spike’s ascent toward sainthood

spike’s ascent toward sainthood

we got a letter from the uc davis vet school last week: “Presidio Way Veterinary Hospital has made a financial donation to the Companion Animal Memorial Fund in memory of Spike.”

aw!

this fund supports research for problems that confront small domestic animals – dogs, cats, birds, exotic pets, and others.

in the past two years we’ve cared for two cats as they died of cancer – first nooka (lymphosarcoma) for several months in 2002 and then spike for just a few weeks in 2003. they both lived long kitty lives. nooka was just with us for the last 4 years of her life and spike’s been with me since he was born in 1992.

i spent time looking through the database of cats (particularly black cats) at the san francisco spca last week – at petharbor.com – and had to close my browser window before i really became a crazy cat gal.

dancing sunshine and snow

dancing sunshine and snow

we slowly amtrakked to park city a few weeks ago to spend time with friends and film in the snow at the sundance film fest. what a pleasure! we saw 20-some films, ate delightfully well, partied heartily, saw a few real movie stars, felt the cold 10 degree F in the very center of our teeth and bones, loved almost all of them – more later about exactly what we thought of them:

  • In the Company of Women
  • Investigation into the Invisible World
  • The Corporation
  • Heir to an Execution
  • Neverland: The Rise and Fall of the Symbionese Liberation Army
  • A place of our own
  • Farmingville
  • In the Realms of the Unreal
  • Home of the Brave
  • Persons of Interest
  • Chisolm ’72
  • Word Wars
  • Imelda
  • The Woodsman
  • Saved!
  • Dogville
  • Bright Young Things
  • Good Bye Lenin
  • Repatriation
  • Seducing Dr Lewis
  • Primer
  • Maria Full of Grace

Plus one panel of authors who’ve written books that have become movies. Jane Smiley was most witty and snarky.

Now we’re back to sleeping in, when possible, and entertaining Wanda with puffy balls of yarn.

dr grissom in the new year

dr grissom in the new year

it’s been a long time since i revisited my breasts, but they and i went to go see dr grissom today for another checkup. it’s been nearly a year now since my biopsy, and dr grissom gave me a breast exam and gave my scars another once-over.

the lateral scar has been fading – it’s healed pretty nicely and i imagine more so within the last couple of months. the medial scar is simply a keloid. i’d been using this ‘scar away’ or ‘scar be gone’ or whatever stuff on it since my last visit with dr grissom on her advice, and actually, now it’s sort of two clear keloids or bumps, surrounded by red tissue.

she said she could send me off to plastic surgery and they could pop the keloids out and sew it back up again, but on the other hand, i might just have a tendency to keloid and in that case would just keloid right up again after said surgery.

so we are waiting a little longer to see. i have a follow-up visit— in awhile.

i must say that she has a very well-run office; even when the waiting room has been full, i have never had to wait more than a minute or so to be seen there. and i do appreciate these follow-up appointments – just makes me feel like i’m taken care of, on track…