What Day Is It?

"What day is it?" asked Winnie the Pooh.

"It's today," squeaked Piglet.

"My favorite day," said Pooh

                                                                     ~A. A. Milne

I have no regrets about discontinuing my photography business this summer.  None at all.

Instead, I have so many happy memories,  many which would not have happened if I was focusing on clients.

Like biking to Collins Creamery with Annie.

Tranforming Annie's bedroom to a more adult look.

Spending time with friends.

Watching girls who have been friends since childhood say good-bye as they each embark to distant states for their dream jobs.

Spending a beautiful day at the beach with Adam and Annie.

"Be present in all things and thankful for all things."  ~Maya Angelou

Tending my garden.

Taking care of my pets.

Halle is looking and acting like a puppy again

after 3 weeks on medication for hypothyroidism.

Momo, who was stressed from all the activity in the household (culminating in peeing in the middle of my bed)

is now much calmer thanks to a daily dose of anti-anxiety meds.

"Write it in your heart that every day is the best day of the year"

                                               ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Clothes shopping with Kerry.

Taking Adam's picture for his Columbia photo ID.

(new glasses or not?)

  Feeling sad that it will be quite a long time before the driveway will be this full again.

  

Watching Vance make pancakes for the kids the morning we moved Adam into Columbia.

Moving into the dorm.

"Happiness is not in another place, but this place...not for another hour, but now."   ~Walt Whitman

Selfie with my birthday present from Kerry.

 Bringing a very nervous daughter to a far-away state,

worrying about her after we left,

and relieved to see her Instagram post after her first day at work!

I'm happy to say

I've had so many "favorite days"

this summer!

Moving Out, Moving On, Moving In

After two months of preparation - studying for her nursing boards, shopping for furniture, spending time with friends, passing her boards and packing ...

the time had come to pack up the moving truck for our trip to Tennessee.

Annie came along to help out and see a little bit of Nashville at the same time.

But before we left, Aunty Linda came over from across the street for a tearful good-bye.

Vance drove the rental truck and the rest of us took turns

driving Kerry's car.

The scenery was beautiful along the way, especially in the mountains of Virginia.

There were certainly indications that we were in the south.  

When I saw this cross, I wondered what it belonged to.

It was part of a church!  Come on!  Is it really necessary to be that large?

In the middle of the afternoon on the second day,  we arrived at Kerry's apartment.

We began the long process of emptying the truck and putting together all of the IKEA furniture!

Vance doubted Annie's ability to put together the kitchen table, but she proved him wrong!

There was time for other things too - like trying out restaurants in the area.

We also walked around Vanderbilt Medical Center.

The Loveless Cafe was one of our favorite restaurants...

The homemade biscuits were heavenly...

the waitress was the nicest and friendliest...

the art was interesting...

and there was a ton of mouth-watering southern comfort food!

Vance gave it his all to get a picture of the three girls in front of the sign.

The only things in focus were the cars on the road behind us!

Annie and I took a break from assembling furniture to visit an old southern plantation called Belle Meade.

The grounds were beautiful!  

You could almost imagine what it was like to live here back in the 1800's!

Vance finished up the last of the furniture pieces the day we left.

Kerry's apartment, which she shares with 2 other new nurses at Vanderbilt, was beginning to shape up.

Would you like a tour of the downstairs?

The entrance to the apartment is through this door.  Upstairs are 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms (not in any way fit to be shown!)

Through the double glass doors is a small deck...

Dining room

Kitchen...

with laundry room.

View from the kitchen into the living room.  

The dining room is behind the refrigerator.

There's also a half bath off the living room.

I'll end with this picture because there were no happy pictures

on the day we left.

I remember when I moved away from home (Vermont). 

I was lonely.  

I ached for the familiar.

I hated eating dinner alone.

But it lessens with time.

The unfamiliar starts to feel like home.

You make acquaintances, then friends.

No matter what, though, it always felt so good to go back home.

It Runs in the Family

Hypothyroidism.

It seems to run in my family.  

My sister, my daughter and I are all afflicted.

Now there's one more family member to add to the list.

My 5 year old dog, Halle, was diagnosed a few weeks ago.

Beginning last December, we noticed little things about her.  

1.  In the beginning, she seemed a little stiff when she got up from her dog bed - not all the time though.  She would walk it off and be fine in no time.  

2.  As the winter got colder, she would go outside to go potty and was back at the door within minutes to come back inside. She's a Finnish Lapphund, a snow dog.  She always loved romping around in the snow or even just napping in it. This was strange, but she was eating well and otherwise acting normal.

3.  Her eyes started running a lot.  I was always wiping them.  I thought she had blocked tear ducts and brought her to the vet to have them flushed. It did no good.  Anti-inflammatory eye drops did not help either.  But her eyes were not red either. 

4.  One day in February, I noticed she was limping while we were out on a walk.  It was about the same time I noticed that she no longer ran up the stairs.  She would plod slowly and deliberately up from one step to the next.  Back to the vet we went.  The vet prescribed pain meds to see if it would help. It didn't.  X-rays showed nothing abnormal either.  Lyme test was also negative.  She had gained 10 pounds from lack of exercise.

5.  The breeder suggested a canine chiropractor.  I found one about 45 minutes away and waited 6 weeks to get an appointment.  She found nothing out of whack with her spine.  She was also a naturopath, and agreed that something wasn't right.  She thought Halle looked somewhat depressed.  She asked a lot of questions.  One question she asked was if there were any autoimmune diseases in my family.  I thought she meant in Halle's line, but she actually meant our human family.  She said often a pet's illness is the same as a human member of the family.  I assured her there was no one with an autoimmune disease of any kind.  One thing she noticed, however, that we hadn't was a bald spot on Halle's nose.  I checked pictures and it had not been there the month before.  In addition, she had grown some funky white fuzzy fur on her legs  that had never been there before.  And the fur under her collar was coarse and dry.

6.  I thought about the question the naturopath had asked about family illness.  Loss of hair, lethargic, didn't want to stay out in the cold.  Could it possibly be that her thyroid wasn't functioning correctly?

7.  I took her back to my regular vet.  She had gotten even weaker.  I had to actually help her up the stairs one night.  We decided to go ahead and do blood work to try to figure it out.  I told him about my hunch about the thyroid, and he ordered a thyroid panel.  

Sure enough, she was very hypothyroid!  How weird is that? She's been on thyroid medicine for about two weeks now and she is now acting like a 5 year old dog once again!  It will take longer for her fur to get back to normal, but she has already lost some weight and her eyes are getting less runny too.

These are pictures of Halle before her symptoms began...

                                 

                                 

And here are pictures of what she looked like when she was feeling sick...

Thyroid disease can be difficult to diagnose because the symptoms can be so vague at first.  I believe I lived with it for many years until finally I diagnosed myself based on what I kinds from my daughter and my sister.  I am so happy that we discovered the cause of Halle's problems relatively early and that it's so simple to correct to get her feeling better again!