Big sources of fatigue (and fear) right now. Sales, shares, and good vibes for She-Wolf needed.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

I'm going to be fairly scarce over the next two weeks. I'll post all the usual stuff, but I won't have much of a presence beyond that. I'm way overloaded as it is, and I awakened this morning in a fog of fear and fatigue, and I just can't do any more right now. The backstory begins with the photo, but it goes a lot further than this little girl.

For those of you who don't already know, this is She-Wolf. She's ten years old, and has been with us almost the full ten years, rescued as a starving and abandoned rez dog. Because of the privation of her formative months, she developed diabetes almost five years ago. We managed to save her eyesight long past the predicted two months, almost four full years, but now she's got only a tiny bit of vision around the edges. Still, she's been happy and healthy, until the end of the year. In the first week of January, she was diagnosed with transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder, a kind of cancer that is very aggressive, fast-moving and highly metastatic. It's complicated by her diabetes, the two conditions aggravating each other. She's been doing far better than the vet ever expected (he didn't think she'd make it out of January) . . . until last night. She spiraled down so far and fast that I wasn't sure she'd make it through the night. The good news is that she did, and was relatively engaged again today. We'd already begun titrating her back upward on the prednisone, and maybe that's all that will be required to buy her more time (she has some mild discomfort and heavy fatigue, but she's not in pain, and is still very food- and affection-motivated). But she can use whatever good vibes you've got right now.

Needless to say, the omnipresence of the starving half-wild dogs is a big stressor right now. That's not all. A friend is dying. Her choice is what it is, and there's nothing we can do about it. But she'll leave behind a minor teen who needs her. That's another source of stress for us both. 

In the middle of all this has been the ongoing effort to keep Wings well after his hospitalization two Mondays ago. The meds were a mess, putting his life at risk repeatedly, and we have been forced to figure out the adjustments ourselves. He's doing well now, but there are appointments upcoming, for both of us, over the next two weeks.

And then there's me. And I've repeated myself enough, and I don't really like talking about fear of dying, and so I won't. But that's where we are, every. single. day. unless and until we get some answers. We don't have any. And the bill collectors won't wait, so I need to carve out the time to finish off this platform, and I need to start monetizing my content, because for years I've been giving it away for free (and getting it stolen), and I can't afford that anymore. I've wasted a lot on exhaustion and grief already today, and I have to be able to work over the next two weeks, starting tonight. The rest is cut and paste.

The overall goal is my $25K+ in emergency medical bills, but for now, I'm trying to raise an initial $1,700 to take care of two specific bills: the local ambulance and one hospitalist's fee. We're $145 of the way toward it. I really, really need to start getting these taken care of (the stress of it is adding to my health problems now). A caveat: I have a lot of kinks to get worked out yet, but PayPal is now theoretically linked to the progress meter on the site. I say "theoretically," because I've just discovered that I apparently have to set up at least one other page to make the subscription "purchase" possible. Eventually, if you subscribe via PayPal (it's a monthly thing like Patreon), it will show, although for now the only way to do it is to hit the PayPal "Subscribe" button. I'm hoping to get that figured out and fixed tomorrow. I also need to figure out how to pin it to the main page, so for now, the only way to access it is here. Please share this link around on social media and elsewhere. I really do need to raise the rest of the $1,700 as fast as possible, because there are thousands' worth of hospital bills stacked up behind it. It also means that we need sales and I need to get my subscription platform up and running (and you can still subscribe via PayPal even now). So here are the links: 

• Tonight's post elsewhere (a lesson learned from infancy);
• A way to buy me coffee (which actually goes to She-Wolf's & my medical bills, and now Wings's too);
• Wings's direct PayPal link;
• Wings's site, for sales;
• Amazon wishlist, which mostly consists of food for the half-feral pack;
• 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. There are some things left on both registries that I thought by now I might be able just to buy outright, but medical bills (mine and She-Wolf's both) have to come first.

Please check out the new platform, share the links, get your friends to participate. I've got a long road ahead of me, just in terms of diagnosis and, I hope, eventually treatment. Being able to pay off the medical bills will go a long way toward keeping me as healthy as possible in the meantime. Thanks, everybody, from both 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.