Wishing you a...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This time of year, I have to stop and think of all the blessings in my life. My family, my husband, my dogs, my friends and just living this life! Even though I have some rather severe back and neck issues, I still am in relatively good health compared to a lot of people out there. I am thankful for that! This year I have added 2 son in laws AND a grand baby to my family. I love how our family continues to grow. The circle of life goes on! I hope everyone out there has many things to be thankful for. I want to thank all of you, too! Have a wonderful day, enjoy whatever it is you do. Huge Hugs to you all!
PS. Maddux is doing pretty well considering what he has gone through. He has a long way to go, but he is better. Thanks everyone.

Mr Buck, will you ever be done?

I am feeling like I will never finish this page! I dont know why, but I am not enjoying it like I did the other pages. I just feel kind of blah about the whole thing! I have been so busy making sure Maddux is ok and doing everything for him, filling last minute Christmas orders with various people and worrying about Thanksgiving, the Wedding etc that I just cant get into this project. Maybe after Thursday huh? I miss looking at everyone else's progress and making comments on them too. Just to darn busy right now! Gotta slow down and take care of myself too.

Hubby is deer hunting for the weekend. He will be home tomorrow in about enough time to eat and leave for work. He works a strange shift, 2pm-11pm. Makes it hard to get anything done. BUT, at least he is working! The GM plant is closing here in another month. I feel so bad for those people. Then we all have to worry about losing our pensions and medical coverage if General Motors goes bankrupt. Lets pray that doesn't happen! Geez, some good news would be nice for a change! Thanks for stopping by. You will know when this page is done because it will be a happy day for me! You will probably hear my woo-hoos wherever you live. I just hope hubby doesn't come home with a real buck or doe. He would be upset with me if he knew I was saying that, but its how I feel!

Maddux

Just a quick update on Maddux. We got his culture results back today (finally) and he has 2 serious infections. He has Strep B which is a nasty infection that can cause Toxic Shock Syndrome, Sepsis (blood poisoning) and the Flesh Eating Virus. He also has Staph infection. We have him on Ciprofloxin now 1000mg twice a day. We still don't have the sensitivity results back from the culture so we don't know if this is the correct antibiotic or not yet. I should hear either Sunday or Monday. The cipro seems to be holding the infections where they are, so that's good news I guess. Still no appetite to speak of, but Bubba is drinking well, so that's something! He is hanging in there for me. Poor baby! He tolerates the daily scrub-down of the sores he has which has got to be extremely painful for him. We have to leave the antibacterial shampoo on his skin for 15 minutes which seems like an eternity. I just talk to him and rub his cute little face and he listens to every word I say. Such an angel! I wish you could all know him, he is so special. He makes even people that don't like dogs fall in love with him. If you are a dog lover, you would adore him. I will update Mr Buck later today! Hes coming along, winding down! YAY!

My Butterfly

Well, she is mine, but not made by me. She was made by Lynn of beading heart art who is one of the most talented and sharing people I have had the privilege of coming across in the bead world. I commented on several of her butterflies on her blog and told her if she would ever make a chocolate and blue combination, I might have to come and tackle her for it. I didn't have to tackle her, she made one and sent it to me. Can you believe my good fortune? I thought I really like her bead work until I actually owned a piece of it. Now I know I LOVE it! This is truly a gift and at a much needed time for me too. Bless you and thank you so much Lynn. Your generosity and friendship means more to me than you could ever know.

Maddux update: not much more to report. We are still waiting to hear the culture report to see if he is on the right medication for this infection. The NY specialist had many suggestions for my Vet and they are working together to try to figure out the correct protocol for Maddux. She informed me about the rareness and seriousness of this illness. Its not like I don't already know since I am the one taking care of him. She made it all sound so grim. I hope we can prove her wrong.

Quick update

I just wanted to fill in those of you who are following Maddux's story. Had another trip to the Vet this afternoon after finding several huge blisters on his tummy and flanks. He has Toxic Shock Syndrome! It was brought on by his extremely high fever Saturday night. This poor baby doesn't get a break. We had it cultured to be sure he is on the correct antibiotic for this virus. We will get preliminaries tomorrow hopefully. Throughout all of this, his little tail still wags for his mama. I stopped at McDonald's on the way home and got him a double cheeseburger. He ate the whole darn thing! His temperature is down to 101.5 which is great. Now we have to get him to get feeling better. I am doing lots of research and contacted a Vet in NY who specializes in Shar Pei Fever Syndrome. She is calling me tomorrow. I hope she can help us. If she cant, no one can! Maddux says thank you to everyone for all their prayers. He sends out big slobbery kisses to you all!
Tomorrow I will post something I got in the mail on Monday. Be prepared to have your socks blown off! I know mine were. Boy, that didnt just date me did it??
HINT: its from Lynn of beading heart art if you haven't already, you have GOT to look at her blog. This is one talented, sweet lady. Hugs to everyone!!

No Update on Mr Buck

I just plain havent had time to work on him. Once again, I have a sick dog. Saturday night after Mike and Jess left, I noticed Maddux was walking stiff legged again. That is not a good sign. Took his temperature and it was 104.1. Not horrible, but not normal either. So I pulled out the new wonder drug I got from the vet and gave him a double dose of it as I was instructed. Waited 45 min, took the temp again 105.6. It should not have risen after a double dose of the new med. SO, off we go to bed, out come the cold wet towels, 1 for him to lay on, 2 rolled up to put in his groin area, 1 rolled up to put in his arm pit area, 2 over his entire body. I also turned the fan on him. When Maddux is sick he wants to practically lay on top of me, so I am soaking wet with a fan on me too freezing my butt off! Anyway, we lay like that for another 45 min, take his temp 106.8. Now i am freaking out. this is the danger zone. I start to cry, like thats going to do any good. I am rotating the towels and re-wetting them every 15 minutes. By this time is 2am and I cant get the darn fever to break. SO, I call my poor vet at home. He tells me to give him 100 mg of rimadyl. I do and retake his temp 1/2 hour later. 105.6. Better. We continue to do the wet towels for another hour. Finally at 4am he is 104.9 and sleeping. I am not sleeping. In fact, I didnt sleep all night. I was watching him, crying and worried beyond belief. Yesterday he was ok. Ran a fever all day but nothing above 104.5. During the night last night, I was petting him and checking his belly to see if he was burning up and felt something weird. Turned on the light grabbed my flashlight and looked at him. To make a long story short, he has about 20 blisters full of infection, its that darn strep infection again (the same one that causes flesh eating virus) another middle of the night call to the vet, wake hubby up to go to Walgreens (thank god for them being open 24 hours) and Maddux is now on 1000mg of Cephalexin 2 times a day for 2 weeks. I feel so bad for him and am so worried about him and how many times his poor body can go through this. I am just hoping he can remain strong and get through this again. Wish us luck!

Mr Buck Update!

Here is my latest update for my November Bead Journal Project! I will be so happy when he is done, it seems like I have been working on this page for months now! I am pretty happy with how it is progressing. I wish now that I hadn't done the pine trees. It seems to me that they are just kind of plopped in there with no rhyme or reason. I think my favorite part has to be the birch trees. For not having a clue what I was doing, I think they turned out kind of nice! I really like the texture and color of them. Its hard to tell in the photo, but I actually used 4 different shades of gold/yellow. This is a definite learning process.

My original plan was to do 2 pages for this month. That's not gonna happen! My youngest daughter Courtney has decided to get married with only about 3 weeks notice! Her boyfriend Brandon is supposed to be deployed in January, so they decided to do this before he leaves. Between that and Thanksgiving, I will be lucky to get Novembers page done! I hope everyone is having a wonderful day! The weekends just fly dont they? My daughter Jess and her husband Mike are coming over tonight to play some cards or watch a movie, so I am looking forward to that. Jess is a RN and works 3rd shift, so time with her is precious. Wish me luck on Mike and I kicking Jessisca and Chucks butts in Euchre! Its on Jess!!

Also, to everyone that is following along, Maddux continues to do very well. You would never know how sick he was such a short time ago! I am hoping his medications are working to keep his kidneys from failing! I know he is still sick, but its hard to believe right now. I am enjoying every minute I have with him, because we just dont know how long he will have. Keep us in your prayers!