Waiting for Grandma

Dear Grandma,

We're waiting for you to come stay with us in a few days. We're so silly and full of mischief, so please bring all your silly songs and noises with you, so we can laugh and laugh at you. We hope you love to read books because we want dozens read to us each day, sometimes the same ones over and over. We promise to try our best to eat lots of healthy food and take our naps like good little boys.

The weather has been very nice lately, so we really like to go outside to ride tricycles and push little cars around the sidewalks. We also have lots of chalk for drawing and writing silly things on the ground.

We can't wait to see you soon. Love,
Cyrus and Kai

Some more vet cases (graphic pics included)

This past week, my poor boss has been out for medical reasons, leading to me being the sole vet at the practice. We were really busy some of those days, but I managed to take some pictures. Some of these cases are from previous weeks and some are more recent.

-Shirin

A few weeks ago, an old dog came in for a dental cleaning. He was adopted by a really nice guy who took him from his late uncle's place. His teeth were some of the worst I've ever seen.

My fabulous tech Susan, cleaning the heck out of his teeth...those that didn't just fall right out, that is!

He was already missing many teeth and he now has even fewer...but they are much healthier and cleaner after his dental.

Aahh...what a clean mouth.

Some of the teeth he lost...they were packed with tartar and horrible smelling hair and debris. Whew...glad that's over!

This is a 21 year old cat (!) that came in for eye problems. Her pupils had anisocoria (different pupil sizes) and her right eye was very firm and swollen. When I stained it, she had a large corneal ulcer on her eyeball. I was pretty sure she had cancer of the eye.

Since she was so old and the owner really thought she'd been scratched by another cat, I put her on some eye medications and checked her a few days later. Her eye was almost completely back to normal! Animals continue to amaze me with their ability to heal from some pretty funky things.

This was such a sad case from this weekend. This little girl in the oxygen head bubble came in on an emergency basis for congestive heart failure. I'd seen her a few months ago for other problems and diagnosed her with heart problems then and started her on a blood pressure medication. Unfortunately, she had a poor prognosis and they elected euthanasia.

She was as sweet as her face looks...just a wonderful pet and her owners loved her dearly. We all shed a few tears over this case. I just had to keep telling myself that I didn't make her heart do this, but I still felt very sorry about the situation.

This doggie (under anesthesia here) came in for jaw pain. The owner thought she might have been injured. He wasn't willing to send her to the orthopedic specialist if it was a jaw fracture, so I was hoping for something simple.

I did x-rays and thought I saw something in her throat, so I anesthetized her to explore. Oddly, there was nothing in her throat but a big stick jabbed into the back of her mouth!

Me happy to have just solved such an easy problem of "stick in mouth." Look how long that sucker was!

I flushed out the hole with some antiseptic cleaner. I sent her home on some antibiotics and pain medicine and haven't heard back since.

***Warning: This is one of the craziest growths I've ever seen****

I saw this elderly dog for a yearly visit and noticed this growth on her bottom region. Apparently, these growths were there last year, but only 4 tiny polyps were there at that time. I scheduled a biopsy for a few weeks later to try to figure out what this was.

When she came in for her biopsy, the mass was SOOOO much larger! Wow, it was shocking how big it got.

I think she was in heat at the time, because the results came back as just an overgrowth of tissue and not cancerous, which surprised me. The pathologist thought it was worse because she was in heat. When I called the owner to check on the dog, she reported that it had gotten much smaller since I saw her. The recommendation is to spay her to try to get this to regress, but she's so old, I'm not sure the owner wants to go through with it. We shall see what happens. Meanwhile, this definitely remains the craziest growth I've ever seen.

Playing outside in the mud and rain

Today is my day off and it's pretty gloomy outside. I love rainy weather, but it means something completely new to me now that I have to do all the laundry and cleaning after the two little bubsies go outside and play. But, I am still appreciative that my mom always let me get dirty without problems, so I just grit my teeth and let them roll in the mud.

-Shirin

Cyrus wearing the lady bug boots he picked out last year that I especially use when it rains and snows. He definitely stays drier than with regular sneakers.

Kai checking out the hose..not that we needed more water on the ground. Nice blond curls, eh?

The boys loved sitting on this wall above the drain pipe where Cyrus said a monster was living.

A rare photo of the sweetness that occasionally passes between these two.

No words to express the love I feel...

Then Cyrus was off to explore some more, but Kai just kept wanting to sit on the wall.

Above the monster hole.

Cyrus wanted to take a picture of me too, so here I am (dark) in my pajamas.

A good while later, and many rolls down the hill later, Kai was a LOT dirtier and wetter. Ultimately, all three of us got pretty wet and dirty, so we stripped our clothes off at the door and took a family shower. Then, Kai was off to his morning nap and Cyrus and I snuggled and watched Ice Age. I love my days off!

New funny Cyrus quotes...they just keep coming

Snow White:
Me (after talking about the whole story): And then her true love kissed her and what happened?
Cyrus: She woke up!
Me: That's right. Prince Charming was her true love.
Cyrus: What's Prince Charming's last name?


Putting his baby brother to bed early:
Cyrus: I want to do my new pirate puzzle.
Me: OK, well, we can do it together after I put Kai down for his morning nap in a few hours.
Cyrus: Kai is tired right now. He's ready for his nap.


Cyrus' attempts at imitating adults using bad words:
1) "I'm serious when I'm talking right now, Mommy. You listen to me. I'm serious."
2) "Shut up, Baby Kai."
3) "Daddy said a bad word. He told me to go away."
4) "Dammit!"
5) "Shush!"


Sad (2 quotes said when he's in trouble for something else):
1). I'm sad because I want my Nama and Baba.
2). I'm sad because I want my Brendan. (He says this all the time when he's crying about something else).


Concept of money:
Cyrus: I want to go to Chuckie Cheese.
Gabriel: No, not today.
Cyrus: Why not?
Gabriel: Because we can't go every day.
Cyrus: Why not?
Gabriel: Because it costs money. Did you bring your piggy bank?
Cyrus: I brought pretend money.
Gabriel: Well, Chuckie Cheese doesn't take pretend money.
Cyrus: We'll go home and get my piggy bank. When I put coins go into my piggy bank, they turn into money.


Scary noise:
Cyrus (at the park): I heard a scary noise. Can I go in the forest to see what it is?
Me: Yes, you may.
Cyrus: OK. You promise not to scare me?
Me: I promise.
Cyrus (coming back): I heard the scary noise.
Me: What did it sound like?
Cyrus: Whoooooooo.
Me: What made it?
Cyrus: I don't know. It was scary. I shivered.


Funny mispronunciations:
1) Octopus = Opoplus
2) I like to moge it, moge it (song: I like to move it, move it).



Cyrus' blatant lies:
1) "I didn't pee in the bath tub."
2) "Kai isn't wet because I didn't pour water on him."
3) "I'm not peeing." (While peeing in the toilet).



Snake for lunch?
Me: Cyrus, tell your Uncle Brendan what you ate for lunch.
Cyrus: What did Brendan have for lunch?
Bren: Um...snakes for lunch.
Cyrus (gasping): No, but they are so beautiful. You can't eat them.



Glasses:
Cyrus (looking at my sunglasses): Are these brand new?
Me: Yes, they are. I bought them today because my other ones broke.
Cyrus (shocked and upset): Oh no.
Me: That's OK, honey. I just broke them accidentally.
Cyrus: I need to call Tamala and tell her about you breaking your glasses on the phone.



Black vs white:
Cyrus (pointing at a girl while reading a book): What's her name?
Gabriel: What do you think her name is?
Cyrus: I don't know.
Gabriel: Think of some girl names. Are there any girls at Tamala's house?
Cyrus: Yes, Skyler is a girl.
Gabriel: That's right. So maybe her (the character's) name is Skyler.
Cyrus: No, because she's black.
Gabriel: That's OK. Black and white people can both have the same name sometimes.
Cyrus: No they can't.
Gabriel: You don't think there are any little black boys with the name Cyrus?
Cyrus: No, because I'm the only white boy.
Gabriel: Where?
Cyrus: At home.
Gabriel: What about me?
Cyrus: Your hair is black.
Gabriel: Yes.
Cyrus: If your hair is black, you're black.



Bacon:
Cyrus (at Cracker Barrel with us and David): What's that?
David: That's bacon.
Cyrus: Mmmm, I love bacon.
Me: No, you don't. You love soy bacon.
Cyrus: Yeah!
Me: That over there is real bacon. You don't eat that because it comes from a pig.
Cyrus (laughing): We don't eat pigs...they're animals!


Funny conversation with Auntie Tita:
Cyrus: Hello Tita.
Tita: Hi Cyrus.
Cyrus: What are you doing?
Tita: I'm lying on my bed with two kitties on top of me.
Cyrus: What are the names of the two kitties on top of you?



Funny conversation with Uncle Brendan (I couldn't hear the other end, so just Cyrus' words):
Cyrus: Hello? I was being a mad boy because I wanted you. Huh? A mad boy.
I want you to come play with me. Where? (Looking at me). At Chuckie Cheese?
Me: No, Cyrus. We're about to be home. We're not going to Chuckie Cheese on a work night.
Cyrus (holding the phone away from his head and nodding): We can go to Chuckie Cheese?
Me: No. We're heading home. We'll be there in 30 minutes.
Cyrus: Brendan, I want you to come play with me at home. Huh? OK, bye. He said "no."

Tooters:

Cyrus (in the car on the way to RH): Somebody tooted.

Me: Who was it?

Cyrus: It was Mommy.

Me: No, not me.

Cyrus: It was Daddy. He's a big tooter.

Me: Ha ha, he is.

Cyrus: I'm a little tooter.

Me: Ha ha, you are.

Cyrus: And, Nama...

Me (laughing): Yes? I want to hear what Nama is.

Cyrus: Nama is a big tooter.

Football lesson:
Cyrus: Are we Bulldawgs?
Gabriel: Yeah!
Cyrus: Yeah! Bulldawgs!
Gabriel: Yeah!
Cyrus: We're gonna beat those other kids!



Bathroom lesson:
Cyrus (going potty in a public bathroom): Why do I poop?
Gabriel: Because you eat food and, when your body is done with the food, it poops it out.
C: I'm probably pooping apple fries.
G: Yeah, maybe.
C: Why doesn't it look like apple fries?
G: Because food doesn't usually look like poop it turns into.
C: It looks like the bottom of a muffin?


Ruined heart:
Cyrus: (in the backseat of the car and in trouble): Mommy, you ruined my heart.
Me: I ruined your heart?
Cyrus: Yes, you ruined my heart, Mommy. You were mean to me.
Me: No, I wasn't, Cyrus. You made a bad choice and didn't do what I told you to.
Cyrus: You killed my heart. You killed my heart, Mommy.

Concept of work:
Cyrus: I'm on a rocket. I'm going to Mars to go to work.

Me: Oh yeah? What do you do at work?

Cyrus: I make money so I can buy food.

Baba and his boys (videos)

My dad can be a pretty stern and strict father, but he has a major streak of silliness that he can let out full force for his daughters (previously) and now for his grandsons. I actually think he might even let them get away with more, since they aren't his own sons and, hence, much craziness ensues.
Here are the videos to prove it.
-Shirin



Kai is moving up in the world. He can now say "ball" and can also throw a ball pretty well. Here he is playing catch with his Baba.



Wrestling and jumping on Baba from off the arm of the chair.

Meeting Josie

Gabriel and I drove up to Rock Hill again this weekend to visit with some dear friends. On my side, my friend Lisa and her new baby, Josie, were visiting for the week. On Gabriel's side (and mine), Clayton, his wife Olga, and David were in Rock Hill for the weekend.
I went over to Lisa's parent's house Saturday morning (all of 2 blocks from my parents house in the same neighborhood) to see everyone and especially to meet my best friend's baby. I've known Lisa since she was 5 and now she has a baby. Despite having babies myself, it's still a little eye-opening when I think about how much time has passed. She's exceeded my expectations on how good a mother she is. She is doting, devoted, protective, and caring. Josie is lucky to have her.
Josie is also lucky enough to have two super cute girl cousins close to her own age, Camden and Kassidy. Those girls are the exact same ages as Kai and Cyrus (like within 10-14 days apart). They are all adorable and Kassidy and Cyrus hit it off like peas and carrots. Kai and Camden both napped through most of it, poor little guys.
Lisa had to leave tonight to go back to NJ for a wedding, but it was great to see her, see her family, and, most of all, meet little Josie.
-Shirin

The proud mama with her little girl.

I think Josie looks exactly like her daddy, Dan. You can't tell in this picture, but I think her eyes are going to be green.

I was reluctant to hold her because I didn't want to give her any toddler germs, but I washed my hands and rocked her to sleep. Guess I still remember how, although I felt weird holding such a little baby again.

She slept for over an hour in my arms.

Kassidy and Cyrus watching Diego together.

They were just adorable together.

On the other couch, their doggies watching Diego as well.

X-box kinect and dancing like crazy (videos)

Gabriel recently won a lot of money playing poker and has treated the family (himself) to an Xbox Kinect. I have to say I was against it, but he promised he would sell it when we got tired of it and play lots of games that would help us exercise. I can't deprive my gaming husband from games, I suppose. Plus, the last time he got Xbox and Rock Band, he actually sold it again for more than he bought it for, so it was like getting paid to play songs. Anyway, it has had a fun effect of getting us in the living room playing a dancing game. Of course, the boys love it and we had to video some of their attempts to dance like us and the game characters. These boys both love music and dancing.
-Shirin

Cyrus following the Xbox instructions for dancing.



Kai and Cyrus dancing with Gabriel in front of the Dance Central game of the Xbox.




Playing and dancing at the BK playground.




Cyrus dancing a few weeks ago to his favorite "roller coaster" song.




More jamming to music on TV...Cyrus dancing his little heart out.




Cyrus in his own little mosh pit.

A video of our life set to music

A case I'll never forget

*Warning: some graphic pictures below*

A few weeks ago, I was about to go on my lunch break when my tech called to me that a guy with a sick dog was coming in. While I was in the room with that dog and almost finished with that appointment, my techs knocked on my door and poked their heads in (usually not a good thing) and said a Big Dog, Little Dog was coming in. As you can surmise, that means a little dog that has been attacked by a big dog is coming in with injuries...usually bad injuries. This happens a lot--enough for it to have it's own name.

As you can imagine, when the larger dog grabs the smaller dog in its jaws, it can do a lot of damage to the body wall, especially of the thorax and abdomen. (It is often held in the mouth and shaken like a chew toy would be). So, the injuries are often grave. A tooth puncture wound into the chest cavity can be a death sentence without proper treatment.

In this case, this little Peekapoo named Jack (name changed to protect his identity) came in crying in pain, pale, and wheezing when he breathed. While I couldn't find an obvious bite wound in the skin, I could see air bubbling up under his skin (over the ribs) on his right side, every time he took a breath. As you can imagine, that's an emergency. He was also pale because he was in shock, so we worked on stabilizing him with fluids, pain medications, and oxygen therapy. When he was more stable, we took him to get x-rays done. Here's what we saw:

I don't expect you guys to know what you are looking at, but the right side of the body (with the R) has a huge air bubble under the skin and damage to the body wall that was allowing air to leak into his chest cavity and compressing all his lung lobes on the right. There was only one thing to do and that was a thoracocentesis (chest tap). I've done it a few times now, so I did it and got about 60 mL of air off his chest. I'm used to fluid coming when I tap a chest, but this time it was all just air. Once I got it all out, I wrapped a tight bandage around his chest to keep the air from filling back up and crossed my fingers. After that, he breathed better, calmed down a bit, got pinker, and got a lot more comfortable on his sedating dose of Hydromorphone (opioid). My boss and the techs even rigged up a little "oxygen bubble" to go over his head, since we don't have an oxygen cage. He did so well, we were even able to take him off of oxygen that evening.

He went to the ER clinic that night but came back the next day feeling even better. The only problem was that he wasn't eating. When I saw him the next day and tried to force feed him, he was very nauseated and vomited. Something else was wrong. He was breathing well and healing his chest wound, but he wouldn't eat. I took off his bandage and felt around his abdomen. Something was wrong. Now that his skin wasn't so bubbled up, I could feel holes in his body wall of the abdomen (hernias). Sigh...just when things were looking better.

So, poor Jack had to go to surgery. I was trying to avoid it, but he wasn't getting better and wasn't going to live if he couldn't hold down food. Something else was wrong. I opened him up to do a hernia repair and exploratory surgery. (Note: having a good mentor is essential. Dr Amy was the one who advised me to do the exploratory along with the hernia repair in case there was any other internal damage. The advice was spot on).

During an exploratory laparotomy, we basically try to survey all the abdominal organs and contents to make sure all is normal. I saw normal liver, normal stomach, normal bladder, normal kidneys, and then...uh oh, what is this very dark reddish purple, angry tissue? It was part of his small intestines that had gotten injured and was dying. So, now, the surgery went from being a hernia repair over my lunch break to a resection and anastamosis (removal of part of the bowel) over the entire afternoon. But, once you're in surgery, there's no rushing or cutting it short, so out came the bowel.

The only other abnormality I found besides the necrosing loop of bowel and the body wall hernias was this tiny little blood blister (hematoma) on the edge of the spleen. It looked like it was doing just fine and not actively bleeding, so I just left it alone.

With the dead intestine resected and the rest of the abdomen explored, it was time for me to repair the hernia wall and sew him up. While the surgery was successful as far as the repairs went, I was nervous about his risk of getting peritonitis (infection in the abdomen). Intestinal surgery can be contaminated by intestinal contents (fecal material) and makes the surgery much less sterile than is ideal. Of course we flush and rinse the abdomen out as much as possible, but in 3 to 5 days, a recovering dog can go downhill again due to peritonitis. His bowel had already been damaged for several days, so the peritonitis would've happened for sure if I hadn't done surgery, so I just had to hope for the best.

I stapled him up and started waking him up slowly, keeping him on oxygen, crossing my fingers that it would go smoothly. It didn't.

The recovery time after surgery is the most likely time for there to be anesthetic complications. The waking up process is where most problems will present themselves...and that's what happened to Jack. You never want to take an animal that's already had respiratory problems (like damage to the chest wall) into surgery if you can help it, but, in his case, he would've died without the surgery. The worst case scenario happened when he started to breath heavily as he woke up from anesthesia: he reopened his healing chest wound and started sucking air back into his chest cavity. All those days of improving and healing from his chest wound just went right out the window. You can't imagine how depressing and disappointing that was. I had worked SO hard to get him to this point, finally fixed his internal injuries surgically...and all for naught. His body temperature was low. His blood pressures dropped. We tapped his chest again and kept him on oxygen. We were back to square one. I called the owner and let her know the bad news. She was devastated and hung up to discuss it with her husband. I called her back a little while later and said he was in a downward spiral and I didn't know if I could get him out of it, so she asked me to put him to sleep, box up his little body, and get him ready for her to take him home for burial. I cried the whole time I did it, as did my technician who had been with me through this whole process. To be honest, I'm still pretty torn up about it. I really, really wanted Jack to live. He was a very special pet to his family, a young married couple with the husband's Mexican parents who stayed with him during the day. They didn't have a lot of money to pay vet bills, yet borrowed thousands to try to keep Jack alive. At only 6 years old, Jack's short life ended. I tried my best to save him. I really did. I go over the case in my head and try to figure out if there was anything I could have done better or differently, but that's a difficult thing to know. I think we gave him a good chance with the situation he was dealt. Sadly, it wasn't enough.

As the title says, this is a case I don't think I'll ever forget. I learned a lot from it and am grateful that I got the chance to try to save this little guy. RIP little Jack.

A few recent videos

Playing outside (Cyrus pushing a baby stroller and Kai pulling a toy doggie all over the yard).



Gabriel dancing with the boys to the music of Busta Rhymes.



Waking up sweet sleeping baby Kai and blowing bubbles for him while he chases them. So sweet.

Catching up on blogging

OK, folks. This is photo overload, but I have such little time to blog these days, as I'm sure my regular readers have noticed. Here are some pictures of Gabriel and the kids and the kitties. I also have lots of cool work pictures and cases to write about, but that will be for another day. Please scroll down and see my other two posts I just uploaded here and here.

-Shirin

Have I posted this picture before? I just love coming home to this scene sometimes.

I think I posted the picture I took with my phone, but here are the ones from the good camera.

Cyrus used to love the "That's not my dinosaur" book, and now Kai loves it.

Mis vidas.

Anytime we say, "Where's Kai?" nowadays, Kai will cover his eyes and play peek-a-boo with you. Cyrus did it for him when I asked a few days ago.

"Taa-tee." (The Persian word for peek-a-boo).

Spin us in the chair, Mommy!

Kai giving Cyrus a little brotherly smooch.

Cyrus returning the love.

Kai about to get pretty dizzy. (This is shortly before he vomited all over me...seriously)

Kai "spinning Cyrus," if you call slowly pushing a chair in a circle while you walk with it "spinning."

Where's Cyrus? Where's Kai?

"Taa-tee!"

This little pack-n-play is the only bed Kai has ever had. Cyrus has had 2 cribs, this same pack-n-play and now his toddler bed in his three years. Nevertheless, this one pack-n-play is the source of so much fun, when Kai isn't sleeping in it.

Acrobatics.

Poor Kai can't get out on his own like Cyrus, but I'm waiting for the terrible day when he can. That's when our lives will get a lot more interesting.

Earl, the blind kitten on the left, and Smootz, the shoulder kitten on the right.

They are both so gorgeous, I just had to take pictures.

My sleeping baby tonight. His pajamas are 24 months and almost too small already...sigh.

Love when they are sound asleep and comfy. (Note the beautiful quilts from Mammaw in the background).