Whew…a few bad weeks. Can’t put up a big post, but I need to prove that there’s life in this thar hills! Here’s the quickie low-down:

I had the SSI hearing, and fought the anxiety attacks off for the most part. The award will be a max of $694/mo, and I’m still waiting on a final amount. Strangely, I found myself disappointed at how little it was (below min wage), after insisting to myself for 2 years that I wouldn’t hope for anything at all… We humans are odd odd odd critters, ain’t we?

A CFS flare hit me very hard, and it was all I could do to feed the dogs and get them out for business three times a day. (I went a week without a shower–p’yew). But some heavier duty sleeping meds have started to help me sleep better, hence a bit more on my feet now. I’m making it to the grocery every other week, and keeping the living room clean thanks to the deeper snoozing at night.

But the biggest anxiety hit came when what I first thought was a bug bite or sting on Kenai’s hind leg wouldn’t go away and started looking really ugly. It would suddenly open up and bleed like crazy every few days, so off to Dr Susan we went ’cause I just had a bad feeling about it, ya know? Dogs have lumps and bumps, but I’d never seen anything like it before.

Doctor Susan also didn’t like the way it looked, so she did a needle aspiration. There was an excessive amount of red blood cells and a couple spindle cells. That means a tumor or possible hemangioma. Here’s the anxiety trigger: Kenai’s sire died of a related vascular cancer called hemangio-sarcoma.

Monday my baby love had his biopsy, and we won’t know exactly what the growth is for a couple more days at least. BB’s got a few small areas on his skin that Doc also wants to watch to see if they also develop into growths like Kenai’s. Beebs also got yet another skin staph overgrowth, so I’m being meticulous about keeping their areas disinfected until Kenai’s suture line heals.

What worried me was how slowly my golden bear boy recovered from the surgery. He was mentally, extremely insecure, and subdued for two days. He’s pulling out of it today (Wed), but he gets a desperate sound to his cry if I’m not within his reach. Being without me at the vet was traumatic for him. Bless his gentle heart, he isn’t half as resilliant as his little bro.

Now since I don’t like ending on a negative, even though I feel besieged by negative circumstanes—I have summoned enough beligerence about it to change one thing I CAN change. Atkins low carb is the only way I’m able to lose weight and keep it off.

My worry was switching from regular coke to diet, since most non-sugar alternatives will trigger migraines. But I’d had enough of being obese and decided to try that Coke Zero. I’ve gotten away with it, too. No increase in the migraines. But it does seem to make the fibro’s muscle pain worse, so I alternate a soda with crystal light and the added fluids seem to help.

I can eat all the fat, meat, and cheese I want. The only carbs I get is in supper’s green veggies, and the pay off is I’ve lost 20 pounds. Those twenty pounds equal 4 entire sizes down. The old clothes fit again.

My ultimate goal is the pre-fibro etc onset weight: 120 pounds. That’s another 50 pounds to go, but I think by goodness I can get there. That’s my positive to smile about. I will try to get back to regular posting, I’ll really try. And especially when I get the results of Kenai’s biopsy, good news or bad. Let’s hope it’s nothing more than a garden variety benign doggie tumor.