Goodbye Senior

Its been a strange and emotional month. In summary...

Diesel died.

He got so sick and eventually we opted to euthanase him. It was the hardest decision ever, my heart still breaks thinking about not having him here.

The picture above is in the car park at the vet, kind of weird to take a photo, but I'm glad I did now. We both cuddled him in the car, he was so quiet and peaceful - like he knew what was happening, even when he was on the table in the vet, he just lay down and didn't even flinch when the vet inserted the needle. We cuddled him till the end. It was strange, that morning husband woke me up, he was upset and said 'I think it's time to take Diez'. Secretly I had pondered that thought many times in the previous 2 weeks, wondering if we were being selfish keeping him around, wondering how it would end - if he'd improve or get better. In the days after he died I was a complete wreck. I cried solidly for 2 days... I had no idea it would leave such a horrible empty feeling of heart-break. I felt weird too because I've recently had close friends lose their parents for goodness sake, and I was in a mess because of my dog.

It was a ridiculous comparison, and in a way it made me hide my emotions (misery) unless I was around the one other person who truly understood (and would've been feeling worse than me) - and that was Wayne.

Ho Humm...so unfortunately we were a miserable pair for a few weeks, which - mixed with a new town, new jobs and both missing our friends in Leo, made it very difficult to feel settled and happy in our new home. Only now am I starting to feel positive about our move here.

I've wanted to blog for ages - but this attempt to write about Diez has always left me in tears and unable to finish, and I felt I needed to write about him because it had such a big impact on me.

I Love you and miss you Diez.

xx

Anyone there??

Yeehaar, we're in our new home, we've unpacked (except for my art room) and if I never see another bloody box again in my life-time I'll be ecstatic.

We arrived to our new little town just over a week ago, it rained on and off for the first 4 days... and it was cold. We soon sourced ourselves a good stash of fire wood and learnt how to light a mighty fine fire to keep our butts warm... made me feel like a real country bum'kin.

So how do I like it so far?? One word to describe it at the moment ... Q U I E T ! It just seems so darn peaceful it's almost eerie. It's not like Leo was particulalry noisy or anything, but here you never seem to hear anyone else, rarely a car goes by, no one walks past, even the streets are really quiet when you you go into town. Does anyone else live here?? Coooo- eeeeee. The noisiest thing is the birds, they go mad every morning at 6am, and the 'wow listen to the beatiful birds cheeping' novelty wore off in about 3 minutes. Now it's more like 'The birds suck ... I'm trying to sleeeep'.

Our little pink-brick (stylish) house is actually great. We've somehow squeezed all our belongings into it and apart from not having a dining table (will need to get a cubby-house sized one in the near future) we're all settled and organised. My sis came to visit and waved her domestic wand over my shambles of a pantry... its amazing, I can actually find what I'm looking for now.... go figure. Next I'll have her wave that wand over my wardrobe and linen closet. hee hee.

I have my first day at work tomorrow, so I'm praying it's not crap - since everything else seems to have gone smoothly so far. Maybe that will be the glitch? Hopefully not, I'm trying to think positive. It'll be fine... it'll be fine... it'll be fiiiiinnne..... just fiiiine.

* * * * * *

My new car is AWESOME. When we picked it up they had put a huge ribbon on it! I was so excited I just wanted to go for a drive, but no.... I had to sit through 90 freakin minutes of paperwork, demonstrations, introductions to the service department (who cares bout them?) and more paperwork before I finally got to drive her! I was almost started to twitch in anticipation. Anyway it was all worth it in the end, it is an amazing car to drive and I love her.

Deez and I went on a road trip in the mini to the Vet last week (2 hour round trip). I put sheets and blankets in the back seat for him to lay on - we had a great time!

Moving officially sucks

Wow, a heap has happened since I last blogged.

Diez is still sick, but after further tests and visits to the big Perth Vet hospital he seems better and like he will slowly continue to improve (fingers crossed). Silly old sucker has cost us a fortune, he's a gold-plated dog.

Husband and I have officially moved from Leo. The packing up and cleaning sucked BIG TIME, it was a relief to finally walk out the door of the house knowing it was all done. Now we have to unpack everything at the other end...ugh.

It was very sad to leave good friends behind, but I have had a great past four years and have made some life long friends from my days in Leo.
I had a fantastic going away party with all my favourite Leo girls, it was a blast! JB was the hostess (with the mostest) and I could not have had more fun. We sang (badly) danced (badly), chatted and yahoo'd till 4am! My gawd... I'm far too old for that now, it nearly killed me. It rendered the next day a complete and utter write off for me. Despite my best attempts, every time I got up to try and achieve something my head pounded until i was forced to crawl back into bed. I was pathetic. It was kinda worth it though, I haven't had such a fun drunk-night for ages. However I do 'sketchily' recall getting pushed to the ground & sprayed with Champagne at one stage, and I also have vague memories of losing my pants and hiding in bushes while the girls searched for me to take photos of my large white behind in my undies. That was nasty. The pics were nastier, lucky the camera didn't seize (wish it had tho).

Husband & I are in Perth now for a few days before moving to Q'ding. Its been a great time to relax and chill after the last few hectic weeks.

Guess what happens tomorrow???
I get my NEW CAR! Yeehaar. We drove there today and saw her in the showroom... I know its mine because it has my custom number plates on it! I was so excited I was bouncing around like a complete tosser, she had a sign on the windscreen saying 'Sorry, I'm spoken for - please consider this when browsing'.
Ha! Get your dirty mitts off - she's MINE.
I can't wait.... eeeekkkk!

Over n out x

Dear old Diez...

Poor old Diez is still not so great.

After my last post he got a lot worse and I was driving to Kal to pick husband up from the airport so took him back to the vet. This time I saw a different vet who was very thorough, she started an assessment from scratch and gave me quite a poor prognosis. I knew in my heart anyway that he was looking pretty awful, I really thought he would die that day. He was having difficulty breathing, he had a really high temperature and was really quiet. I left him at the vet for a barrage of tests and went to collect Wayne from the airport - As soon as I saw Wayne I burst into tears .... it seemed so much to deal with on my own and the few days before hand had been awful... I was a mess!

Anyway, the tests basically showed he had a raging infection but they weren't really sure of the exact focus, so we took him home on industrial strength doses of antibiotics, with the plan of returning in a few days if he hadn't improved. I left for Bali two days later and husband took over while I was away. I felt incredibly guilty leaving them - both husband and Diez.

Diez wound up having surgery to explore what was causing the swelling and infection in his throat. Post op Wayne said he looked a bit better for a few days, but now seems to be on a bit of a patchy down hill slide, although sometimes he has times where he wags his tail and will even get up and wander around sniffing things like he used to. Most of the time he lays on his bed looking quite sad and thats the heart breaking bit.

The vets are baffled and think its perhaps a combination of problems - a bad infection which has now progressed to Kidney failure - he's no spring chicken so his Kidney function was already a bit marginal and the infection has most likely exacerbated this.

The Vets in Kal (Robyn and Lauren) have been awesome.
They sound like they genuinely care and have been so understanding through our tears and questions. Today I spoke to Robyn at length about being stressed over the decision to Euthanize Diez. Are we being selfish by keeping him alive?? I want to do things for his best interest - not ours. She was fantastic and said we would just 'know' if and when the time was right, not to stress about it, but to spend our time with him loving him and continuing to give him the best care we can.

I know it's probably hard for most people to understand how upset and emotional I am about this, and to be honest I'm a bit confused myself at my reaction, but to Wayne and I our dogs have never just been 'dogs'... they are our family, our furry slobbering children, we are a team of four and I want it to stay that way.

Diesel update

I don't want to count my chickens... but I think Diez is a wee bit better.
He actually wagged his tail a couple of times today (not at me tho...but at JB and KDF when they visited him on his death-bed. He's sick of the sight of me smothering him so I get no tail-wagging) He's also been walking (limping) around a bit more tonight. I had to pretty much hand feed him dinner but he looks better than he did this time last night.
Hang in there old buddy.

Dieza

I think my beautiful old Diesel-dog might be dying.
He’s so sick, he can hardly walk and it’s breaking my heart.
I don’t know what to do.
I drove him to the vet yesterday in Kal and she said it was ‘an infection’ and his arthritis playing up, she prescribed him some antibiotics and anti inflammatories.
Today he has gotten worse, tonight worse again. I’m sleeping on the mattress on the floor next to him but I can’t stop crying and cuddling him.
I just want to take his pain away and make him all better.

Hang in there Diez because I love you.

Whats it called?

Okay so this is probably only funny to me, but I'm in a video sharing mood and tonight i have been clearing the video recorder in preparation for Bali and came across this clip from our Canada holiday.

My pronounciation has never been great and this proves it.

ACME brand Treadmill

Treadmill Falls Apart

This takes a while to load but it cracks me up - I've always been one to laugh at others being clutzy... can't help myself!

Its nice that his mate just sits there and watches, no assistance rendered whatsoever.

Classic.

Peter Andre - He Da Man!

This completely cracks me up - such a blast from the past.
Good old Pete... why does he always have his shirt flying open in the breeze, and his pants pulled up under his armpits? And whats with the bouncing red car?
JB was searching for this song and we were having no luck finding it on iTunes, so after Googling it to make sure we had the spelling and song name correct we found it on youtube. We then spent the next hour in hysterics playing it over and over, imitating the dance moves and singing our hearts out.

After our Pete-session we watched the movie Music and Lyrics with Drew Barrymore & Hugh Grant. I'd seen it before but I don't remember loving it as much as I did second time round. KDF and I giggled the entire movie (JB fell asleep - she's a hopeless movie watcher). I'm not a huge Hugh Grant fan, but he is hilarious in this movie. The 80's references are classic - I'm not sure how KDF appreciates the humour tho since she wasn't even alive in the 80's and proved it with this conversation:

Me: That movie was awesome, kind of reminded me of WHAM! with George Michael and Andy whats-his-face, the famous one and the one no one remembered.
KDF: Who are Wham?
Me: You DON'T know WHAM????? George Michael??
KDF: *looking blank* No...never heard of them.
Me: Oh my God... you make me feel so oooold!

If you haven't seen that movie and you were alive in the 80's (although clearly that is not a pre-requisite to enjoy the pic) you MUST go rent it and watch it!

Hot Rod

This is my new car!!

Well it's not the actual car - but it's pretty much exactly the same. After pondering over new cars for what seems like forever (I changed my mind a hundred times), husband went to test drive some Mini's in Perth today (I was worried about getting one if they were ridiculously small inside) and he said it was great - and ordered me one! Yeehaar. It's Red with a white roof just like this one. Do you know the glove compartment has a chiller option??? W.T.F? Perfect for Iced coffee storage! This car was MADE for me.

Yesterday I sold my motorbike and I was feeling a bit sad and sentimental about it.

NOT ANYMORE!! Talk about an upgrade! Vrroooommmm.