Java turns 4 years old

Java is 4 today. Boy is time flying!!  I took the dogs to the river. It looked like it would be low enough to walk through based on yesterdays level. 

Its so pretty and peaceful here. Its hard to show in a picture.

Guiness gets so happy here. Im not sure if its the water noise or if he is happy to be off leash.

I know these pictures aren't great. Its very shady in the early morning. But otherwise its to hot outside to go for a walk.

I finally broke down and bought myself a new laptop. The other one was driving me crazy. It took so long to do anything, I wouldn't get on it. So  I stopped taking a lot of pictures and that's why I haven't been blogging very much. But now I have a new one.  Its funny how much technology keeps changing and how hard it is to keep up.  Poor old people, I cant imagine trying to keep up. 
Anyway, my new laptop has windows 8.1   I know lots of people hate Windows 8.1, but its been ok for me.  Its kind of like having and ipad with a keyboard. You can touch the screen and swipe things, but then you can go into "My PC" and use it just like you use to use a laptop.   But you can also ,at all times, switch between touching the screen or using your mouse. The biggest thing is remembering where things are to get to them because when you open it, it is very different then your usual computer set up. 
There was a dead bird in my yard today.  I didn't want to pick it up, so I made my son pick it up.(Not because of getting sick but its just to sad)  I had two bags, one inside the other, so he didn't touch it. And then had him wash his hands after wards. I remember this guy here in Columbia was working in his yard and picked up a dead bird. He got a really bad illness and now I cant remember what it was.  I hope this bird didn't die of that same illness. Maybe it was West Nile virus.  Anyway, hopefully a cat just got this bird.

All these medical problems

 This weekend I went to my sister's house in Va. Beach.  We had a good time just hanging out.  Walked on the beach, went shopping and out to eat. Fun!!
When I got home Sunday night. Guiness just looked off to me in his back end.  I asked my husband if he ran around a lot today. He said no. The only thing that was weird was he tried to jump the three steps onto the deck and his back end went out from under him.  Over the next couple of hours his back end got worse, he couldnt get up onto the couch and it would fall out from under him was getting down. All I could think of was he had a tumor pressing on his spinal cord.  I figured I would take him to the vet in the morning. I woke up at 2am, Im not sure why. I checked Guiness and he was worse. He couldnt settle down and now all his legs weren't working right. He would sometimes fall down. I know it couldn't be a tumor progressing this fast. He couldn't rest.  I was rubbing him, trying to get him to calm down and I found a tick on him.   I pulled it off and put it in the freezer.   I started researching wobbling and ticks in dogs on google.  I came across tick paralysis.   It starts in the rear legs and progress forward.  Then effects the diaphragm, esophagus and heart. They dog can die. It said to take them to the vet right away.  So I took him and the frozen tick to the emergency vet. I told them I thought he had tick paralysis. They took him right back.  The vet came and talked to me. She said that she agreed he had tick paralysis but that I already did what needed to be done, remove the tick. After that the dog starts to get better.  She said usually when the dog gets to them, they cant walk at all. She  also said usually they have to shave the dog to find the tick but since I already found it, that didn't need to be done.  She said he would back to normal in the next 12 hours.  By 7:30am he was already so much better. By the end of the day, he was back to normal.  Wow was that a scary disease.

Java hasn't been quit right either. Ugh!  So she was checked by the rehab vet on June 10th and she couldn't find anything wrong.  On June 19th, I took Java to the field to work. She didn't run around and play chase with Miley before hand. She and Miley just laid under the trees while I set up the course.  When I called her out to work, she was limping. WTH??   So I didn't work her. The next day she was find. We didn't do anything but a small walk in the morning. That evening, I took her and Miley for a walk in the neighborhood. She was fine in the house, through the garage, down the driveway and when she hit the street, she had a huge limp. WTH??   There is nothing in her pads or feet.  I don't know what is going on.   On and off , since the end of May, she has been scared of thunder.  But then goes out and uses the bathroom and pouring down rain.   She seemed better, then last night she was out in the back yard and a huge thunder clap came, and she ran in scared again. Ugh.  So I played toys with her to try to get her to forget it. It seemed to help.  Anyway I took her to the rehab vet again on June 26th.  This time she felt that Java's left front leg has more lateral motion in it , then it should.  It also popped when she was doing different things with it. She didn't show any signs of pain. She had full ROM of her shoulder without signs of pain.  So the vet thinks she has subluxation of her left shoulder. Then it could be happening when just walking and the she is sore for a little bit. She wants me to  do underwater treadmill and swimming with her to build up her shoulder muscles.  (I really trust this lady but Im just not sure of this dx.  I cant really find anything on it  on the internet. ) Today I took Java back into the regular vet. I had them repeat her blood work and do tick test on her just to rule that stuff out.  I don't know what to do. Should I just go with it, or try to investigate further??  I don't know.

 So we've been going to the river everyday and Ive been making Java swim. I also make them walk against the current, like an underwater treadmill. No one likes it. LOL

Miley seems to be doing well on her medication. She is able to sleep through the night now. Yay!!!

Stephanie is at college taking summer classes and working.  She has had a UTI. She took a course of antibiotics but she was still having symptoms. So I told her to go back to the school clinic.  She went back and she still had an infection.  They gave her Macrobid. Its an antibiotic that's been around a long time. 24 hours later she calls me and she is having chest pains.  I had her take 2 tums to see if that would help.   When I got off the phone, I looked up Macrobid. OMG!!  There is a huge warning on the medication under side effects:
  "CHRONIC, SUBACUTE, OR ACUTE PULMONARY HYPERSENSITIVITY REACTIONS MAY OCCUR WITH THE USE OF NITROFURANTOIN."

Also heart: "Changes in EKG (e.g., non-specific ST/T wave changes, bundle branch block) have been reported in association with pulmonary reactions"

Holy crap.  I called her back and told her not to take any more of the mediation and call the doctor right away. The saw her right away and did an EKG. It was normal. They told her she could never again take the medication.  They had her stay in the clinic for a while, gave her some other medication, then let her go home.  It took almost a week for the chest pains to go away. She went back to the doctor yesterday and still has a  UTI, so they started her on another antibiotic. This time we looked it up before she took it. It just had regular side effects.

So hopefully things will get better around her and everyone will stay health.

End of the year

The weather isn't horrible here but not great either.  Where or where is the sun?  Im one of those people that really needs sunshine. Today is another cloudy, overcast day. Yuck!   My fibromyalgia has been really bad. Im at a lost of what to do next.  Im sick of all these medications. Nothing is helping and they just make me tired , irritable and give me sleep problems.    We just keep adding medications and they help for a little while and then they stop again. Ugh!!

Anyway, I was able to walk my dogs yesterday. 

Sure would have been nice to have some sun in this shot.  I was trying to get a picture of him flying away. Of course I haven't seen anyone  for the first hour I was there. But  now two bikes come by and Java and Guiness loose their minds. I have their leashed wrapped around my arms and trying to take shots of this bird. I don't know how any of these shots came out. My arms jerking all over the place.

I had to crop all the shots because the bird was all the way to the right from my arm jerking. LOL

I really broke Java's dogwalk now.  I bought a "hit-it " board and had it made to 12 inches by 36inches, the size of the USDAA dogwalk contact size.  She will run on it when its on the ground or if she isn't running the whole dogwalk but have her run the whole dogwalk and she takes a freaking giant leap. Ugh!!!





It wouldn't be so upsetting if I hadn't spent money on it. Crap!!

Then when I removed the "hit it" board, she was now adding an extra stride on the down ramp. So you probably think good, she it hitting the contact.  But I don't think it will hold up. That it will fade into two hits again but jumping the contact. Ack!!





So I hope we are back to this again. I will slowly work on me being more and more behind when she runs. Just hard to see the contact when doing that. (which is why I wanted the hit-it board.)