February's tales of puppi love and other near disasters

Feb didn't start off too well, at the close of Jan we learned of a death in the family, and then another in the extended family. Older adults and expected, but still just as horrible.

We had a couple of back-to-back snowstorms, nearly every three days for a couple of weeks and it meant moving the car off the road into the parking garage and back to fetch it. I'm still limping on my injured knee, the cortisone shot has already worn off. Plowing wasn't as great as in years past, snow berms were more into the streets than usual, roads were narrow and our car got hit. Not too badly, but just enough paperwork, claims and reports to be annoying. Temps and windchills made it hard to do too much the first half of the month. We made some fun of it best we could by visiting with the three local pizza shops along the way to the local parking garages.

We've heard back from all three of the accessible housing units that contacted us at the end of 2024, we're still being processed, one place approved us, but no units available yet. Ugh. For all our progress, it's still limbo, but we're hopeful and not out of the race just yet. It's anybody's guess where we'll land eventually. I hauled up more totes thinking I'd get ahead on the packing and sorting for yard sales and donations, but my health got the better of me this month. I was exhausted beyond belief, sleeping a lot, weak, migraines, cold, not eating much, throwing up a lot from migraines, dehydrated, and on it goes. Survived a lot on ginger ale, soup and sherbet from the local corner shops.

For anyone following, you all know Sven's been struggling with what Vet Drs. call allergies. He also had a low thyroid level. He did pretty well after a cyto-point injection, and once that wore off a few things came back. I suspect it might have been the flea collar, and also maybe estrogen levels, he's been like this since neutering. Each Vet seems to have a different opinion and testing varies based on opinions. Anyway, he had a swollen teat again, he's been checked before and told it's not mastitis. Well this one cropped up extremely fast. Of course, while the car was in the garage. I noticed some blood spots here or there on his bedding and then some of blankets seemed wet. I noticed the teat seemed to have popped in the overnight hours and crusted up to look like an umbilical cord, intending to call the vet after the storm, but then it fell off, as if healed. A bit weird, but ok. At least for now it doesn't appear to be another cancer scare. I was hoping to wait until we moved to find another Vet Dr. but we'll probably have to do that sooner rather than wait. I managed to refinance my debts in preparation for it, and even ordered some take out to celebrate the tiny victory.

This was a short victory that easily could have turned into a major disaster and really scared the life out of me. Again, our building elevator went out of order due to extreme temps freezing up the lubricating fluids that open the doors (or so they say). Annoying, but what can we do, we went down a flight and tried again, then down another, and still no good, we had to go down the last flight and it was just too darn steep, and Sven went down at least halfway or more. Not sure if gravity tipped his harness, it would seem nearly next to impossible considering he had on a fleece and an overcoat. Or if the fall somehow jammed it, but by the time he got to the bottom the front strap was over his neck and leg at the same time and boy what a struggle to free him from it without having to cut him lose or destroy the harness. That is some heavy duty Velcro. He scared several years off my life, as I thought surely he'd broken bones, but Fortunately he's got great guardian angels and the steps were carpeted, he had on his fleece and outer gear, so not too much harm came to him, not even rug burns. Phew.

Valentines came and went, Sven's birthday came and went, both without much fanfare, it was just too cold and icy out there this year and for a disabled person, it became more about just trying to survive winter in the city. I even canceled some of my PT visits because of the cold and not wanting the car to breakdown on the side of the road in frigid conditions. Plus, the cold just made the pain in the knee that much worse. I didn't have the head space to make the effort for a 45 min. session once a week. Especially after being hit with a few migraines that knocked me back several days at a time as well, throwing-n-going, rocking and rolling. Some are more incapacitating than others. We'll save his loot and have a super fun day for Gotcha day in April instead.

For now we are looking forward to Spring and St Patty's Day as if it were the second coming of thanksgiving. We always have fun, but honestly, I really can't wait for boiled dinner, an ale, some Boston cream pie and the promise of more daylight.

Here's a few pics from our travels.