A very long, arduous day, but a medicated (and mostly happy) She-Wolf. Sales and shares badly needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

A very, very long day today. Errands required ten (count em, 10) separate stops, and while my O2 levels stayed mostly stable (with some help from canned spray oxygen), I'm really wiped out now.

We couldn't leave as early as we wanted (although fortunately, it all worked out okay), because we were waiting on a delivery of firewood. We have plenty of piñon and cedar at the moment, but they're very pitchy, and they will gum up a flue a lot faster than a clean-burning wood like aspen. So even back with the old manufactured home, we consistently burned aspen in the woodstove too so that it would keep it clean and in good shape. This was an aspen delivery, and it's really good stuff (also nice and dry). More than that, the kids who brought it were great, one of whom Wings found on the other side of the pickup, lying on the grass with She-Wolf to pet her. 

Before they got here, though, She-Wolf and Raven both got a special treat: part of a buffalo brain Wings acquired last year to use in tanning a hide. He wound up not needing it (at least not right this moment), and so he gave them this mostly because buffalo and elk (especially raw, including organs and blood) have always been very healing for the dogs. When Lilith was battling cancer (she lasted just shy of three extra years), one of the things that would help bring her back when she started to slip away was buffalo or elk blood and raw meat. And I think this helped She-Wolf today. She has certainly been acting as though she feels pretty good. We also picked up her other med today, and some treat/kibble samples that Jeff (the vet) had set aside for her that are designed to promote urinary health in dogs. The idea being, of course, that since tumors cause inflammation and thereby invite opportunistic infection and other problems, the healthier we can keep her bladder and urinary tract overall, the better potential she has for fighting the cancer. She's already had her amoxicillin and her pred, and she'll get the Piroxicam and some of the sample stuff with her shot and food tonight.

We are, at long last, home, and inside, and we've eaten something, and I've gotten a few more tasks off my plate, and we're both hoping that we don't have to go anywhere at all all weekend long. We need some downtime; Spirit knows I need some rest, since Im still not really sleeping. Tonight I double my LDN dose, and we'll see if that makes it better or worse. At least I didn't spend as much of the day fighting back tears. She-Wolf is good at the moment, Wings is good, I did better than expected, so Im calling it a win for the day.

I'm still beat, and the rest is mostly cut and paste, because I just can't focus my eyes and my brain anymore.

Only a small thing at my site; and here's the the Ko-Fi thing. Ive had to cut my actual coffee consumption way back since this stuff that no one can identify has started with me, so instead of coffee, think of it as She-Wolf's anti-cancer meds.

So, yeah, that's another big expense, although thankfully we have today's sale to help with that. But there's a lot of uncertainty with the new year now (and a lot of worry on more fundamental levels than just paying bills and so forth). For now, we still need to make sales, and they will be harder than usual not merely because Christmas is essentially over, but because there is no real tourist traffic, much less spending. We made it through the last week of the year, but looking ahead for this year, we don't have what normally gets us through the rest of the winter (and the weather will change, even if it's only to get really, really cold), much less for the emergency medical expenses of the last six weeks (which included a new bill two days ago for nearly five figures). Forget what remains to be done on the house for now; it's all the rest. But sales are not just what's going to keep me alive and Wings healthy; it's going to help other folks, too. Given the circumstances, I'm leaving up the donation link, too, and the registries have some new items on then, mostly lower-priced, to replace stuff damaged by the RV or given away when we first moved into it seven years ago. And as soon as I can get the folks at Wordpress who were happy enough to take my money to correct their various errors, I'll have a means to subscribe, donate, and eventually buy some things outright on the new site. So please share our links, because we've got to make some sales:

• Wings's direct PayPal link;
• Wings's site, for sales;
• Wayfair gift cards, to replenish all the furnishings that the RV has destroyed in one way or another.
• Partial registry #1, from Bed, Bath and Beyond. There are new kitchen-y things on it now, stuff that I didn't realize we'd need to replace (either because the RV ruined it or because we gave it away when we had to downsize).
• Partial registry #2, from Wayfair. Still waiting for them to resolve this fulfillment/shipping problem they have with their site. Even so, I've added some things (kitchen/dining room stuff mostly), most of which are comparatively reasonably priced. Now, it's going to be mostly odds and ends that make this place more liveable, because of the sheer volume of stuff destroyed by too many years in the RV (e.g., by the oven and stovetop, by the wiring, by the water, by the mold, etc.), or that we simply gave away seven years ago because we had no room and no place to put them and despaired of ever being able to use them again.  

As I've also been saying, I am still catching up, and will be now for a while. But this is the holiday season, and the sales/commissions from these few weeks are what keep us alive throughout the whole long winter and spring months (to say nothing of what's in the offing medically), so please continue to share the links. And please refer folks to Wings's site (and if you have an endorsement, too, so much the better). I'll be trying, slowly but, I hope, steadily, to get caught up over the course of this week. We have some massive expenses coming down the pike, and a lot of testing yet to be done before I'm out of the woods. So please keep sharing all our links. For now, I'm just so damn grateful to be alive, to have a healthy heart, to be back home with the love of my life and our dogs, the whole world is beautiful, even in spite of my terrible depression. Thanks again, to everybody; we love you all. And, if wishes can make dreams come true, a blessed Spirit Moon, the ability to sit atop the mountain and face the world below, and a happy, healthy new year to all of us.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.