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The news from the vet wasn’t good. The prednisone may have reduced the mass a bit, but not as much as he would have expected. But, it looks like it is cancer. He said that we’re probably talking about months not years.
Today sucks.
Artemis went to the vet’s office again this morning for her follow-up X-ray. Last week, the vet called me after the X-ray was done and he’d looked at it, even though I had an appointment to pick her up later in the afternoon. Today, I’m expecting him to call again, though he hasn’t yet. The phone rang while I was eating lunch, and the butterflies in my stomach were unbearable, but the call was a wrong number. Needless to say, I’m a bit of a wreck — I’ve been less productive today than on the day before a vacation…
Fingers crossed, and happy, healthy mojo to Artemis!
Andrew and I managed to get out on the bikes both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. It was a perfect weekend for it, too. Last weekend, when we did the PPTC ride, it was near 90 degrees and HUMID. This weekend, it was in the lower 80s with low humidity. Yay for great biking weather.
On Saturday we took the bikes up to the Vienna Community Center, and hopped on the W & OD trail heading south/east. This brought us to one of our favorite destinations: Hole in the Wall Books in Falls Church.
Total (round-trip) miles: 12.24 miles.
On Sunday we drove up to where the W & OD trail intersects Hunter Mill Road. We took the path north/east this time, and went into Herndon. This is the furthest that either of us has been on the path (except, of course, for our honeymoon, when we started at the other end of the W & OD in Purcellville).
Total miles: 15.58 miles.
Total weekend miles: 27.82 miles. Yay us!!
2.5/5 stars
Woody Allen plays a has-been director whose last hit was ten years ago. He’s now almost unemployable, being known for unreasonable demands. He gets a chance when his ex-wife (Tea Leoni) pushes her producer boyfriend to hire Allen. Allen becomes blind before the first day of shooting, but can’t give up the job, or he’ll never get a job in Hollywood again. Ostensibly, hilarity ensues.
This film is typical of recent Woody Allen films — lackluster and with a large “thud” at the end. The characters weren’t much more than 1-dimensional. The story lacked much push toward the “climax” and ending, and frankly, I wasn’t sure when the climax happened. There was some entertaining dialog, but all-in-all this is not a film I’d go out of my way to see.
by Madeleine L’Engle
This is another book that I read in my childhood that I’ve revisisted to see how it held up.
Meg’s father is a scientist who has been missing for quite some time. Her mother knows that something has gone wrong with his last assignment (top secret, with the government), but doesn’t know what to do to help him. Then, Meg meets Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which through her brother, Charles Wallace. These three unusual women know where Meg’s father is, and use a tesseract (a wrinkle in space and time) to help the children find him.
A great story, and it holds up as a good read for my adult-self as well as it did for my child-self.
Note: This book is on the list of 100 most challenged books from 1990-2000. Why? According to Forbidden Libaray, this book was:
Challenged at the Polk City, Fla. Elementary School (1985) by a parent who believed that the story promotes witchcraft, crystal balls, and demons. Challenged in the Anniston Ala. schools (1990). The complainant objected to the book’s listing the name of Jesus Christ together with the names of great artists, philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders when referring to those who defend earth against evil. Got it. Let’s cross Jesus off that list, shall we?
4/5 stars
For nearly a decade, ballroom dance has been taught in New York City public schools. At the end of the year, there is a citywide competition for the best of the schools. This documentary follows students from three of the schools as they learn the dances, choose competitors and finally compete for the gold.
This film was a bit reminiscent of Spellbound, the documentary on kids competing in the national spelling bee. However, I felt that this one didn’t give us as intimate a look at the kids as Spellbound did. There was much more emphasis on the dancing and dance classes than on getting to know the kids. Don’t get me wrong — we do get to know a few of the kids, and I felt very invested in the final outcome of the competition, but there was a lot more dancing footage than getting-to-know-the-kids footage.
Artemis was at the vet again today — her second day in a row of X-rays. Yesterday we took all three of the kids in for their annual check-ups, and we mentioned that Artemis had been breathing heavily occasionally for no apparent reason, and the vet wanted to look into that more. So we left her there for the afternoon to get X-rays of her chest.
When I picked her up, I found out that there wasn’t anything obvious on the X-rays. There was one interesting thing, but it wasn’t causing her heavy breathing. Apparently when she was little — likely when she was in the womb — something happened that caused her chest to get dented inward, and so her rib cage has a noticeable divet. Her abnormality, though, makes reading her X-rays a bit of a challenge, because much of her anatomy is moved around from where it should be.
They had also looked for fluid around her lungs, and found nothing. In addition they gave her a diuretic, but I can’t remember what that was suposed to do. Before we left, she got a shot of steroids, which would to help the vet determine if the cause of her heavy breathing was asthma or allergies.
I took her back this morning for another X-ray. When I went to pick her up, the vet said that they saw a mass in her chest cavity, up near her heart (which is further up than it should be, due to her developmental abnormality). He said that it could be one of three things: (1) nothing at all, but it looks weird due to her odd anatomy; (2) thymoma, a cancer of the thymus; (3) lymphoma.
The next step is to figure out which of the three things it is. To do this, we’re giving her prednisone for a week, and then she’ll have another X-ray next Tuesday. If it’s (1), then nothing will have changed, she won’t have cancer (at least thymoma or lymphoma), and we won’t know what’s causing her heavy breathing yet. If it’s (2), then the prednisone should reduce the mass, and, with further prednisone treatment, may put the cancer into remission (if not, thymoma is frequently operable). If it’s (3), then the prednisone should also reduce it; however, it may also cause chemo-resistant cells to form. So, if it’s not (1), we’ll need to figure out with of (2) or (3) it is; and if it is (1), then we still need to find the cause of her heavy breathing.
I’m not sure which cause to hope for, though. With (2) or (3), we would at least know the cause, but it would be cancer; and with (3), even on chemotherapy (which the vet assures me is not as bad for cats as it is for humans), best case is that she’ll be around another year and a half. With (2), though, they can frequently get it into remission. With (1), she won’t have cancer, but breathing problems can also arise from cardiac problems…though I don’t know if he’s ruled out allergies or asthma…
Artemis needs all the mojo you can send her.
Book-a-minute, SF/F — all the sci-fi and fantasy classics boiled down to their essence.
It was a nice day………………………AND THEN EVIL CAME!
THE END
They also have Classics and Bedtime Stories.
There are four baby bunnies in our neighbor’s front yard:
by Richard Lederer
More bad grammar, gaffes, and funnyu mistakes collected together. A fun, funny read, but quickly forgotten.
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