I talked to the vet and he suggested halving her thyroid medicine for about a month and then getting her weight and doing the blood work again.  This way we'll see if the thyroid was causing the weight loss or not.

One possible bonus to halving the thyroid medicine is that it might cause Artie to slow down a bit.  That would be a good thing.  She still runs and jumps like she's 12 months instead of 12 years.  Artie also has a high pain threshold.  When she was about a year old she cracked a bone in her paw.  We didn't know anything had happened until she went running through the house crying in pain.  She didn't stop running, though.

Artie's been falling a bit more lately and I've been worried that she'll jump and land wrong or run into something and hurt herself.  If her energy levels go down a bit, maybe that fear can ease some.

Technorati Tags: getting old, Vet

Since July, Artie has been to the vet 3 times.  Twice in this month alone.  She's going back on Tuesday.

I can't really say that the last two are definitely due to old age, but I can't rule age out as a factor, either.

In July Artie started having trouble with incontinence.  Blood work showed that she has too much protien in her blood.  It was caused by a problem with her kidneys and required that she go on a special diet and take medication for the incontinence.  She had to be taken off the steroid she was given to deal with the effects of flea allergy.

Two weeks ago I took her back to the vet because she was shaking her head almost constantly and losing hair.  I knew that the hair loss was due to the flea allergy.  We've been fighting this battle since she was a puppy and it always gets bad this time of year.

Artie had lost 3 pounds since the July visit (mostly likely due to all the itching and head shaking) and the vet gave her a half dose of a steroid to help her out.  Everything else seemed normal.

Roughly this past Wednesday, she started shaking her head again and itching more.  Not as bad as two weeks before but I didn't want things to get too bad so I took her back today.

In two weeks she had lost 3 pounds even though she was eating as much as normal for her.  The head shaking and scratching only started back up this week.  She really shouldn't have lost so much weight.  So a visit to try to nip the head shaking and scratching in the bud turned into a 45+ minute visit with the vet to try to figure out just what was wrong with the dog.

Two things we figured out for sure, she has a kidney infection (again) and may have a yeast infection in one of her ears.  Anything else will have to wait for the results of blood work.  The blood, though, can't be done until Tuesday.  Due to my work schedule, I'll have to leave her at the vets so they can draw blood about 6 hours after she has the medication.  I'll pick her up on my way home.

Another thing we discussed but didn't address is the fact that Artie is becoming clumsy.  She still runs and jumps but she doesn't always land well.  More and more often her legs go out from under her and she ends up hitting the ground.  I know this is due to old age and there isn't much we can do about it.  I just wish Artie realized that she's getting old and decided to take her energy levels down a notch.  I worry that one day she'll hurt herself.

So that was my somewhat depressing visit to the vet.  I don't blame the vet for Artie getting old.  Plus everyone in my vet's office love Artie.  Whenever I take her the vet techs will come from where ever they are working to stop and say "hi" to Artie and pet her.  She's probably been treated by all of the vets there at one time or another as well.  By the time we left today she had filled up on treats by various members of the staff.

It looks like we will be seeing more and more of the vets as things go on.  I guess it's a good thing she loves to go there and they all adore her.

Technorati Tags: getting old, Vet

Technorati Tags: wall street bail out

McCain announced today that he was suspending his campaign in light of the financial crises that he helped create.  Last week McCain didn't seem to see any cause for concern.  I'm glad to see that he finally acknowledges that there are problems on Wall Street.

Why, though, did he do this?  Well, let's look at what they are and aren't saying.

First off, McCain is saying that he wants Friday's debate to be postponed.  What he isn't saying is that McCain is afraid that questions about the economy will arise.  Specific questions about his push to deregulate everything and his participation in the Keating 5.  He's saying that the fat cats on Wall Street caused the crash with their greed.  What he's not saying is that his former public face on economic policy, Carly Fiorina was fired from her CEO position at HP but left with a executive compensation package worth roughly $45 million.

What he also isn't saying is that McCain has taken no time off from campaigning to prepare for Friday's debate.  What better way to not show that he isn't prepared then to postpone the debate?

The McCain campaign is also saying that Palin is ready to be president.  What they aren't doing, however, is allow anyone to ask her any real questions.  At least not if she hasn't had the chance to prepare for them ahead of time.  His campaign even blocked reporters from asking questions when Palin went to the UN to meet with some foreign heads of state.  They could take her picture, though.

Personally, when I first heard that McCain was suspending his campaign and asking for a postponment I figured he was just scared of looking bad next to Obama.  Then I thought about it some more and I decided that this would be a good time to postpone or even cancel Palin's debate against Biden that is set for next week.  Little did I know that just before I started to write this CNN would report that sure enough, they wanted to delay Palin's debate as well.

Was this a presidental move by McCain? Hardly, it was the move of a desperate campaign that knows they are sinking fast. The nation is heading into a financial crises that McCain the deregulator helped create. They have a VP pick that can't answer a question without sounding like a high school student trying to overwhelm with words on an essay so that no one notices she has no clue what she is saying.

McCain, if you want to prove you're ready to be president, you need to prove you can lead without resorting to fear tactics and that you can do more than one thing at a time. Your running mate should do the same thing.

Technorati Tags: debate, McCain, Palin

This was created by Ken over at Bring It On!

Technorati Tags: McCain, Wall Street

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One of the people I work with at my school is a gossip whore.  Unfortunately, she works in the office next to mine.

Our enrollment numbers are lower than expected.  This has forced my school to cut several teacher and support staff positions.  This was on top of the cut that had to be made last year and the likelihood of more cuts for next year.

Today was a bad, bad day because this was the day that people would be notified if they were being cut.

We've known since Monday that this was happening today, but the principal has been very tight lipped about who would be cut.  I'm still not sure what I think of this new principal but I applaud how he didn't leak any information about the people being cut and told them in person in private.

Since Wednesday, though, one person that I work with has been telling people that she's been told that they or someone they work with was being cut.  The people being cut would change slightly depending on who she was talking to.

Out of the ugliness of her heart, she managed to increase the drama and stress of an already bad situation.

Last night I got a call from a person in my office because of what this gossip whore had told someone else.  This bitch person told people that a particular list of people were being cut and the person who called me was on the list.

Besides the fact that this bitch person didn't know a damn thing, the people she named read like a wish list of people the gossip whore didn't like.  It took some time for me to convince my friend that this bitch person didn't know what she was saying and that she was not as likely to be cut as she was told.

This bitch person spent the vast majority of this day going around and around shoving her nose into the business of others trying to find out who had been cut.

I was hoping that this particular bitch person would get cut . . . no such luck.

Technorati Tags: gossip