Miss Kitty & SPRING

PHOTOGRAPHED - 3/07

REWORKED in PS - 3/07

Well, this should be the last update on Miss Kitty for a while. (we hope) She seems to be back to her old self, even playing around with Sue as though she was truly still a kitten not a twenty year-old cat. She’s eating well, very well my 2nd batch of chicken is disappearing faster than I’m eating it again. Everyone it seems is a soft-touch when it comes to M K.

This tainted pet food thing continues to grow. I saw on the news tonight that some dry pet food are involved now too. So it might be a good idea to check to see if you might have any of the suspect food for your pets. We were lucky, others haven’t been so lucky.

This was another full day here and the weather was cloudy and threatened rain all day. The high today here was only 58. That’s quite a change from yesterday’s 84 and abundant sunshine. Tomorrow is predicted to be nice, sunny and a high in the mid 70’s. That would make it a perfect Spring day.

Wishing everyone a GREAT weekend! & Thanks for reading,
-Mark

TODAY’S PHOTO – Yes it’s the same as yesterdays but with yet another treatment – a more painterly approach. I’ll call it a “Painter’s Bridge”

Miss Kitty - UPDATE #2

PHOTOGRAPHED 3/07

Just a quick note on Miss Kitty. She went to the vet again today and got her last treatment.(we hope) Her white count is back to normal and all her kidney functions are wthin the normal range for a cat her age except her B U N. It was 40 - a little high but that's down from 72 after just a few treatments. The vet thinks that too will be normal in a week or two. She will have to go back in a month for blood work to make sure everything did return to normal.

My Mom made another batch of chicken salad this evening but I'm not sure if it's for me (I did ask for another) or Miss Kitty. I'm sure she'll get more yhan her fair share again!

It's 2:01 right now and I'm up blogging because once again sleep evades me. We went to bed a little after 19 tonight but I was back up by 1:15 tossing and turning so I got up and ended up here as always in front of the computer. I thoufgt I might work on updating my web site some. It's beenquite a while since I did much on it. Not being able to see really puts a dampper on things you need to do. I didn't do much though, just updated the featured photo page. I'll have to get back to it this weekend if the weather isn't all that good.

I did manage to take my first photos with my new camera but haven;t downloaded them into the computer yet. I'll wait untill I have more to download.

It's been very warm here lately about 17F above the norm and the pollen count is the highest it's ever been according to the TV weather people. It has not rained here in more than a month and this early pollen has coated everything sitting outside. My nose has been dripping for the last two days and this doesn't usually happen to me. Sue's watery eyes are about over because the Bradford Pears have just about finished blooming here.

That's all for now and thanks for stopping by

-Mark

Photo Today - Another shot and treatment of the covered bridge at Stone Mountain. The bridge was also known as Effie's Bridge when it originally located in Clark Co, GA, It was built in 1891 is 151 feet long and spanned the Oconee River near Athens.

Tamron Lens Photo

Covered Bridge at Stone Mountain Park

PHOTOGRAPHED 3/07

This is a recent photo taken with the TAMRON 11-18mm at 18mm(approx. 28mm on the 5D) about 75 feet away. I'm sure she would like it even better with the Alpha.

Early morning here, it's 4am and I couldn't sleep so I;m blogging. Today will hopefully be Miss Kitty's last trip to the vet for a while. She has to go today for blood work to see how effective her treatments have been. It's a dialysis day for me this morning so I;ll take her to the vet around 2pm just after I get back and eat some lunch. After we get back from the vet it's off to see the eye doctor for me at 4pm. Things in that area seem to still be improving. Maybe this too will be my last visit for some time.

I could use a break and the extra time to work on my taxes this year. April 17th is coming up very quickly for me.(that's right we get 2 extra days this year!)I guess I'll go and get the coffee ready to brew for everyone else. I love the smell of fresh coffee but hate the taste of coffee. I'm a tea drinker myself - maybe a cup of Prince of Wales this morning.

Thanks for stopping by

-Mark

PHOTO - This is for Anna to see the TAMRON 11mm-18mm sample.

UPDATE - Miss Kitty & More

Miss Kitty sends her thanks to everyone who is thinking about her and sent her well wishes. After another trip to the vet today she seems even more like the kitty we know and love. She ate an entire batch of homemade chicken salad (intended for me) over a two-day period. (I got 2 sandwiches out of it) Everyone was so generous giving out my chicken salad (including me) that I ended up with very little. I’ll have to ask Mom to make another batch – hers is the best!

Miss Kitty is very alert and playful now which is a dramatic change from just a few days ago. I wish it were that way with me too. I’ve been feeling really lousy the past few days. My old friend (NOT) diarrhea has been paying me a visit every couple of days. I know this is not a pretty subject and may be crossing the line of good decorum but I know I’m not the only one on dialysis who struggles with this issue.

To me this is the most humiliating thing to happen. It seems to have a mind of it’s own coming on without or very little warning. Usually I can make it to the proper facilities but sometimes not as yesterday in the truck on the way home from the store. (Thank God I made it out of the store) Here I am, a grown man and I shit myself. It’s the worst feeling – like I said earlier humiliating and depressing. The doctors have giving me something like Rx-Imodium but it only works about half the time. I’ll go a few days and I’m fine and then there will be a couple of days that I’m afraid to leave the house for fear of an “incident”. That really SUCKS!

On a happier note I gave myself an early birthday gift this week. With Sue’s blessing I bought some new camera equipment. A Nikon D80 –10.2 mega-pixel camera and three fast f2.8 lenses. A 18mm- 50mm macro zoom, a 50mm -150 mm zoom and a 70mm dedicated macro.
This will help with my style of photography and produce a finer quality file size for really large photos. Now I have just to sell the Minolta 5D and its lenses (Tamron 11mm -18mm zoom, Tamron 70mm - 300mm zoom and Sigma 50mm macro) and all the other accessories. If anybody out there is interested drop me a line. There were only used about 7 months.

Thanks for reading and praying for Miss Kitty,
-Mark & Sue

Photo - What we had for dinner tonight grilled with onions, garlic, yellow squash, zucchini with beef and pork strips.

Miss Kitty UPDATE

This is an update on Miss Kitty. As some of you know, Miss Kitty our 20 year old child-like friend has been a very sick little cat for almost a month now. We had taken her to the vet several times this month and they were stumped. They felt she had some type of infection but coulg figure out what it was. They knew it was some sort of kidnry infection because of her numbers from her blood work so they were treating with a broad spectrum of antibotics.

Friday evening a e-mail from our local Pets Mart informed us, we had purchased some of the pet food tainted with rat posion.

Ms Kitty, being the people-food lover she is only ingested a few dinners of the food so only got very very sick and did not die. She goes to the vet daily to have her kidneys flushed out (like a kitty dialysis). This wed. she'll get blood work done to see how effective the treatment has been. She has suffered both kidney and liver damage from this. She seems much better today and is eating again. I guess time will tell.

I'm not sure I like this "new" blogger. The other day I had written a long reply to several of your comments and when I tried to post it Blogger ate it and hasn't spit it back out yet. Sorry your replies have been delayed. I type so slow now it's hard for ne to rewrite everything but I'll try to get at it tomorrow.


ALL the photo of Miss Kitty are from last year. She wanted me to wait until she looked and felt better before posing in front of the camera again.

Thanks for reading.
-Mark

THE LOST POST

PHOTOGRAPHED 3/07


Last night I was unfortunate to type a long blog post only to have it vanish into the cyber dumpster. I was unable to recover it so now all entries will be done on word first then copied to Blogger. I’m not a good or fast typist so losing a lengthy blog is somewhat disheartening. I know I will not remember all that I wrote as it was a free-flowing jumble of thoughts but here it goes….

Some questions were asked about my dialysis and diet – here are the answers,

I am on hem dialysis now, I had used both CCPD & CAPD for a year before an infection render my body unable to filter well enough to keep using it. I go to a dialysis center three days a week. Each treatment runs for 4 hours each plus the time to hook up and disconnect. (about 15 minutes each way)

My diet is somewhat restricted in that it’s both a diabetic and renal. The renal part is by far the worst of the two diets. Anything that might be considered good to eat is restricted.

In this diet you need to avoid all dairy products. That means – Milk, cheese, ice cream, puddings, whole grain foods, nuts, chocolate even beans like in chili and baked beans are out.

Fluid intake is severely restricted. It is the equal vent of 4 – 12oz cans of drink a day. That includes the water used to make the Jell-O and soup you might consume. Even the water content of a large salad must be considered.
It could be worse so I guess I shouldn’t gripe about it. The other day I had one of my favorite foods – homemade macaroni and cheese – for the first time in two years. Ahhh… It was sooo good and later I was sooo sick. It seems that going without or very little dairy products you lose the ability to digest them. Yogurt will help you regain this micro flora BUT, IT YOO IS A FOOD TO AVOID!
You know I don’t fear death itself. It might even be a relief for me and everyone else who’s involved with me. What I do fear is being without Sue. I don’t want to leave her. Right before this happened our life was really good. Sure we are far from rich money-wise. There are lots of things we want, a few we need but all in all we’re happy – THAT’S WHAT I DON’T I WANT TO LEAVE BEHIND.

Well, this one got longer than I intended too. Thanks for listening to my meandering thoughts tonight.

-Mark
PS – Photo for today The covered bridge at Stone Mountain Park in B&W

What's On My Mind

Photogaphed 3/07

What’s on my mind…. I don’t really have much to say tonight. I just wanted to get back into the habit of posting on a regular basis.

I did say I didn’t much to say but that didn’t mean I had nothing important to relay to you. While I’ve been writing thps blog I’ve made many friends who have followed along and encouraged me. I thank all of you. It’s been your kind words and thoughts that have brightened my day and helped me carry on.
I want to say hello to a new and very special friend, Pat.

Pat wrote to me the other night and shared her story with me. Pat knows first-hand what it’s like to have ESRD from the point of view of a caregiver. You’ll note I said CAREGIVER not CARE-TAKER that’s because it takes such a special person to give this kind of care. My wife,Sue is this person for me. Pat was this person for her husband Jack.

Now, Pat has reached out to me to share her story and let me use her as another sounding-board for my thoughts and feelings. I am grateful that people such as Pat and Susan exist. I am very grateful for all of you who have written me or read my story.

I have met others who suffer the same fate as I and hope to continue to keep in touch with them although that’s been hard lately given the circumstances on my end. I hope they will not give up.

--- Mark

PS - Photo for today. The bird is some sort of sparrow I think. I have not been able to find it in my books. Any ideas?

OUT OF THE DARKNES

Photographed - 3/07




To my friends, if you still stop by to read - THANK YOU! It has been some time since I last wrote anything here but now that I'm starting to regain my sight, I plan to have regular entries again.

Most of you may not know bot about three months ago I had a vision episode I wish never again to repeat. One day several months ago I fell asleep during a dialysis treatment. Upon wakening it was vry painful to open my eyes and when I did so my vision was a little blurry. I thought they might have dried me out just too much. Drops cleared things up and took care of most of the blur,

That night everything seemed fine but the next morning I had the same trouble and even greater pain upon opening my eyes, They were both blood red and my vision was quite poor. I had been fighting an infection before this and feared it had somehow moved into my eyes.

I made an appointment with an eye doctor for a couple of days later ( the soonest I could get in). By then my sight had improved and most of the redness had vanished. I was told maybe it was the dialysis or my eyes were overworked and tired. Use a tear drop solution like "Natural Tears" to help and things should be better.

That sounded great but it didn't work. I was at my regular doctor a few days later and this problem had flared up again. When he saw it he thought eye infection and sent me that afternoon back to the eye doctor so he could see the rediness. The eye guy sent me down the hall to see a cornea doctor who happened to be in the office that day.

She was very good and found the source of the trouble straight away. There was no infection, which was good news. The bad news was my eyes had dried out for some reason to the point that when I opened them the outer layers of my corneas were stuck to my eyelids. When I opened my eyes I was tearinr off the outer layers of my cornea thus the blurr and vision decrease.

It got so bad that I could not see to read, write or even watch TV. My sight went from 20/30 to 20/400+ That's legally blind and it stayed like that until just days ago. With lots of medicine and a protective contact lens my vision is slowly returning/ 20/70 at my last check last week. I go back later today and am hope fo the best.

So for the past three months plus my life has been at a standstill, no blogging, no work on my web, no photography business ( I was just starting to get some sales)
not much of anything.

So now I hope things will get back on track. More thoughys and feelings on these past few months later. I've got so much to catch-up on.

Mark

The picture is we think a Painted Bunting (my first in what seems like forever)