Yup. I got stung. Again. Some of you might remember this little adventure just before we moved: When Moving Preparation Goes Wrong.
Well, this morning at exactly 7:00 am (I checked my phone when it happened) another of the buggers stung me on the outside of my left hand, near base of my thumb. Ouch!
We were walking the dogs, and it was pretty cool. I noted a vibration in the cuff of the outer shirt I was wearing and wondered what it was. I reached down to move it when suddenly it hurt, and then something - a wasp, probably, but perhaps a yellow jacket - flew off.
Thankfully I am not particularly allergic to these things (yet) and all I have is some minor swelling and a tiny bit of pain. Not a big deal.
Except...
What is it about me that get me into these situations? I've seen plenty of wasps flying around our area, and never noted a nest. I've been careful as a result. But at 7 am when the temperature was perhaps 9 degrees (Celsius, for my American readers... it's not that cold) any self respecting wasp should have been asleep or catatonic, not flying into the cuff of my shirt and stinging me for trying to let it out.
Sigh.
Just my luck, I guess.
Showing posts with label life_sucks_and_then_you_die. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life_sucks_and_then_you_die. Show all posts
Monday, October 2, 2017
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
When Moving Preparation Goes Wrong
So, you know how you're trying to plan way ahead of things when you're moving? Everyone does that, right?
Because you're doing that, a few days in advance of moving you call your Internet and phone provider (who shall remain anonymous, but whose name might partially sound like something you do when you're fishing) and setup a disconnect of your service the day after you need it. After all, you're going to be in crazy mode for a few days in a row, and the internet and a phone will help deal with surprises and thus keep you sane, right?
Your service rep is very nice and sets it all up just fine. Disconnect is set for Friday, since the moving truck takes all your stuff on Thursday. The call goes so well - almost no time on hold even - that you are lulled into a false sense of security.
So Tuesday arrives, and at about 12:30 pm, just like you didn't schedule it, your internet and phone go away. Poof.
So you call your COMunications (and fishing related) service provider and get into their automated system, which helpfully sends a reset command to your equipment and tells you to wait ten minutes to see if that worked.
But you're smarter than that, so you push deeper into the phone tree saying "Representative!" until you are hoarse and eventually (after three hours and a light snack) get to a "Live Body" (tm) who might be able to look at your account and figure out why it's stopped working three days early.
The "Live Body" (tm) eventually isn't sure but it was probably someone who didn't read the date right on the disconnect request and just did it. They are escalating to the service rep that setup the disconnect and that person's boss...
[[Here we have to make a slight digression...]]
You know how calls like this go. They always take longer than you expect, and you might as well sit down while it is going on.
And (at least in our case, though possibly not yours) the cellular phone service at your home isn't exactly stellar, so you need to step outside to make this call, where the walls and some air won't interfere with the tenuous cell reception you get from an antenna powered by three geriatric squirrels running in wheels in a cage some 18 miles to the east.
So you're standing outside and as realize you should sit down for this conversation. Happily, you have a deck and some chairs and even a table you might put your feet up on while you wait through this.
[[Here we return you to the original narrative, but you have no idea where this is going.]]
So you pull out a chair, sit down, and just as the "Live Body" (tm) is starting to explain that he's escalating this ticket to someone, your left elbow hurts. A lot. And then your right elbow. And then you realize that there are rather a lot of flying, stinging things around you. Quite a lot of them, in fact.
You leap up - as one does - saying a lot of four letter words - as one does - that almost certainly surprise the snot out of the "Live Body" (tm) - as they can - and eventually get far enough away to be sure that you're not being chased by a horde of angry, stinging things. But what things?
Wasps, as it turns out.
Once you finish the call from a safe distance, and are assured the internet and phone will be restored within one - two at the outside - hours, and drive to the local store to purchase the needed "Horrific Chemicals" (tm), use them, and retreat again for a while, you eventually turn the table over and find this:
Because you're doing that, a few days in advance of moving you call your Internet and phone provider (who shall remain anonymous, but whose name might partially sound like something you do when you're fishing) and setup a disconnect of your service the day after you need it. After all, you're going to be in crazy mode for a few days in a row, and the internet and a phone will help deal with surprises and thus keep you sane, right?
Your service rep is very nice and sets it all up just fine. Disconnect is set for Friday, since the moving truck takes all your stuff on Thursday. The call goes so well - almost no time on hold even - that you are lulled into a false sense of security.
So Tuesday arrives, and at about 12:30 pm, just like you didn't schedule it, your internet and phone go away. Poof.
So you call your COMunications (and fishing related) service provider and get into their automated system, which helpfully sends a reset command to your equipment and tells you to wait ten minutes to see if that worked.
But you're smarter than that, so you push deeper into the phone tree saying "Representative!" until you are hoarse and eventually (after three hours and a light snack) get to a "Live Body" (tm) who might be able to look at your account and figure out why it's stopped working three days early.
The "Live Body" (tm) eventually isn't sure but it was probably someone who didn't read the date right on the disconnect request and just did it. They are escalating to the service rep that setup the disconnect and that person's boss...
[[Here we have to make a slight digression...]]
You know how calls like this go. They always take longer than you expect, and you might as well sit down while it is going on.
And (at least in our case, though possibly not yours) the cellular phone service at your home isn't exactly stellar, so you need to step outside to make this call, where the walls and some air won't interfere with the tenuous cell reception you get from an antenna powered by three geriatric squirrels running in wheels in a cage some 18 miles to the east.
So you're standing outside and as realize you should sit down for this conversation. Happily, you have a deck and some chairs and even a table you might put your feet up on while you wait through this.
[[Here we return you to the original narrative, but you have no idea where this is going.]]
So you pull out a chair, sit down, and just as the "Live Body" (tm) is starting to explain that he's escalating this ticket to someone, your left elbow hurts. A lot. And then your right elbow. And then you realize that there are rather a lot of flying, stinging things around you. Quite a lot of them, in fact.
You leap up - as one does - saying a lot of four letter words - as one does - that almost certainly surprise the snot out of the "Live Body" (tm) - as they can - and eventually get far enough away to be sure that you're not being chased by a horde of angry, stinging things. But what things?
Wasps, as it turns out.
Once you finish the call from a safe distance, and are assured the internet and phone will be restored within one - two at the outside - hours, and drive to the local store to purchase the needed "Horrific Chemicals" (tm), use them, and retreat again for a while, you eventually turn the table over and find this:
Yes, that's the "Trump Nest" (tm) , created sometime in the last three or four weeks by a group of rather unpleasant freeloaders living on your property without paying rent. And stinging you for disturbing them besides.
Anyway, that evening, when the stinging nasties that weren't in the nest when you nuked it from space are trying to figure out what to do with rest of their lives - ideally somewhere in Siberia - you scrap that nest off the underside of the table, hose off all the "Horrific Chemical" (tm) residue, and set about dealing with all the stuff that you put off while:
- Dealing with an Internet outage
- Being stung by insects that don't care about your Internet outage
- Exclaiming in pain/fear/frustration in the ear of the "Live Body" (tm) trying to fix the Internet outage
- Running from said stinging insects whilst teaching the "Live Body" (tm) some exiting new words
- Figuring out what sort of medical treatment you have for stings, since everything is already packed
- Mentally recovering from the stress induced by these two, entirely separate - but now horribly related - events
I'm sure something just like this happened the last time you were prepping to move. Right?
Oh, and it took 1.5 hours and another email - sent over those tenuous cellular radio waves - to get the Internet back.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Rough Days
We have three dogs:
Leah, being quite a bit older, has been panting a fair bit for a long time. Even when it is cool and she's been doing nothing. She doesn't always pant, but it definitely happens more than should be required.
And something like four or five weeks ago, Danno, our big Siberian Husky started showing unexplained pain on occasion. He would just stop what he was doing and start howling like he was being stabbed. Huskies aren't notoriously stoic about pain, so we didn't take this too seriously in general, but we always went looking for a cause and never found one.
As it happens, we had plans to go out of town for a week to see family, and the dogs were going to be kenneled while we were away. We decided to take them to the vet to be sure they were OK before we left, rather than deal with surprises while we were gone.
Sometimes it seems it is better not to know.
Leah's panting is almost certainly something called Laryngeal Paralysis. As some dogs age the larynx gets stiffer and won't open easily to let air in and out of the lungs. These dogs have to work harder to breathe over time, and thus pant a lot. The diagnostic tip is to listen for a deep resonation while they are panting, and Leah has that. The actual diagnostic requires sedating the dog and observing the larynx at work, but we aren't doing that to her just to confirm a diagnosis.
This condition is essentially fatal, but it takes a long time. Leah could have months or years left with us, and is in no immediate danger. The only available treatment is to tie half the larynx open surgically, which makes breathing easier, but can allow them to aspirate things into the lungs. Pneumonia is a relatively common result, and our vet says she probably wouldn't do that surgery on her own dogs.
So we let Leah's situation play out. We have to keep her walks short and keep her out of the sun, though, because she has a hard time cooling off given this condition. Otherwise, we wait and keep her happy. She's in good shape and still has plenty of energy, so nothing here is all that urgent.
Danno's situation is much, much worse.
Sparing you all the diagnostic details, it turns out he has cancer. Probably two tumors, one affecting the neck and another the brain. The impact of these tumors hit so hard and so quickly that we were stunned.
Just a couple of days before we were to leave town, Danno was unable to drink any liquid. He'd just cough up a bunch of clear, viscous, phlegm after each drink. He was dehydrating as a result, and he wasn't eating either. His right eye was turned in - something called Horner's Syndrome - and the right side of his face collapsed in as well.
But two days of overnight care with IV fluids, antibiotics, and (most importantly) prednisone helped quite a bit. He could eat and drink again, and while none of that was going to fix the underlying problem, his quality of life was back to the point that he was enjoying things again.
We discussed surgery, but decided it is not an option. Given the expected location of the tumors, they would not be fully removable, which means they would just grow back, and quickly. Recovery would be long and painful - for a dog that actually screams when he stubs his toe - and the specialist vet told us that even after all that, he might live another six months. The cost for all of this proposed treatment was astronomical as well, but that wasn't what made up our minds. I wouldn't want that kind of treatment for myself given the probable outcome, and we won't do it to Danno either.
As I said above, prednisone gave relief from the pain and let him drink and eat again, to the point that we went on our scheduled trip. We came back late on Friday, and picked all our puppies up from the kennel on Saturday morning.
Skookie and Leah are as they were - though Skookie really wants her big, white friend to play with her again.
Danno was as good as could be expected, but is clearly on a relatively quick decline. Despite the prednisone, he is still coughing up phlegm regularly after a few days, losing weight, and some coordination. I fear he has only days - perhaps a week or two - left with us, before we have to make the final choice.
These things are always hard - awful, in fact - but we've had great times with our 85 pound furball. He's brought joy - and an overwhelming amount of hair - into our lives, hearts, and home. We watch over him carefully, doing our best to make him happy and comfortable, knowing it is our responsibility to keep him from suffering.
In some ways, these are dark days in our home, but Danno is still with us. He still loves laying at our feet, begging for most any vegetable that we're cooking with or eating, and being petted as much as possible.
And we remember all the good times he has given us: the unconditional love and trust, the need to lick everyone's nose just to show he's completely submissive, and the complete friendliness towards every human and dog he's ever met.
The vets all tell us he has an unusual disposition for a Husky. Apparently some members of that breed aren't all that nice. Danno is amazingly friendly, even now in his decline, and no matter what happens I will always think of him as our canine ambassador of good will.
The last chapter isn't written yet, but there isn't that much time before it is. He's asleep behind my chair as I write this, and even now I smile when I look at him.
You're not a good dog, Danno. You're a great dog. And you always will be.
- Leah: a 13 year old, spotted, mix breed.
- Danno: an 8 year old, Siberian Husky.
- Skookie: an 8-ish year old, Shepard mix, who moved into our house because it was better than her previous home. Really.
Leah, being quite a bit older, has been panting a fair bit for a long time. Even when it is cool and she's been doing nothing. She doesn't always pant, but it definitely happens more than should be required.
And something like four or five weeks ago, Danno, our big Siberian Husky started showing unexplained pain on occasion. He would just stop what he was doing and start howling like he was being stabbed. Huskies aren't notoriously stoic about pain, so we didn't take this too seriously in general, but we always went looking for a cause and never found one.
As it happens, we had plans to go out of town for a week to see family, and the dogs were going to be kenneled while we were away. We decided to take them to the vet to be sure they were OK before we left, rather than deal with surprises while we were gone.
Sometimes it seems it is better not to know.
Leah's panting is almost certainly something called Laryngeal Paralysis. As some dogs age the larynx gets stiffer and won't open easily to let air in and out of the lungs. These dogs have to work harder to breathe over time, and thus pant a lot. The diagnostic tip is to listen for a deep resonation while they are panting, and Leah has that. The actual diagnostic requires sedating the dog and observing the larynx at work, but we aren't doing that to her just to confirm a diagnosis.
This condition is essentially fatal, but it takes a long time. Leah could have months or years left with us, and is in no immediate danger. The only available treatment is to tie half the larynx open surgically, which makes breathing easier, but can allow them to aspirate things into the lungs. Pneumonia is a relatively common result, and our vet says she probably wouldn't do that surgery on her own dogs.
So we let Leah's situation play out. We have to keep her walks short and keep her out of the sun, though, because she has a hard time cooling off given this condition. Otherwise, we wait and keep her happy. She's in good shape and still has plenty of energy, so nothing here is all that urgent.
Danno's situation is much, much worse.
Sparing you all the diagnostic details, it turns out he has cancer. Probably two tumors, one affecting the neck and another the brain. The impact of these tumors hit so hard and so quickly that we were stunned.
Just a couple of days before we were to leave town, Danno was unable to drink any liquid. He'd just cough up a bunch of clear, viscous, phlegm after each drink. He was dehydrating as a result, and he wasn't eating either. His right eye was turned in - something called Horner's Syndrome - and the right side of his face collapsed in as well.
But two days of overnight care with IV fluids, antibiotics, and (most importantly) prednisone helped quite a bit. He could eat and drink again, and while none of that was going to fix the underlying problem, his quality of life was back to the point that he was enjoying things again.
We discussed surgery, but decided it is not an option. Given the expected location of the tumors, they would not be fully removable, which means they would just grow back, and quickly. Recovery would be long and painful - for a dog that actually screams when he stubs his toe - and the specialist vet told us that even after all that, he might live another six months. The cost for all of this proposed treatment was astronomical as well, but that wasn't what made up our minds. I wouldn't want that kind of treatment for myself given the probable outcome, and we won't do it to Danno either.
As I said above, prednisone gave relief from the pain and let him drink and eat again, to the point that we went on our scheduled trip. We came back late on Friday, and picked all our puppies up from the kennel on Saturday morning.
Skookie and Leah are as they were - though Skookie really wants her big, white friend to play with her again.
Danno was as good as could be expected, but is clearly on a relatively quick decline. Despite the prednisone, he is still coughing up phlegm regularly after a few days, losing weight, and some coordination. I fear he has only days - perhaps a week or two - left with us, before we have to make the final choice.
These things are always hard - awful, in fact - but we've had great times with our 85 pound furball. He's brought joy - and an overwhelming amount of hair - into our lives, hearts, and home. We watch over him carefully, doing our best to make him happy and comfortable, knowing it is our responsibility to keep him from suffering.
In some ways, these are dark days in our home, but Danno is still with us. He still loves laying at our feet, begging for most any vegetable that we're cooking with or eating, and being petted as much as possible.
And we remember all the good times he has given us: the unconditional love and trust, the need to lick everyone's nose just to show he's completely submissive, and the complete friendliness towards every human and dog he's ever met.
The vets all tell us he has an unusual disposition for a Husky. Apparently some members of that breed aren't all that nice. Danno is amazingly friendly, even now in his decline, and no matter what happens I will always think of him as our canine ambassador of good will.
The last chapter isn't written yet, but there isn't that much time before it is. He's asleep behind my chair as I write this, and even now I smile when I look at him.
You're not a good dog, Danno. You're a great dog. And you always will be.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Life Is Throwing Curve Balls Lately
I had planned a blog post about Google today. Half of it was going to be something of a rant about how Google has screwed a few things up lately and needs to straighten up and fly right, in line with their motto. The other half was going to be directed at the people and pundits who have been spouting off about how evil Google is, without looking at the big picture, and thus missing a number of interesting points, particularly comparisons with other companies and their actions.
I had it mostly written in my head last night as I was falling asleep. It was going to be a good post.
That all changed this morning with a phone call. Now my wife is on her way to her parent's house. Her father is seriously ill, and it is not clear he will survive.
Such news - yet another slap in the face by the cosmos - puts the Google issues into perspective. They're trivia, entirely unimportant.
At least to me.
Safe travels, Anne. I wish your dad all the best, and I will do whatever I can for you as we go forward. I love you.
I had it mostly written in my head last night as I was falling asleep. It was going to be a good post.
That all changed this morning with a phone call. Now my wife is on her way to her parent's house. Her father is seriously ill, and it is not clear he will survive.
Such news - yet another slap in the face by the cosmos - puts the Google issues into perspective. They're trivia, entirely unimportant.
At least to me.
Safe travels, Anne. I wish your dad all the best, and I will do whatever I can for you as we go forward. I love you.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
A rough time...
Yes, I've been away for a while again. Sorry about that.
Have you ever had to interrupt some one's vacation to give them awful news? When they were travelling? In another country? With a nine hour time difference? Well, I hadn't either until just a couple of weeks ago.
My other grandmother died. It's been a hard year for my family on that front, as that makes two.
The first to die, however, had been in poor health for some time and it was mostly a relief to have it finally end. This one, though, was another matter entirely. A completely unexpected event in a woman of reasonable health for her age of 90. And her son - my father - was travelling in Europe with my mom when things started to go bad.
They managed to talk to her on the phone before she died, but they couldn't get back fast enough. Aortic dissection can do that, and it's actually pretty good they talked to her at all.
I found myself travelling as a result, assisting with funeral arrangements, helping clean out her apartment, and so on. Not a fun way to spend a week, but necessary.
I cannot claim that's the only reason I haven't written here lately. There are other factors.
First and foremost it seems that all I do these days is work or come home so tired I have no energy left for anything else. As a programmer you know it isn't physical exhaustion that's the problem, but rather mental stress. I wish I could write about that, but I can't. It's enough to know that it's a job and the checks still clear.
In addition there aren't many mundane things to write about lately. The overhead of life rarely makes for good blog posts. The few interesting things that happen tend to wind up in Facebook lately. Of course that's a totally different format. Assuming you're someone I know - and why else would you be reading this? - if you're also Facebook user and we haven't "friended" (I hate that word) each other yet, please do so.
One bit of recent news is that I am embarking on a writing project with some of my stone carving students to document what we teach in our classes. This will wind up online one of these days, and there are at least two of us working on it, so maybe we'll keep each other going and it will actually get finished.
If there's something you think I should be writing about, please let me know. I know I still owe the next post in the water saga, and I will get to it one of these days. But other than that suggestions are welcome.
Have you ever had to interrupt some one's vacation to give them awful news? When they were travelling? In another country? With a nine hour time difference? Well, I hadn't either until just a couple of weeks ago.
My other grandmother died. It's been a hard year for my family on that front, as that makes two.
The first to die, however, had been in poor health for some time and it was mostly a relief to have it finally end. This one, though, was another matter entirely. A completely unexpected event in a woman of reasonable health for her age of 90. And her son - my father - was travelling in Europe with my mom when things started to go bad.
They managed to talk to her on the phone before she died, but they couldn't get back fast enough. Aortic dissection can do that, and it's actually pretty good they talked to her at all.
I found myself travelling as a result, assisting with funeral arrangements, helping clean out her apartment, and so on. Not a fun way to spend a week, but necessary.
I cannot claim that's the only reason I haven't written here lately. There are other factors.
First and foremost it seems that all I do these days is work or come home so tired I have no energy left for anything else. As a programmer you know it isn't physical exhaustion that's the problem, but rather mental stress. I wish I could write about that, but I can't. It's enough to know that it's a job and the checks still clear.
In addition there aren't many mundane things to write about lately. The overhead of life rarely makes for good blog posts. The few interesting things that happen tend to wind up in Facebook lately. Of course that's a totally different format. Assuming you're someone I know - and why else would you be reading this? - if you're also Facebook user and we haven't "friended" (I hate that word) each other yet, please do so.
One bit of recent news is that I am embarking on a writing project with some of my stone carving students to document what we teach in our classes. This will wind up online one of these days, and there are at least two of us working on it, so maybe we'll keep each other going and it will actually get finished.
If there's something you think I should be writing about, please let me know. I know I still owe the next post in the water saga, and I will get to it one of these days. But other than that suggestions are welcome.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Keeping Things In Perspective
Yesterday I wrote a whiny blog post about having to go back to work thanks to the economy. A few hours later the universe slapped me in the face.
Good friends of ours suffered a horrible, tragic loss. I cannot include the details here - they aren't mine to disclose - but I can say it's a reminder that life can change abruptly, in ways that no one can plan for.
I'm not a religious person, and this isn't some trial thrust on my friends by some god for reasons no human can understand. This is reality. Plain, simple, random reality. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's awful. Yesterday was the latter.
It put going back to work into perspective, though. I'll shut up about that now.
Good friends of ours suffered a horrible, tragic loss. I cannot include the details here - they aren't mine to disclose - but I can say it's a reminder that life can change abruptly, in ways that no one can plan for.
I'm not a religious person, and this isn't some trial thrust on my friends by some god for reasons no human can understand. This is reality. Plain, simple, random reality. Sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's awful. Yesterday was the latter.
It put going back to work into perspective, though. I'll shut up about that now.
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