Catching Up

I haven’t bitched in a while. I guess things have been going OK, but then I remember back over recent events and they really haven’t been.

I finally went to the rheumatologist a couple of weeks ago. He thinks I have osteoarthritis which I guess is better than having rheumatoid, but it is still arthritis and it still hurts. I woke at 2:30 am this morning with pain in my knees and hips. It was 5:30 before I could go back to sleep. The doctor changed my anti-inflammatory medication and doubled the dose on my Neurontin. He was amazed that I am still in pain with all of the medication my pain specialist has me taking. At least he believed that I was suffering pain and didn’t get condescending by suggesting I lose weight. He also took x-rays of my hands, shoulders and knees and bone density scans of my pelvis and hips. I’ll get the results of those and my blood work when I go back in June.

The water line from the meter to the house had to be replaced. No big deal except when it is 300 feet long and crosses a creek. I had two plumbers give me estimates. I had guessed somewhere between $2500 and $3000. Luckily it came in close to the lower end. I had to refinance my mortgage to come up with the cash. The hard part was waiting on the loan company. By the time the money came through the leak was so bad we were turning the water off at the meter. We would turn it on for a couple of hours a day to take showers, run the dishwasher and do laundry. In between those hours we flushed the toilet with buckets of water dipped from the bathtub. Thank heavens we are set for the next 50 years now.

The dogs have all been fine. We are waiting for 3 of them to come into heat so we can breed them. Last night we had a guest dog. Someone dropped a beagle off in front of the pet superstore where my DIL works. She could not stand to have it wandering around until the next day when Animal Control would be available. My son and I just got back from taking the dog out to the shelter. He should be adopted quickly. He looks well cared for and is well behaved.

I came close to killing our dogs. When Jack first started getting on the hot tub lid, I tried several things to dissuade her. Nothing worked. I just gave up trying to keep them off. There are at least 4 of them that get up there now. A few months ago, one of them chewed off a handle. I could still put up with that. In the past 3 weeks, one or more of them have torn up the cover and begun digging through the Styrofoam core. I’ve put plywood over the holes. In order to use the hot tub, I think we will need to use a full sheet of plywood and cut it to cover the entire lid. We’ll have to piece it together since the hot tub is 7 feet by 7 feet and a sheet of plywood is 4 feet by 8 feet. We have learned the hard way that anything the dogs can reach, they consider to be fair game. The skimmer net for the pool was the latest item to be lost. We pay a price for having so many dogs, but they do bring us a lot of pleasure. I have begun walking my Yorkie almost daily. She pesters me until I get her leash. Some days I don’t really feel up to walking, but usually feel better after even a short walk.