andy's parents were there too, so Lloyd and Jim (Andy's Dad) spent lots of time bullshitting and bonding. Between that, seeing the girls, and all the sightseeing Lori packed into the days, he was in 7th heaven. Just having a break from taking care of me is a huge deal in itself, but she made it a kick-ass vacation for him. Thank you Lori!!! You and your girls are the absolute greatest. He really needed that.

I managed to run the entire household, kids, pets and even a sleepover while he was gone, just like I told him I would. I'm not sure I've spent as much time awake as asleep since he got home, but that's another story. The point is, I was perfectly capable of handling life, just like I said I would be. The kids and I did just fine, and even though I was pretty worn out taking care of the dogs, I really enjoyed the alone-time part of the time. But only part....the rest of the time I was bored off my skull without having Lloyd around to talk to! I always talk to the pets, but while he was gone I was having full-on deep conversations with them. But we did fine.

I was just really glad to have him home!!

And speaking of home, my big boy kitty came home yesterday. That's him, in that nice cedar box there. It's quite a nice little box, with a little padlock. Inside the box, his ashes are in a plastic bag, and I've added to that the little baggie with his fur in it (the fur they shaved off for his IV) and his collar & tags. It feels complete now that he's home. Weird but right.

Meanwhile, the other pets are doing well. Emma, strangely, seems to be coping with Oz's loss by actually coming out of her shell more and more. She comes out from behind the couch every night now, jumps up where I'm sitting, and begs for petting and attention. It's amazing. She wants so much attention she almost gets irritating! But, you can't ignore her when she actually wants human contact.

Stella is growing like that proverbial weed. We're going to puppy class today, and I bet she'll be at the head of the class. Her and Sparky are absolute BFFs now, and I think she's the best thing that ever happened to him. He actually PLAYS now, and not just the "throw my damned toy already" game he was so obsessed with. The two of them wrestle and run, and play with toys together, while Pea plays referee/mom over the proceedings. Sparky is noticably more energetic and upbeat now that he's playing with Stella so much and I think it's great for everyone involved, except perhaps my furniture.

Stella is also too damned smart for my own good. Yep, I was warned that Border Collies are smarter than I am and will outthink me at every opportunity, and all those warnings were dead right. She's too much fun though, and training her is a blast, because she actually understands what we're saying. I'm 100% sure that she speaks English fluently.

What else......well, we're taking a family outing on Monday for Father's Day, heading down to Sac to ride on a steam train and check out the railroad museum in Old Town. Daddy's going to meet us there, so we'll be a nice big group. He's coming up for the 4th to play with fire too, which will also be lots of fun.

We've got to come up with a few more group activities before mid July, because that's when the kids leave. They are going back east this year, but only for a month. We want to find a few more things to get out and go do before they leave, because once they get home, we won't have much time before school starts.

We did get our circus tickets yesterday though! Everyone had SO much fun at Ringling Bros. last year, we're making it an annual event. Both boys, but especially Conner, were verrrrry cynical going in, thinking it was going to be a really lame, little kid-ish thing with lots of dancing clowns honking horns or something. They were both, but especially Conner, BLOWN AWAY with what it was really like, with the lights, sound, rigging, theatrics, acrobatics and everything else. Now they're really excited to be going again.

On the medical front, which is technically why we're here, there's not a ton to report, but it is significant. The lymphedema is waxing and waning lately, which concerns me. It never seems to go away ALL the way, so it's always in some phase of coming or going. I have to to Dr. Mazj about that when I see him. I see him in a couple of weeks.

He sent me for a pre-visit CT scan this week, and that gives me tons of anxiety now. The last one was where they found the weird "ground glass opacity" in my lung, which no one has any clue about. It's not cancer, but no one really knows what it is. I saw the pulmonologist once, and he was a total jerk. He sent me for bloodwork, and I never heard anything back with the results of the bloodwork. That was right at the time I had my complete breakdown and refused to go see any doctors for a while though, so it's undoubtedly partly my fault. I'll go 50/50 with him on that one. Yeah, I should have tried to go back and see him, even if he is a jerk, but he also should have at least called and told me what came of the 6 tubes of blood I parted with.

My daily overall "how I'm feeling" is still really variable, but I can't say I'm doing too bad. I have good days and bad days and really bad days, just like before, but the good days are becoming more common. I still pop up with strange and random symptoms that I don't understand, almost always on a Friday night, of course. Last night, I noticed some strange vaginal discharge and associated pain, but of course it's not severe enough to worry about at the ER level, so I have to wait until Monday when there are doctors available normally.

Overall, I do pretty good, but there's always something, you know?

That seems to be about it, at least as far as I can think of. It's about time for me to go get showered and ready for puppy school. I've got to get all kinds of puppy training gear together, since I don't know if the trainer wants check collars or pinch collars or long leads or retractable leads or what. I've never taken a dog to professional training classes before, so it's a wholen new world for me, but as I've said, this dog is too good to waste. She's too smart and good tempered and everything else to let her grow up as an untrained wild thing who gets banished outside or something. Nuh -uh!!

So, off we go.

Hopefully, for less than a week this time! :-)