The Family

Public Service Announcment: Stepping on glass is a bad thing

The red line noted is a guess to how much glass was in the arch of my foot last night:

Yea, I’m not walking much today. Foot hurts too much.

A secondary PSA: working from home can be a great thing

Since we’re beggining to doubt that anyone really checks the crabby website I’d like to note that we do have a wishlist page up on crabby’s site that is all about the kid related items we know we’ll be needing.

Soon we’ll create registries and all that stuff at the appropriate places, but this list is a good general start for us.  If anyone knows of anything that we’re missing (and will miss not having when the time comes) please let us know.

When you login the default action is to take you to the ‘dashboard’, a place that lets you get a quick overview of things.  Mother wanted that to drop you back to the front-page instead.  I haven’t found a way to do that; however, I did figure out how to have it re-direct you to the place you likely want to go: the make a post page.

I’m not sure if I’m going to keep this addition or not.  We’ll see how useful it is and if ya’ll like it or not

Mother had been asking about creating an easier way of creating posts on the site, so I’ve created a nice easy ‘make a post’ link on the right side of the front page.  All you need to do is click the link and you’ll be taken strait to the ‘Write Post’ pagee.

Of course, you need to be logged in to be able to see the link.  If you are not logged in, you don’t see anything.

Good news!  I am so happy, I stepped out of the vets office and started crying (I have been very emotional about all this).

Grailing had x-rays done today to see if there was any metastasis to the heart and lungs.  And there isn’t, at least none big enough to show up on an x-ray.   This could mean that the cancer is slow, that we got it out in time, that the vet got all of it out, that it is a fibrosarcoma and not an hemangiosarcome, that the supplements are working – could mean any of those things, or none of them, but whatever it means it is good news.

I also had them do a urinalysis while he was there, since that had been an issue earlier and he’s had this radical diet change.   The results from that were really good; the vet said that there are no crystals (that was what the earlier problem was), that the pH is ideal, there’s no sign of infection, the kidneys look great, the concentration was low (meaning he’s very well hydrated) – said it was just about perfect.   I felt very good about that, part of the nutritional thing is to increase his water intake, and that’s obviously working well for his kidneys if nothing else.   And it makes me feel a lot more confident about the new diet, I was a bit hesitent in that I didn’t want to fix something by breaking something else.

But hey!  It’s working all around!!

This is really a good boost for me, it will help me keep up with the new diet and stay hopeful.   Visualizing all sorts of worst case scenarios wasn’t helping much.

It’s still a pressing concern for me, I’m still quite anxious about the long term, but for today we are healthy.   Today is a good day.

I was looking through the access logs for the website a few days ago and I noticed quite a few error codes showing up. They were all looking for a favicon file, so I took the time to create one. It’s that little blue/red thing that shows up in the address bar and it would show up in your bookmarks too.

Not that the file was really required or anything… just a nice touch. And it keeps the access logs a little cleaner.

If anyone here claims that they can’t tell a differance with this update, you need your eyes checked.

This is no longer version 1.5.something. We’re now at version 2.0. It’s the brand new release that everyone is going to be talking about.

The biggest change that you should notice the new editor for posts. With functionality closer to a regular text editor. If you don’t like it, there is a little button called ‘html’ that will let you revert to the old editor. (you can also update a preference in your user profile to always use the old editor)

Anyway, for other changes.. just look around. I’m sure you’ll find them. (like the image upload, that thing works really nice.)

Enjoy!

Just keeping everyone updated…

Had my first visit with the homeopathic nutritionist today. It was something. The shift in attitude, if nothing else … I’ve gone from no options to a thousand options.

There are a whole confusing host of supplements and amino acids and vitamens and special diets .. I am reading, trying to think critically, realistically, and also hopefully.

Stitches come out Friday. We’re all looking forward to that.

And I’m settling into this new reality. Grailing seems so healthy, so active and alert and so much himself, that at times it is hard to focus myself on this new reality. It is so tempting to simply ignore the diagnosis in the face of his reassuring normalacy. But I want to revel in his current health, not use it as an excuse to avoid a posible unpleasant future.

So. There you go.

Of course, you’ll all be posted every time Grailing sneezes, for the rest of both our natural lives … 🙂

Hi, all. Bad news.

Grailing has a growth of some kind near his right hip. A physical exam ruled out most of the benign options; a surgery is scheduled for Thursday to remove the growth and do a biopsy.

It is possible that it is cancerous. If it is, it is also possible that it will be difficult if not impossible to treat.

I know there are a lot of unknowns, and that I need to not distress myself with unknowns, but that’s easier said than done. I’m coping right now by eating chocolate. And by not considering the possible meaning of any of this.

Anyway. Wanted to let everyone know.