It has been a while since I have posted anything, and for that I apologize. Things have been a bit crazy. We moved out of the two bedroom apartment my travel nurse company was paying for. We now moved into a three bedroom apartment. I get a housing allowance which I use to pay the rent - at least until I become a staff nurse.
For the first week or two, Bob wanted to go back to the old house. It is another apartment in the same complex. Jim and Bob even walked over to the old house a couple of times. As of last week, the apartment was still empty. There is a waiting list for the one bedroom apartments in this complex, but usually there are a few two or three bedroom apartments open at any given time.
We still have boxes everywhere. I am working four days a week, so generally, I don't have time to unpack the boxes. And since Bob is such a spirited child, Jim has not had much time to unpack the boxes. But, we will get unpacked eventually.
We thought we would have a lot of room in this three bedroom apartment, but you would be surprised at how fast things fill up. We had ten boxes of Bob's old clothes. We had no room for all those old clothes. I tearfully went through the old clothes and culled through the ones we were keeping versus the ones we were giving away. We kept four larger boxes full of clothes. We are giving away five smaller boxes of clothes. We were going to give them to Goodwill, but they just turn around and sell them - like the Salvation Army does. A friend at work has a friend who is pregnant and has a minimum wage job. Her boyfriend is an "illegal" - an undocumented resident or whatever you want to call him. He cannot financially contribute to the child, and she has nothing for the child and she is due in a month. She is having a boy. I have been bringing the clothes in to work two boxes at a time. I am sure Bob's old clothes will go to good use. I am also going to give her Bob's old toddler mattress (it is a crib mattress). Bob also has a ton of books. We bought him a new set of bookshelves, and they are filled up as well. I have started to go through them and get the books that Bob doesn't read anymore. But, we usually read five or six books every night so Bob gets through most of them (even though Bob easily has over one hundred books). At least Bob loves books.
We also have a couple of boxes of things we are going to give to Goodwill. We have way too much stuff.
A couple of weeks ago Bob said something that was priceless. He told me "No go to work mommy!" I explained to him that I had to go to work to buy him clothes and food and toys. His reply was "No need clothes, no need toys, no need food - you stay here with me mommy!" It broke my heart to go to work that night, but I had to.
Bob is back in school. He loves school and riding on the school bus. We already have a collection of new Bob artwork on the walls. We have a couple of choo choo trains, and a rainbow.
We often spend our evenings sitting out on the golf course looking at the stars. Bob likes to play in the dirt - the sand pits. Most of you would think I was nuts, but at night when it gets down to about 95 degrees, it is actually pretty cool. But when it is 110+ degrees during the day, 95 and breezy is cool at night.
Last night I was supposed to work. I got there and I was not on the schedule so I turned around and went back home. The three of us along with Q went out on the golf course. Bob tired Q out. He ran circles around Q and Q tried to run circles around Bob. Q is getting up there in years. He is far from a puppy. Today Q is hurting. His back legs are sore and he is not eating. But, I am not sure if it is entirely related to his legs hurting him. His nose has what I jokingly call "necrotizing noseitis". I finally took him to the vet for his nose today. Half of his nose is dried out and white and it has been that way for over a month and a half. I thought maybe he had a cactus needle or something in it that was causing it to look like that - he is always sniffing into things outside. The veterinarian thinks that is not the case. She thinks it is probably something endocrine related. He already has thyroid problems. She was thinking Cushings or something like that, or that his thyroid levels are off. I have to collect an AM urine sample on him. I taped a bowl I was going to give to Goodwill to the end of a stick. In the morning Jim is going to walk Q and I am going to follow with this bowl on a stick to hopefully collect a sample so they can do a cortisol level on his urine. (Then I will put it in the trash - not in the Goodwill box) Another thing she said it could be is something leftover if he had distemper as a puppy - remember he was a year and a half or two years old when we got him. She also mentioned the possibility of a biopsy if everything else came back negative. I don't think I will put Q through a biopsy. That would be too expensive, and if he has dog nose cancer, I am not putting him through chemotherapy or anything like that. I am certainly not going to let her cut off his nose. Not to mention the veterinarian bills if we did any of that. I will do bloodwork and urine tests. I draw the line at that. Although if the nose problem is due to a latent distemper virus, a biopsy would confirm that. But, the treatment for distemper is supportive anyway. I doubt it is a latent distemper virus though. He has had this for a month and a half. And usually the pads of the feet are affected too. His feet are fine.
I will try and be good and update this blog once a week again. Hopefully you will be hearing from me in a week or so.
