Month: January 2010

Buddy is home now, but I’m bringing him back to the vet in the morning for a biopsy. They found scarring of the heart valve and I didn’t quite follow everything about the heart murmur except that it’s not going to require any kind of treatment, which I don’t quite get and will ask about again. I was just following enough to get that they were relieved to not find a more serious underlying reason for the murmur. Also, it was a good news/bad news thing and I knew that was the good news so I was already gearing up for the bad news. There’s been some enlargement of his lymph node(s?) and his intestinal wall so they want to do the biopsy.

At the end of tomorrow I will be broke and will have to break into my modest retirement fund. I’m trying to look on the bright side and be happy that I have it.
It could be worse. It would always be worse. Oh God. How much does chemo cost? I’m guessing the answer is: a lot.

Buddy is at the vet now, getting a sonogram, and blood and urine tests. He’s in really bad shape. All his medications stopped working and he’s been throwing up and diarrhetic since around 4am.  And now he’s suddenly developed a serious heart murmur.

Meanwhile, in an effort to bulk Buddy up (who lost a pound and a half in the past two weeks) I’ve made Finney as big as a house and I’ve probably given him diabetes. Here he is peering down from the armoire.

So I’m a wreck with worry. Poor Buddy.  He was so sick and miserable he wouldn’t even eat babyfood.

I tried to go to the concert last night but it was a mob scene. That should have occurred to me. There was a long line, and then even more of us milling around, not quite ready to accept that we weren’t getting in. A man called out that there was a waiting list, but it was very long already.

So yeah. Poor planning on my part.

I’m trying to work up the energy to go to a concert tonight. It’s only a couple of blocks away, and this is the program:

– William Averitt’s Afro-American Fragments, based on texts by Langston Hughes.

– Classic spirituals and shape-note tunes, in arrangements by Marylou Jackson, Alice Parker, Brad Holmes.

– Choral works by Undine Smith Moore, Adolphus Hailstork, Ronald Stabeli, Frank Ticheli.

– The world premiere of Appalachian Requiem, by Michael Conley (WVC Musical Director) with chorus, soloists, string quartet, hammered-dulcimer, and piano.

I’d be crazy to miss it, right?? Here’s another picture from the park the other day. This is where I turned off 5th and went into the park.

The one downside about living downtown—we don’t have the park. I love walking alongside it almost as much as inside it. It makes me feel regal.

Buddy update: He’s been on the metronidazole for ten days and it hasn’t had any effect. I’m going to call the vet today to discuss.