Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!

It’s a timely reminder to me this week that I have so much to be thankful for. When I started writing about the tumor, I said I was going to make a story with a happy ending, and look! The tumor is gone. I get to live.

Sometimes I get bogged down with a pity party in my head. I have a PICC line, I can’t do so many things that I want to do, like play in the dirt, lift anything, do much. I have a hole in my head. The vancomycin makes me feel horrid. I have a headache all the time.

I am tired in a way that doesn’t make sense to my head because I’m not doing much of anything. I’m so bummed to need yet another surgery! I feel depressed, like the happy pills haven’t kicked in yet, but they should.

I travel to Oahu next week to see both the infection disease guy and the surgeon. Hopefully, I’ll get taken off the vancomycin and the CAT scan to get the dimensions for the replacement piece of my skull will get ordered. I hear it’ll take about a month for that piece to get finished. Living in the future! 3D printing a piece of my skull. (Things I never thought I’d google: 3D printing skull fragments.) Seriously, living in the future.

I miss Disa, and she misses us. Frank tells me she is going walk-about on our busy road, something she has NEVER EVER done. I know she’s out looking for her girls, her pack. He tells me that she sits out by the gate in the evening, still waiting for me to come home from work. My poor baby.

Supposedly the hot spots on her back are just scabs now, no longer hot, and they aren’t driving her nuts anymore. He’ll take her for another health certificate soon, and then she’ll be able to fly here. I’m so ready.

I guess this time she’s going to fly from Springfield instead of needing to drive all the way to either Kansas City or St. Louis. That cuts six hours in the truck off the expedition, which is good for everyone.

Her girls here are slowly becoming more and more confident, but oh so slowly. They haven’t been away from Disa very much, and it’s all so different here, with very different rules. They don’t have the roam of the farmhouse. There are other, bigger dogs here, and Bruno has issues with the girls — they’ve both been nipped.

But they are learning and exploring. Stina had her first voluntary meal this morning. Gaela will eat a tiny bit out of my hand, but not much. They’ve been turning down old food, new food, raw meat, cooked meat, pizza (?!!), hotdogs, etc.

They think chasing mongoose is wicked fun, and have caught quite a few of them. They’ve pulled a dozen rats (the size of mice) out from under the house in Ocean View, where we are living. They are learning the roads, where work is, where home is. We’ve visited a few friends houses, and they are very polite, meeting many new dogs and people. They so love all the kids.

They are both coming into heat. It’s early, but the stress, I’m sure. I have access to some frozen semen straws from a very good and rare line, so I might make an attempt at AI with them both. I’m meeting with the vet in Hilo early next week. If you’d be interested in a puppy, let me know, so that I know what the interest is. This will be Gaela’s last litter if it happens, Stina’s second. Shipping puppies to the mainland should be easy, and no more expensive than across the country.