It seems as though I utter the words “I’m so exhausted” every minute these days. I’m suffering from exhaustion, and my body shows a number of symptoms that I’m well acquainted with and that I associate with exhaustion. The problem is that most of these symptoms seem unknown to my friends and coworkers as resulting from exhaustion, and they either look at me strange or laugh at my face calling me a freak.
I would like to know if any of you heard of or suffer from the same symptoms.
- Nose bleed. I’d be sitting at my desk and working, and suddenly blood drops out of one of the nostrils. Or I feel my nose is runny. I grab a tissue and wipe my nose and it turns out it’s blood. It rarely happens though.
- Painful nostril. One of the nostrils get red and hard and painful.
- Tongue needles. That’s the term directly translated from Korean and I don’t know what they are called in English. Some teeny little protrusions on tongue that feel like needles poking on the tongue. At least I know some people (Koreans) suffer from it.
- Pain on the side of the tongue. It feels like a small part of the tongue has become stiff and it hurts.
- Cracks at the corner of the lips where upper lip meets lower lip. I would first get some suspicious redness around the corner and the next day, the corner would look like it’s cut slightly to make the mouth bigger or something. It hurts like a son of a bitch.
- Slight numbness of the face. The face doesn’t feel a little strange, until I touch my face (I do that a lot since it feels strange) at which point my face feels numb.
So? Anyone? Anyone?
This week has been absolutely exhausting, and this is my excuse for not updating the blog and not keeping up with reading others’ blogs these days.
I got Foster back on Sunday and since I do not trust my dogs to behave and not get into fights when I cannot supervise directly (as opposed to when I’m not at home) at this point, I’m all over the place once I get home. I keep Georgia and Foster together when I’m in the same room or take them outside. Foster has never showed any aggression or irritation towards Georgia, but I’m still too shaken by my experience from last month, I don’t leave them together if I can’t be there with them. I do not trust Brandy and Brooklyn at all with Foster or Georgia, and so I’m pretty busy trying to spend time with everyone of them, and take them outside separately.
This Monday, I started commuting to the new location to which IT division moved. I’m still working 10am – 6pm instead of noon – 8pm as I blogged before because my boss told me to come in at 10am and see how it goes. The first day, there were several empty spots as I predicted because consultants were too scared to take their cars, and therefore, a lot of them opted to take the shuttle bus. The second day, there were 3 spots left. The third day, I took the very last spot, the furthest corner of the parking lot from the building – I knew then that I would have trouble the next day. The word is getting out that there are still parking spots at 10am! So come yesterday, 20 minutes BEFORE 10am, I couldn’t find a consultant spot. I called my coworker to relay the situation, and I was going to just idle engine and sit there, reading the book I have been carrying with me for just that. But while I was on the phone, the security guard hired by the company to enforce the atrocious parking rules walked over and told me to park in one of those numerous empty employee spots. I guess he didn’t get the memo, but hey, I have his blessing to park in the employee spot if there is no empty consultant spot left from now on. So life goes on until the word gets out to more consultants causing the employees to start complaining about lack of parking spots.
All in all, I have been sleeping even worse than before because I’ve been worried about the fucking parking spot every single day. Hopefully I get some more rest next week.
Last night, I talked on the phone with a dog behaviorist specializing in dog aggression for about an hour and a half. I described to her each of my dogs’ disposition, the living arrangement that had worked for more than 3 years until Georgia’s elbow dysplasia diagnosis, the change in living arrangement, and the behavior changes leading up to the fight between Brooklyn and Brandy and Brandy’s attack on Georgia. I found her to be very nice and personable.
The flood gate on my tear ducts opened when she asked “Who’s your favorite?” because I thought she was asking this question to see who I’d end up choosing to give up in case keeping all four of them is not doable. Oh no, I don’t have a favorite. I once tried to pick my favorite – I tried to reason if I had to choose just one in an emergency, who would I choose? I don’t know. I have no idea. They are my kids. How can you choose?
My goal now is to have a functional 2-way separation just as before, whichever combination that might be. Right now I’m doing 3-way without Foster. When he comes back after Georgia’s stitches come out, my plan is to pair him up with Georgia so that I don’t need to do 4-way separation. For me to be able to successfully accomplish this, I want her professional advice, and hopefully, she and I can figure out how to achieve 2-way separation again.
I would have to figure out a way to pay her fee first because she cannot take credit card. Wish me luck.
Georgia saw Dr. L on Friday when the drains came out. Dr. L said her leg looks surprisingly good. But Georgia managed to break the E-collar she was wearing for the second time last night, and took most of the stitches out. I quickly went out and bought some self-sticking bandages and wrapped it up, but she keeps scratching it with her hind leg so that the bandage can’t stay in place. So far the incision hasn’t burst, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Brooklyn’s wounds look to be all healed just like all of my wounds, which are just a little sensitive. She, so far, seems content most of the time and cries and howls whenever she thinks I’ve been away from her too long or if she hears me taking another dog outside. I’ve been sleeping with her in the bedroom (on the bed Foster marked all over) ever since her fight with Brandy and she seems to be happier to be in the bedroom than the livingroom.
I took Brandy to the vet yesterday to see if anything is wrong with her healthwise which is making her more aggressive. Other than her known health problems, that is. Dr. L found out that Brandy has two cracked teeth. When I say “cracked”, it doesn’t mean the teeth broke where we can see them. The teeth seem to have been pushed outward cracking them above the gum line and then put back to their original place. She said it’s already healing so there is nothing to be done. From the outside, the area near Brandy’s nose where the black nose ends on the right side looks slightly more bulbous than the other side. She couldn’t tell how old the wound is, it’s either from the fight with Brooklyn or when she jumped on Georgia. Dr. L also took three vials of Brandy’s blood to be tested for any diseases that make a dog cranky including 11 tick-borne diseases and thyroid, on top of a full chem panel.
This afternoon when I took Brandy outside, she had a sudden sneezing fit, after which I noticed some blood around her muzzle. Upon inspection, I could see there was blood in her left nostril. I will talk to Dr. L tomorrow.
Foster has been staying with Sam and Houston since the day after I picked up Georgia from the vet. I can’t trust Brandy with any other dog right now and with Georgia’s leg all stitched up and with her E-collar bumping into everything, I didn’t want Foster to play with Georgia either. So I had to separate them all, and Sam volunteered to look after Foster. According to Sam, Foster must miss home since he has never seen Foster so subdued. Poor guy…
Grizzley has been doing well. He’s still on prednisone and eating well and as feisty as ever.
I am exhausted and stressed and broke. And that’s all I have to say about myself.
Grizzley is going strong. He has the appetite of a tiger because of once a day prednisone. He doesn’t show any signs of the trouble a few months ago. This picture is a really bad one, he looks much better! Nowadays, he doesn’t have that kitty condo because I had to dismantle it to take it out of the livingroom after installing the doors, and wasn’t able to put them together again… hehe…
Georgia is doing well as far as I can see. We’ll get another X-ray taken in a couple of month to see if her elbow dysplasia is getting worse. I just found out she’s been sneaking in some pee on the rug I put down in the livingroom for her. So everybody except Brooklyn is having a blast marking or peeing inside after the new living arrangement!!! *shakes fist*
Brooklyn has been, well, Brooklyn, refusing to step down to the grass to pee or poop EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. This summer has been so humid and wet as to ruin a pair of my Timberlands because they get soaked from walking 10 ft on it to pick up poop. Naturally, Brooklyn refuses to have any of that, so I’ve had to drag her out and body block her from coming back to the deck, to force her to pee. I do that everyday, I tell ya.
Brandy’s poop is still too soft, and we can’t find any underlying cause of the bacterial overgrowth in her intestinal tract. I’ve been giving her plain fat free yogurt and that firms it up a little so that it’s not completely liquidy. But she’s not losing any weight, and actually gaining some and she hasn’t had any bad regurgitating bouts for some time. *knocks on wood* The problem is she acts like she doesn’t have bladder control after the new living arrangement and has been peeing inside.
RPIMFA, aka Foster, is of course doing good. The summer is almost over, and thankfully he didn’t hurt himself or give himself puncture wounds. I’ve caught him a few times following bugs towards his torso again and again, but so far, we haven’t made that second trip to the E-vet yet. Hopefully he gives me a break this year since he’s already caused enough grief by peeing and marking everywhere including my bed.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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