We're Still Here

SUMMARY: Boost training, Tika eating, Human Mom...wellll...

Hard to believe that I haven't posted anything since Sept 15. I keep thinking of things to write here to keep track of, but then somehow I never implement.

I've started working more diligently on Boost not wanting to drive ahead to obstacles in front of her. Working in the yard, mostly just running in circles to keep her going. Have rented the big field at Power Paws 3 times to spend an hour practicing. Got one private lesson--two days ago--so I've had only 2 days to practice a few minutes each day on that material. (Also got some tips on improving her weave reliability, you know, the reliability where some weekends she is HOT and other weekends we can't do them correctly EVah?)

I dropped my weekly class for a while so that I can concentrate on Boost's Special Needs. Feels odd--it has been a long time since I've not had a regular agility class or two, but I think that this is what we need right now.

She seems to enjoy it!

Tika started coughing more and more and I took her in to the vet Wednesday. He's pretty sure it's "bronchitis" caused by one or more of: weakening trachea (happens in some older dogs), heart enlarging more and pressing on the trachea, or allergies or dust. Lot of construction going on behind us right now to turn the 300ish-acre parcel into a park (yay!) and the neighbors are complaining about the dust, so could be that.

He recommended upping the hydrocodone that I'd been timidly giving her, and sure enough, pretty much no more coughing.

Although I'm not sure that she isn't a little less energetic. Hard to tell, because she's been less and less active and energetic. Maybe a couple of close-to-full-speed chases after a toy or frisbee, and then is content to just wander around investigating things. Lies down quickly in many cases. Doesn't bother getting up to see what's going on unless she's really convinced that it's worth her while (used to always have a Tika tailing me everywhere, every time I even stood up).

Her appetite seems good as long as I keep rotating through 4 different kibbles (NOT the one she's been eating for 10 years and NOT the one that I bought for her back in August--got tired of both). Although she's SO SLOW now. Old timing on mealtime: Both dogs sit. I set Tika's food down and release her, she attacks it. I set Boost's food down and release her, she starts eating calmly, and...Tika is done already! NEW timing on mealtime: Both dogs sit. I set Tika's food down and release her, she starts picking up small mouthfuls and chewing thoroughly. I set Boost's food down and release her, she starts eating calmly. Eventually, Boost finishes and then stands and watches Tika. Meanwhile, I take 6 t-shirts out of the dryer and fold them neatly. Then, finally, Tika is done. It's eerie, how different it all is.

I seem to be making some kind of subtle commitment to continue doing agility, as I have just bought a replacement tunnel for the most disintegrating one, and I've just bought 2 new (well...used) jumps. No activity on adding dogs to the family, though. I'm starting to be inclined to wait until Tika is gone (yikes, painful to think of).

My foot no longer bothers me--mostly because my back has been giving my muscles and nerves such a nasty ride that I've not been very active. But in the last couple of weeks I've started walking to the frisbee park again, and working on a little agility training again, and trying a couple of new things through the physical therapy department. There might be hope. (I think I'll still be struggling this weekend, but mentally I'm feeling pretty good.)

So, this weekend--off to Turlock for two days of USDAA agility. Boost competes, Tika gets to hang out.

I usually, as we all know, get up at 4 am to drive out on Saturday morning of out-of-town trials, but after getting up to the alarm this morning to go up to the practice field, I decided that I can't bear to do that again (even earlier) tomorrow, so I've done the unusual thing and reserved a hotel room for tonight. MUTT MVR is pretty much packed--oh, clothing! Ok, will get to that in a moment--and dogs got some exercise and maybe, just maybe, I'll be in bed in Turlock at a reasonable hour tonight! Worth the expense this time around, anyway.

See you all on the other side of Weekend.

Health Update and looking ahead to Tuolumne

SUMMARY: Dogs and humans.

Tika's eye: Three days of ointment and the redness had nearly vanished. After the full week's course of three-times-a-day ointment, not only did her eye look good in general, but that weird lump in the inner corner completely vanished. Interesting.

Boost's itching: Itching itching itching. Still using hydroxyzine after checking with the vet that it's OK to do so. If I stop it, she definitely itches more, but it's not so bad either way that I want to use prednisone to knock it out.

Human mom: What a mess! But in some ways, not so bad!

• Left foot (diagnosed as capsulitis in 2nd metatarsal/phalangeal joint): Got a cortisone shot two weeks ago. Made it worse for a couple of days, seems to be typical. Seeing a massage person to work on that by recommendation from some agility folks. I think that's helping; following it up with homework that he gives me to work on it myself. Didn't bother me all weekend except for the rare turn in certain directions, can't quite pin it down. Whole foot, actually both feet, seem sore to pressure, once we went through and evaluated them more carefully. Interesting.
• Lower back: Not good. Sciatic nerve pain comes and goes down right leg and some in left leg, tells me that the disk problems are definitely acting up. But the muscle pain all across the lower to middle back is what's really getting me. Still not sure about whether that's a side-effect of the disk issues or a separate issue. Had no problem running all weekend, but found myself walking carefully because, again, certain twists or movements really hurt. Didn't lift much of anything, ever, and crated out of the car so didn't have to set up or tear down. Monday and Tuesday were miserable indeed.  (As in 2000/2001, sitting is the most painful thing.) On tuesday, doc put me on a short course of prednisone to try to knock out the worst of the inflammation.  MUCH better on Wednesday, although clearly not fixed. Starting physical therapy next week.
• Knees: Well, ha ha, funny knees have felt fine all through this (as long as I don't try something silly like kneeling). I felt good running all weekend, and in class last night I felt great all over, nothing made painful by running at all, even my cardiovascular endurance seemed good which makes no sense given how little exercise I've been getting. But I'm not complaining. Hope it keeps up through this weekend's CPE trial.

I really miss hiking and long walks, I'm realizing. Really really miss it. It's so tempting to just go do them and the foot pain be hanged. I think the foot is marginally better than when I first went in to see the doc, but not majorly.

And, way down deep, I think that a lot of the issues are aggravated by the fact that my weight is up to the highest it's been since 2001. Harder to tackle it if I'm supposed to be not using my foot.

Oh, and I'm going to Tuolumne** Meadows (Yosemite) in a mere 3 weeks, and had hoped to do some hiking! I'm going to be SO not ready for primetime. But at least it should be beautiful, and going with good friends, so that's all good. Haven't been up there in, wow, maybe 20 years, who ever thought it would be that long? There I am in 1970. Still have the hat, not the shirt, which was a huge favorite and perfect light-weight, quick-drying long-sleeved for backpacking or hiking.

I love this photo from wikipedia, maybe I can get some of my own like that! If my lungs can quickly acclimatize to 9000 feet (2743m) elevation:



Now you can keep images of the gorgeous high Sierras in your mind as you go about your weekend.

---

** Tuolumne, pronounced TWA-lum-ee, or too-Ah-lum-ee.

Independence Weekend USDAA - Saturday

SUMMARY: Thank goodness for Tika.

Pretty much a dull post today. No photos. No humor.  Not too much whining.  No juicy gossip.

Here's how the day went.

Boost:

• Jumpers: 2 bars, a runout, two or three turns the wrong way, spins before jumps--wow.
• Snooker: She did her parts perfectly, but I incorrectly took my eyes off her to look ahead during a turn and she went off course.
• Standard: I front crossed in the wrong place, NOT taking my eyes off her but eyes off the course and so, figures, put her onto the wrong obstacle for an off course. The opposite of Snooker. But obstacles 1-3 and 6-19 were beautiful.
• Gamblers: Beautiful opening for 25 seconds, but the time was 30 seconds and the wheels started to come off as she ran past a tire and then ran under the tire and then we were out of position for the gamble and, bleah.
• Pairs Relay: Just absolutely lovely. But no Q because our partner had issues. That's OK because I knew what I was possibly getting into when I signed up. 
• Steeplechase: Missed her weave entry and I had to go back for it, and a bar down, combining to mean (along with the blazing speeds of the top dogs) no Q. But I felt pretty good about the run otherwise, really tried pushing her and me and releasing early from the Aframe and all that, and we both did well at it.

Tika:

• Jumpers. Lovely. Same course and (I think) handling as for Boost, and WHAT a pleasure it was to run her! She is so good, so forgiving, just GETS it. Q and 1st place (of 3 veteran dogs).
• Snooker: I tried to work the tunnels hard, but she was having trouble getting into them anyway, 3 tunnels. Still, we got through #5 in the closing before I forgot to do a front cross for some stupid reason and she VERY EASILY went into the off-course tunnel (4th on the course). Doesn't that just figure? Still, nice to run her even if it wasn't a Q.

Today, legs are more tired but I still felt able to move comfortably around the courses. Jogging here and there between classes was fine. This is in *such* contrast to the last couple of trials where the knees hurt so much doing even that.  Foot feels mostly OK, just sometimes I step wrong and *ouch*.

Good friends, good times, good judges, interesting courses that flowed reasonably well from all the judges so far, nothing that I felt was too herky-jerky or overly technical. Challenging, yes, but fun to run. Love when that happens.

One more day, just 4 classes for us tomorrow but there are Masters Challenge classes between the 1st and last classes of the day in both Masters rings that we didn't enter, so might not be a super-early end to the weekend.

It's only 7:45--is it too early to go to bed?

Of Dog Eyes and Human Feet

SUMMARY: Eye tested Boost; Tika bloody.

The other day, got this email from Nancy Gyes:

I am involved in a Vision Study with Optometrist Gina Day and her research partner Maureen. Vision testing is being done on dogs suspected of having ETS (early take-off syndrome), or some kind of vision problem that might affect their jumping. We also need to test a large number of non-affected dogs who jump well as a control group. As we are getting into the testing we realize that there is really not nearly enough knowledge about how dogs test that are normal good jumpers. The retinoscopy is used to discover if there is a refraction error in the dogs eyes, since dogs can’t read eye charts, just like babies or young children. We would like to test a lot of shelties and border collies since there are so many of them in agility, but we also want to test lots of other breeds. And we would especially love to test your dog if they are a nice jumper, or if you think your dog may have a vision deficit.

I took Boost up with the theory that there's nothing wrong with her vision--she runs fast, knocks bars but no sign of early or late takeoffs or hesitations. My assumption has been that she knocks bars because she doesn't try hard enough not to.

That might still be the case, but now the waters are a little muddied: Turns out that she and I share something besides a birthday, and that is myopia (near-sightedness) and astigmatism. Of the 30-ish dogs they've tested so far, Boost rates the worst of any in the near-sighted department. On the OTHER paw--she also rates the highest for the quality of her binocular vision (use of two eyes together), so maybe the near-sightedness is less a player since the binocular vision is what gives good depth perception.

They're just starting to collect information, so it could be a long time before they have enough information to actually publish something. Can hardly wait.

Meanwhile, about Tika's odd eye problem (description and photo in this post). This red bloody-looking lump on her inner eyelid(?) showed up around the beginning of April. Don't think it has changed really since then. However, yesterday morning she had bloody crust next to that eye. Same thing when I got home last night. Same thing when I got up this morning. Don't know what it means; still looks about the same to me, she's still not rubbing it or anything.

Anyhoo, off to the vet again to see whether he has any better ideas on what's going on, and if not, maybe to the doggie eye doctor. It's always something involving the wallet, isn't it.

And since we're all going to ail together, I guess, I went ahead and got a cortisone shot in my sore foot today (as mentioned in these posts). As I was afraid of, it's hurting more now, ow ow ow, hope I can get to sleep. Had this same reaction many years ago to a cortisone shot in the thumb, but then it got much better more quickly than w/out the shot. Meanwhile, icing icing icing. And maybe in a few days I'll be pain-free. One can only hope.

From Head to Foot

SUMMARY: Glasses and insoles. And hair, mustn't forget the hair.

As I reported a couple of weeks ago, I've got this annoying pain in the metatarsal/phalangeal joint.  I hate shopping for shoes. But, in the interest of lessening the pain and helping the healing, I went shopping for stiff-soled shoes. Which of course required walking walking walking around a huge mall on my sore foot. And to no avail: found that pretty much everything that was really stiff and don't bend much came in one of two flavors: Army Boot or Nurse Ratched. I thought that my brown men's Merrell's, which I wear a lot because they're quite comfy, were pretty stiff--

--until the podiatrist showed (as I reenact here) that they were merely "OK" (his word) in the bendy department.

That's why I went shopping. BUT not only were the selections not pretty,  the prices were also downright ugly. So I returned home to check out what I already have. My black women's Merrell's--a different fit, slightly smaller and tighter--but cooler looking because they're, duh, black, which is inherently cool--turn out to have much stiffer soles. Interesting. They did not want to bend at all. Score one for cool black Merrell's. Boost likes them, too.

So, what else do I already have around? Ignoring hiking boots for now, how about my 3 pairs of New Balance "tennis shoes". Worn but not worn out; dirty from all the times I wore them for hiking and agility and yard work and EVERYTHING until about 3 years ago when I mostly started wearing Merrell-style shoes most of the time. Kept them for serious walking and athletic activities that didn't involve wet grass or mountains. So I still have them.

And, whoa, they also really do not want to bend! And a sudden brain flash--that's because, back in '97 when I had a stress fracture in one foot (same foot, turns out, different toe), the podiatrist (orthopedist?) told me to always buy stiff-soled shoes, so that's what I looked for when I shopped.

Meanwhile, my current podiatrist had suggested that I take my custom orthotics--again, dating from post-stress-fracture wayyy back then--and have them covered with a nice cross-training insole pad by an orthotics guy. So I took my familiar bluies and his prescription and dropped them off last week; have an appointment for a final fitting on Monday. Who knew it was so complicated?

So, so far, foot still hurts, trying not to do any walking or hiking, but still did agility class last night and it felt OK in my stiff-soled turf shoes, which also don't bend much at all.

MEANWHILE, nearly at the other end of my body, it came time for my biannual eye checkup and glasses replacement. So, a couple of weeks back, I went on in. Left eye, which has always been pretty good, remained pretty good. Right eye, which has been very gradually getting more nearsighted and would require a very thick lens if I were using normal plastic or glass, tricked me this time around and got slightly less nearsighted and slightly more farsighted. Which is apparently typical for, ugh, "older" people.

Then I had to shop.

I hate shopping for glasses. Normally I just try to replace the lenses in my existing frames, but this time they no longer make the same frames, so I'd have to leave my old frames with them to have the lenses made. Fergit that. So had to pick out new frames for regular glasses AND for sunglasses (have been without separate sunglasses for 2 years. That's enough of *that*.)

And it's SO. HARD. Here is one of three walls of frames. They all look almost the same but they all look terrible on me.

Come on, which pair of thick black plastic frames do you want for your sunglasses?

It's hopeless. I'm probably not really crying, but I could have been.

Fortunately, the optician assisting me managed to convince me that she knew what she was talking about in terms of things that looked good on me. She did so by agreeing with me on several pairs that I tried and hated. Then she went looking for various frames and brought them to me. I'd look in the mirror, she'd look at me in person, and we'd negotiate whether they would be going home with me or not.

I finally decided on this for the sunglasses. Not black. From a distance, might look that way, but actually just dark purple. And on the inside, they're blue! If there's anything that convinces me that something is of high quality, it's that they're blue and purple. Don't look at the price sticker. I sure didn't. Gasp.

Then we agreed on these for my regular glasses. I said, "ugh, bling." And she said, oh, really, not very much bling at all, it's very subtle. And this is also an experiment; I've never before had glasses with no frame on the lower half. Yes, from the earpiece to the nosepiece, it's just naked lens.

And, two weeks later, here are my old glasses:

Here are my new sunglasses--whoa, don't I look cool or what?! Just the thing to wear with black Merrell's.

And these are my new spectacles.

Lastly, a couple of weeks ago I finally got my hair fixed--something I do about every six months but it was way overdue this time. Because I hate having my hair permed. But I really like the results (as seen in the photos above) and I really like that it then becomes pretty much wash and wear. This is the really glamorous part of the process:

So now I'm all fixed up in all these various ways. Ready to face the world.

If It's Not One Thing, It's Two...or Three...

SUMMARY: Where's that youthful body I had JUST the other day, I'm sure it's around here somewhere.

A few weeks ago, I started having an occasional twinge in my left foot. I'd stop immediately, because that was about how I remember my 1997 stress fracture starting, but then it wouldn't reappear, so I kept going. Before Haute Dawgs (April 5-7), it made itself known more frequently. Seemed OK over the weekend, but Monday morning, walking around the house--quite tender. So, in gradual progression:

• Saw a GP; diagnosis "foot hurts."
• Got x-rays.
• Discussed x-rays, which showed nothing interesting, with my regular GP.  Diagnosis: "foot hurts." Ice, wear stiffer shoes.
• Saw podiatrist yesterday.

Diagnosis is capsulitis of the second metatarsal/phalangeal joint

Short description--there's a membrane (capsule) surrounding the joint between two  bones ( in my case, the metatarsal and phalange (and no, I didn't have to look up either one to know how to spell it) of the 2nd toe). This capsule can become inflamed from overuse or abuse. That's capsulitis.

There's actually an entire article titled Capsulitis of the Second Toe because it's so common.  (The article makes it sound much more dire than the podiatrist did.)

Who knew.

Cure? Six weeks of no use. Practical solution? (Per podiatrist, what my GP said plus more) Stiffer shoes. Better padding (gave me specific recommendation-- Spenco gel something Crosstrainers--and, wow, they do make a difference). Avoid hard or rough surfaces and twisting of foot if possible. Try to reduce activity. NSAID (already taking one--wonder if I'd have noticed it sooner if I hadn't been). Ice.

I mention this because I'm planning on two weekends of USDAA dog agility in a row here, and I'm uninclined to withdraw and lose my entry fees, plus I'm on a team with Boost next weekend so don't want to leave them in the lurch. Plus I'm not too bright sometimes and will run my Human in worse condition than I'd ever run one of my dogs. (But I have a choice and they don't really.)

Before the diagnosis Thursday morning, I went hiking with the Sierra Club Wednesday evening. Didn't bother me much on the uphill, but definitely noticed it on the downhill.

Woke up Thursday morning with one of those sore necks where you can't turn your head to the left without it hurting like crazy. Throb throb throb. Didn't mention that to the podiatrist when I saw him that morning, although it would've been interesting to see what a foot doc had to say about a neck.

To celebrate the capsulitis diagnosis, Thursday evening I went to agility class. Boost and I did mostly OK--I was late as usual on various crosses, more because I'm not moving soon enough. Boost knocked a few bars, refused a couple of incoming jumps on serpentines, missed one weave entry on her *good* side. But the rest felt lovely and fast and pretty smooth.

Knee bothered me a little, foot bothered me a little, but not enough to make it uncomfortable to walk or run as fast as I could manage.

Drove home, sat at the computer for half an hour, stood up, and WHAM both my right knee and my left foot hurt so badly that I could barely move.  Hobbled miserably to bed; so painful I couldn't get comfortable, and the pain in my neck really was...a pain in the neck. Couldn't sleep. Iced all three of them again. Hunted desperately through my cabinets for maybe some Bengay--used to have some around forever that I never used, hmmm, must've gotten rid of it.  Finally fell asleep from exhaustion about 2 a.m.

This morning--remnants of soreness in all three places, but much better than last night.

Do I really want to do this this weekend? Hey, I *am* cutting back on my activity--running only one dog (plus one a day for Tika) instead of 2 dogs.  Guess I won't plan on doing any pole setting or leash running...  and I am scheduled for the score table both weekends, so that involves lots of sitting down, which will be good.

See you all on the other side of Weekend.