stormdog: (Geek)
So much to write about! I chopped it up into LJ-cut sections just to make it easier to jump to things that may interest you if you don't want to read it all.

Piper )

board gaming )

cooking )

electroncs )

So that's basically what I've been up to.
stormdog: (Kira)
Piper's tumors were benign! I found out this morning when I dropped by the shelter to get a few things for her. I'd miscommunicated with the doctor about sutures; they're coming out on Tuesday. That's ok; I'm so relieved that she doesn't have cancer!

I wish someone who knows international politics really well could objectively explain to me how likely it is that Trump's attack on Syria will lead to military escalation and greater armed conflict. There's good information about things happening in the present, but nothing I've read that attempts to prognosticate meets my standards for being objective and grounded in reality.
stormdog: (Tawas dog)
The folks at Blue Pearl will be removing Piper's stitches tomorrow and doing a checkup. I'll let you all know how it goes. One stitch didn't want to wait, so she got a bandaid over the minor sore where it came out.

She's doing well with her range of motion exercises and we're starting to walk her for brief spans on the leash as she works toward using her leg again.

Piper with a Unicorn Bandaid
stormdog: (Kira)
Piper is back home after surgery. She's on a schedule IV controlled substance (Tramadol) for pain, so she was pretty out of it yesterday. She's been a little bit more alert today, but mostly just stays in one place and alternates between napping and lying still.

Piper, Post Surgery

More photos and writings behind the cut. )
stormdog: (sleep)
I am just a ball of stress today.

I took Piper to the vet to get her sling removed. Her hip is still out of place, so the next step is surgical correction. (Bonus: she also has a nasty rash under where the sling was.) The regular vets referred me to a specialty clinic for that. I cleared that with the shelter and drove her over, where they proceeded with the operation. The fur is still barely there from the last two times she's been shaved for sedation.

The doctor called when it was done with an update. There was a cracked bone in the area which led to complications. The bones can't be pinned as would normally be done, so instead he removed the head of the femur and reattached the trochator muscle further down the bone. Her leg will be about a centimeter shorter than the other, but he's had other patients who went through this procedure and did really well in the long run. So that's hopeful.

Except that she had some mammary nodules that the doctor wanted to do a lumpectomy on. They were more numerous and difficult than he'd expected, and he had to remove one of her nipples because the growth was extending into it. He thinks that one or more may be malignant, but we have to wait on test results to be sure.

She's in at the vet until tomorrow, when I get to bring her home again. She's going to be even more limited in mobility, and will probably be in significant pain for a while.

Part of me still feels like it's my fault, or that it looks like it's my fault. I expressed that when I talked to one of the shelter staff when I originally called from the regular vet. He expressed that all of these problems were not my fault (unless, he said, I could somehow make her think that she was pregnant), and that I was being a really good doggy daddy. That made me feel a lot better. On the way home from the surgeon, he called and I gave him the update and he thanked me again for taking good care of her. However, he said, "if it turns out you caused this, we'll have words."

I was fairly sure he was joking. I talked to the shift captain at the shelter tonight (since it's my volunteer day) and she agreed; he was joking. But there's a part of me that still doesn't believe that. When I got home from the surgeon, I was having a panic attack over that specifically and the situation in general. I called Danae and talked, then collapsed in bed with a stuffed animal for a few hours until it was time to go to the shelter. I'm feeling better after a nap and being with dogs, but I was still a distractable bundle of nerves. Looking at the little dogs at the shelter, I wanted to hold them and pet them as Piper surrogates. I was distracted, and occasionally leaning toward being teary.

I keep reminding myself that I'm taking good care of her, it's not my fault that these things have happened, that the shelter won't be mad at me for all of the expenses that Piper has incurred (this surgery is in the four figure range).

I'll let you know how it went when I bring her home tomorrow. For now, Danae and I are going to watch a silly movie and be distracted.

Bicycling!

Mar. 26th, 2017 05:55 pm
stormdog: (Kira)
Thirty miles today, down to Navy Pier and back. There's a new pedestrian overpass going in around Ohio Street; it should make it a lot easier to navigate the maze around the north end of the Lake Shore Drive drawbridge.

I brought my jacket out of concern for wind off the lake on this 60 degree day, but it stayed in my panniers. I was producing enough heat to find a good equilibrium. It's so good to have this warm weather again! And I stopped at Aldi on the way back for some yogurt.

Piper is more and more eager to start walking places when I put her down on the ground. She gets to have her sling off on Thursday. Until then, she still gets carried around from spot to spot until she finds one she likes, then she goes right back in to be in her crate or (more frequently) sit next to one of us on the couch. I'm sure I'd be bored of so much sitting too!
stormdog: (Kira)
A week ago, I set up my bicycle trainer in the condo as an attempt to get more regular exercise. Sub-freezing weather and low motivation was keeping me from doing much outdoor riding. During that week, Danae was understandably a bit put out by my stuff having taken over a lot of the living room (I had a big [musical] keyboard on the dining table as well). I feel a little silly taking the bike back outside after only a week, but it was in the low 40s here today; warm enough to not have to put on gloves and thermal underwear. I didn't ride nearly as far as I thought I might; I am sadly out of shape compared to last year. But it was so satisfying to be out riding fast on smooth tires and clear roads. I'll make that as close to a daily thing as I can.

Piper is recovering well from her hip dislocation. She doesn't seem to be in much pain, and this morning she pooped for the first time since the emergency vet visit on Thursday. I was starting to be concerned about that. We carry her everywhere: at outside time, I carry her from spot to spot and set her down until she finds somewhere she deems appropriate for her needs, then we go back in. When I'm alone with her, she has to be in a crate so she doesn't move around. She whines about that a bit, but has been fairly accepting overall. She's getting lots of attention from Danae and I when we're around and have time and that seems to mollify her.

I did go with Posi to Minneapolis this past weekend. We were visiting for the wedding of a family member of his. I really enjoyed meeting said family member and his now-wife. She is a doctoral student of neuro-psychology, and there was a heck of a lot of conceptual overlap between her work and the linguistic and cultural sub-fields of anthropology. We talked briefly about the nature of perception and language, understandings of faceblindness as an absolute vs. a spectrum (and confusion thereof), and other interesting things. As we talked about language, I thought of the Pirahã, who I'd learned about in the linguistic anthro class I took and asked her whether she knew of them. It turned out she'd just taught about them the week before in her class! They're the sort of people I'd love to be social with if we weren't six hours away.

We ate at the Wisconsin Dells both on the way there and the way back. The dells look so sprawly to me these days. I feel like they're being homogenized, losing their distinct character. A few things are left that I get the sense have been there for decades, but so much seems new and indistinct from other touristy areas. I commented to Posi that I wish I could have an experiential knowledge of the dells fifty years ago, before the influence of the interstate highway system and concomitant urban reorganization happened. Though he couldn't give me that, he did tell me a lot about what the place was like thirty years ago when he was there with his family as a kid. It was so nice of him to talk to me about those experiences, and listening to him was a treat.

I'm still having trouble concentrating on reading. I started Jeremy Black's Maps and Politics, and then a biography of Robert Moses, but it's hard to spend much time at a stretch with them. I have a vague feeling that it has something to do with learning to tear through a minimum of a book a week for grad school, but I'm not sure. It's a little hard to get myself to sit down and slowly take in the text rather than dash through for highlights and then dig into particularly relevant bits. (Posi suggested I read a children's book or two to remind my brain that there are other ways to read. The idea is strange, but somewhat appealing.)

Instead, I've been concentrating on learning some music. I got my keyboard from my parents' place, printed out some sheet music for a few songs from games that are dear to me, and have been making some slow progress with them.
stormdog: (Kira)
The vets got Piper's hip back in joint and she's home with us. She is on strict minimal movement orders for two weeks. We can carry her outside for potty trips, and should be confined from moving around on her own at all other times.

I'm so relieved. I keep thinking of reasons to blame myself. I was encouraging her to be more active because I thought a lot of her caution was because of her low vision. that if she got more comfortable in the space she knows, she could climb up and down stairs on her own. And it may well have been the vision that was slowing her down, but her body wasn't up to her courage.

Even after she's better, she's going to get the royal carrying treatment up and down stairs as long as we have her in our care.

Her fur hadn't even grown back from the last sedation when she was spayed on the 2nd before she had to be sedated again. Her leg is wrapped up in a sling where it will stay for at least a week until we follow up with the regular vet. On the plus side, the emergency vets removed her sutures from the spay. The antibiotics worked and that's healing well.
stormdog: (Tawas dog)
I've been encouraging Piper to be more active. She lets me put a hand under her tummy and help her do a sort of carry/jump down the two stairs in our condo lobby.

She's been feeling better lately; much more active. Today she jumped down those two stairs. When she landed, she collapsed on the floor, peed all over herself, and started panic biting me before trying to hide underneath me as I squatted, terrified, next to her.

She's at the emergency vet now with a dislocated hip. They're going to sedate her and try to put it back in, but if that doesn't work, she'll need surgery. We'll have an update in a couple hours.

Danae and I are both freaking out more than a little over her. On top of that, I was going to leave for Minneapolis with Posi today. Whether that happens is dependent on Piper.
stormdog: (Tawas dog)
Not having Piper here is a bit like when I started driving a car with an automatic transmission regularly again. Now, instead of repeating the mantra "This car has no clutch," while operating the gas and brake, I'm continually reminding myself that not seeing Piper around the common space doesn't mean I need to go see what she's doing.

She's done in surgery! She had a mobile tooth and an unerupted one that were removed as well. Sounds like all went well, and I should be bringing her home today!
stormdog: (Kira)
Piper is *finally* going to bet spayed tomorrow. I'm so glad she's no longer either too underweight and sick for the procedure, having a heat cycle, or going through a false pregnancy anymore! Tomorrow, the vet said, one way or another, we're finally going forward with surgery.

This means, of course, that the obstacles that have kept her from being adoptable are no longer an issue. I'm facing the fact that the time when she will leave us draws ever closer.

This parting, unlike many of the others I've had with animals through my life, doesn't mean that she is at the end of her life. She'll be with another person or people who chose to be her guardians despite the difficulties that come with a diabetic, low-vision dog. People who care about her, take care of her, and love her.

I keep thinking not about the big things, but about the little things we know about her. All her habits and needs we know so well and have become so good at understanding. How to tell when she's hungry, or wants to play. How she's been sleeping on top of a pile of Danae's clothes sometimes this week because Danae's away. How happy she is to see either of us walk in the door.

I'll miss her a lot, but I'll be just as happy to know that she's with her forever-people. I'd like to foster more dogs; have many animals in my life to take care, to help get well, and help find their people. I'll be more happy than sad I think. The hard part is imagining how Piper will feel. Thinking of her feeling scared and confused and abandoned is the part that's really hard for me.

I'm reassured by the fact that I know I know how deeply the shelter staff care deeply about the animals in their charge. If they don't think it's a good match, they won't let the adoption go forward. If and when Piper finds a new home, the chance of it being a great one for her is as high as can be hoped. Maybe if it's nearby, I could even visit a few times and ease the transition.

I'll be dropping her off at 8:00 AM central. I wish our silly dog an easy surgery and a speedy recovery.
stormdog: (Kira)
Poor Piper. She's at loose ends with "mama" in Portland at a conference. There's no one sitting on the couch to curl up and snuggle with!

Vet Visit

Jan. 5th, 2017 07:19 am
stormdog: (sleep)
It's a big day for a little pupper! Piper is going in to the vet in a few minutes for the spaying that her original owners should have done five years or so ago. Wish her little pain and a speedy recovery!

----

We'll have to postpone the spay again. The tech I talked to a while back said they ought to be able to work with the false pregnancy, but the doctor who called me this morning after dropping her off feels differently. They can try to work around the mammary veins and milk ducts, he said, especially if it's on the tail end of the pregnancy, but he's worried about doing that with Piper who, he said, "could supply the dairy" right now.

So we're going to wait another month-to-six-weeks and bring her back to see if she's ready for surgery. Ah well.
stormdog: (Kira)
Sometimes lately, I have a particular kind of trouble getting to sleep. As I start to drift off, I have a moment of fear or panic and suddenly I'm awake, often curled up on myself and breathing quickly. It typically only happens a few times before sleep, but it's been extra difficult tonight so I decided to get up for a while.

I have a bunch of stuff to write about, including good holiday stuff to make up for the bad before (though there's a little more bad as well). But for now, I'll write the dog post I've meant to write for a long time.

Piper is doing well. After returning from Canada, I took her with to the shelter one evening when I went in to ask about insulin and things for her. The shelter staff were effusive in their expressions of amazement at how good she looks and how well she's doing. "She's not the same dog!" I heard more than once, as well as praise at how well I've taken care of her. That made me feel really good about myself, and was nice to hear after how much of a handful she's been. We've had so many unexpected problems with her.

There was the fact that she went into heat right after we got her home. That finally ended, but while we were in Canada, I had another experience that, having never taken care of an intact female, was new to me. Danae and I thought her enlarged breasts were a result of her gaining weight until Danae was petting her tummy and found milk on her fingers. Piper is going through a false pregnancy and is lactating. So most of the time we were in Canada we were spraying her tummy with bitter apple spray to keep her from self-nursing, which would stimulate her mammaries to produce more milk for longer.

She's been extra growly and defensive, as she is trying to protect her imaginary babies. Noises set her off more than usual, and she spends a lot of time nesting in her crate, where we sometimes peek in on her to see she's not licking herself and other times just kind of throw up our hands. It does seem like that may finally be ending too.

We suspected she had vision problems, but we realized in Canada just how bad her vision is. It was hard to tell here at home because she was settling into a new place and by the time her behavior settled into a routine, she knew the space decently well. In Canada though, we got to see her learn a new space all over again. I understand why she's so scared of steps; she doesn't see them a lot of the time and just walks right off the edge and falls. This has led her to worry that transitions in floor color might be a step. While it made me feel bad for her to watch her at Danae's parents' house, I have to admit it was pretty funny and cute too. Their kitchen floor is a light color while the rest of their floor is dark wood. Piper walked into the kitchen without hesitation to get food or water, but she wouldn't come back out. She stopped at the transition to dark wood, and soon started whining and barking plaintively, asking for rescue. After a week or so, she sometimes managed to get out on her own, but she had to work up courage. She'd stand at the transition, moving toward it and backing away, toward and away, maybe make a few little barks, and then dash across it at full speed as though it was going to attack her.

Piper makes me feel so protective. She's still not the dog I would choose for myself, but I love her a lot. I'm glad the shelter is so careful about making sure dogs go to the right people, because I dearly want her to find a family who understands her issues and will take good care of the dear little girl. Hopefully she will finally be spayed in the middle of this month and she can start being available to meet potential adopters.

In a lot of ways, this has been like I imagine taking care of an infant. We can't take her anywhere for long without planning how to take care of her and packing a bag full of her supplies. We have to work our schedule around her feeding times and giving her insulin. We have to deal with her being loud and annoying sometimes. I'll miss her, a lot I think, when she's adopted, but I'll will be happy for she and us too.

Taking care of Piper is a reassuringly simply positive thing that helps me feel good about myself. I'm making life better for this innocent being who was miserable through no fault of her own. I'm making the world a better place by helping this sweet little dog, I tell myself. When I'm not telling myself that doing so is ignoring so many major problems in the world and getting sad and feeling bad about myself again.
stormdog: (Kira)
It's not terribly original, but here's Piper's Halloween costume for the party that Danae and I are going to today.

Piper the Beanie Baby

I might do more preparation next year and make it actually fold open and have a silly little poem about her in it. (It occurs to me that I'm already thinking about having her around next year. I have no idea whether that will be the case or not. I really like her, but I don't know if she's the dog I'd choose to have permanently if I was to choose a dog. And honestly, I don't think we could afford her medical bills on our own either. *sighs*)

Anyway, I've been doing a lot of Factorio. It's a wonderful distraction. Before sitting down to write this, I was lying on the couch with graph paper and trying to figure out how to graph multivariate (is that the right term?) functions with either 4 or 8 inputs and one output for arbitrary inputs so I can make the supply system that feeds my electronic circuit production line faster and more efficient. I've never done this kind of math. Google to the rescue! Though it may be that, as long as the splits and merges are done correctly so that all outputs are equal, knowing how input asymmetry effects the system's total throughput isn't critical. (It kind of looks like, from a quick look around, this kind of thing isn't exactly plotable in the same way that a single variable function would be. I wonder if it would help to plot it once for each input variable while holding the others constant?)

I've never cared much about achievements in games - they usually annoy me if I bother thinking about them at all - but I've never actually gotten every achievement for a game before, and with Factorio they give me fun goals to work toward while I play around with designs. I've been really enjoying doing things like finishing the game in under 8 hours, or doing it without use of laser turrets. I'm working on the last achievement I haven't gotten; making 20 million electronic circuits. It's the least commonly attained one in the game. Working on it, I can see why; the scale of this project is far larger than anything I've done before. Even at around 5000 a minute (a rate that I haven't managed to keep consistent yet, but am working on), it takes over three hours to produce a million circuits. I keep tweaking things to improve production, but I go through cycles of maximizing my current design and having to start from scratch with a higher capacity layout. In proper doses, this has been a lot of fun!

ETA:

Ok, I did some graphs where I held some inputs constant and increased other inputs synchronously and I figured out what I need to know. In the system in consideration, each increase of 1 to input on any line results in an increase of .25 to each output line, up to individual capacity of input/output lines. I guess I simply proved that my four-way merge/split is doing its job. Which is good! Now on to design an 8-to-8 split/merge. Four full belts feeding the green circuit makers is not enough throughput.
stormdog: (sleep)
Piper feeling sleepy after breakfast. I am too, come to think of it.


Sleepy Piper on the Couch
stormdog: (Kira)
*Piper barks at the door to the hallway. I follow her over to the door*

"Is someone out there? What's going on?"

"Woof! Woof! Grrr-ooof!"

"Ok, you don't have to bark. I'm alerted. "

"Woof! Woof!"

"I'm alert! Really! Look how alert I am!"

"Grr...oof?"

*Piper walks back over to the couch.*
stormdog: (Kira)
I was so glad to see Piper looking so happy, head out the car window and hair blown back by the wind, as I drove back from the vet. She's had a long day.

She was having diarrhea last night. I took her out around midnight in the hope she'd be ok overnight, but by the time I woke up her crate was a doggie disaster area. Then she tracked poop onto the carpet before I could grab her and bring her outside. She wouldn't eat breakfast, so the vet said not to give her insulin and that I should come pick up some wet food for her. Danae helped me get her into the bathtub where I lathered her up with dog shampoo and wiped her down. She was terrified, but put up with it like a champion. At least her hair is all smooth and shiny now. We had to cut a little bit of matted stuff off of her, but it was minor.

Then I locked her in the bathroom while I went to my therapy session, since her crate is uninhabitable. It was a long day for me too, or at least a stressful one. My therapists supervisor and a couple other students, with my permission of course, were observing the session, so I was stressed and self-conscious. Regardless, it went well, and I had a brief conversation with her supervisor too, who seemed really nice. More stuff to think about regarding emotions.

Piper's been back in a diaper all day, but seems well and is happy to be out of the bathroom (where she did not make a mess). She just ate a bunch of her wet food, so I'm going to keep a close eye on her while I try to clean out her crate and scrub the carpet again. She's lucky she's so adorable. As the shelter staff said in email when I asked them about potentially box-training her and how that would affect her adoptability, she is a special-needs dog and will require special people. Learning to eliminate on a pee-pad or in a box would be the least of our issues in that department.

My special puppy dog....
stormdog: (sleep)
Today is the first day of Open Doors Chicago: it's an architectural tourism event where over a hundred architecturally remarkable buildings are open for free tours to the general public throughout Chicago. I've wanted to get to Open Doors for years, but somehow there has always been an unavoidable scheduling conflict. Now, finally, I'm in easy distance, don't have other commitments, and could make a list of cool places and jump on my bike to see them.

And I just don't feel motivated. It's so strange for me to have the chance to do something so awesome related to architecture and just not be feeling it. But I also haven't been doing much bicycling at all lately either; I just haven't really felt motivated. Maybe I'm having another depressive spell? I mostly want to sit at home and play Factorio.

Danae and I have a really nice evening yesterday. It was the day of the NU anime club, and they were viewing four episodes of different TV shows to decide what series to watch for the rest of the semester. I'd been really tired and a little headachy, so I took a long nap during the day and was up a little late for the five o' clock start. I'd been hesitant about whether I really wanted to go, but in the end I decided that both of us get out and see other people so little that the chance to do so together is one I shouldn't pass up. I walked to the campus and met her there, seeing the end of the first episode and the other three with her. One of them, Occultic 9, was so fast and disjointed that trying to keep track of it was a bit like scouring my brain with something abrasive. It was tiring to watch. The second, Drifters, was kind of interesting but not inspiring. The last one, the first episode of a show about an alternate World War II with a witch/sorceress helping the princess of a tiny mountain kingdom standing against "Germania" was really good and I enjoyed watching it. I hope that ends up being the series they see more of.

Danae and I walked home and stopped at Chipotle for a buy one-get one burrito deal (you can get a coupon if you go to their site and play a silly game) and then snuggled on the couch for more Anime. My dad had found Vampire Hunter D for me, a wonderful post-apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy horror western romance from 1985, and I wanted to share it with her. But it turned out the copy he gave me was a newer redub and I hated the voices immediately. To my delight, I found the version that I new in whole on Youtube, so we put it on the TV and curled up with Piper. Once it was done, it auto played the newer movie with the same character, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. I'd never seen it so we watched that one too. I prefer the original, but I have to admit that the newer one is really pretty! As is D. If I have any 'type' when it comes to guys, it's vaguely feminine long-haired men. Even as a kid and before I had long hair myself, I loved seeing long-haired men in fiction.

Anyway, here I am this morning. Piper woke me again as usual. She's calm and quiet most of the night in her crate in the living room, but she tends to start barking around 8. I'm hoping both that I can train her to stop doing that, and that I can also leave her out for the night once she's not in heat and her diabetes is under control.

She's doing better in the last week or so I think. When I took her to the vet on Tuesday, I found out that I was only giving her half the does of insulin that she was supposed to get. She needs five units, but I was drawing insulin up to the fifth line, which on these syringes, mark half-units. I thought I'd been taking such good care of her, and when I found out I'd been doing it wrong I felt deeply awful. I was depressed for a lot of the day, and napped on the couch where I had nightmares about her bleeding and peeing on everything while I helplessly looked on.

The shelter staff reassured me that it wasn't my fault, and that they had incorrect information. I don't know where it came from; maybe it was from the previous owner and that's why her diabetes was not managed well. Anyway, she's now getting her full dose and I do feel like she has more energy and is feeling better. That's a huge relief for me. There are things I get from being with a big dog that I don't get from her, but I really care about her a lot and felt just terrible when I learned that I was doing things wrong. Small or not, I can still bury my nose in her fur and sniff, and the smell of dog is reassuring and soothing in a way that I just can't explain. I'm glad she's here, and I'm glad that we're able to take care of her. However imperfect I am at it, I know that she needs special care that not a lot of situations could ensure she gets.
stormdog: (Kira)
Piper and I walked to fountain square in downtown Evanston. I put her on top of the concrete surround to get photos of her with the plume of water in the background, but my favorite one of the set turned out to be just her furry face.

Piper at the Evanston Fountain


I met a woman just outside the pharmacy on Sherman Avenue. Elderly and wearing a CVS uniform, she came hurriedly over to ask if she could pet Piper. I told her Piper's story in brief, and she talked about her Lhasa Apso who she'd had for more than a decade who had died around last Christmas. It was nice talking with her. Walking a dog really encourage random social interaction. I think it gives people something safe to approach a stranger about. I really like that.

Meanwhile, Piper seems to appreciate the attention from any source. I do think she's slowly feeling better. More energetic and enthusiastic maybe, though it's subtle. She'll be coming to the vet with me tomorrow for a glucose curve test and so I can talk to the vet about a few questions.

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