COVID-19 Vaccinations Part 1

SUMMARY: Feb 22: I'm a one-fer! And in 3 weeks, hope to be a two-fer!

[ELLEN: ADD LINK TO PART 2 WHEN THAT's DONE]

From notes on February 8:

COVID vaccination: I have an appointment for the 22nd of February, about half an hour from home.  Getting any appointment was a challenge! Plenty of folks on Facebook talking about struggles to find an open appointment, or traveling an hour or two to get one. Kaiser members were supposed to go through Kaiser and other sites were turning Kaiser folks away, and Kaiser was still limiting to over 75, so I was stuck.

Then, on Feb. 8, Santa Clara County stepped up and offered vax to anyone who lives or works in the county (and who meets the other qualifications due to limited vaccine availability, such as over 65 or being an essential care worker). 

So, on February 8, I tried:

• Fairgrounds, which is close to me, had no appointments available.
• Everything else was farther away or had no appointments. 
• So I looked at what I figured was the farthest-away option for most Santa Clara County people (Valley Health Center in Gilroy), and Lo! they had tons of appointments starting on the 11th!  

But it wasn't quite that simple:
I went thru the sign-up process, including picking one of their listed times on the 11th, Yayyy! But it said sorry it can’t schedule it. So I went back, and then it listed times only from the 16th! And those were almost all taken already! So I picked one and raced thru the options and--- it said it couldn’t schedule it. So back to the beginning and all of those dates had vanished, too, so I went to the last date available for scheduling, and finally it went thru. So not until the 22nd!  They must have just opened up dates for that location and word got out fast and I wasn’t fast enough to get something soon, but at least fast enough to get something.  

From notes on Feb 22:
I couldn’t get into the places closest to me, so I signed up to go way down to Gilroy for my first dose (a bit more than a half-hour drive). 

[ignore numbers by photos]

9

They were ready for huge long lines. I apparently picked the right date and time.
A couple waiting in the fairly short line inside said that they had driven by 
a few days earlier and the line went all the way around the parking lot.

1

They labeled everything very well. It was calming in the face of COVID-19.

2

The pre-existing round bench, one of many places we could sit to fill out our forms,
had a 6-foot-distance reminder sticker.
In fact, everything did. Lots of the usual floor stickers for the lines.

3

I'm inside and waiting in line #4 of 5 (all of which were short).
1) Get check-in forms and fill them out.
2) Usual test for fever and responding to questions about health.
3) Quick check of your paperwork and ID and appointment confirmation.
4) Full check-in with your medical ID and everything goes into the system.
5) Get poked with a sharp pointy thing that didn't hurt worth mentioning.

4

Reading material about the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines while standing in line. Convenient.
And note the usual floor sticker.

5

Keep your distance! In four languages!
All are common enough here that it's well worth accommodating them.
(English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese.)

6

Line #4, almost to the front.
I took no more detailed photos because I didn't want to 
post recognizable people online or have to edit them out.

All the stations had large acrylic dividers between them and us.
Between those everywhere now, and masks, and me being deaf in one ear--
it's often hard to hear clearly.

7

After my full check-in, they whisked me to a station to get my shot.
Right past a huge line of people waiting for their vax, 
but they all needed the Moderna and I had Pfizer.

I don't know how those decisions were made;
likely by their usual service provider due to availability?
After the shot, lines and signs directed me to the waiting area.

8

They keep you for 15 minutes, socially distanced from a bunch of others,
to ensure that you don't suddenly keel over, explode, or burst into flames.
They slapped a sticker on each person for what time the 15 minutes was up.
I liked that.

10

After the shot, on my way home, I made a quick stop at the Gilroy Outlet Center. 
In normal times, a bustling place.
In these times, not many cars or people, quite a few empty shops.

11

Signs everywhere:
On walkways, on stores' windows or doors, inside the shops, on benches, restrooms...
I plan on posting a good sampling of those at some point.
Haha. You know my track record for this.

12

 

A mobile COVID-testing station. "We accept insurance."
My medical HMO (Kaiser) did this for free onsite--with a pretty long line for drive-through tests.
I had one back in November and came out clear.

13

And it was all worthwhile, because I got this button!! Yay!

NOW I just wait 3 weeks more or less exactly for the 2nd shot; they already set me up for that down here in Gilroy again. So nice not to worry about it!

P.S. I had virtually no symptoms from the first shot. Tiny soreness in my arm at the vax site, but only if I thought about it and touched it. Yayyyy!

P.P.S. (Noted on March 24) I haven't talked about my concerns about vaccines that were developed so quickly without the possibility of long-term testing. All that are approved are through an emergency OK after whatever testing the CDC required for emergencies.  So: NONE ARE OFFICIALLY APPROVED yet.  But I accepted that this IS an emergency situation, after all, and we need to put a clamp on the virus spreading because it's already mutated too much into nastier versions because it has had so many willing hosts (won't wear masks, won't socially distance--you know the lot).  

Air Quality this afternoon

SUMMARY: In case you were wondering.

Backfill: date

Smoke gets in your...lungs

SUMMARY: Fires and smoke are bad all up and down the west coast. Under siege for 4 weeks.

From facebook: consolidating a few of my posts and my comments on others' posts.

Some days the smoke is worse than others. Some days it's above a cloud layer, which makes everything an eerie or even scary yellow to deep orange. Other days it's right in your back yard, and you might smell it even if it's many miles from the source.

My back yard on the 9th.
Everything inside and outside bathed in
sickly yellow-orange.
Relatively tame compared to many.

At 5:00 PM on the 9th. Sunset not until 7:30. 
With a large window
over the sink (visible) next to a 
sliding glass door and another sliding 
glass door to my right.  Spooky dark.

On the 9th, my facebook feed filled with photos of those creepy, apocalyptic skies up and down the west coast. So many friends--one friend commented that she logged in to post her photo and when she scrolled through and saw that everyone was posting them (from goopy yellow to deep red), she didn't bother. And no matter the color, it was dark. Like, after-sunset kind of dark. Had to turn on lights in my house to navigate safely. Spooky. Pretty much everyone shared similar discomforting emotions about the colors and the darkness. And so dominant that it made multiple front-page photos in the San Jose paper. 

Two days ago, only moderately bad air quality first thing in the morning, but got worse. Next day, upper 90s to lower 100s. This morning...

Woke up dreaming I'd been walking the dog and was out of breath. Woke up and breathing harder than normal. Not gasping for breath or even panting--but AQ was around 240--so time for a hit off the old inhaler. And I had left my windows cracked a few inches just for the coolness, hoping that the screen and 2 layers of curtains would reduce particulate matter. Apparently not so much. Also closed the windows.

I had been averaging 50,000+ steps/week since chip's death, but between the heat and the air quality the last 3 1/2  weeks, it's dropping precipitously. Zorro is going nuts not going for walks. But even he is mostly staying inside lately, on his own.

So I recomposed some lyrics for all of us.

Oh give me air, fresh clean air, under starry skies above.
Don't smoke me in.
Let me walk through the wide open country that I love.
Don't smoke me in.
Let me be in a place where it’s easy to breathe,
Listen to the murmur of tall unburned trees,
Make me S.I.P. but I ask you please,
Don't smoke me in.

[Original, sung by Ella Fitzgerald]

If you look at the airnow.gov map (https://gispub.epa.gov/airnow/) for the EPA's sensors for the entire mainland U.S. for this morning, it's kind of pretty . Like holiday lights. Or... erm.. alarms and warnings. So many fires up and down the western states, and depending on the winds and inversion layers or whatnot, you don't know which fire's smoke you're receiving. Personally, I like to be introduced before I inhale something.

• Also see: Animated satellite view of smoke and fires in Oregon as of the 10th.

Active fires as of Sept 11 from https://storymaps.esri.com/stories/usa-wildfires/
Many caused by a rare thunder/lightning storm mostly on Sunday Aug 16. Worse, it was dry.
Reported August 19:
"Over the last 72 hours, there have been some 10,849 lightning strikes throughout California, state officials said. As of Wednesday afternoon, 367 major fires were burning statewide, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom."

 About 170,000 people were evacuated in those few days; although many were allowed back fairly quickly, more were evacuated in other areas.  With all of this-- is it no wonder that talk of COVID, which had been maybe 70% of facebook, has been completed replaced by news like this. I'm just consolidating a little of nearly a month of an ongoing facebook stream of fires and destruction and evacuees and smoke and HEAT! that made it worse.

So now you may return to whatever you were doing, and I hope it's sunny and smoke- and fire-free. 

COVID-19 (the virus formerly known as Novel Coronavirus) - March 13

SUMMARY: The world is a little nuts right now. Wrote on March 13... And I still haven't inserted the missing photos or info, so this just has to go up now.

Backfill: July 16, Added some photos. Couple of formatting things & a few words here and there.

Feb 27: Gov. Newsom issues shelter in place for California

(Following are some from my FB posts or comments between March 2 and 13)

We just don't know enough. And our lovely Prez, who disbanded the infectious disease/pandemic organization that Obama set up, and his lovely organizations, have been very much less than helpful.

The crises in Wuhan, in Italy, and in S. Korea are big klaxon warnings of what could go wrong here.  So far it hasn't, but cases are climbing daily (how much? Dunno? CDC and cronies are sitting on info and questioning tests...), and here in Santa Clara County, we're one of the lucky "hotbeds". With 45 people identified so far-- but there are limited test kits! And CDC (?) is refusing to deal with tests for people who are not exhibiting enough symptoms!

My theory--and I'm not the only one, and I'm talking about in the medical community--is that it's already very widespread, but because so many people are asymptomatic, and because it's Cold Season anyway so mild symptoms are likely treated like a cold anyway, it's already rife in the community.

Talking about it is EVERYwhere because the stock market is tanking (2 weeks ago I thought I was a few months away from retirement finally. Now--??  Who knows.), the economy is tanking, businesses are worried about going out of business, lives are completely disrupted, people are out of work...

I haven't tried to count how many posts in FB I've read in the last couple of days that deal with COVID-19 in one way or another. I've certainly contributed. But it has to be a very high percentage. Yesterday morning while reading the SJ Mercury News, I counted how many articles had some mentions or were entireley about it. Yesterday — yes, 33; no, 24.  Today — yes, 41; no, 19. No wonder it feels overwhelming.

TO DO:  >> Take photo of front page of SJ Merc and sports and business fronts...

And a lot of info is nonsense--and the more detailed and technical it gets, the more it seems to depend on which expert you're quoting. But there are very common and very ignorant posts that are viral:

• Insisting that COVID-19 is "just the flu". Yep. Like measles is just the chickenpox. Nope, entirely different viruses. Flu vaccine doesn't work for COVID-19. But you all knew that already. And we have no idea really how this virus is going to progress, mutate, etc. (The 1918 Spanish Flu is a huge precautionary tale.)
• If you think you've been exposed, drink a lot of water to wash the virus into your stomach where your stomach acid will kill it.  (Whaaaaa? Seriously? Avoid getting a virus by DRINKING it???)
• If you think you've been exposed, take a slow deep breath; if it doesn't make you cough, you're good, otherwise your lungs are already infected with fibrosis.  (I can't even...  I mean...  )

Well, I mean, it *is* overwhelming. I went out into the yard to play with the dogs in the sunshine for a while. Go thou and do the same! As Dan Rather said in an eloquent post: Steady!

My county. March 1. Only two people here so far. But other places, spreading like wildfire
(and we Californians know too much about spreading wildfires.)

So, caution is good.  How much caution?  I cannot begin to tell you how much the world has been disrupted.  NBA cancelling the rest of their season (now that 2 players have tested positive with apparently mild symptoms). Arenas and theaters and schools and Disney parks (!!) closed, mostly "until the end of March, and then we'll reevaluate".  My photo club canceled our 2 march meetings (I was in favor of it, watching the situation in the overseas countries).  The Sunnyvale Historical Society cancelled a speaker I had been looking forward to hearing.

March 2 is when I really started thinking about The Risks Of Going Out:

Went out to dinner last night, after reading articles about how the prudent thing to do is to avoid touching things that others have touched, and to disinfect or wash your hands if you have to touch something. It's daunting: You either keep on living as you have been or you stay home, I suppose:

• Door to restaurant, opens only by pulling.
• Host does a quick wipe-down of our table before we sit--was that a fresh unused cloth?With disinfectant? 
• Handed us menus: How many times have these been handled (and/or coughed on) by people in addition to the host? 
• Given water glasses by bare hands.
• Given bowls with chips and dip, bowls touched with bare hands.
• The napkins and silverware placed on the table--bet it was pulled out of the dishwasher with bare hands, placed on the table with bare hands...
• (Yes, apparently the virus can survive on fabric and paper.)
• The little booklet containing the bill, containing a pen to sign the credit card bill....
• And how is food prepared in a way to prevent the transmission from someone with a cough or drippy nose... or who has no symptoms but is shedding germs as they go?
• A restaurant is not the place to be to avoid your hands or other objects touching YOUR MOUTH. 

Gah.
Well, I enjoyed the meal anyway and set those thoughts aside for now.
(My county now has I think a dozen confirmed cases. Out of 2 million people. I'm still not super worried...)

Lucky's TP supply, March 12.
Before Santa Clara County(?) shelter-in place goes into effect...
before it's even announced. My timing was good, because later that day,
after the announcement, chaos and panic buying got even worse.

People are insanely hoarding-- toilet paper of all things is being cleared from the shelves as soon as it goes out (although yesterday morning at Luckys: TP was sparse, but there was plenty available. Might depend on the time of day you go. As I understand it, there is plenty of toilet paper, it’s just that they don’t stock a lot of it because it takes up a lot of space at any given store, so they have to wait for the next shipment to come in, which might be each day (just ask).); same for hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes.

(Fortunately I already had those things Just Because, but have a very limited quantity of wipes and would like to get more, because I am using them. But-- Was feeling smug. I *always* have little bottles of hand sanitizer in various places, so doesn't matter if the stores are out. In fact, had a cold last November and so I had them throughout the house.
Before going out last night (March 2), I went to get one. And... spent half an hour looking, and couldn't find a single one! WTF? I have one in my car that I often use--nope, none there. I always have one in the bathrooms that guests use--nope, not there. Not by my desk (but someone rearranged things for me, so it could be anywhere random). Always one in my computer case for work--nope. I moved one out of the way constantly in my bedroom until not long ago-- nope. Where did they all GO? In what "safe, rational" place did I put them away until later? (did later find 2 bottles))

My preciousessssss.......

What about grocery shopping? I agree that avoiding hanging around other people, like standing in line, could be a risk, now that they've decided that it *can* be transmitted through the air. But I also have been thinking a lot about what to do if I have food delivered--wear gloves, disinfect each item as I take it out of the bag? That's a possibility certainly for cans, bottles, and boxes, but fresh veggies and fruit might be challenging.

But then, I went shopping yesterday and when I got home, I thought, wow, the checker actually handled every single thing to ring it up, so I have the same problem there.
(I did not sit there wiping everything down--I don't actually have 60%+ alcohol wipes, so it's a little challenging. I do have alcohol and an empty spray bottle... )

This is all for 45 *known* cases out of 2 million people in Santa Clara County. But, last time we had reasonable data, the cases were increasing exponentially.  The  goal at this point everywhere is only partly containment--it's clear that it's a bit too late for that probably--but mitigation: Ensuring that the cases are spread out across the coming months instead of all hitting in a huge mass within a couple of weeks, swamping the health infrastructure and insuring that more people will die than necessary.

Healthcare capacity could be a huge issue; that’s what people have been talking about mostly in the trenches. The simple graphic shows why.

“The reason for trying to slow down the spread of COVID-19 as much as possible.....

"One week ago, Italy had 2,502 cases of the virus, which causes the disease known as COVID-19. At that point, doctors in the country’s hospitals could still perform the most lifesaving functions by artificially ventilating patients who experienced acute breathing difficulties.

Today, Italy has 10,149 cases of the coronavirus. There are now simply too many patients for each one of them to receive adequate care. Doctors and nurses are unable to tend to everybody. They lack machines to ventilate all those gasping for air..." (March 11 article:)

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-hospital-bed/607807/

And I, finding myself in a higher-risk group (interestingly, young children seem to have only mild cases, no deaths so far), I'm happy at this point to be cautious everywhere.

From CDC March 15. Not great to be over 85. Not good to be 65 or older.

THESE are the numbers that particularly worry me.  (CDC as of March 15)

STILL, MOST PEOPLE RECOVER --


TO DO: >> Insert photo of movie stub

So HOW cautious should I be?  Last week I went to 3 movies over at Oakridge. Safe?

• (1) To get into the theater, I do not have to touch anything if I'm careful: Doors into the mall are automatic; 
• (2) if I'm careful on the escalator I don't need to touch the handrail; 
• (3) I buy my tix ahead of time and so the ticket taker just scans my phone (dilemma: I collect those stubs that they hand back--do I take it?  He's wearing gloves, but what has he touched while wearing them?  I did take it, and didn't try to disinfect it. It's a tiny square of paper); 
• (4) walking into the theater itself, as long as I don't arrive late, the door is open for me to walk in;
• (5) again, if I'm careful going up and down the stairs, I can avoid the handrail. 
• (6) before sitting, I wipe both armrests widely with sanitizing wipes, and the buttons that control the seat, and the tray table if I think I'm likely to touch it, but 
• (7) I sadly have given up buying concessions for the moment, to avoid handling food containers (and food) handled by others.  
• (8) I do my absolute best to avoid the restrooms, because, you know, faucets, toilet handles..
• (9) Do my dangdest not to touch my face... Then, afterwards, 
• (10) when I return to my car, I wipe down my hands anyway. And 
• (11) when I return home, I wash my hands with soap & water and wipe down my car door handle and steering wheel.

Nearly empty for a prime time of day. Maybe one person or couple per row, if that.
(My images behind came out too dark--but you can kind of see rows of seat backs with no one in them.
One blob towards the back, right of center (black/reddish) that is a person.)

And it has been OK, because no one else seems to be going to the movies. (Well, not quite that bad last week--but people were buying seats farrrrrrr apart from each other, not crowding into the middle as usual.)

So, basically, my point is, the world has become like a snowglobe that someone picked up and shook--everything's in flux and topsy turvy and you don't really know where it's all going to land.

TO DO: >> Take some photos! Or post in a later post & point to it from here.

ON THE UP SIDE,  I suppose: We (individuals, governments local and national) are learning a heck of a lot.

Best advice from some travel sites: If you must travel, just go to a park and go hiking! Probably no risk there!  My knee isn't quite there yet, but I am trying to remind myself to get out of the house, just into the yard or walk around the block.

And, yes, Go Thou And Do Likewise.

Predicting that the US will blow up like Italy has (as of March 15):

How Are We All Doing?

SUMMARY: Reporting on Human Mom, Boost, and Tika.

Tika is refusing food more and more often. I'm not happy about this. Don't know whether it's her meds or her health. Need to call the vet to discuss. Not convinced that taking certain drugs to help her heart or her cough is good if it means that she loses interest in food. Until this morning, she was happy enough to eat the new fancy expensive kibble that I just bought--as long as I didn't intermingle regular kibble, which really ruined the whole thing, you know. But hand-feeding still worked. This evening she didn't want to eat much of it at all.

She even almost turned down her guard-the-house-goodie this morning when I left for work--and she's not rejected that before. (It's just a dry biscuit, but until now has been eagerly accepted.) No problems tonight in class, though, sucking down those Zukes minis!

Human Mom had a rotten night last night, what with back/leg pain, a cough that wouldn't quit between about 2 and 3 a.m., two dogs that needed to go out in the middle of the night at different times, and a sometimes coughing dog. H.M. got most of her sleep between 7:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. Amazing I made it through the day. But work was interesting and urgent today, which helped.

And then, even more interestingly, felt really good in class tonight running Boost. Was able to actually run, fast for me anyway, without pain. That bodes well for the weekend. Still, the back and connected leg pain are such a...pain. Standing there, watching someone else's run, turned my head or some other innocuous minor movement, and whack! Sudden pain in lower back and I had to take steps to ease it out. So we didn't do a whole class this evening; want to save myself for the Regional Championships this weekend in Prunedale.

Boost--well, wow, what a great night in class! Not a single bar down! No nasty runouts (except pretty obvious handler errors) or refusals. Wow! Well, OK, couple of missed weave entries, darn it, she will just never be as good as Tika at the weave entries. And that's the thing we've most practiced through the years. OK, anyway, maybe it was because I was moving more comfortably and faster, dunno, but what a pleasure it was! Hoping that it lasts through at least some of the weekend.

See folks there Saturday through Monday; I bailed on Friday's events for various reasons. Weather should be great, people should be wonderful, maybe we'll get a Q or two.

Vet Visit Eye Say

SUMMARY: Both dogs get a checkup and Tika's eye is red.

I took no photos at the vet's office at all. What was I thinking?

Both dogs' schedules have synched up for shots and annual checkups, so we all went in yesterday morning. Best part, both MUTT MVR and the vet's office are air conditioned, and with temps in my yard exceeding 100 F (37.8C) and in the house over 85 F (29.4C) for the last 4 days, the a/c made a welcome respite.

Gave Tika half a sedative tablet an hour before going in. She was still wired when we got there and while we waited a bit, and while the vet did Boost's entire checkup--pacing pacing pacing and rearing up against the door to get out-- and then--boom, just as we finished with Boost, she sank to the floor just lay there panting. Guess the sedative finally won out over 20 minutes of adrenaline. She was fine through the rest of the visit and not too dopey the rest of the day. Hard to figure out what dose exactly to give her. One pill makes her zombie-like for hours, which I don't like. Half a pill might not be enough if we don't have a whole Boost checkup beforehand during which Tika can expend all her angst.

Tika just lives life at a whole different speed. Here's an example: Peanut butter on the tips of my fingers. Tika gets in two licks for every one of Boost's, she's just that much more intense.

But, back to the vet visit.

Boost's heart is like a racehorse at a calm standstill, vet says, nice low even beat.

Tika's heart murmur still sounds minor and otherwise she looks and sounds good, except let's get to the eyes:

• There's that lump in the inner corner of her right eye. Its appearance changed after it seemed to bleed for those couple of days last week, not quite so bloody looking, but still about the same size.
• That same eye now has a red inner eyelid-- "red-eye" or "cherry eye" in color--possibly related to some irritation from the lump or who knows. Now starting an ointment 3x/day.
•  Tika's *left* eye has a dark area on her iris. Something to watch, the vet said, in case it gets larger or looks like it's protruding into the pupil or anything else about it. Great.
• Tika has cataracts in both eyes--I knew that--but vet says that at this stage they should hardly be affecting her vision at all. I still think that might be one of the reasons that we have some issues with tunnels nowadays.

Getting older sucks, eh, Teek?

Over all, dogs seem healthy and things seem to be going swimmingly with Tika. And ka-ching!, another vet bill on the books. Guess I'm grateful that good vet services are available!

See you all later.

Tika Update

SUMMARY: Activity, attitude.

Tika has now been on all her heart meds (3 pills) plus antibiotics for a week now--over 2 weeks for the diuretic.

The coughing has gone away almost completely--guess I should've pushed the issue more with the vet earlier. Her stools are a little soft (sorry if TMI) but not really bad--vet suggested looking out for that sort of thing. We'll see how they look when the antibiotics for her anal gland finish up. Nothing wrong with her appetite.

But her energy level or enthusiasm for playing are still lower than they were before The Incident. She played a bit more yesterday and today than she has since The Incident, but not for very long at all. It might be good that she's self-regulating. But I'm also concerned that there seems to be a notable difference.

She likes to just sit or stand there and be rubbed. She always did like it, but now is choosing that instead of toys, which is unusal.

Friday morning I ended up at a drop-in agility class. Ran Boost--mostly good except all the bars coming down--and got some additional pointers on handling (move sooner! where have I heard that before?). Tika looked eager to go, standing up and pawing at her crate. So we set some bars at 12 inches and I ran her over about 5 jumps and then gave her a bunch of rewards, and she seemed satisfied with that.

She's definitely drinking a lot more than she used to--result of the diuretics, I'm guessing.

Anal gland looks better every day. Don't notice any swelling under the surface now. Just 3 more days of cleaning and antibioticking that, thank goodness, although she seems to not mind me massaging it a bit as I clean it and apply the ointment. (Oh, and of course give her a ton of treats.)

And she participated happily in the nosework seminar that we did this weekend--but that's the topic of another post.

All in all, she's acting generally healthy but more like an old dog than she did just a few short weeks ago. I hope it's temporary. Good old girl.

Here Comes USDAA Again

SUMMARY: Injuries, class, weekends.

I've been trying to take it easy with Boost for the last week to let whatever's going on in her right rear leg heal up a bit. We've been going for long walks and playing gentle fetch (where she doesn't run full speed and doesn't crash & slue around like crazy getting the toy) and a lot of tug'o'war. No practicing agility--no tunnels (which she loves) or jumps or anything.

She never looks sore except sometimes when she gets up from lying there for a while. I haven't noticed it in the last few days, so maybe it just needed a little rest.

Tonight in class is the first agility I've done with either dog since class last week. Our first couple of runs were disasters with both dogs. I wasn't getting in my cues, or boost was knocking bars, or I just can't think fast enough to do what I'm supposed to do when something changes on course (e.g., boost knocks a bar and all I'm thinking about is rewarding her for making a tight wrap around a jump upright, so she wraps and knocks the bar and gets a reward). I frustrate myself so often with my own mental limitations.

In one run, both dogs knocked the same bar when I put in a front cross (and Tika doesn't knock that many bars any more), and in another run, both dogs popped out of the weaves that were heading generally towards a large hedge (but really, 10 feet away!).

Ah, well. By the end of the evening I think all three of us were doing better.

Which is good, because we have a USDAA trial this weekend and another next weekend.

Both at Manzanita Park at Prunedale, both by clubs of which I'm a member. I'll be at the score table again.

I moaned and groaned and waffled mightily over what to enter either dog in after our last couple of trials, putting off the decision until the last possible moment, then just went ahead and entered both dogs in everything as usual and got the entries in the mail just barely in time to meet the closing dates.

Tika has seemed so healthy and happy and eager lately. Just that deafness thing.

I have no reason to believe that either dog will do any better in the coming competitions than we've done in previous ones. I'm trying to adjust my expectations and attitude accordingly.

I'm both looking forward to the weekends of agility and regretting the lost weekends that could've been full of things *other* than agility. As usual.

Guess if we all stay healthy and happy, it should be good.

The End of a Four--no, Three-Day Weekend

SUMMARY: Some items accomplished, some not.

I have so much to say that it's hard to know where to start. But I want to be concise, too. Been thinking about it for 24 hours now, and my list gets longer, not shorter. I guess I just need to plunge in and blather on. It's just going to be long. Skim and read as the mood strikes you, or just look at the happy photos.

We had some successes and some--well, failures--of one sort or another.

Weather and Camping Out

The weather wasn't bad at all; mostly pretty good agility weather, actually. Every day started with frost on the grass but warmed fairly quickly. Thursday afternoon warmed up enough that, if you were running a dog and in the sun, you wanted to take off your fleece, but the chilly wind made you put it back on quickly as soon as you stopped moving or went into the shade. After we were done for the day, the beautiful puffy white clouds turned into dark ominous clouds and, despite the no-rain forecast, we had maybe half an hour of off-and-on light showers, which made for this:

I was pretty wiped and a little queasy after the usual 4-a.m. rousing and drive out, 6 runs with each dog, and so on. Went out to dinner with friends, which was fun and tasty, but by the time the meal was over, I was drooping so badly that I decided I couldn't face 45 minutes of setting up MUTT MVR for sleeping, so investigated the Best Western where a bunch of others were staying.

They had only some rooms available by 9:30 p.m.: Suites starting at $125 a night and smoking rooms at $85. Plus taxes and $15 pet fee. Since I wanted only to sleep, shower, and leave, the suite seemed stupid. I waffled over the smoking room, though--I've had some pretty bad nights in smoky rooms. The more I waffled, the more she lowered the price, till I paid $70/night plus taxes and the pet fee. So $100 I hadn't budgeted for, but better than the original quote.

The room wasn't too horrible--I've spent  nights in nonsmoking rooms that I thought were as bad. It was spacious, had a comfortable king-sized bed, and all the faucets and lights worked.

Felt much better Friday morning. Still frost in the morning, but warmed up more than Thursday. I set up MUTT MVR and slept VERY soundly Friday night after a spontaneous potluck with generous friends, to which I had nothing to contribute since I'd planned on going out to eat.

Saturday started with frost again, but warmed up even more to shirtsleeve weather by midday. By dinnertime, though, when we had pizza brought in for our Bay Team quarterly meeting at 6:00, the chill crept in again. So--hold that point in the calendar--

Tika

Tika seemed pretty happy and healthy most of the time. She did her "hug" stretch before almost every run, where she puts her front feet up on my chest and stretches everything out. If she's hurtin', she won't do that. The last couple of runs on Saturday, she didn't do it right away or fully at first, and I thought, hmmm... but then she did it fully.

We definitely connected better than under the arena at Santa Rosa, but still had enough miscues and oddities that made me more and more aware that I can't expect her to do what she's always done.  I can point to most of them as a hearing and/or vision issue (I'm still not positive one way or the other about the latter). It's frustrating to assume that she'll just do the things she's always done and then she doesn't.

Like Saturday's gamble, which I thought was a complete gimmee for her, and she sent out beautifully but then on the turn to the Aframe, while I yelled "climb! climb!", she just kept coming towards me, not very fast, looking at me uncertainly. It made me sad, and then she didn't grab my shoes afterwards, either, so she wasn't feeling her cheery best. That's just one example.

Sure, we were never perfect in USDAA, but had held a pretty constant 65% Q average for a few years, and that average is just dropping. She Qed 4 out of 6 on Thursday, 3 out of 6 on Friday, and 2 out of 6 on Saturday, so we weren't getting any better with experience. So--hold that point in the calendar--

Tika Performance Team

What also made me sad was that she had four very nice runs in the DAM individual events. I was pleased with all of them, and yet she earned a Q in only one. Part of the problem was that there were only 6 dogs in her height class, so we combined with the 16" dogs. Between Chaps in our height and Epic and Heath in 16" (and a couple of other really awesome younger performance 16" dogs as well), between them usually having not only among the highest scores in Performance but in Championship, too, Tika's very good scores didn't Q. (Individual Qs are based on being within 15% of the average of the top 3.) What was really frustrating was that her scores *would* have been Qing in any of the Championship classes!

So I could pass it off as bad luck that there were only 6 in our class rather than 7 or that all the best Performance dogs happened to be there that weekend, but still, she's not usually had problems Qing in Team individual events before. And, in 5 of the last 11 team events, we have had to combine Tika's height with the 16", so there's every expectation that this experience could happen again.

Chaps had his usual consistently high scores, so as a team we were doing really well.

The club split team into 2 days, which makes me nuts, especially when it's such an important Q (our Platinum Tournament), so I had to sleep on the stress of hoping that we'd finally get that last Team Q needed for that title, after December's disaster, and the next team not until July.

After the first class on Thursday, Chaps and Tika were in 3rd place out of 18 teams. After next class, we moved into 1st place and stayed there after the 3rd and 4th classes, too--but, going into the relay on Friday afternoon, we were a mere 5 points (or 5 seconds) out of about 700 beyond both the 2nd and 3rd place teams--so close out of all those points! We couldn't slack off at all if we wanted to hold our 1st place.

But to me, at that moment, THE most important thing was not Eing so that we would Q. At that point, we probably would've still Qed if either of us had Eed in the relay, but not certain about that--it's a huge penalty in the relay.

One of the two teams had a refusal on the weaves and had to redo, so that moved took them out of contention for the top two spots. Chaps had a clean first half. I wanted to lead out rather than run off the line with Tika to avoid any possible off course or faults, so I walked calmly and quietly to position before releasing Tika. She had a really nice run, but that calm leadout cost us--with our final total score of 896.61 points for the 5 runs, we were 1.5 points (seconds) exactly *behind* the other team. So--

2nd place out of 18 Performance team, which I'm quite pleased about, considering how good & fast the other teams were.

And, most importantly, Tika's Performance platinum tournament! Thank goodness that's out of the way! More fun than that--that was also Chap's Performance gold tournament title! What a combo!

And a relief that last December's disaster was just a fluke due to Tika's hearing in the Santa Rosa arena.

No more team? Less agility?

Still, I'm thinking that if she can't Q in the individual events, there's no reason for me to be running her in team any more. Except that I promised our old partner Brenn to do July team for old time's sake, since Brenn's arthritis seems to have eased a bit.

We had our moments--she placed 2nd in Round 1 Steeplechase even though it had 2 sets of weaves and she looked so slow!, and placed 2nd in the final round also, which ALSO had 2 sets of weaves, but she misread a rear cross (or I was too far behind--I'd been worried about that spot before we ran) and we missed 1st place by 0.5 seconds. But that's because one of the very fast younger dogs scratched, another popped out of the weaves, and Chaps scratched, so just by not Eing we'd have been guaranteed at least 3rd.

She Qed easily in both regular Jumpers rounds, although only placing 4th of 7 and 2nd of 5.

And she won Thursday's Standard and Friday's Gamblers.

But our failures when we didn't Q seemed much larger and much more different than what we'd failed on in the past. Much puzzlement on my part on how to manage this deafened dog and much puzzlement on her part as to why I'm not telling her what she needs to know.

So I'm thinking that we're closer than I thought to not doing much agility.

Boost

On the up side:

• Weaves: We did 20 sets in 18 runs, including Friday's gamble, two in Thursday's Snooker, two sets in Steeplechase, several situations where I wanted to move far away laterally, several challenging entrances, and so on, and she nailed almost every entry and stayed in almost all. Exceptions: Coming out of a chute to a right turn to the weaves, I called her hard and overcalled her; tried a challenging serp in Team Relay and she cut behind me; and then, jeez, the easiest ones: back to back weaves in a gamblers *opening*, where I did NOT cut away and was right with her, she popped out twice in a row(!) but then got them both the next 2 tries. Those great, fast, accurate weaves made me very happy.
• She did all her contacts beautifully! No coming off the side, no leaving early! Yowza!
• Table in standard: Thursday's and Friday's were fast downs and she stayed down; Saturday's was a fast down, one elbow came up briefly but went back down when I reminded her. That's excellent, also.
• Serpentines: I dared two or three since we've been practicing them, and she actually came in! Must keep working on it, though, as they weren't completely smooth.
• Team: Wow, she did not E or crap out on any one of her five team events, which has got to be a first for her! She even earned a Q in the gamblers, and she hardly ever Qs in team events. Furthermore, none of her teammates (Jersey and Rift) Eed or crapped out in anything, either, and much to our delight and amazement, we finished 4th of 20 teams! That's the highest I've ever placed in Championship team (although Tika has placed in the top 3 several times in Performance team). Yowza.
  

Not so good:

• Bars. It wasn't a bar-knocking frenzy, but they came down at a fairly regular rate. I might count later, but I'd guess at least 10 bars out of 18 runs.
• Refusals and runouts. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. Lots.

What we really needed:

• Jumpers: Thursday--knocked the 2nd bar, came in past a jump after a tunnel (I might have called too hard but she just skimmed the edge of it so it would've almost been easier to take it); didn't go forward to a jump that I really needed her to, so Eed on refusals. Friday (team jumpers), two refusals that were mostly my fault--I checked out on a front cross and tried a rear which is her nemesis and she just stopped, then another when I briefly forgot the course. (But she kept up all her bars.) Saturday: I think one bar down, one refusal that I fixed, and another on a rear cross where she just kept looking at me until she was right in front of the jump and stopped. I made her just jump it and then walked off.
• Snooker: Thursday (team): not too bad, got through 7-7-7-3 in the opening and through 5 in the closing but I missed a front cross again and when I tried to rear she ran past the next jump. Friday: Ran past the first red when I tried a lead-out pivot, so bobbling to get back to it. Couldn't have asked for a smoother course on which to do three 7s except that she chose *this* time to go completely straight instead of curving slightly to follow me (and for a change I was way ahead of her, so no excuse!) and went off course right away. Saturday: A twisty ugly course that the smoothest thing I could find with hopes of a superQ involved 10 front crosses. She ran past a couple of jumps anyway that I had to go back and get--mangled our way through the opening four reds and obstacles, but when we had to go around one jump she started paying more attention to me than to the obstacles and we futzed out on several stupid attempts at the next two jumps.

Health

My knee was holding up OK, but feeling worse gradually. I iced it only once--seemed like there was never time when it was convenient to spend 15 minutes doing it. My own speed and agility in the ring is DEFINITELY helped by making sure that I can jog and sprint before I get the dog out to compete, but it was taking more and more steps of each for me to loosen up as the weekend went on. And I still get winded when there's a lot of running.

 By the time I walked the last regular class on Saturday--Jumpers--my legs were so tired that I walked it only a couple of times and then peeled off so I'd have enough energy left to actually run it. Walking the Steeplechase finals (for Tika) after that, I really didn't even want to be walking, I was that tired.  Now hold that point in time...

Friday evening, vet Cindi massaged Tika and Boost--she's worked on them before, so knows them a bit--because I was still concerned about the limps I'd seen the last couple of weeks from Boost, and although tika seemed OK, she's just older and arthritic.  Another $130 that I hadn't budgeted for, didn't know she was going to be there but was glad to be able to use her servies.

Sure enough, she identified Boost's right hip socket as being sore. NOthing that she'd recommend not running Boost, but enough to keep an eye on and maybe do less of everything that we usually do for a while to rest it. And Tika's left side was pretty tight and resisting; her toes were quite stiff but loosened up with the massage (and she showed me how to work on them).

Then by midday Saturday I was detecting a very slight limp on some occasions with Boost, so it was coming and going almost imperceptibly. For that last Jumpers run, Tika started out very slowly on the first four obstacles,  and I thought she was done, but she picked up. I warmed her up a lot more for her final Steeplechase and she looked ok, but oh, she's SOOOO stiff in the weaves these days!

And we arrive at Saturday evening

Everything just added up to this point in time, late afternoon Saturday--overly tired physically, a little discouraged, wondering whether my dogs had reached their saturation point, regretting having entered Sunday also.

Sure, there was another Jumpers and another Snooker, which was the whole reason I entered Sunday, but our performances had been so crapped in all three tries at each so far, there was no reason to think that Sunday would suddenly be THE jumpers and THE snooker we'd been waiting for.

So, late that afternoon, I decided that we were done. It was a great relief once I made the decision, and it gave me the energy to spend 90 minutes packing everything up after the Bay Team meeting, although I wasn't glad to finish packing and then driving the 2 hours home after dark.

Startled my renter, coming in just before 11 p.m.--can't remember when the last time was that I came home early from a trial, but I think it's been years and years. Pottied the dogs and went straight to bed. Didn't regret at all not being there today. Oh, well--except that one other friend who's been trying forever to get a Super-Q got it today. So, well, MAYBE that WOULD have been THE Snooker... But probably not.

Being at home and in my own bed is a nice feeling, and the stress, thrills, spills, and chills of competition are a nice thing to get a break from. Remind me if I ever try to sign up for 4 days of agility again that I've been down this path several times and should know better.

Results Already

SUMMARY: No cancer.

I got home from my afternoon meetings and there was already a phone message that my "nodule" is a completely benign "fibrocystic change" in the tissue. And that's that.

I guess I should rush out to the back yard and see whether my weave pole problems have been fixed that quickly, too!

Pinpointing the Problem and Dissecting it

SUMMARY: Weave poles and biopsy.

After my annual mammogram two weeks ago (annual because my sister had an occurrence of breast cancer), they called me in for a recheck, and then they called me in for a biopsy.

The offending spot towards the lower left with a couple of black hash marks scrawled on either side. Doc says the "nodule" is no more than half an inch. Half an inch sounds huge to me. But I didn't feel anything.

I've been through this before, a couple of times, in the last 20 years. Scary the first time, less so each following time. Previous times, they used ultrasound and a big needle to do the work. I expected the same, but this time the equipment was quite different.

I lay on a huge contoured table, face down, so that the relevant part of me hung down through a huge hole in the center. The table then rose so that the medical staff could easily get at their equipment underneath. Said equipment was essentially a small x-ray machine with the usual compressing plates to make the tissue spread out enough to be able to see things clearly. It's a "stereotopical" table, the nurse said, meaning that it takes photos (x-rays) from two directions to allow them to take the sample in exactly the right place in 3 dimensions.

It wasn't particularly comfortable lying like that for maybe 10 minutes while they got everything set up and positioned and photographed and needled. My neck and one shoulder became stiff. They used a local anaesthesia ("cold," said the doc. "Will sting." He was right about that. More than once). Then they cleaned things up and bandaged me and then I could sit up.

The other intriguing thing is that they implant a tiny titanium wire as close to the biopsy point as possible, so that if anyone has to go in there again, they'll know exactly where to go. They showed me one before they implanted it. No bigger than an eyelash.

Afterwards, they put me on a regular mammogram machine to check the wire's position. You can see it here--like a tiny "R". This image is from a slightly different angle, so I can't tell whether any of the dark round spots are now indications of holes where they remove tissue, or merely dark round spots.¹

Now I wait until Tuesday for the results.

Which isn't why I called you here today. I came to talk about weave poles.

Weave Poles

SOOOOO I actually set up a weave pole drill yesterday. Very simple. A curved tunnel with each end pointing at one end of a set of 6 weave poles about 22 feet away. And one jump between the tunnel and one end of the weaves, which I could move to either side, so the dog could approach directly from the tunnel or over a jump from the tunnel, into right-angle weave entries. (The turn left into the poles was the same gamble that Boost missed in class Tues night--as nicely diagrammed here by TSD and the same Snooker 6b-to-7 that Boost missed in the trial Saturday as shown here.)

I need to focus on where exactly the weave pole nodule is so that I can biopsy it, analyze, decide what treatment is needed, and wait until Tuesday for the results. (That being class day.)

Tika had no problem turning left into the poles. Turning to the right, however, she'd make the entry but skip the next pole. Huh. Interesting. Seemed vaguely familiar, like I've seen this before. So we worked on that from closer, easier angles to longer, harder approaches. Didn't take much for her to be doing them all correctly.

Boost had no problem with the end that Tika didn't like (and that's supposedly the "difficult" end for most dogs), but, turning left, she entered on the wrong side every time. I made the angle easier and easier until she started getting it--had to be almost straight on. As soon as we angled out about 15 degrees back towards the tunnel, she'd revert to the wrong side. I dropped out all except 3 poles. Same problem. Dropped to 2 poles, and all of a sudden she could make the correct entry every time.

Interesting.

And a little lightbulb² went off in my head. And that lightbulb said, "You've had EXACTLY the same lightbulb before!" And that previous lightbulb said, "I've determined that she has trouble entering weaves when she has to bear left." (Right here in this very blog post from August 2007.)

So, I have zeroed in on what I hope is not a malignant problem, but merely a benign but annoying lump upon which I must use precision tools  to make sure that it doesn't recur.

OK, I'm set. I have a plan and two huge bandaids on my certain anatomical part that I'm not supposed to remove or shower over for another day, so let's hope I don't work up too huge a sweat while practicing weave entries.

Mood: Waiting. Hopeful.

---

¹ These images cost me $10 and an hour of waiting. I hope you appreciate them as much as I do.

² LED, of course, or perhaps compact fluorescent.

Loose End (Another One)

SUMMARY: I can hear you now!

Saw the ear doctor Monday and the hole in my right eardrum has closed completely. For the longest time, I worried that I'd never be able to hear properly again out of that ear, but just a couple of weeks ago, I realized that improvements were happening. Now, I can't tell any difference in my hearing at all from my other ear. Whew!

A Modest Proposal to Solve Everything

SUMMARY: Lots of trials, classes, and intense practice help one's weight and health, plus save unwanted dogs and improve the economy.

From UBA HR Elements, July 2010:

OBESITY RATES SWELL
Twenty-eight states saw their obesity rates rise in the past year, according to research by the Trust for America's Health. Mississippi had the highest rank for a sixth year in a row -- with 33.8 percent of the adult population rated obese -- followed by Alabama and Tennessee (both 31.6 percent). Nearly all the top 10 states were in the South. The healthiest states were concentrated in the Northeast and West. Colorado had the lowest obesity rate at 19.1 percent.

Scary. But Colorado rocks! (I wonder if that's why they call them the Rockies?) California is just 9 places higher than Colorado. I found that info by browsing around and following links on the Trust for America's Health site.

I know that my weight is more stable--or even dropping--when i'm doing a lot of agility. And, although there are overweight or obese people in agility (Full disclosure: I'm on the borderline of the BMI "overweight" category), there aren't many, and it seems to me that there is a much larger proportion of obviously ideally-weighted people than you'd find at your average shopping center.

Plus those who do carry extra pounds I'm willing to bet are much more healthy than those of the same weight who don't. I've been reading plenty of research lately that says that's the case (no surprise): Overweight people who exercise are healthier than overweight people who don't. (Too busy to find the links right now... sorry..)

So, to solve the obesity problem: Everyone in those southern states should take up dog agility! It would find homes for all those millions of dogs currently in shelters or foster homes (or being euthanized) and pour money into the economy for all those vendors and judges and agility sites and equipment manufacturers, who would then spend it on other goods and services--so we could fix the economy, too!

I'm sure there are many other similar large-scale benefits like that.

Updates

SUMMARY: Filling in on a couple of previous posts (last weekend and crate emergency info).

Emergency crate info

I just updated yesterday's post with more info about my crate tags including a note from the lady who makes them.

Head bonk

Hey, I forgot to mention, on top of all of my other physical woes, my huge head-whack last weekend at the trial. Monday morning, I somehow lost track of where my hatchback door had stopped (tree branch in the way). So I leaned over to do something with the dogs, stood up rapidly, and whanged my head on the corner of the door. It really hurt; I am not making this up. I had to sit down and make loud moans on exhales and hissing through my teeth on inhale sorts of noises. I'm sure it was an ugly picture, and glad no one was crating near me, but now I'm telling you about it anyway.

I had intended to spend my few spare minutes packing up, but instead spent much more time packing ice on my head and wondering whether one could get a concussion from a corner hit like that. It was hard to stand up for a few minutes, but that's because it hurt every time I moved, but on the outside, not the inside, if you can picture that. There was no blood, thank goodness, but even with the ice I had a lump the size of half a golf ball. I am reminded of that every time I shower. That was just the capper to one of my more uncomfortable weekends.

I seem to hit my head more and more often as the years go by. Can anyone tell me whether the top of one's skull continues to grow? I don't get it: I can look straight at an open car door, bend to get something out of the seat, and whack my head on the way *in*. If someday they find me dead on the kitchen floor from multiple blunt force traumas to my head, it'll probably be from repeatedly standing up under refrigerator or cabinet doors.

Another Week Gone

SUMMARY: More about last weekend's agility trial, and just stuff.

Don't you hate it when you start having a major hot flash just a little while before bed time so you're suddenly craving a long cold drink but then of course you have to get up in the middle of night from all that last-minute liquid you consumed? If you don't know what that's like, well, pfui on you!

I have been so tired this week--recovering, recovering, and then recovering some more.

Last Saturday, the 5:00 alarm put me into my usual "why the heck am I doing this again? Can't I just lie here and sleep a few more hours?" mode. But no--paid my entry fees, committed to being score table czar, gotta go.

Fatigue and damage

The hole in my eardrum certainly didn't help. Imagine filling one ear full of water and then stuffing an earplug into it; that's sort of what it feels like, all the time. When my teeth click together, feels and sounds like my whole head is full of water, that weird underwater echo sound. And accompanying it is this always slightly vertiginous feeling. Not dizzy, not actually off balance, not really disoriented, but something that feels like i ought to be. And a little tiny wee bit queasy to go with it. That's wearing, all by itself.

Throw in that I'm so much more out of condition than I was last year. I set up MUTT MVR on the far south side of the field under the trees so I could crate out of there instead of having to haul and set up canopy and gear. Saved my time and back and shoulders, but that meant that I walked a LOT. Almost 11 miles on my pedometer friday, 9 Saturday, 7 Sunday. Seems like I often put that kind of numbers on it, but--not doing my walkies! So that really wore me down.

Not doing well in the competition was wearing, as well. Or at least, not doing what I wanted to do.

And my muscles were just so so tired by the 2nd day and positively leaden by the 3rd day. Out into the ring and I felt as if I could barely move. No wonder Tika was spinning when I couldn't keep up with her.

On top of that, for some reason my left running shoe dug into my ankle and bruised it. Same shoes I've worn for agility for quite a while; don't know what that's all about. Eased it by taking the laces out of one row of holes (which then made the shoe a little loose), but by then the damage was done.

Sleeping challenges

I also had decided to not move the crates out of MUTT MVR and sleep in the van across the width, rather than the full length as usual. Can't do it well with the doors shut, but if I can slide them open six inches, they pop out about 6 inches on each side, giving me plenty of room to be able to stretch full length. Because it was going to be really hot, right?

Well, WAS hot--in San Jose, 45 miles north (nearly 100F/37C). But the advantage to our site in Prunedale is that it gets the mitigating coastal weather. There was sun for a few hours each day, but the wind carried an arctic chill. Brr. Not a warm weekend.

So although I tried very hard to sleep with the door popped--even tried clipping blankets over the openings, but noooo still way too cold--I ended up closing the doors, which made for two cramped nights of sleep, and Sunday night, my one knee couldn't get comfortable for nothin'. By Monday morning, it had achieved a good solid ache whenever I walked that never really went away.

I was a pitiful sight, lumbering slowly across the field to get my dogs by the end of the weekend.

The emergency room visit that didn't happen

The piece de resistance was Boost's Sunday night bladder issue, or whatever it was. We all settled in to sleep for about half an hour, and then she got restless restless restless. I thought maybe it was the fireworks all around us (go figure--we're out in a wooded area, fire planes already had to put out one fire a couple of ridges over the day before--). But finally got half dressed, took her out. She peed once a little, then kept trying and trying and not doing any more. Wouldn't settle back down. Convinced her for about 15 minutes, not comfortably, and then wanted out again. Up and down every 20-30 minutes until 1:00 in the morning, when I finally called the emergency clinic.

The closest one was well over half an hour away, and I so VERY much did not want to have to pack things up, rearrange the van again so it was driveable, drive half an hour, wait an hour or two or three, pay a couple hundred bucks and be back in the morning. The first one I called said it sounded bad and I should probably bring her in. The second one I called (first clinic referred me to a closer one) said it didn't sound like a medical emergency to them, maybe a bladder infection although you never know.

Then I had a flashback to something like this happening before. Couldn't remember the details, but when I got home, I found it in my blog here, as well as a follow-up note here, where I note that my vet thought it might have been "some kind of noncalcium bladder stone".

Anyway, I decided to tough it out. Took Boost out again after the call, insisted on her settling in. She was restless for half an hour but finally slept for an hour or so. Then out again around 3, restless for a while, and then thank goodness slept until the alarm went off at 6:30. So I got maybe 3 hours of sleep at the end and a few scattered cat naps before that.

And that was the end of that. (Although since we've been home, she's needed to go out at 3 in the morning twice. Hope that's done with now.)

Other than that, how was the show, Mrs. Lincoln?

So I don't mean to sound like all I have is complaints. Agility friends are good friends. Had dinner with the judges and trial committee and a few others on site Saturday evening. Chocolate cake twice in one day, woot! And dinner sunday evening on site with a few other friends in their big ol' motor home.

An amazing number of championships were awarded this weekend, and lifetime achievement awards, huge things like that. And Bernie the Beagle--not the fastest or most driven dog in the universe, but he keeps on keepin' on--he earned his championship, something like only the 3rd beagle ever in USDAA to earn a championship. Yay Bernie! It's so cool that everyone always claps and cheers when these things are announced.

Also, Boost's littermate Derby earned his ADCH over the weekend. That might make Boost the only one of the USDAA littermates who doesn't have hers yet. Not positive about Gina or Beck, but pretty sure they've both got it. Bette definitely does. Ah, well. But mine's got the best name. ;-) (Hi C-Era Interstellar Propulsion. But you knew that, right?)

I love the names that people are coming up with for their dogs. Making their debuts this year: Space Monkey and  Tricky-Woo. Then there's Jenn, the party girl, whose newly debuted dog is Tonic, so they're appropriately Jenn and Tonic. (Tonic is another half sibling to Boost.)

We were done around 4:30 both Saturday and Sunday, and 2:00 Monday, thank goodness! I needed the rest! Although mostly the dogs got to do a lot of running off leash.

Boost goes off to play with her friends

My SMART club had a meeting Sunday afternoon. Had both dogs with me on leash. Tika's OK to hang out and get scritched and rubbed, but Boost couldn't stand it that there were border collies out running around in the field and SHE WASN'T THERE TO HERD THEM! I finally let her off her leash and she ran wayyyy out to join them (her half sister and my teammates from this weekend).

She came running back a couple of times, suddenly remembering that I wasn't there, just to check up on us. After that, she didn't worry about me at all and just hung with them. Got a lot of good running in that day. (I wondered whether that could've caused her problems that night, but not sure how.)

It was funny to me that I could do that with her, just let her go, and know that she wouldn't run off randomly or get into trouble. Unlike Tika.

Who, when she was off leash, spent most of her time scrounging around on the ground for minuscule tidbits of one sort or another, particularly around people's canopies. Must have been many good crumbs. Or else hunting gophers. She stalks them so professionally! But hasn't caught one yet.

End of the weekend

Not many ribbons to bring home this time. Although, dang, realized I forgot to pick up their Pairs Relay Q ribbons. Dangies! My hoard of ribbons is now incomplete! What shall I do?!

The drive home Sunday was very slow. As in, about 20 minutes at a literal complete stand-still. When we finally started inching forward again, eventually we came to a collection of police and tow trucks at the side of the highway. There was a huge drop-off there, and I suspect that someone went over the edge. 

Sleepinnnnng...

I have slept very soundly and very long every night this week and it has never felt like quite enough.

Tiring myself some more

Tuesday I was so sore and tired that I did nothing (no agility class this week due to a funeral in their family), and Wednesday also did nothing. THEN I figured that a  nice strenuous hike Wednesday evening with the Sierra Club would be fine, right, because I was all rested up?

We drove up to Skyline and parked looking out over the valley. Not the clearest air, by far. But can make out the blimp hangers at Moffet Field although the hills on the far side of the valley and bay are iffy.

Then we walked to the cutoff down into Coal Creek Open Space. And went down--down--down--at a fairly rapid clip for over half an hour. I knew I had some sweaty miles ahead of me coming back up!

The area was amazingly lush, filled with ferns and other big-leafed plants (and the ubiquitous poison oak). The uphill was a lot of work for me; as soon as we started climbing, I realized that my muscles were a very long way from recovered from the weekend. It would've been challenging for me at this time even without that, but, wow, whew!  I was *not* the very last person--one guy who used to hike a lot but hasn't in a few years beat me on that score--but we weren't that far apart.  I was glad for a quick rest at a trail junction.

I didn't take photos most of the trip to avoid falling even farther behind. When we crossed the creek, someone said later that there were newts, but I hadn't even stopped to look at all. Maybe some other time.

Just a leetle tiny hike Friday

Thursday I was so tired that I didn't do much of anything at all. My friend with whom I've been walking on many fridays came by this morning and we walked at least a couple of miles, but at a leisurely pace and all on level paved paths along the Los Alamitos Creek trail with the Merle Girls, who think it's something fine to do in between REAL exercise.

I had thought I might get some good hiking in this weekend, but am rethinking that plan.

This afternoon I took a nice comfy, although short, nap. All my muscles are still telling me that they want more rest, not more activity, and I'm inclined to let them have their way. Fortunately, no agility this weekend and I've got time to recover before the following TWO weekends of agility.

And now, yes, it's time to:  SLEEEEEEP!  Hear that, Bladder o'Boost? Let there be no midnight runs!