Pepper passed away....

Today, my guinea pig Pepper breathed his last breath and it was all together traumatic.  I noticed he had a white discharge in his right eye and decided to take him to Banfield hospital at Pet Smart because my regular vet wasn't open on Saturdays.  The vet was just going to give me eye drops but I said "Look at him.  His breathing is really laboured."  Which it was.  He looked like an accordian.  She gave me Baytril and told me to give him one drop.  Yes, just one drop, once a day.  Okay, so we got home and he ate some hay and ate a little out of the food troff.  Sunday passed and he wasn't doing any better.  I called on Monday and told them and they said to bring him in again.  I figured this time, maybe they'd take more aggressive action.  No.  They said just feed him yogurt because since Saturday he wasn't eating much at all and the yogurt would get his GI tract working again.  I thought this was a pretty passive approach ESPECIALLY since he wasn't eating and small animals can die quickly without force feeding.  Then, today, which would be Tuesday, I called them again and said "What's going on?  Now he has diarrhea and he's probably had it for a while since I haven't seen him poop."  The receptionist said she would have the doctor call me back.  I took a shower and decided to call my regular vet and they said bring him in straight away.  That I did.  Dr.Hartman said it was definitley pneumonia at this stage and no longer a URI.  He said he was going to go way more aggressive with the antibiotics and give him fluids and an injection of the antibiotic.  He took Pepper back, and at this time he only weighed 93 KG, which means he lost 10KG in less than a month, and started to administer the injection.  I heard Pepper screaming and it was the last I will ever hear of him.  He started gasping for air and the doctor said he was dying.  In a nicer way but that was it.  Dr. Hartman said he would administer a shot to help him transition so he'd be more comfortable but came in a minute later and said he passed on his own.    I'm grateful that he didn't suffer long but I'm upset that the first visit to the vet at Banfield didn't yield better results.  I think he was sick for a while but hid it.  His brother, Cinnamon, is lost without him it seems.  I'm not going to buy another animal from a pet store because it's not worth it.  I'm going to 100% adopt now.  And next time if a vet gives treatment that I don't agree with, I'll speak up.  Obviously his breathing was the kicker here, and then the not eating.  To that vet it wasn't a problem though.  I plan on letting Cinnamon get adjusted a couple of weeks without a cagemate and then go in search of another one.  God bless you Pepper.  You were an awesome piggy.

Friends or Parents?

the ever changing path

Okay, so I thought that when I got older, I would be working a decent job, nothing too outrageous and everything would be going smoothly.  I used to deny that anything was ever wrong with me.  So what if I blacked out every now and then and so what if I had no short-term memory.  I created ways to deal with it.  Isn't that what you're supposed to do, is deal with things?  I have dealt with things as best as I could and now I have not finished college, I have no job and now what I do have is an appointment on Friday with the Social Security office.  Why?  Because I have finally realized that the epilepsy and the Narcolepsy have and always will interfere with work.  If I had an episode at work before, I'd play it off.  "Oh, I forgot someone was on the phone. Oh, i asked if I could help that person and I went in the back and totallllllly forgot about them and then asked them a second time if I could help them?"  How embarassing.  I can't lie to myself anymore and I can't lie to employers.  No, I'm not going to let this consume me but I have to deal with it the best that I can.  I'm one of those people that can probably never live a "normal" life.  All I can ask for is help and support from my friends and family because this is extremely scary, and humiliating.  And God help the person who thinks I'm just trying to not work because I don't want to.  The only thing I have ever wanted in life is to lead a normal and healthy work history and have a healthy relationship. 

I found a message board for epileptics but I forget the link and maybe I can get some help from there on how to deal with it.  Apparently, the way I have been dealing with it hasn't been the best.  And also, I'm not afraid to say I have depression with this because 95% of epileptics do.  And, a lot of them are suicidal.  Wow, that's sad.

Balance

  The main key in life that I'm noticing more and more as I get older is balance.  I kind of had that belief when I was younger but I thought that everything had to be "balls to the wall"crazy.  I've learned that to be happy in your job, your marriage, your life, even in recreational activies you have to learn to take things in stride and not give up.  One of my biggest wishes in my marriage is that Matt will learn to balance things and not give up so easily or get so affronted when something doesn't go right.  I caught a glimmer of that in him today.  He told me he spoke to his mother and she asked about his job and if he got his review today.  He told her no because he was on a field trip.  I'm starting to see (And I hope it's permanent) that he is more occupied with the here and now AND also focusing on the future.  Before he would get upset if his review wasn't on the exact date and hour but now he's just happy with his job. 

  Now that my health is starting to become stable, in a sense it will never be stable because I'll never know when I'll collapse, but it's been better than it has been for a while.  I know my limits now and I accept them.  Even the people at work accept my condition and it's awesome going into a job knowing that they care about my well-being.  Some of my family even doesn't but it's the people that are around me daily that help me feel comfortable. 

  I'm going to start my writing program again in April hopefully considering our finances and I'm excited.  Writing is a passion of mine, even if it's just a hobby that keeps me sane.  I have to start dragging my laptop out again and getting to work on some articles.  A small goal, is just that I at least come out of this with one article published.

True Happiness

Did you ever meet those people who had everything they ever dreamed of and were the most miserable people in the world?  I have been coming across a lot of these people lately and some of them are extremely close to me.  When I was younger, I thought that material objects, locations, etc. would make me happy.  They didn't.  When I moved to Camp Hill from Wilkes-Barre that was definitely ingrained in my head.  I went to Cedar Cliff which is one of the most wealthy schools I have seen.  I came from a town that is falling apart.  The kids at Cedar Cliff seemed more unhappy than my peers in Wilkes-Barre.  I head kids bitching about not getting the Lexus they wanted or this or that.  Now I see them, and they are going no where and are seriously affected just in life.  Someone I know, has had everything handed to them since they were young, but they have no belief in themselves and it's a struggle for them to be happy.  They think that if they have all the money in the world they would never be stressed out.  They get money and are still stressed out.  When I talk to them, they admit that they are happy but they're missing something.  I think the greatest amount of wealth, is nothing compared to the feeling of contentment and being able to say to yourself "I am happy with where I am."  I've known people, many, that believe that if they leave where they are they will be happier but they are still the stressed, depressed people they always were. 

I've realized that I can't be around my brother and his wife anymore.  It hurts me a lot, and they are both good people.  Every time we go down there, they bicker with each other.  We went to a hockey game with them and within the first ten minutes of being there, he told her "You're replaceable, you know?"  Who says that to people.  My mom blames his problems on his childhood, IE; me entering the picture because all the attention wasn't on him anymore.  If this is my mother's excuse for how my brother treats his wife then it's a pretty poor one.  Things in our pasts can most certainly affect us in our adult lives.  There is a point where we have to get over it and stop walking around with a chip on our shoulder.  I don't plan to talk much to my brother or wife or my parents even, until they can learn to be around each other and stop bickering.  Life is too short to bitch about anything and everything that you CAN'T change and then bitch about the stuff that you can change and not do anything about it.  My brother needs to realize I didn't ask to be born, my mother needs to understand that she cheated and got pregnant and my husband even needs to realize sometimes that what other people say isn't important if it's not what you believe.