Chariclo is six!!

Chariclo had chemo treatment #13 of 17 yesterday and everything was great... Exam, bloodwork, attitude.  And today she has the pleasure of turning SIX years old.  Which is not nearly old enough to be going through stage V lymphoma, but perhaps you don't call it that any more if she is mostly in remission.  And perhaps she is doing so well because she IS a younger dog.  Next week is a skip week, and the week after that she will have chest x-rays as well as treatment #14.  I'm looking forward to seeing those x-rays.

I took this picture last weekend—she has a wooly bear caterpillar on her head.  So on the occasion of her birthday, I will tell you the story of her name.  When I first learned how sick she really was, one of my first thoughts related to her name and how I would so, SO miss saying it someday and damn John for doing such a good job naming her.

We were puppy hunting and had managed to get on the list for a litter of puppies that would be the I litter.  Oftentimes litters are named in alphabetical order so a puppy from a breeder's first litter would be Starstruck's Alphabet Soup (called "Noodle") and a puppy from the second litter would be Starstruck's Beetlejuice (called "Day-O").  I just made those up.  So this was the I litter.  We have named our dogs after astronomers from Tycho, Galileo and Ptolemy to Bernoulli, Toscanelli and Amanda.  We found an astronomer named Robert Innes, born in Scotland, who eventually established an observatory in South Africa.  There, he discovered the star nearest our sun called Proxima Centauri.  That star is part of the centaur constellation.  And the centaur is called Chiron.  And Chiron?  Well, he married a nymph named... Chariclo.

Now in the end, we didn't get a puppy from that I litter but instead got a puppy from another breeder's S litter.  And based on the weather we drove in to collect that puppy, she should have been called Backcountry's Slip Sliding Away or Backcountry's Snow and Ice, but she is registered as Backcountry's Seeing Stars.

When we were first introducing little Chariclo to the world people wondered what we would call her for short, but there is NO short — you quickly say the first two syllables and sing out the third:[Kare-i-KLO!]. The nearly-17-year-old can say it in one as he invites her front paws up onto his chest for a hug.

Cold Friday

Thank goodness for good old fashioned wired keyboards... I just put my bluetooth one in the waste basket as it was typing multiple letters for most key presses, even after charging and rebooting.  I have a new one on the way and I'm hoping the order of the keys to the left of the space bar is more intuitive than the one I just tossed... I had to paint my Command Key in red nail polish so it would get my attention, and even then I always had to look to see where it was.

Anyway.

It's Friday!  I'll visit a recently widowed friend at 1:30, pick up the kids after school and drop one off at work and the other off at art therapy, then go back to work.  At 4 I'll pick up the one kid from art therapy, grab a dog or two, and head to agility class.  After agility, I'm headed up the line to collect two house guests from Logan Express.  They have an appointment on Monday at MGH to discuss recently discovered lymphoma.

Coincidentally, the 15-year-old also has an appointment at MGH on Monday.  He's part of a study into a phenomenon called Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID).  This is his last follow-up, and completes two years of participation which started with a very long day involving bloodwork, multiple MRIs to observe the brain as it encountered food visually and through smell and taste, and never-ending questionnaires.  He had a follow-up a year later, and this is the last piece.  He won't benefit from the research, but maybe someday we'll see a report on the results of the study.

Because of the OCD and some maturity, it's possible he's added a few more things to his diet while ruling out a few more.  Just yesterday from an article posted to Facebook I learned that there is a high level (parts per million) of some pesticide made by Monsanto in his beloved whole-grain goldfish crackers.  Due to some recent issues with constipation and his own research, the 15-year-old is giving up goldfish crackers (cheese being a contributor to intestinal slow downs).  It's really horrifying how much we don't understand about what we do to ourselves with food... "Organic" is expensive so while there are certain products I get "organic," I don't immediately head that way for everything, and I don't choose organic chocolate sandwich cookies over Oreos... It's easy to imagine that the various challenges my boys have could be related to Monsanto trying to make a buck by trying to help farmers make a buck, while we live underneath a power line that is strong enough to mess with compass needles.

It's really too depressing to dwell on.  Last night the local school had a presentation about vaping.  I went to understand what it was about.  It is thoroughly shocking how vaping flavors are being marketed, although apparently people are trying to get flavors outlawed.  Caramel apple?!  Horrifying to see all the possible chemicals you can get into your body by vaping, besides "just" nicotine, and the nicotine is intensely concentrated.  I'm very aware of the "blessing" of having my kids on devices and at home... The almost-17-year-old spends his money gaming, either with hardware or software.  The 15-year-old doesn't spend money at all!  And I always know where they are because that's just how the days are scheduled.

The almost-17-year-old recently bought a very special lighter.  It was made in the Ukraine from a WW2 bullet of some sort.  He was SO excited to get it that he used it a lifetime's worth on the first day he had it and broke it.  So then he researched all the parts needed to fix it and has it working again.  Why did he need a lighter?  Was he taking up smoking something?  NOPE.  He just wanted it because it was "cool."  Sometimes he likes to burn things (like leaves or a piece of paper) in a controlled fashion.  Mostly, he just sits at his desk and flicks it.

So, it's Friday and I love that it's Friday!  I love, Love, LOVE agility class and I think I'll take Chariclo to class and treat her like a regular dog, other than not jumping full height.  It will make Khione crazy to have to watch her get a turn, which will in turn make Khione's turn even more crazy than usual.  We'll certainly be entertaining.   Then I'll head down Rte 1 and if there's time I might poke around Kohl's.  Dinner for the house guests will either be leftover butternut squash lasagna or a free Domino's pizza, and I'll make homemade fried rice with tofu and veggies for John and me.

We have a visitor dog arriving for a few days — the world's largest dachshund, we call him — he's actually a mix, but the result of collie/bulldog/mini-dachshund turns out to be... Dobby!

Rip van winkle, blog version?

I was suddenly in the mood to write something more than a blurb on Facebook.  No offense to FB, which I love.  It's all in how you use it and set your settings.  But how about a blog entry?  Where IS my blog anyway?  Hmmm... And HERE it is!  Crikey, I haven't been here in a while!

Fall nesting is happening... I'm cleaning the garage.  A classic case of one thing leads to another.  Khione (age 2 1/2) just earned her novice draft dog title and demonstrated quite a lot of willingness to keep going in fine style, so I wanted to have her cart easily accessible and find the weights so we could train for Open (where she'll have to pull 80-90 lbs.)... This morning I took a load of recycling, a big bag of trash, a portable air conditioner and a dehumidifier to the dump.  A tiny bit of rearranging and John should be able to drive his car smoothly into the garage with plenty of room left over to extricate carts as needed.  I've located 44 lbs. of weights so far and there are more under the apartment fridge we can't seem to sell.  However we now have leftover vinyl fence boards that could go under there instead.  Which reminds me that I should really find a home for the vinyl fence boards.

There's something addictive about cleaning things, once you get started.  The problem is that I only START every few years!  I'm talking about basements and garages -- the main part of the house gets cleaned weekly -- no worries!  But I can't wait to get home later and do a bit more.  The bikes need sorting out.  I washed some cover sheets and there are a couple more to do.  Where is the lawn mower supposed to be?  It's NOT going in my cart corner!  But maybe it fits in next to the snow blower.

Chariclo weighed 110 lbs. during her weekly chemo appointment this week!  Apparently she needs to be treated a little less like a sick, dying dog and more like a perfectly healthy and very energetic one! Of course, every time Khione does her "close the door!" trick and gets a cookie, the other two are right there to get their cookies for breathing.  Chariclo turns six next Thursday, November 14, 2019.  She is much too young to be battling stage FIVE lymphoma, but she's doing a damn good job of it.  And I know we are lucky to have her reach age six because her sister has been gone two years already.   "Luck" really feels like a big piece of this life-with-dogs thing -- some people lose their dogs ridiculously young and others live miraculously long.  But when we get THOSE moments — like when all 110 lbs. of Chariclo climbs in my lap in the waiting room at the vet hospital and makes everyone smile — or when I bring her somewhere new to say hello and she bounces in, twirling and spinning and bouncing, clearly the happiest creature anyone will see that day — well, that's why we keep doing it.

And just so we cover all the dogs, Boreas, (age 2), is SO adorable and hasn't bitten anyone in ages.  He loves to get on the couch with a bunch of couch pillows and with his super-cute face, we can't help but just take a cookie over and trade for whatever is in his mouth THIS time and kiss his head and tell him he's a good boy.  Someone on a Bernese FB group asked for help with their boy who was waking up in the middle of the night to lift his leg on their BED.  Amongst other reasons that Boreas is a failed foster is that he NEVER peed in the house!  He may pee on himself (boys!), but he doesn't lift his leg, and he doesn't pee in the house.

After a bunch of really dark weeks with the 15-year-old, factors came together and he's now on a second medication that seems to make a difference.  He still retreats to his room and still talks so no one can understand his point, but the DARK and the GLOOM seem to have lifted just enough to make it all bearable, for himself as well as us.  And hey, how amazing that while going through all of that, he managed to get himself on the honor roll for the first quarter of the 2019-2020 school year?

The nearly 17-year-old has at least managed to PASS everything, first quarter, and even pulled a few GOOD grades.  It's a bit of a holding pattern at the moment.  I found Stoneyfield Farms peach yogurt at Market Basket, and buy all they have when they have it, and he's eating it, so let's call that a huge plus!!

Just a little while longer to work and then I can go  home and deal with home stuff -- more cleaning  in the garage  before John comes home and puts the car  in it....  And the fall cleanup happened in the  yard  so now I need to  put all the fences back up to keep the dogs out of places they shouldn't dig holes...