The newest family member!

Meet Penelope! Fondly called Penny by her new Mommy and Daddy.

Penny is a 4 1/2 year old golden retriever/great pyrenees mix that we rescued out of Tennessee.

Apparently she was found crawling through a church parking lot, practically starved to death and very sick with heartworms.

Lucky for Penny, and for Jim and I, she was picked up by Big Fluffy Dog Rescue who took her to the vet and spent loads of time and money and care getting her all fixed up. She went from weighing 58lbs when they found her to 90lbs when Jim and I got her, and she is still at least 10lbs underweight for her size. She's a big baby.

But she's been an absolute gem since we picked her up off the puppy transport yesterday. We had one little potty accident last night when one of the cats knocked something over and startled her, but since then she's been perfectly housebroken. She ignores the cats and lets them get right up and sniff her with no problems. And she's the quietest, calmest dog I've ever seen.

Even Jim, the notorious dog disliker, is taken with her.

She's the best behaved dog I've ever seen. She hasn't touched the cat food that has been sitting on the ground since she got here. She doesn't beg when we eat dinner. No whining, barking, growling or any other noises. She doesn't go into any of the rooms that we haven't led her into and if she is doing something wrong a simple "Penelope, no!" turns her right around.

If she stays this calm and this isn't just her readjustment period, then I'm planning on enrolling her in a pet therapy program so we can volunteer at the hospital and local nursing homes. She's a complete sweetie who just wants someone to pet her and scratch behind her ears. I'm happy to oblige her.

She's a big, sleepy girl but we're so happy to have her with us!


















And since I'm introducing the new dog, I figure I'd introduce the relatively newish kittens.

Ferrari (called Rari, or Puss mostly) is on the left and Tobey (called Hey You, NO! and DON'T EAT THAT!) is on the right.

These are our adopted kittens that Jim pulled from under a car in September. We never intended on keeping them, but they were too sweet to split up and give away. They still like to snuggle.

And sometimes things DO workout.

Edit: Mom revised a few of my facts so I've changed a few of the details.

My grandfather had bladder cancer.

I say had because they cant find it anymore. It's not in his bladder, and it's not showing up anywhere else on the cat scan and that means his untreatable and uncurable deadly bladder cancer is gone.

This cancer in a way saved his life.

Let me explain.

In September before my wedding my grandfather had some medical problems crop up. Not to be too gross about it but he basically started peeing blood... continuously... all night long. Around 4am he finally decided it actually was a bad thing and they called an ambulance.

After they got him to the hospital the bleeding stopped on it's own but while they were testing to figure out what caused it they discovered that he had an abdominal aortic aneurysm the size of a grape fruit. Which is incredibly life threatening. With it being so huge it meant the the blood vessel wall was so delicate that the surgeons told us he was surprised that hitting pot holes on the way to the hospital didn't cause it to rupture.

The survival rate for a ruptured aortic aneurysm is less than 40%. IF you can be in surgery in under ten minutes. My grandparents live 45 minutes from the hospital. So it was a death sentence.

The hospital he was at couldn't perform the surgery for several days (small hospital/unqualified doctors) and since their suggestion at that point was for him to go home for the weekend my parents stepped in and drove him to a bigger hospital. He there had the surgery and made it through fine. The doctors there basically ignored the hematuria (blood in the urine) for the much bigger aneurysm issue. He went home and a few weeks later they readressed the hematuria. Where unfortunately the doctor discovered a very aggressive bladder cancer.

A few rounds with chemo had no results except weakening my 85 year old grandfather. So they decided that the only way to keep the cancer from invading the rest of his body they would do a cystectomy (complete bladder removal.) This is drastic surgery that results in the placement of a stoma and the use of a bag attached to your stomach to collect the urine. This was at least supposed to buy us 5 more years with him and it was the only option at stopping the spread.

After they opened him up for the surgery they discovered that the cystectomy was impossible. The aneurysm repair had required the placement of a stent around the abdominal aorta. That basically means they had put a support tube around the aorta so it couldn't bulge out again since it was already weakened. The problem was the stent placement was so entangled with the ureters and the blood supply to the kidney that removal was impossible.

This basically meant he was going to be sent home to live with cancer and just wait for it to kill him by spreading throughout his body.

We were devastated.

The doctors arranged for him to have radiation treatments that MIGHT have a chance of slowing the progression of his cancer. A big maybe they told us.

The year went by, Grandpa went to his treatments every day for weeks on end. We pretended like there was no problem.

Two weeks ago he went back for a cancer screening to see how far things had spread. First they did a cystoscopy where you look inside the bladder with a scope. It was completely negative. No cancer. So they did a full body cat scan to make sure that the cancer just hadn't metastasized to somewhere else in his body. It was negative. No cancer.

NO FRIGGING CANCER. NONE ANYWHERE.

They treated the untreatable cancer. And because of the aneurysm he got to keep his bladder. And because of the cancer he didn't die from a ruptured aneurysm. Huh. Lucky right?

So now he's home, healthy, and happy.

And so am I.

On to maternity!!

I scraped up a 91 on my final for Med Surg which brought my grade for the whole class up to a 89.6 and they ROUND UP!

Which means I got an A!!! My first A in nursing school!! Makes me feel vindicated about cutting back my hours at work. I actually can do this well :)

The other day I half-heartedly tried to light a fire under Jim's ass about doing something with his life. Something more than working a job he only tolerates that basically chains him to this area for the rest of his life because the position is so specific that it just doesn't exist anywhere else. He's been taking classes to get certified as a systems administrator for oh.. about two years now. It's only 4 classes. He's less than serious about it. Which leads me to believe that even if he does finish the class he'll never look into a job as a systems administrator because he's comfortable where he is now.

F U comfortable. Ugh.

I doubt anything will come of it but I wish he'd at least try to do something. He's mentioned to me before that he's disappointed in how much he's accomplished in his 34 years but he never makes any attempt to change things or to go out and DO something. At least he hasn't yet.

At some point you just have to take a f@%*ing leap and do something with your life. Go bold or go home.

It's a little frustrating sometimes thinking that our future is entirely in my hands. If we want a home (I dream of LAND) I'm going to be the one to make it happen. If we want to travel I'm going to be the one to push for it. If we want to live somewhere besides southwestern Connecticut I'm going to be the one who makes it happen. And it seems most likely that I'll be doing all of this without any help from Jim. He'll come along (I hope), terrified of change, and I'll feel horrible for turning his life upside down. His safe little comfortable life. Like he had before we got married. Ugh :(

Maybe that's the difference between us. He seems to be okay just being comfortable. He never wants anything. I'm filled with wants that I'm unwilling to compromise on.

I wanted more than a job that just pays the bills and a room to keep my stuff in. And I'm a stubborn, bullish, pushy bitch when it comes to getting my way. I constantly talk about my dreams of a home with a couple acres of SUNSHINE and a swimming pool and laughing children and mountain breezes. I fill with joy when I leave work after a good shift where I really felt like I got to help someone and I am ecstatic when I think that I can do this for the rest of my life. I dream of taking a cruise around the Mediterranean, or a biking tour of Great Britain, or a week relaxing on a beach in Belize with days alternating between climbing Mayan temples and swinging in a hammock with a rum drink in my hand. I yearn for my college friends that filled every day with laughter and talking and friendship at a level that I still don't think Jim's ever experienced.

And I know with unfailing confidence that somehow I'll make it happen. I'll revel in that each day and keep working towards my dreams. I wish I could give him some of this determination. I wish I didn't feel like I was going for it all alone.

A hard day.

Today would have been my Dad's 57th birthday.

I didn't go home last year for his birthday because he was being his typical stubborn cranky self around his birthday and he'd planned a colonoscopy for the day after. Sharing the joys of bowel prep with the family for his birthday. He said don't bother. And I was still nursing some resentment over the fact that they hadn't come to visit me for my birthday.

I was so stupid.

Miss you Dad.

I made it through the whole day without a meltdown. I studied like I needed to, stuck to my diet (I've lost 4 pounds since friday!) and kept moving. One day at a time.

New Topic

I lost three pounds. :)

Whoohoo

I passed my urinary catheterization competency on Wednesday. Now there are only two more tests between me and the end of med/surg. (Naturally they are only one week apart, but hey whatever!)

:)