Falon’s World

Friday

Two of my three morning classes were canceled because my prof was sick. Unfortunately they were the first and third class, so I still had to go to the middle one. Oh well, it was nice and relaxing anyway. I got decent grades on all of my exams/quizzes last week too, so that made me happy. Friday night we went to Tequila Willy’s for Erin’s birthday. The service was horrible and the food was gross – well, mine was all soggy on the bottom (I got a chicken sandwich). I wasn’t feeling so great all day so by the time the cigarette smoke was hitting me I was ready to get going.

Saturday

Spent the whole day doing massive cleaning. Still can’t get the damn living room carpet clean – no matter what I use . Then Grandma and Grandpa Gray, Mom, Dad and Adam all met at my house (Eric and the gang had left earlier to go tailgate). The Grandparents, Dad and I all left to head to 5/3 Ballpark for the Wayne St vs. Grand Valley football game and Mom and Adam went to the Imax theater. Tailgating was fun, I was really excited that my family was there and everyone was really nice to them. It helps that they aren’t standoffish people and also that they drank and ate with everyone – that was nice . The game was…eh, pretty boring. GVSU won 41-10 I think, so nothing too incredibly exciting. But, my family had a good time.

Here we are:

Grandpa liked to talked to the coppers on horseback:

Here are all the girls:

And then me and Tara (she of the hot choco- stained pants of the last home game):

Eric went out after the game and I stayed in and watched movies in bed with the boys keeping me company.

Sunday

Eric left for a conference in Chicago with Ben at 5:45 am. I slept in and then got up, made some breakfast and lazed around all day. I did do all the laundry and clean up a little. I had originally planned on taking the boys to the river but Mason wasn’t feeling good again (he kept puking), so we alternated between watching movies, reading and napping. Overall, a very relaxing day!

I spent a substantial amount of today trying to get Mason to hold still while I was on the floor, with my camera at his face level. It was extremely difficult. I really like to take shots of him as he gets older in the same (or as close as I can get to it) poses as when he was young, just to compare how much he’s grown. Anyway, Eric took this fantastic photo of him two days after we got him and it took me two days of practice before I could get anything near it (five months later). My colors aren’t too fantastic but hey, I tried.

10 weeks old

7 months old

It was a lot of work to get him to keep his chin on the ground (along with his butt) and look to the side. I can’t believe how much his eye color has changed…

Does this look remotely comfortable?

Look how scrunched up his face is:

Ok, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted a growth photo of Mason so here are a couple. I’m not going to re-post all the ones from before because now there’s too many so here’s the first one compared to the current one:

Then the last one to the current one – look familiar? haha

Another:

And the last one:

You can see the grate that he’s laying on in the first photo in the second photo…kind of a change of size lol.

Eric brought Mason in for his 4 pm appointment and was transferred to a waiting room, where he started to fall asleep. They took Mason out and did some x-rays and didn’t see any metal bits – just a bunch of food, as per Mason’s personality. Thank goodness! My budget is stretching to cover the x-rays and Midas’s surgery, let alone another surgery for Mason. I should look into pet insurance…Anywho, he’s all clear and I’m heading up north for some quality family time with my Grandma and Mom.

So, that diet I started. It is working…I think. Well, I’ve lost 6 whole pounds anyway. But, I stopped running/working out, drinking loads of water and I’ve been pretty stressed out this week too, so I am thinking that any one of those, or a combination might’ve had the effect on my weight loss. But, I don’t know. So, I will be sticking to it for at least one more week and then deciding from there. Overall, I don’t think I could live like this forever. The “diet” that makes the most sense to me and that I think I will eventually go to when I reach my “target” weight is one in which you eat many small meals throughout the day. I will also keep an eye on my carbs still to make sure that not every meal is centered around them (like they were before), but I like to be able to eat what I want when I want (which is how I gained weight in the first place), I just need to learn moderation. Anyway, bye bye six pounds!!

I can. I am stressed. Over the dogs. Midas has been doing a pretty good job of leaving his wound alone. We still have quite awhile before his biopsy will come back, and I’m soooo nervous. Mason on the other hand has gone back to nipping at his feet, every time I see his sharp little teeth heading that way I just want to strangle him. But, I don’t. Midas has gotten more and more like himself, which isn’t good. He’s trying to rough-house more and leap around and then I’ll see him gimping on three legs. I have to constantly keep an eye on him to make sure he’s not trying to do too much. Eric has no such qualms. He figures he’ll go until it hurts and then he’ll stop. So it goes with Midas.

Mason is headed in for an emergency vet appointment today. Well, I don’t know if you would call it “emergency” if it’s scheduled for later…so, that nifty trick I mentioned that Eric taught the dogs? Yeah, it has finally bit us in the ass. We were in a mad-crazy rush to get out the door and he ordered the dogs down to their kennels so they wouldn’t be underfoot while we dashed around like idiots. Then we forgot to shut the kennel doors. So, when Eric went home at lunch he found a shredded Canidae bag, a shredded plastic bag that held some cord from Dell and, the best part: a plastic container holding itty-bitty nails, the kind you use to do your own framing.

Excellent.

Well, without a doubt, it was Mason that did that, if not all of it. I was heading into class and instructed Eric to check their paws/pads over and Midas’s stitches and then to call the vet as Mason had probably ingested at least one of the nails. The damn dog eats everything. They said the vet was at lunch and would be back soon. After an hour I made him call back, yup, she’s still not in, they left her a voicemail. Um, what if this is an emergency. So, I called Midas’s vet from up north. They said to go ahead and wait and see what our GR vet said, but x-rays were recommended. I warned them that if he needed surgery I would be calling them and having it done there. They reassured me that they would warn the vet and be prepared for that. I have to rush off to work, make the bus just on time.

I am at work and my cell phone starts vibrating – it’s our GR vet, calling the wrong person. I tell her that she’s supposed to be calling my boyfriend (I don’t like to be on the cell at work and I had just gotten there so I couldn’t very well leave), she said she didn’t have his number and in my anxiety I could not for the life of me remember it. So, I said he would call her. After some confusion (they have his name and number on Mason’s form – which I know for a fact because I filled it out) he called and they had him make an appointment for 4…pm. As in not right now, but later. Hmmm…I am a little worried about this. But, by the time they get done, I will be out of work, so if I need to I can rush him up north to the vet there, seeing as how I’m headed there tonight after work anyway. Please, let something go right with my boys….

How deceivingly innocent that face looks…

I realized (while I was trying to keep myself occupied from worrying about Midas) that Mason’s eyes have a really neat charcoal color around the pupil. And then I decided I should photograph it. It went really well…not!! He was not too fond of the camera lens coming at his eye, especially when I was chanting “stay stay stay” to him. But, I finally got what I wanted. Then I decided it would be neat to have one of me…and then of course Midas, so here we are (Eric wasn’t home or I’m sure he would’ve been subjected to the torture of waiting until I focused too ).

When we brought Midas to his vet appointment on Friday (for his lump) we both kind of thought that they would either say it was fine and leave it or slice it off and we’d go. Nope, no such luck. Instead I ended up making an appointment for my parents to drop him off for surgery Saturday morning. Yeah….surgery. They were considering the possibility of skin cancer (although rare in dogs this young) and I was torn about leaving him. After reassurances from both my parents we headed out.

Here they are happy:

This is Midas not very happy, it was hard to leave him…

Mason was unsure what to do without his leader and buddy:

Saturday I called my mom to make sure that Midas’s drop off had went fine, it did and then I called the vet. They told me he was going in for surgery at 12:30 and should be out at 1 and to call around then. I waited, called and was told that he was still in surgery and she would call me back in 15-20 minutes and let me know what was going on. An hour and twenty minutes later, no news. I am almost panicking at this point, terrified they had to amputate his leg or he was full of cancer or something and finally just called back. The relief of finding out he was fine made me forget to ask what happened to my return phone call, oh well. He pulled through fine and Mom picked him up without a problem and promised to call me when she got home. Downhill from there.

Mom calls me and says Midas isn’t doing so great: he’s stumbling and staggering into things, looking for me everywhere (hurting himself going up/down stairs and trying to look out the windows) and, worst of all, crying. Loudly. I can hear him crying in the background. I have not heard my dog cry since he was 8 weeks old and wanted to sleep in the bedroom with me. It about broke my heart. She said she was sitting on the floor with him (Mom doesn’t like dogs so this was a big deal) and he was just wandering aimlessly, checking the doors and windows and crying….for me. He finally settled down and ate some and I got off the phone. It was horrible, I felt awful. After that Dad and Grandma (two of Midas’s favorite people) came home and saw him and that made him feel better (apparently Grandma came in and hugged and loved him up…and ignored Adam hahahaha lol).

I called periodically during the rest of Saturday and Sunday on the way back to see how he was doing. He was still whining and needy but seemed to be doing a lot better. Mom was thrilled with how easy it was to give him his medication. Thank goodness I’ve got such great parents!! We finally got into town and pulled into the driveway to pick him up. He was sooooo ecstatic to see me! He was flailing around, grunting and whining and licking and sniffing…basically going nuts. On the way home he crashed hard in the backseat (Mason missed him too) and slept all the way home. Since being home he’s been super clingy to me. I can’t hardly go to the bathroom or take a shower without him right there, or right outside the door. He doesn’t listen to Eric if it involves leaving the room where I am in unless I tell him to. He needs to be touched and cuddled and pet and reassured. His foot is bothering him a little, he favors it a tad.

Today I cut the bandage off for him. I could tell when I got home that he was irritated having it on still. It took awhile because he was “helping” me so much (licking my hand, the scissors, his foot, his leg, my leg etc) but I finally got it off. Then he had to lick his stitches until I made him stop and gave them each a new bone to gnaw on and forget about Midas’s foot. Here are the photos:

That is an over $350 wound. I will hopefully get the biopsy results in the next two weeks. I am praying it’s not cancer…

Sunday morning when we were packing up I saw this…I have no idea what it is:

On our trip home we did a lot more than we were supposed to . It was the best day ever!

We went to some scenic outlooks or random neat places and hiked some trails:

(Turns out I have a thing for water and waterfalls too)

Eric of course got a ton of photos:

We had a picnic at the beach and let Mason swim (this was his first time anywhere with waves so he was quite panicked that they were chasing him back onto shore – it was hilarious!):

Mason ran everywhere exploring…

and was exhausted enough to sleep the rest of the trip for the most part. I am sure the swimming helped too

This photo was Eric’s idea and I think it turned out great

Then we got to the bridge:

where Eric wanted a photo of his rock skipping abilities:

We stopped in Mackinac City and bought a sweatshirt for me, fudge and pasties for my parents, us and Eric’s mom and had dinner and then we were truly headed home. By this time we were leaving Mackinac City at the time that we originally told my parents we would be getting to their house, but we just didn’t want to miss any sight-seeing. They understood and Mom was up and waiting for us when we got there (we got lost for a short time). We picked Midas up, gave our thank-you gifts and were finally on the road to home. Needless to say, we fell right into bed when we got here and slept soundly.

(If you’re interested in seeing even more photos from this trip, go here.)