tinhuviel | Entries tagged with henry

I've been a posting fool today. Don't know why, but I figure it's all good unless I'm offending readers. If that's the case well EXCUUUUUUUSE MEEEEE!

We had a thunderstorm right before 5:00 PM and it rained like a sonamabeetch. I could literally hear my grass growing in response to the heavenly offering of H2O. So it looks like I'll be mowing grass tomorrow when I get home from my EEG. My life is so much fun right now. I literally ponder the favourable points of swift and painless death when I'm out pushing that lawn mower around and around my yard until I get to the middle where the worst grass is there to torment my efforts. I swear, I'm going to drop dead mowing grass. And I'll be thrilled as I gaze down at my prone body, because I'll know I won't ever have to do that crap again, unless I'm completely wrong about the existence of Hell. Then I'll be busting that place wide open where a large, heavy lawnmower awaits me so I can mow grass for all eternity, with no water and no rest breaks. Gads, that's too horrific to think about for very long at all.

Hm, I see they're remaking Brideshead Revisited. Why? Wasn't it done perfectly the first time? I mean, really, Anthony Andrews totally owned the role of Sebastian Flyte. Nobody can outdo him. Do you hear me? NO.BODY! I may catch the flick when it comes out on DVD, just out of curiosity. There's no way I'd spend the money to see this in the theatre, like I have money for a movie like that but, if I did, I'd go see Batman Begins.

Henry. I've been thinking about him a lot lately. It's been 6 years since his passing and I still miss him terribly. No dog will ever add up to the absolute greatness that defined my blue-tick beagle boy. When I brought him home, that night he had a seizure and I had to rush him to Dr. Patch, who came back to the animal hospital from home around 9 PM to check my baby out. It turns out that the seizure was caused by worms. Henry had worms so bad that it caused him to react in an extreme way. Doc gave me the meds Henry needed, welcomed my baby to the WSCAH world, and sent us on our way. So I was thinking that maybe I have worms. Maybe my seizure was caused by worms and all I need is to visit Dr. Patch and be done with the whole thing. It worked for Henry. Maybe it'll work for me.

As mentioned at the beginning of this long and boring ramble, I am scheduled to have my EEG tomorrow at 3 PM. This is the last test I'm supposed to have before I go back to see Dr. Pilch on 6 August. I'm supposed to see Dr. Keith the day before that but, if I don't drum up $280 from somewhere, I'll have to cancel that. I really need to have my shoulder checked out by him. I'm sure he'll want to do an MRI since rotator cuff issues usually can't be seen on X-Ray. That's another $1000 or so. Maybe I should seriously consider bankruptcy, throw my hands in the air, and pray for a swift, painless, and merciful disability claim. Or death. There are no wacky knees or godawful shoulders in the Summerlands, or at least that's what I've been led to believe over the years.

Aunt Tudi is wanting me to post a message to my Friends List. She'll be working on what she wants to say tonight after I crawl off to bed and then I'll post her message sometime tomorrow, if I survive the EEG and mowing the grass. That is, if

paul_kiss doesn't beat me to the lawnmowing. I've promised him some Southern Comfort on many levels if he scampers off from Russia to the Armpit of Hell and cuts my grass.

Smidgen just did an incredible impersonation of Thumper. I think she was wanting to scratch, but her leg just went wonky and flew off in a crazy direction. I'm not surprised, though. Smidgen has been acting the fool ever since I let her in about 30 minutes ago. I mean, really, her eyes are all pupil and she's in full Greebling eradication mode. It's kind of scary. I love my Smidge, but she's a tad challenged mentally.

I really need to go to bed, but I don't want to because I know that, when I wake up to the sound of my alarm clock, it'll be time to go back to work. I'm beginning to find the job unpleasant. There's no challenge to it, I get only complaints about things beyond my control, and lifting those trays of bottled drinks (24 drinks per tray) is murder on my shoulder. By the time my shift ends, I'm in tears from the pain. Not good. Sith don't cry. Maybe I'm going Jedi in my old age. If that's the case, then it sucks like Star Trek's Hickey Monster from season one (see icon). Get that chick some salt yo!

Smidgen is now doing a Greebling attack victory dance in front of the TV while Aunt Tudi and I try to watch Scare Tactics. Smidgen is a scare tactic unto herself. What a perfect little kitteh.

That's it for me. I'm going to find a midnight snack and then I'm sacheting off to bed. I've taken some pain medicine for the shoulder and knee, and I plan on having an insomnia-free eve. Well, that's the plan. We'll see if I'm successful.

Mood: drained
Where? home
Music: XTC - Generals And Majors

Henry Herman was my very best friend for 16 years. He was a blue tick beagle who had this perpetual expression of peevishness that endeared him to almost everyone who ever had the privilege and honour to meet him. Like any dog, though, Henry had his moments, especially when he was a youngster. One such moment occurred when he was right at two years of age.

It was early in the morning and I was heading out to work. At that time, I had just gotten the yard totally fenced and installed cattle gates through which I could drive my car. It was a brilliant idea, I thought, to have the car parked inside the fence. Henry thought it was brilliant too 'cos he had all this room to run around in. He was so thrilled that he wanted to stay outside the night before and listen to the call of the wild, so to speak.

So, anyway, I went out to the car and tried to start it. Nothing. I tried again. Nothing. I called Timothy and told him I'd be a little late, that I was having car trouble. Janice took me on to work and Granny & Aunt Tudi called Joe Rogers, our mechanic at that time, to ask him to bring us a battery, 'cos that's what we figured was the problem. Yes, Joe made house calls for his favourite customers. I miss that man....

Joe came out with the battery and installed it. He tried to crank the car and there was.....nothing. Right about that time, Henry trotted up to Joe with a wire in his mouth. Joe took it from the crazy beagle and inspected it. He then stooped and looked under the car where there were strewn a multitude of chewed wires of varying length. In his boredom during the night Henry had proceeded to chew all the wiring out from under my car. D'Oh! So Joe went back to his garage to get supplies and returned to rewire the entire underbelly of my sorely abused vehicle. While he worked, he suggested to Granny that we smear the underside of the car with Texas Pete sauce as that would keep Henry away from it.

"First you should give him a piece of bread soaked in Texas Pete. It'll burn his mouth, but it won't hurt him seriously, just enough to make him want to stay away from it."

So Granny got a piece of bread and doused it with Texas Pete. She gave it to Henry, who was a total whore when it came to food. He ate it enthusiastically while Granny, Aunt Tudi, and Joe watched in anticipation of smoke coming out of my precious pup's ears as he ran to the water bowl. But it didn't happen that way. Instead, Henry licked his lips and sat up on his back legs asking for more. Again....D'Oh!

So I bought more fencing and had the cattle gates relocated to section off a parking area separate from the rest of the yard. This way Henry couldn't get to the car, but he still had all sorts of room in which to scamper about and bury his rawhide bones. For years after that incident, neighbours would come up with various wires and ask me if my dog needed a special treat. I told them only if it were garnished with hot sauce, thanks.

Har dee har har.

Mood: nostalgic
Music: Cameo "Word Up"

Henry was euthanised on Sunday afternoon at 5:04. He went very peacefully and was happy to have me there (yes, I could tell). He also sent to the Great Beyond with a belly full of his favourite treat, a MacDonalds vanilla shake.

I'm grieving deeply, but I feel that I did the right thing since Henry wasn't in the suffering stage of his cancer, yet had only about 2 weeks left to live. His last two weeks would have been painful and unhappy...and that's the last thing I wanted for such a sweet dog.

So here's a pic of him and his companion, Daisy, who has been wandering the house looking for her friend these past couple of days. Henry is the black "Blue Tick" Beagle on the left. And, yes, that's a Kibbles'n'Bits box. Even though they had 'proper' dog beds, the Beagles liked this cardboard box more than anything.

Such down-to-Earth creatures, Beagles......

Mood: depressed
Music: Eminem "Lost Yourself"

My Beagle friend, Henry, whom I brought home in March of 1988 at the age of 3 months, has been diagnosed with liver cancer the month of his 15 birthday and must be euthanised.
Through years of happiness, tragedy, joy, sorrow, among many other emotions and events, there has always been one constant..one unconditional, non-judgmental presence of love in my life...and that was Henry.

I won't be posting here for a while. I won't be doing much of anything.

I'm losing my child and my best friend.

This has been the worst year of my life.

Mood: crushed

Good news ~ Henry had his stitches removed today and the doc gave him a clean bill of health. Even though he's older than god, my dog pal seems to be doing quite well. Whooo!

I got the grass cut...finally! I've learnt something: an abundance of rain and extreme laziness does not a pretty lawn make. I think the breaking point for me was when I received an email from President Cardaso telling me that he was planning on relocating a small Amazon tribe to my back yard. I really wouldn't mind this except for the poison darts flying about, ya know? So down came the grass. I gave Mr. Cardaso the bad news and, even though I'm no expert on Portuguese, I do believe he proclaimed a pox on my house. Little does he know that I already have a pox on my house. This is the only way to explain the deluge of bad luck on me and mine so far this year.

But I digress. The grass is cut, my dog is on the mend, and I'm pooped. Off to bed!

Mood: sore
Music: Local News

So here I am at work again, after reading an acerbic (and quite warranted) treatise against the Music Business in the newspaper over the weekend. It seems the artists are finally organising to fight The Man. I hope they win, even though it scares me that I may lose my job as a result. Sometimes...no...MOST of the time I feel so dirty knowing that I'm part of machine that helps to enslave artistic people.

If I get the chance, I'm going to transcribe the article to the computer and will definitely post it here for posterity's sake.

Barry likes the initial title page for his website. He wants to change the banner font to a Tench-like scribble and should be sending that to me shortly. I'm fairly excited about the whole thing.

Mama sent me a website the scared the 12 year old girl out of me. I'll be visiting often, especially when I'm alone and in a dark room. Dead People

So this is the first day of Autumn and I'm kinda blue. Not really certain why...it could just be PMS.

Lew came the house for the first weekend in a long time. He's been so busy with helping his daughter and working on Melany's house as payment for letting him and his daughter stay their for a couple of months that we've hardly seen one another in some time. Anyway, his visit was a very nice one and we spoke of plans for the near future and beyond, some of them practical and wishful, some of them terribly naughty.

Henry is still recovering nicely. He's walking about with his butt tucked in like it hurts him to move. No wonder! He has about 2 dozen staples in his gut from his wee-wee to just below the ribcage. Po baby..

I've been watching 'Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring' a lot lately. It brings back those days when I was so immersed in the Tolkien mythos. I can almost recapture that wonder and grace in which I walked in the days I read Tolkien for the first time....especially The Silmarillion. Somehow, I can't quite attain in its fullest though, and I'm left with a longing not unlike the High Elves' desire to return to the West.

Disjointed thoughts...that should be the title of this post. My mind wanders and my fingers move.

This is the product.

Mood: contemplative
Music: Hawk & Tom yapping on the radio

Well, Henry's surgery seems to have been a success, but the tumour was malignant. Dr. Patch says he believes he got it all, so we can but hope.

Still though...it was a 3.5 pound tumour and Henry is very old.

I guess time will tell.

Mood: worried
Music: Hoobestank (sp)

I took Henry, my nearly-15 year old Beagle, to the vet yesterday. He'd been swelling up. At first, I thought he was just gaining weight, but it became obvious that this was a swelling. So Dr. Patch check Henry out and informs me that Henry has a big tumour in his stomach, probably on his spleen.
If his lab tests come back OK today, my dog is going to have emergency surgery to remove his spleen and then we'll find out if the tumour is malignant and if Henry will survive.
Words can't describe how low I am about this. Henry has been my best friend for almost 15 years. He was born in December or '87 and has been with me since he was 3 months old. I was only 20 when I went to the Beagle Farm (I kid you not!) and bought him for $40.00.
My comfort is that Henry has lived a wonderful life. He's never been hungry. He's never had to work for a thing in his life. He's had soft furniture and beds to sleep on. He's had a big yard to romp about in. He's had two people, Aunt Tudi and myself, who adore him. And he's had the best doctor in the world. He's had a companion in Daisy (our other Beagle) for the majority of his life. He's led a happy and healthy life and has wanted for absolutely nothing.
If it's his time to pass, I won't be grieving for him, I know... I'll be grieving for myself because I'm gonna miss my Henry Herman.

Mood: crappy
Music: yapping on the radio

Tonight, Llewellyn returns to the house. It's going to be very uncomfortable at first because there's still hard feelings on both his part and Aunt Tudi's. Of course, I'm going to be in the middle, but I've stressed how important this is for me to both of them, so I hope that things will go well.

I've seen what hope can do in the past, though, and lemme tell you....it's ugly

Either way, I have plenty of time to prepare both physically and emotionally. I was supposed to go to work today, but I was awakened 3 times in the night by my geriatric dog Henry, and each time my head and stomach felt worse. For the past 2 weeks I've been filling up with air at an exponential rate...and I don't know why! I'm really starting to feel like a dead dog on the side of the road ~ all bloated and tragic.

So I'm administering myself with some festive home and herbal remedies and hope to be able to fit into something by the time we're supposed to meet Lew at El Mexicano. Perhaps Mexican food isn't the best idea for someone in my current mysterious condition...then again, maybe that's exactly what I need!

Maybe if my condition worsens, Aunt Tudi and Lew can bond at the Urgent Care while some professionals deflate me like rancid hot air balloon. What a warm, fuzzy thought that is.

ha ha

Mood: lazy
Music: Led Zeppelin "All of My Love"

Honestly

I feel as though my head is on a spring attached to my neck and it's just bobbling to and fro without any control whatsoever. I'm so sleepy!

My oldest dog, Henry, is walking the floors at night. He gets me up now at 2 every morning to be fed his breakfast. He sleeps all day and dog naps at night, choosing to constantly click his toenails on the hardwood floors as he roams the house. Henry is like my child so any sound he makes instantly gets my attention. You can see my dilemma.

Bless his heart, I know it's his arthritis that keeps him up at night. Even though he is on anti-inflammatory meds, the poor canine is still in pain.

Have you noticed how older animals and people stop sleeping at night? My grandmother used to do that. The older she got, the less she slept during the night. The sun would come up and BAM! she was sound asleep.

Henry is now the same way. He's a 14 year old beagle ~ deaf, blind, arthritic. He's still spry for his age and doesn't seem to be excessive pain ~ he's just stiff from the old joints. His back legs sometimes give out and I've already decided that, when he can no longer walk, I will do the merciful thing.

But he roams the house in the night, refusing to allow me to sleep in his quest ~ for what? I do not know....

Perhaps the Path to Death is a nocturnal one.

Mood: exanimate
Music: No Doubt "Hella Good"