Joan, I sure didn't know that all of this was going on with you. Our daughter and grandson are here and I just haven't been checking emails all that often. My thoughts and prayers are there for you and your sister. I'll be praying that your surgeon is the very best and that God will guide his hands and that you will have a speedy recovery. Sending thoughts and hugs, MJ, Benjigirl and Tilly
PS... Dolly and Desi will do just fine, I don't think you need to worry about them. We have always boarded our pups when we travel and they all have always done just fine. Before we moved to AZ we used to board at our vet too ... always felt good about the fact that if they got sick they would be right where they would get immediate help. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joan Croft" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, May 5, 2011 8:59:15 AM Subject: RE: [Chihuahuas] Fwd: Me I am on Medicare for SS Disability now. I wasn’t when I had my last lumbar surgeries. But someone called me after I was home telling me that they come and clean the house etc, and that it is free with Medicare. Here, the social workers in the hospitals are working out all of those details while a person is still in the hospital. Although I have very good neighbors and friends, sometimes there is need for home health care for changing the bandages, etc. And, if they add in housekeeping and maybe some basic meal preparation, and maybe even laundry, that would be wonderful because those are not things that you want to put on your neighbors and friends to do. This morning I am going to my spine surgeon to get his opinion…he was involved maybe three months ago…he ordered the first MRI of my brain w/o contrast, then referred me to the headache neurologist who ordered the MRI of my brain with contrast. I don’t know what reports or test results that he got from others. He can look and tell me that there is something huge like that in my head and then he can either tell me that the neurosurgeon (about 30 miles away) is the best, and the hospital (also 30 miles away) are good and have the good equipment to do this type of surgery. If not, he can refer me to who he thinks is the best and then I would also have access to my providers closer to home in case something in the hospital requires another doctor. I think that hardest thing right now is that the MRI that was done was 2 months ago; the time for being referred to other specialists could delay the surgery for a longer period of time. Although it is not cancer, to me it is still a time bomb because of the potential of it pushing into my brain and then causing irreversible damage. I am happy that Gigi has slowed down on her eating. If Desi happens to have ten pieces of kibble fall from the toy, he just downs them…doesn’t chew…that is why I want to make sure that the boarding will allow him out of his kennel and on the floor to get his food by playing with the toy. I will give the email address of the group to my neighbor, Judy, and she can send an email with the current status, etc. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Peggy & The Girls Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 11:33 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Chihuahuas] Fwd: Me Dolly will love celebrating her birthday on any day as long as it is with you and Desi, so don't feel bad, just enjoy it! That's a good idea to bring Desi's food toys with him. The staff will probably get a kick out of watching him too! I would think that with your coverage you could have an Aid stay with you at least for the first couple of days. You should consider making arrangements Joan. If you find that you don't need them once you are home, then you can always cancel, if you wait until you are home and then should have to ask for one, they may not have some one available right away. Considering all that you have been through for months, I sure hope that after this round, you really start to feel better and don't have anything else go wrong. It's horrible when our quality of life is weakened by illness. Gigi has finally slowed down with her eating, sometimes she will sit and take almost 15 minutes to finish because she is really chewing every piece. I think it is because Princess is a slow eater and has never gone near Gigi's bowl even though they eat side by side now. So now Gigi has learned that no one is going to take her food away from her, and has learned to eat like a lady should, by watching Princess. She isn't 100% perfect at it for every meal, but for most meals. So that's a good sign. I hope you can have some one email us right away after your surgery so that we all know that you are all right. Be well, Peggy -------Original Message------- From: Joan Croft Date: 5/5/2011 1:49:29 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Chihuahuas] Fwd: Me I am going to board Dolly & Desi at the vet’s office. They have round the clock boarding personnel, and I have heard that they all play with the little ones and that is why they come home and want to stay awake all night! LOL My neighbor will come over and help where needed. I just think I am going to have one heck of a headache. I probably can pre-measure the dog food and then if my neighbor does come to help, and also if I have to stay longer than anticipated, it is all measured and ready to add to a bowl for Dolly, and a treat toy for Desi. I feel bad because my surgery is the day before Dolly’s third birthday. I will have a little party with me and Desi, the day before my surgery. I missed her first Christmas because I went to visit my brother as I had told my Mom that I would as part of the very last things that I said to her. Poor Dolly. I have sent an email to my vet. Desi has been training for a while to eat without swallowing everything whole and I just got him to eat out of the treat toys. I don’t know what the staff will do. I think I will see if I can bring one of his treat toys and then they can put him in the office manager’s office with her and let him get his food out and eat it. He cannot eat out of a bowl…I see when ten kibble fall out of the toys he will not chew. So, I am a bit worried about all of our hard work being endangered for the sake of a couple of days. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Peggy & The Girls Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 9:45 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Chihuahuas] Fwd: Me Prayers for you too Joan. I hope the surgery is a breeze and that all will be well for you. Will you have some one stay at home with you while you recuperate? I would imagine you will need that, so they can help you with Desi and Dolly too. Peggy -------Original Message------- From: Joan Croft Date: 5/4/2011 9:06:18 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Chihuahuas] Fwd: Me Thank you, Gloria. It is quite remarkable that I have known a lot of people who have discovered that they have something else because they were in a car accident, or as with your sister she went in for the colon issues and they found the heart issues. I guess I need to consider myself one of the lucky ones who have found out something that really needs to be addressed when doctors are checking for something totally different, and not when I start to go blind or am having seizures. Thank you for your prayers for my sister, too. She doesn’t want anyone to come or anyone to call…that is her last wish and I am not going to go against it. If she were to allow calls or visits, I would go even though it will put my spine in a frenzy, but if the next that I hear is that she has passed, I see no reason to put my health at risk because she is gone and I can’t tell her what I feel or give her that hug that I wanted to do when she was alive. Everyone has a right to how they want to deal with their illnesses, and others really need to abide. I am going to send her a letter. In the letter I am going to put both of my phone numbers and my email address just in case. Right before I found out about my sister yesterday, I was talking to a friend and telling her that I didn’t intend to tell my brother and other sister about the tumor until I had gone through the surgery and knew everything was OK. I have rethought that. Due to the other circumstances with my older sister, not telling the others would not be a wise thing to do. I can let them know that it isn’t a dangerous surgery and that I can have someone call them when I am out of surgery to let them know that I am OK. If I were to have the surgery and something went drastically wrong and I didn’t live to tell them, I know how they would feel…kind of the same way that I feel about my older sister…you don’t want to all of a sudden get a letter saying that there is something terribly wrong and be told not to call or come. I have enough support here from my friends and neighbors to get me through this. If my doctor tomorrow tells me that the neurosurgeon is excellent and if he can see some huge mass in my brain, then I will have the surgery on May 19 th . May 20 th is Dolly’s birthday and I have thought about that and am sad that she will be boarded at my vet’s office on that day. I think I am going to celebrate her birthday on the 18 th , because I doubt that I will be feeling OK to celebrate it the day that I get home. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 4:02 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Chihuahuas] Fwd: Me Joan sending healing glows to you and praying for a peaceful death for your sister. How harsh that some of us are given notice of impendding death and some of us are not. I am in Galveston, my sister had surgery, a blockage in the colon, the good news no cancer. While in the hospital she developed some heart issues that the doctor said they would address later. For now, after a rough ten days, she is looking better and feeling better. I am grateful. Gloria -----Original Message----- From: Joan Croft <[email protected]> To: Chihuahuas <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, May 4, 2011 12:34 pm Subject: RE: [Chihuahuas] Fwd: Me Oh, Lynn. Why would your neighbor turn around and leave you there? That was not very nice at all. Last November I was cleaning the tile floors in my living room. I was moving all the toys and dog beds over to the clean side of the room and then as I went to the side that I was preparing to clean, I just fell…flat on my stomach side. I don’t know what happened but I had been having vertigo and my doctor said that bending up and down would do that. I was in so much pain and I had to crawl to the freezer for the ice pack. That fall may have been beneficial in some way. The week after the fall, I had my normally scheduled pain management doctor appointment. Afte r I showed her my leg that was so bruised and swollen, she asked me to go to my spine surgeon for x-rays. My spine surgeon’s office did the knee, lumbar spine and cervical spine x-rays and then sent me for a knee and lumbar MRI. The knee MRI showed that I had torn the meniscus in my knee. Well, he had not been receiving the chart notes from the pain management doctor, so he had no idea that I had been having the headaches that were most likely caused from my cervical spine issues. So, he ordered all the chart notes from the pain management doctor. But, my spine surgeon was very concerned because I associated the vertigo with my neck…the last neck surgery was when the vertigo started and when my neck was hurting the worst that is when I had the worst vertigo. My spine surgeon wanted to check everything out, so he sent me to a vascular doctor to see if my carotid arteries were blocked…negative. He also sent me to a headache neurologist who did the brain wave studies and ordered an MRI of my brain (my spine surgeon had ordered one and I went but he didn’t ask for contrast) with the contrast. She also did a lot of blood work and gave me two prescriptions – one to take every night that should help to keep the headaches away, and another one that I just take when I have a headache. She also referred me to a neurosurgeon because she told me that there was a small, maybe pea size, mass attached to my pituitary gland. Well, yesterday, after waiting two months for an appointment, I went to the see the neurosurgeon. He told me that I had two problems…the small cyst that is on the pituitary gland and a larger mass, which he called a tumor – about the size or a little smaller than a tfGennis ball – that is attached to my brain. I was shocked and they are going to get approval for surgery to remove that. It is not a cancerous tumor.&nbs p; If I let it too long it could grow and then push into the brain and then I might have blindness, seizures and a bunch of other things. That was so unexpected. I had a copy of the MRI report that the neurologist gave me two months ago, and the Imaging Radiologist wrote in the top very wordy part of the report about this other mass, but on the part that says ‘conclusion’ which summarizes the findings, the size of the tumor is not even mentioned. I know this is a combination of errors…the radiologist, the neurologist both did not do a thorough job and therefore I was just shocked yesterday when the neurosurgeon told me that. To make things worse, after I was home a little while, my younger sister called and told me that my older sister, who has pancreatic cancer and has been fighting it for over a year, called and said that she is too weak and her bod y can no longer handle the chemo, so she is just getting things together that she wants to have done before the Good Lord calls her home. Now I just am in a double state of shock. The neurosurgeon’s office called me when I was sleeping and wanted to give me the info because my surgery is scheduled. I am going to my spine surgeon tomorrow…they got me in quickly to his other office…so that he can give me some advice as to if he has another neurosurgeon that he would like me to see for a second opinion. I cannot wait another 2 months; I have already waited two months to see the first neurosurgeon and I shudder to think what might happen if I wait for another and then the tumor pushes into my brain. So, if you all can just pray for my sister, Barbara, for peaceful last days and also for me that I get this tumor removed before it causes some permanent damage. Thanks From: [email protected] [ mailto:[email protected] ] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2011 8:20 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Chihuahuas] Fwd: Me Ann, I am so sorry to read about your fall and I hope you heal and recover asap. I know though what you are talking about concerning your pride. Once I was walking a dog on a leash I had just rescued from a Rally's restaurant parking lot and my neighbor was coming down the sidewalk towards me to say hello at the same time and this formerly adored dog (until that incident) saw a bunny and ripped after the bunny so fast, it jerked me down onto the ground and tore the rotator cuff in my shoulder, of which the pain still flares up occasionally yet today many years later. But it was the embarrassment of laying half in the grass and half on the sidewalk in this very unflattering sprawled out position and noticing my neighbor turn quickly and walk away that was the worst part. LOL Again, I wish you the best healing. Lynn In a message dated 5/3/2011 11:25:51 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Fell on my concrete drive and bumped my head and left side body...broke my glasses also. Got home from hospital last night after cat scan and xrays. Went to orthopedists today and just got home,,went there for more wrists xrays and have Small fracture and now in splint...go back in 2 weeks. I am so awfully sore...." Ct scan is okay. Pride is very hurt. Clumsy Ann
