Luna

In Loving Memory- Luna Galaxy Dust

3/13/2007-9/14/2018

After almost seven amazing years, we were forced to say goodbye to Luna. On April 17, 2018, she exhibited symptoms of a GI bleed, so we feel extremely lucky that we were able to have the last five months. She was acting fine Thursday, agitating the neighbors Chihuahuas and acting as if we never fed her, but yesterday morning I woke up and she wasn’t in her bed or ours. I found her in the hallway laying down looking forlorn. I assumed it was because she had pooped on the floor, so I quickly cleaned that up and reassured her that she was just fine.

By this time, she had lain down again in the living room, but I figured she might still need to go potty, so I encouraged her to go outside. She had a little bit of trouble walking down the stairs, but she does that sometimes, so I wasn’t too worried. She squatted down to do her business, but quickly moved to a laying position like it was too much to be in that position. I was starting to feel a little more worried, so I went to grab my shoes to go see what was going on. She kind of stumbled and tried to hide behind a tomato plant (thankfully not the giant one), so I untangled her and guided her back to the lawn. She then started walking to the north side of the house and collapsed there. As this are of our yard is not planted, I tried to get her to get back up so that she wouldn’t get dirty. She was not acting very cooperative, so I picked her up and carried her back to the porch.

Kevin had gone in to get a couple of extra hours of work. I texted him to tell him that Luna was acting really weird and super calm. He called me, we talked and decided that she would be okay, so I started getting ready for work. After my shower, I texted Kevin back that I was worried about her lack of energy and that I carried her back into the house because she kept laying down. I texted my coworker to let her know I would be a bit late, and Kevin and I talked on the phone again. I left at 830, and took a picture of her and let Kevin know that her breathing seemed less labored and she was still in her bed.

       

I figured the hidden face just meant that she was sick of me taking pictures of her. She seemed a little restless, but nothing too serious. I didn’t realize that this would be the last picture I would ever take of her or that this would be my final goodbye. Normally, even if she has tucked herself in our bed with our blankets and pillows, she usually walks to the door for a final goodbye. She didn’t yesterday.

When I arrived at work, I asked Kevin to let me know how she was doing when he got home, and then bugged him again an hour later because I was worried and had an uneasy feeling. When I received the call from him when he got home and found her at 1044, I could tell from his voice that she was gone. I immediately lost it. I was supposed to start teaching soon, but I couldn’t get my composure and the RN Residency coordinator agreed with me that I was in no shape to try to teach or stay at work for the rest of the day. An instructor was there when this happened and she was kind enough to allow me to pet her service dog and get some puppy kisses. While it wasn’t the same as Luna, I will be forever grateful for both her and the RN Residency coordinators support, understanding, and kindness. I only know this instructor from when she drops paperwork off for her students once or twice a year, but she showed genuine compassion for me, and I appreciated that so much. It was what I needed at that time. I am also grateful for the HR director who allowed me to go home so that I could be with Kevin and we could mourn the loss of Luna, who literally was a member of our family. Both of our families were very supportive and reached out and showed us love.

When we first got Luna seven years ago, I could have never known how much a part of my life she was going to become.

She has been a constant in our lives, and I never knew that I could love an animal so much. I grew up with animals, and while I was sad when they were no longer around, I did not experience the same raw, visceral reaction to their deaths. I think it was because Luna lived inside with us, and was around constantly when we were home, and while she was a pain in the butt often, you can’t be made at a boxer. Their faces are just too expressive and they are so loving. 

Luna really was an amazing and entertaining dog. She was willing to cuddle. 

She went on walks with me, although that slowed down over the last couple years due to my job and her decreasing stamina. Just for the record, this picture is from 2012, so she was not old, and it was March and there is snow, so obviously it was not hot.

Go on drives with me to my parents, acting as my co-pilot. And no, my driving is not as bad as the expression on her face suggests, although this was a very snowy Christmas Day, and she was probably slightly miffed that I was taking her away from a house full of humans that pet her.

She ate our food, or tried.

Stole our bed.

She made sure to express her opinions by growling/howling/making Chewbacca noises anytime she felt that her food bowl was not being filled at an acceptable time or we were not paying attention to her. 

She loved to have her ears scratched, and we loved to play with her lips and tickle her feet. She wasn't always a fan of the later two, but when you have lips like this, how can anyone resist.

She was just fun to interact with, even when she was not amused that we were not letting her eat our food.

We commonly joked that she acted like we never fed her.

She was a chubby boxer, so rest assured we fed her quite well. Her constant hunger led to some strange food choices such as:

• Idahoan Potato Soup and Mashed Potato (not rehydrated or cooked)
• Unpopped popcorn
• A chocolate Easter bunny (she was disgruntled that she had to stay outside that day)
• French bread (I was really looking forward to eating after the gym, and yes I understand the irony of eating French bread post-workout.)
• Pumpkin bread (I think I quit baking after this experience. This was pre-Gluten-intolerance.)

• Pancake mix (that one was not a hit, she preferred cooked pancakes and Kevin always cooked her a tiny little pancake, the gluten kind, every time we had pancakes

She also loved to lick the floor in case anyone happened to drop a crumb on the kitchen floor.  Normally our floor did not look like the above picture, so I'm not sure what she hoped to find there. 

Back in 2016, she got placed on a green bean diet after we met our aunt's very healthy fruit and vegetable eating dog and decided that Luna was not just chubby, but she was fat. The experience led to Luna developing an obsession with cans. Every time a can appeared, Luna would get so excited, then so disappointed when she realized the can was not for her.   

Lately, Luna has gained a strange obsession with the treat closet. This was a common scene the last little bit, especially after I had my surgery last month and we got to bond lots while I was home.

It’s going to be weird to not have a waggle butt waiting for me when I get home from work,

Or a furry mug watching for us out the front window,

Or a snuggle buddy while I read.

And Kevin is going to miss his tank model,

Fish inspector,

Nurse Luna when he is sick, although she may be trying to figure out where her spot is in this picture...

Chip party buddy,

And grilling coach.

We enjoyed having her as part of our family.

Luna, you were a good dog, until we meet again.

Yellowstone: Life Unexpected

The seeds of our Yellowstone trip were planted when my parents traveled to Spokane with us for my graduation from Gonzaga back in 2015. Once we got to Montana, my dad wanted to ask everyone about deer and elk. My dad has had some health challenges since then, and I thought it would be nice for him and my mom to explore the world. Although my dad has lived in Utah his entire life, he has never been to Yellowstone, so we decided that might be a good place to start. Plus, Kevin, my mom, and I hadn't been there for a significant amount of time either. So we found a date that would work for my schedule and started making hotel reservations and other plans.

The Monday before we were supposed to leave (incidentally the same day as the solar eclipse), my mom went in for a PET scan of her heart. This was just a just to be safe procedure, as all other tests involving her cardiac function had came back normal. They found a blockage, so she was taken to the Cardiac Cath Lab to have a stent placed. The procedure was unsuccessful, as the doctor was unable to get to the blockage, and she was told open heart surgery was the only way to get open up her vessel. Kind of a bummer for a single bypass. This day was an orientation day, and I did not have my phone with me, it was in my office, so I didn't know any of this was happening until after it had happened.

My mom was fine, but I started to have misgivings about our trip. Yes, I am a nurse, but I am a NICU nurse, I don't deal with potential heart attack patients, especially my mother. My mom was told she could go to Yellowstone, but to take it easy. We secured a wheelchair for just in case (which considering how many wheelchairs my father has, was quite the task), and we made sure that she took her CPAP machine along we a portable oxygen concentrator (my dad sleeps with oxygen these days).

The day this all went down Kevin and I were both thinking that it might be a good idea to stay home, but when I talked to my dad, he sounded so excited, that I didn't feel right suggesting to him that it might be better for my mom to stay home. My mom likewise didn't want to stay home because she knew how much my dad wanted to go. After 32 years of interaction with my parents, I knew arguing would not be successful, so I started to look forward to the trip.

Fast forward a few days to the day before we left. Kevin has a cold and feels horrible, my mom is going through the tail end of a cold, and my dad was diagnosed with a bladder infection. My dad has had some doozies of infections in the past, but he was on Macrobid, so my mom reassured me he would be fine.

Friday morning, we go to pick my parents up. My dad was semi stiff, and we had a hard time getting him into the truck, but the guy is 70 and a paraplegic, so we chalked it up to that. He also had a hard time holding onto things, leading to crumbs and spilled coffee, but he also has rheumatoid arthritis. He hadn't slept well the night before, which we blamed for his tiredness and lack of chatter. We alternated between Tylenol and Ibuprofen to help control his fever.

We arrived in West Yellowstone in the late afternoon, and after checking into the hotel and dropping stuff off, we went to check things out before it got too dark. We stopped at Gibbon Falls, but my dad didn't want to get out and wheel down to look at it, and my mom was pretty stiff as well, so Kevin and I went to look at it briefly. After we got back, we drove back into town and got some food. We ate and made plans to meet up early so we could drive out to either the Lamar Valley or Hayden Valley and see some animals.

The next morning at breakfast, my dad couldn't hold onto anything. He also couldn't stay seated upright in his wheelchair. He just kept bending forward. His hands were also shaking almost uncontrollably, but he was still pretty with it. Kevin and I tried to talk him into staying at the hotel and resting, but he wouldn't have anything to do with that, so we loaded up and headed out to the Hayden Valley.

We briefly stopped at a hot spring on the side  of the road, at which point Kevin had to readjust my dad’s seat belt to help him stay more upright, as he was pretty much laying on Kevin by this point. That helped a bit, but as we continued driving, he was more and more out of it. He kept reaching towards the gear shifter and the heater knobs, and finally we decided to stop in order to reorient him.

When he told us he was in Kamas and that Bush was the President, we decided it might be good to get him back to the room to rest. However at this point he was burning up and not really drinking, so before we were to West Yellowstone we had pretty much decided to take him to the hospital. The question was which hospital. There isn't much around West Yellowstone, especially on a Saturday, so we had to choose between Big Sky, Montana and Rexburg, Idaho. Big Sky was closer, but Rexburg was bigger. My mom called the Kamas Health Center to get their opinion, and they said to get him to the ER ASAP. We stopped at the hotel to grab some stuff, and I pretty much lost it. I was scared out of my mind, frustrated that our vacation was not going as planned, and whatever else. I was probably in need of some mild sedatives, but I survived.

After a drive to Big Sky that would have made the characters in The Fast and the Furious proud (and lead everyone else to shake their heads) with very little cussing from my dad about Kevin's driving (extremely unusual), we arrived at the Big Sky Hospital, which was as one of the nurses called it “a glorified urgent care.” Despite its smallness, the staff were awesome and were able to start hydrating my dad and get stronger antibiotics into him.

We ended up hanging out there for a few hours, then he was transferred to the hospital in Bozeman. By this time, he knew who the president was and was starting to get his feistiness back. It is amazing what a couple of liters of fluid and oxygen can do for you. He was released from the hospital two days later, just in time for the vacation to end.

So if you were wondering why there was no mention of my parents after Friday, that is why. This is also why being a nurse is bad, especially when you get newsletters that sepsis kills every week. I was pretty much convinced my dad was dying (he wasn't). I also felt really bad that the person who was most looking forward to this vacation did not get to enjoy any of it. The parts of Yellowstone he did see, he probably won't remember because he was so out of it. Despite the extra work that taking my parents is (older people require a lot of gear), I hope that we are able to make this trip again and that my dad will be able to enjoy it.

Random Musings on Life

I haven’t blogged for a really long time, and this is going to be a random musings post, rather than an event post, which means it probably will be more of a stream of consciousness than coherent train of thought. I’ve given up on updating the blog, I’m just going to start from a clean slate. Everything important is on Facebook. 

Grad school can be a bit busy, especially when you throw in 60-120 hours of practicum time (plus driving, which was 30 minutes to an hour one way). But I am done now. It feels great to be able to say that. When I started out on my journey three years ago, I think I was totally unprepared for how grueling it was going to be. In some ways, it was a lot easier than when I got my nursing degree, but since I stayed working full time the entire time, it was much more difficult to prioritize everything. A lot of things that I had thought were important suddenly didn’t feel that important anymore, as I simply didn’t have time to fit them into my day anymore. We even resorted to paper plates and bowls because the dishes were simply just not happening anymore. 

I have been done for about a month now, and it is refreshing to be able to do all of the things that have been neglected for the past three years. While I haven’t had oodles of time to do everything I want to, and I probably never will, I feel like I am doing more of those things that I want to do, rather than have to do. 

One thing I had planned on spending more time doing now that I have more free time is transferring my writings from my parents’ old Mac computer to Microsoft Word so they don’t get lost forever. I was able to do quite a bit of work on this before I started school (once I figured out the computer did still work), but then school limited the time I was able to dedicate to it. However, I went to turn it on last week, it was deader than dead. It worked fine a few months ago, and has just been sitting on my desk, but it makes a strange clicking noise, which Kevin has informed me means the hard drive is toast. I find it ironic (I really liked that song back in the day) that it sat on my parents day bed with crap piled on it for over ten years, then it sits in a perfectly good (albeit probably humid, which may be the culprit) environment and goes caput. There was a breakdown when I couldn’t get it to turn on. I was able to get all of my elementary school journals, which I appreciate, but the bulk of my journals were from middle school and the first part of high school. A lot of them were the daily journals we were assigned in English class, but they do show my personality and the quirkiness that was Megan in her early teens. (I really was a strange and awkward child.) But that is unfortunately all gone, unless we are miraculously able to retrieve everything. It really is a bummer. My mom had pretty much finished typing up my grandma’s journals, but all of my mom’s journal writing is gone, although she would probably say that is a good thing. So the take away from this experience, is to always back-up everything on an external hard drive or jump drive or the cloud because you never know when you will lose everything. While that wouldn’t have saved my work, as the internet and usb ports were incompatible with technology circa 1991, I do wish I would have made a printed copy. Oh well, my posterity probably would not have been as amused as I am by reading about my oddness. 

Right now, I am on “vacation,” or rather a staycation. After all of the stress of grad school, I have really needed a break. It’s been rather nice, although I’m already stressing about going back to work. I do love my job, I really do, but I feel so much better when I don’t have the stress of whether I get to eat, drink, or use the bathroom that day, not to mention the stress of taking care of tiny, fragile babies. My stomach feels so much better when I’m not at work, which has kind of killed my love of nursing, which really stinks. I have some kind of app or setting on Facebook where it shows past memories, and it is kind of sad to see how much I used to love nursing, even on the bad days. I’m now one of those old, cynical nurses, which is sad. I don’t want to be there, but the only one that can change that is me. I have been going to the chiropractor for the past couple of weeks in hopes of increasing the happiness of my back and body, which I hope will increase my overall sense of well-being so that I can be happier. 

I’ve been jibber jabbering for almost half an hour now, so I think I have randomly mused enough, so until next time…  

Edward the Stingray

I wrote this probably a year ago. Just now getting around to posting it. School has kind of put a damper on my blogging opportunities. Therefore, this is the only catch-up post I will be doing. At least from 2014.

Since our stingrays have started reproducing (more to come on that in another blog post), Kevin has started to go a little crazy on the fish upgrades. We have bought four stingrays so far, but by far the most eventful purchase has been Edward.

Kevin found Edward through a guy he was acquainted with on MonsterFishKeepers.com (a forum for fish addicts, especially of the expensive, crazy, and big variety). He had a Black Diamond ray for sale in Las Vegas. One of the joys of being a nurse is that I often don’t get both Saturday and Sunday off during the same weekend, so it was fun to discover a time that I had enough days off so we could drive down and pick him up. We finally settled on April 26 & 27.

A few days before we planned to go, Kevin started to feel crummy, but since he is a person of commitment, he was empathetic that we were going to Vegas unless he was on his death bed. I was also going to be starting the gluten free portion of my lifestyle change prescribed by my GI doctor, so I was a little nervous about that because my gluten free knowledge consisted of wheat = bad, with no alternatives to know how to best eat, plus with school and work, my time to discern where to eat and what to eat were quite limited. However, I picked a few options and decided to just kind of play it by ear.

We left bright and early on Saturday, and we were greeted by a torrential downpour that followed us all the way south to the Utah-Arizona border. It was exciting. We even saw a few snowflakes.

By mid-afternoon we were in Las Vegas and looking for the house of the Stingray owner. 

The weather had improved significantly as well.

My ability to take pictures in a moving car, not so much.

Eventually, we found the guys house, which was near Kevin’s future dream home. He has a thing for palm trees.

We did our introductions, then the guy took us to meet Edward.

He was a very nice looking stingray, so we agreed we wanted to take him home with us, which was good considering how far we had driven. We made arrangements to pick him up the next morning on our way back home, then followed our host to the Golden Nugget where he was paying for our hotel accommodations. I had looked into staying here on our previous trip to Las Vegas two years ago, and after we checked in, I wished we had. It was a definite improvement over Days Inn, even if it didn’t have “free” breakfast. After a brief rest, we went to the buffet to eat (actually a nice place to eat gluten free) and people watch. I was once again reminded why I don’t drink, as we were seating by a large group of people that had a few too many to drink and were kind of obnoxious. As I am that way sober, I would hate to see what I would be like drunk. While at the buffet, I saw one or two men with long gray beards, which I thought was weird, but I didn’t really think too much about it.

Our host also provided us with tickets for The Gordie Brown Show, which was an impressionist show. For the most part it was hilarious, with some raunchiness and references to stars before my time (which went right over my head) thrown in.

After the show, we meandered down to the pool area where there was quite the impressive shark tank in the middle of the pool, complete with a slide through the tank for the ultimate experience. Sorry for the demonic eyes in the first picture, the pictures without a flash were rather dark.

The next morning we were up bright and early trying to determine where the best place for a gluten free breakfast was located. Despite the fact that Carl’s Juniors was cheaper and did have a breakfast platter with eggs and sausage or something, I insisted we go to a café with a gluten-free menu to be safe. It was good, but I do believe the gluten-free app and I have vastly different definitions of what constitutes an inexpensive meal. It did taste good though, so it was worth it. Kevin also got to take more pictures of palm trees.

After picking up Edward and packing him up in our trusty Rubbermaid (the same one we used on our Moses Lake Stingray expedition), we were on our way home. It was smooth sailing until we hit a traffic snarl between Cedar City and Beaver. We had the option of waiting it out, or taking the detour on the back roads. Fortunately, we decided to take the detour, as it ended up being a police standoff/hostage situation that lasted until well into the evening. It was early afternoon when we hit it. If we didn’t have the stress of getting Edward home safely, the detour through the small farming communities would have been enjoyable. As it was, Kevin felt horrible, and he was worried about Edward having to deal with the added stress.

We made it back home in the late afternoon, and after picking up Luna and showing Edward off to Kevin’s parents, we were on our way home to get Edward into the tank. He seemed to be doing okay, although he seemed a little bit unsure about Fatty swimming over him and all the other rays in the tank (he had been in a tank with two medium fish. We finally called it a night, congratulating ourselves on a job well-done.

The next morning as I was getting ready for work, I had a little extra time, so I decided to go check on him and see how he was doing. At first I was bewildered because I couldn’t find him, but then I realized that the random, white, round thing was him on his back. Devastated, I ran back upstairs and let Kevin know. He was even more devastated. Edward was our first ray that we have ever had die, so it was a tough blow, plus he would have been an excellent addition to our breeding stock. Oh well, you can’t win all of them.