Today ...

nothing happened, really. I did help Eric do some stuff on the enewsletter, so that's something. But on Friday we sent Issue #32 to the print broker. Really. I don't know when it will get to the actual printer (it could be there now -- I don't know, nobody tells me anything). I know even less when it will actually be in print and mailing. But it's closer to print!

Ferret Update

All our ferrets are doing well, for the most part. They're playing and enjoying the A/C.

Trixie seems to be becoming more blind. It is slowing her down a little, but she still plays. She just needs a little coaxing. She's 5-1/2 years old now.

Balthazar is having another of his brief bouts of bad poo. He has this every few months. It's possibly some sort of inflammatory condition, though it didn't seem to respond to prednisone. We usually give him Kaopectate for a few days and he's fine again. He doesn't have a blockage or a partial blockage -- though one never knows what hairball could be lurking inside a 5-year-old ferret. What's truly weird is that, during these bouts, Bal acts fine -- he plays and dances and eats and drinks just fine.

Koosh has decided it's summer. For the first time in his life he's actually slimmed down for the season. It makes him look small. But he still has the same energy level he's always had. I suspect he won't slow down -- ever.

Gabby is the same. She still has her little tubby belly. She still does log-rolls for no good reason (well, I bet she has her own good reason). She still climbs up my desk chair as soon as I get up if I forget to put it all the way up. Even then, she is the only one of our ferrets who has ever been able to climb the chair, even when it's raised up as high as it goes. I guess the smallest ones have the most gumption.

Welcome Twins!

I forgot to mention that I am an aunt (again!). My brother Brady and his wife Amy had twins (one of each) on May 27 (actually, Amy did most of the work). I've only seen pictures so far, but I'm looking forward to meeting my new niece and nephew in person soon. This brings my grand total of nieces and nephews (from my siblings) to: 3 nieces and 5 nephews. They're all wonderful.

That's about it for now. Eric should be getting another Remicade treatment next week. Hopefully it will go as smoothly as the first one. Then we wait and hope that it works. As for me ... my new medication makes me hungry. Really hungry. All the time. Blech. I want to eat everything, but I'm trying to be good so I don't gain weight while I'm waiting to see if this one works. It seems to help a bit, but it's hard to tell since I've been taking it only a few weeks. I'll try to keep you all posted.

--Mary

Eric's Remicade Treatment

The infusion went as expected except for a couple minor inconveniences. We got to the hospital on time and breezed through outpatient registration. But when we got to the place where they were going to do the infusion, they realized that Eric has a history of some sort of bacterial colonization (even though he never had the actual infection), so he couldn't be put in the room with the other outpatients. They solved this pretty quickly by setting him up in the Pediatrics unit, where he had a room all to himself. The infusion itself proved to be long (just under 3 hours), but uneventful. The biggest problems were the late breakfast (apparently Dietary had a broken printer and never got his order) and a broken A/C unit. The broken A/C was only really bad in the last half hour.

Now we wait to see if the Remicade does its job. In the meantime, Eric still has the drainage bag in. What we're hoping for is that the drainage becomes less and less and eventually stops altogether. That would mean that his intestines are healed enough to remove the bag. That will be a day of great rejoicing (you might even hear it wherever you are on the planet!). So keep your fingers & paws crossed the this treatment will work.

--Mary

Back Again

It seems to be the routine now that I take long breaks between blog entries. But here I am again wanting to start with, "It's been a while since I wrote here ..."

But this is different. This time I have some good news.

Eric is nearly finished with the layout of Issue #32, and I have been reading through it making corrections today. There are a few little gaps that need to be filled in, but overall, we're about ready to get the magazine printed. Of course, that doesn't mean the printing will occur overnight, but it does put us one step closer.

In other promising news, Eric finally has an appointment to have his first Remicade treatment. I'm not sure if I mentioned Remicade previously, but it is a drug that is used to treat Crohn's disease. You can read about it on the Intelihealth web site. (I have no connection with that web site, but it usually has decent medical information for consumers.) Keep your fingers crossed that this will help Eric heal.

The ferrets are all doing well, though we all miss Cauliflower. Actually, they're out playing right now. I've set up a bunch of those hard plastic Bubble Wave tubes under one of our shelving units (which is a little misleading -- the bottom shelves of the units are about 2 feet off the ground to prevent ferrets from knocking things off the shelves). Right now, Trixie is the Queen of the Tubes (she is really the Queen of ALL Tubes). It always makes me feel good when the ferrets enjoy something I've set up for them.

I am still working on finding a medication that adequately treats my depression without causing intolerable side effects. I am on my fourth medication in six months! I feel a bit like Goldilocks in the Three-Bears Pharmacy. This one makes me too jittery, that one makes me too sleepy, this other makes me too anxious ... I'm about ready to find "just right." Maybe this one will be it. It would be nice to really get back to feeling good again.

That's about all right now. I will try to write something after Eric's Remicade treatment (on Wednesday morning).

--Mary