Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

 A few weeks ago, Jan and I decided to send in our eleven year old daschund, Rigby, in to the vets. He'd been having problems with peeing on the floor, and getting up two or three times a night to go outside to pee. We noticed that he was drinking an uncommon amount of water as well. Needless to say, the interruptions played havoc with our sleep patterns. Jan was gone for a few weeks, so all the babysitting was left to me. I slept with the bedroom  door slightly cocked open so he could push his way in and wake me up in the night. It wasn't any too restful to say the least. On more than one occasion he pushed open the door after he had already peed on the floor outside my room. Lovely. Anyway, we finally decided to send him in and see what the vet had to say. I was reluctant to send him in, I knew the bill would be a doozy, and I also hate to put him through the trauma of going into a kennel and transporting him on the plane. I'd rather be in the cage myself. I know, I k...

Over the last few months I've been experiencing chronic pain and a good deal of fatigue. I'm quite certain that it has primarily to do with the arthritis in my knees and back. I'm not sure what to make of the fatigue, except that I'm getting older and my body doesn't want to do what it used to. I do have hypothyroidism. For whatever reason my thyroid isn't producing enough juice or whatever it produces to keep things running in top shape. Frankly, I really hate the whole process of getting older. It just isn't fun. Whoever coined the term "golden years" probably wasn't there yet. In any event, I'm still alive and kicking, although the kicking is a little half- hearted anymore. Periodically I run across someone down at the dock or in the store who ask how I'm doing, and I usually reply something to the effect that I'm surviving another day. Not the most optimistic outlook, but I've never been an optimist in the best of times....