I’m UPSET!!

Back in January we pulled a tick off Brutus.

When we went to the vet back in January—-Animal Haven (cause so many folks on my local HS loop raved about them and how they were all Christians, and how wonderful they were with their dogs) I mentioned that I had pulled a tick off of Brutus.

They sold me Advantix so that ticks / mosquitoes / fleas would stay off him. No mention that perhaps we should test for Lyme.

We went back to them in Feb but at that visit we saw the other vet; who seemed to be more interested in SELLING us goods—ear cleaner supplies, Advantix, Heartworm, canine cough vacine — AND she had zero bed-side manner. Between a HAZARDOUS WASTE DISPOSAL FEE for disposing the poop in the toilet!!!, and the poor bedside manner with us and Brutus, it was easy to switch. MilitaryKid who likes everyone, even remarked about how he did not care for her at ALL, and so I decided to go to our local town vet.

I took Brutus in today for his last Parvo shot. Brutus weighed in at 67#, and is now 4months and 11 days!!! I also mentioned to the vet that Brutus is limping all the time on walks.

The vet was so gentle as he examined and felt Brutus’ legs, lymph nodes, and said that we should test him for Lyme, and, —–has he ever had a tick?

Yes

He took a blood sample, quick as could be, the test was “VERY POSITIVE.”

I’m SICK. MAD. ANGRY. UPSET. The ol; if only Animal Haven had been more interested in treating and thinking about whether this puppy could have gotten Lyme from that tick instead of SELLING us stuff.

Oh, and our local town vet prices are far lower than Animal Haven’s AND they don’t charge a Hazardous poop Disposal Fee. What a RIP-OFF!!!

So Brutus is on Amoxicillin for 30 days, 2x a day, a huge white pill.

We are off to the store to pick up Liverwurst to hide his pill in it.

Please tell me I’m over-reacting.

Oh, and this morning MilitaryKid broke one of Brutus’ IAMS puppy biscuits in half. Thankfully he looked at it before he gave it to Brutus. There inside was a metal shaving. IAMS is sending vouchers for both a free 40# bag of food, and puppy biscuits, and lots of other coupons. They want the sample. Brutus’ vet wants a copy of the report as to where it came from and what it is. I’m not sending it off until I can take a photo of it. My camera is in Pat’s car, I think.

But on a good note I walked about one mile this morning I finally gave in and took a pain pill this afternoon but my knee is getting much better. Brutus won’t be able to walk with me for a few days but hopefully he will be walking, long walks, with me next week.

Dilemma — What to do with Brutus while we are in Kansas?  When we got Brutus in January I knew that we did not have any trips in the works that would take us anywhere away from him for YEARS.  I knew that our vacation to NY state would include Brutus and that there were no other trips on the horizon.  I knew, just knew that we would NOT be going to the National Science Olympiad competition in May.

And here we are going.

Brutus will be only 6months old when we go, and we will be gone for a week.  He will be too young to leave in a kennel for a week.  Too young to leave in the home, taken out a few times a day by a willing neighbor.  So I’m thinking —- 

Maybe a friend would take him for a week.

Or, maybe a friend would be willing to house sit with Brutus for a week.

Or, we’ll do as the boys suggest and take him with us. NO!   Obviously they have never traveled with a dog before, and this trip will be two long driving days out and back.  They also should know from experience that once there we are busy, busy, busy.  But then they are kids, so I’ll give them a break. 

Any suggestions?

We had our De State Science Olympiad Competition today —-

ScienceKid took a First in Storm the Castle;

2nd in Rocks & Minerals

8th in Mission Possible (would have taken first but the table was shaky and that caused several machines to prematurely fire)

10th in Heredity

?? in Food Science

He’s really annoyed by his Food Science and Heredity results, and upset that his Mission Possible device didn’t work as it had at home due to their shaky table — we even saw a table totally collapse on a couple kids!!!  How awful to see that table collapse and their box go tumbling down to the ground.

His team came through with many of the kids taking First and Second place in their events.  Lots of 4th, 5th and 6th places too.

Then they announced the results; that Delaware was getting to send two teams to Nationals, the top two teams from the top two schools.  We came in 3rd place, the 1st and 2nd place teams were from the same school—HBDuPont, SO that means our Tri-State Homeschool Team is GOING!!!

This will make the 3rd year that we will head to the National Science Olympiad Competition.  ScienceKid is thrilled—last year he took First Place in Storm the Castle and he so badly wanted to return and ‘defend’ his title this year and all season we thought we wouldn’t have that chance.  And here it is.

And going to a National SO Competition is just so thrilling!  What an experience it was to go the first year.  How Grand it was to go last year; but to be able to return for a third year is just totally amazing.  Amazing!!

We don’t know how we are going to come up with the $$$$$$  to fly 15 kids and a parent out there, but somehow we will do it.   Since we are a home school team we do not have the backing of the community to fund us; or a PTA to fund raise for us; or tax money we can use to pay for the trip like the schools we go up against…..but the Lord has provided the past two years so we are praying…

I cannot believe this.  When will I wake from this dream??

We are in those final preparation stages for tomorrow’s DE State Science Olympiad Competition. ScienceKid has prepared for; Storm the Castle (below photo),

Rocks & Minerals, Heredity, Food Science, and Mission Possible.  Five events.  FIVE!!!  Here’s a picture way back when of SK and his partner building a part for their Storm the Castle event. Please don’t ask me to explain, cause I really do not understand how SK built it. But he did. Designed it, found the materials, built it. Amazing!

SK is packing up his stuff, the lab apron he’ll need for Food Science, the notebook he’s permitted to take in to Rocks&Minerals, the Mission Possible box, and his trebuchet for Storm the Castle.   The picture below is of the Mission Possible box when they started back in January.

The device starts by having marbles engage a paddle wheel. Then a series of 16 simple machines operate, including a sand-timer that must run for more than 30 seconds before a light-weight can lifts a heavy-weight can. All simple machines. Everything operating in series.

Wish him luck. He’s calm. I’m a nervous wreck.

Of course MilitaryKid has chosen this moment to start working on HIS Science Olympiad Egg Drop event. His competition will be the end of April. But why can’t we have one afternoon off from preparation. Oh, yea, I have science-loving kids.

The last month-and-a-half have been hard on me, laid up with this knee injury, but it also helped me realize how much I need exercise in my life. Without exercise I turn to food, which has made my waist-size much larger. When I couldn’t walk, or clean the house, or do the laundry, or vacuum, or cook the dinner, or supervise the kitchen clean-up, or simple walk through the yard searching for all the signs of spring, I turned to food. The girl scout cookies, the chips, the pretzels, the cake, the ice cream, all went down-the-hatch and on the body. An awful 20# came on in the past 6 weeks; on a body that had already put 12# back on since our long camping/hiking trip out west, and another 20# during the previous year. Food has always been a problem for me, and I have never not been in the clean-plate club, or been one to forget to eat a meal. It is a battle I constantly fight and when I let my guard down the pounds slip back on.

So my little secret is out, and I have my work cut out for me. Exercise and I are going to become good friends again. Actually we have always been great friends and I’ve never been one to not get out and exercise, even when the pounds were slipping on. This was one of my reasons for getting a dog back into our lives; having a dog would force me to get outside for a morning walk and an evening walk. Much to his delight ScienceKid is finding this out. He is very body conscience and recently remarked that his 2-3 daily dog walks, which add up to about 8 miles a day, has trimmed his body up. I can’t really tell that he has lost any inches or pounds but if he feels better than that is great. I’m looking forward to when I can join him on those walks too.

Isn’t he gorgeous! These photos were taken last week on his 4 month birth date. He stands about 24″ at the shoulders. His legs are actually further apart then what is shown in this stand too. And his fur, it is still so soft and feels like lambs wool, except it doesn’t have lanolin in it.

Eating (again) right out of my hand.

And just a mere 55# here. Just about the amount of weight I need to take off. Exercise, I need some.

I had my knee surgery this morning —- in at 9:40, back to recovery at 10:15, headed home at 11:35, and home by 12:15. The operation was uneventful, we have pictures too, and the Dr took care of some other “disease” that was in there too while everything was open. I’m on pain pills but that doesn’t mean the pain is gone. Thanks for the prayers everyone.

DH’s here and I asked him to work from home tomorrow too. They said I might be driving a car in 3 or 4 days. Now we just need to recover, do the exercises—toe moving today and quad crunches tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll soon back to walking…..

DH is off to find the photos and the instructions on what I am allowed to do, and not allowed to do over the next several days. Should have kept them in my hot, little hands……. well, he found the photos and my ice bag but not the discharge papers.
My friend Michele was a sweet-heart and brought us dinner.  Ummm it was so good.  Chicken breasts baked with a seasoned mayonnaise  sauce, green beans, noodles, salad with an awesome blueberry vinaigrette, and desert.  DH wouldn’t try the vinaigrette; his lose, my gain since there’s more for me to have on my next salad.  When I get the recipe from her I’ll post it here.   Thank you so much, and the flowers are beautiful too.

One fine day,… well, I actually think I was sick, I came across a hs’ing forum website.  It was fun to explore and read the posts, and I posted there for awhile. But as life is busy I forgot to visit it for months on end until recently.  See, I have been spending quite a lot of home time with my pc in my lap rather than moving around the home, cleaning, and cooking, and doing laundry,….  and I discovered that they moved their site to a new location, although I was not able to learn why they did this.

Today, since my knee is giving me so much pain, I’ve been sitting around again exploring their site.  Wealth of information there, just like you’d find at your library, so I thought I’d pass on their site:

 The HOMESCHOOL Libary

Fox Philly News this morning had a segment on whether light spanking was OK or not. They’re running a poll — located down the page on the right side:
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/myfox/

Yes, even a light spanking is NOT an acceptable form of discipline. 

ScienceKid is in crunch time, with just 10 days until State Science Olympiad competition here in Delaware. He’s busy collecting data for his Storm the Castle device, making final modifications to his Mission Possible device — neither of which he did on his own, and I do want to acknowledge that his partners have been here many hours, for many days working with him — studying also for his Rocks & Minerals event, Heredity–which he will go into alone, and Food Science. Busy, busy time.

As for MilitaryKid he’s longingly looking at the boxes that have come in the mail for him. His birthday is tomorrow but thankfully we celebrated last Friday. Tomorrow we will probable be with SK collecting data for his Storm the Castle device and working in the school lab on Food Science. He seems to be OK with that but he sure won’t be asked to do any school work tomorrow. Usually I take the kids on a special field trip on their birthday but this year….well, I can hardly walk right now, can’t really….and don’t get me started on the pain, or lack of sleep cause of the pain……….funny thing about this; SK stated today that he’s never seen the house in such chaos all because of my leg, and my inability to function. Ok, not funny but nice that he notices.

At least it is just 6 more days until my surgery. Now, do I believe the surgeon who says I will be walking out the clinic’s door or the folks who have been through this operation who state that recovery is several weeks or the Dr I saw today for my EKG who said that it will be 2-4 weeks before I’m walking again. We’ll find out in 6 days though.

So the MRI showed that I have a torn post-horn medial meniscus and I quickly got in to see the Orthopaedic Dr on Wednesday.  Moving this week has been painful so I have kept it to a minimal.  The Dr said that I need to have arthroscopic surgery to remove the torn portion before the end of the week.  On Thursday the scheduling assistant called to say that the surgery is to be on the 19th. Hmm, so much for the end of the week but I didn’t believe that part either since I need to have an EKG done to clear me for surgery. A call to my Dr to schedule the EKG was frustrating to say the least. The office staff said that the Dr was busy until the 28th; and finally they said he could see me on the 20th. A few more phone calls and I’m in on the 13th for the EKG. Hassles. May be time to look for a new Dr.

I’m finally not in any pain, can put weight on my leg and walk from here-to-there slowly, as long as I do not twist my leg or ankle everything seems to be fine. Oh, and so long as I don’t take my DS up on his suggestion that we do jumping jacks LOL!

Anyone been through this? Is the recovery as easy as my Dr is making it out to be?  He claims that I will walk out of the clinic , it is a very short surgery and I should be there only 3hrs.  The walking out bit has me surprised though.

On a better note MilitaryKid had a little birthday party on Friday.  He invited a couple boys to  go bowling and then they came back to the house for dinner and play-time.  A mom stayed to help me out and I, who always bakes the birthday cake and does everything from scratch, purchased a cake from the grocery store and had DH bring home KFC.  I think I have finally learned to balance the —what we need to do,  with the what we are able to do.  And this week I did not need to do the baking and preparing so MilitaryKid could still have his little birthday celebration.    I also did not clean the house from top-to-bottom but just accepted it as it was, and accepted how MK and SK cleaned it.  It worked just fine.

MK will be turning eleven on Wednesday.   Eleven.  Where have the years gone?  Eleven?