March in the Rearview Mirror

So March got away from me pretty badly. So here is my attempt to update.

Work got complicated this month. The economy slowing down was rough on this area, which tends to struggle a little anyway. We ended up needing to layoff around 200 people. I didn't have to lay off anyone that works directly for me, but we are down 3 support staff which is going to be a real challenge. They did a great job taking care of odds and ends for us that were really time consuming activities (that I hate) like faxing, filing, and calling offices. We are going to have to make some changes and be more efficient (a word I am starting to hate) with our time, but I know it won't adversely effect our patients. Just another good life challenge.

My self defense class is wrapping up this next week and it has been a really fun experience. I will just suggest that no one sneaks up on me anymore...unless you want to see what $75 buys you in the way of self defense education. Which leads me to the story about how I got my first black eye. Yep, I was a 30 year old, professional woman with a purple eye that made me resemble "Sloth" from the Goonies movie. My patients loved it. They love the idea of me undergoing any sort of pain or torture. They really feel like it is the their way of vicariously getting their revenge on me through the universe for the 90 bar squats I made them do the day before. Anyway, I was wrestling Jake for the clicker to the TV (yes, wrestling because Jake is smarter than me with words and he always wins the argument regardless of the topic) and hearkened back to my self defense training and jabbed him in the ribs something serious, at which point he yanked his head back and nailed me right in the right eye. It was not awesome...or it was. Depends on what team you are cheering for.

Ike was sporting some sort of rash on his stomach for the past week or two so I had Jake take him to the vet. I thought he was just allergic to something so I had been feeding him Benedryll. But the Benedryll wasn't phasing it. Turns out the "rash" was actually a staph infection on his stomach and we were just bad pet owners. The staph wasn't just staph though. The "rash" was recurrent from every time he went to the dog camp when we went out of town. So the vet runs a thyroid test and sees that he actually has hypothyroidism that is repressing his immune system allowing him to pick up all sort of bacteria that is usually not harmful. The vet assured us that the anti-biotic will clear up the rash, and that the thyroxine will manage his thyroid levels..and should help "perk him up". Apparently he has been lethargic. That scares me. So now I have to feed him four pills a day for the next two weeks...which shouldn't be a big deal but now he is suddenly very observant. He can spot a lump in a piece of cheese, a glimmer of blue in a chunk of peanut butter and is heavily scrutinizing everything that is going into his mouth for the first time in his life. Someone told me to just shove it in his mouth, hold his mouth closed and blow in his face...that would lead to my next black eye very quickly. Whoever came up with that idea does not have an 85 pound dog that is overly paranoid and freakishly strong.

So there is my little update. I am headed over to a co-workers to help her put her garden together. I enjoy a little manual labor when I can start and quit whenever I want. Awesome!