Two Purls

Baby Cardi Pic

Here's a pic of the fair isle flowered baby cardigan - still haven't started on the sleeves, but at least the front and back are done:

Tomorrow I will be meeting up in the morning with Vicki, Ann, and Cara for a couple hours as that fabulous knitorious blogger is in town and we have a chance to meet in person. Since I will have two electricians, a/c guys, and a carpenter working on the house tomorrow I can't be gone all day, but am sure the contractors will manage fine for a few hours on their own while I sneak in some yarn crawling in Manhattan. I'm quite excited about visiting a button store to find something to work with the above cardigan - and that ribby wrap soaker, too.

Speaking of baby stuff - here's my first belly pic that Dave snapped this morning before work. I'm 17 weeks along today, and I suppose that there is something of a baby belly that's starting to pop out?

We find out the sex on July 12th. Who wants to bet that since I knitted up a flowery cardigan it will be a boy?? :)

Getting better...

Oscar, that is. Monday he had a reaction to the sulfa antibiotic, but we stopped it immediately. Tuesday his culture results came back with the identification of the bacteria in his lungs as pasteurella, which apparently frequently causes pneumonia in rabbits. The vet says that it responds quickly to doxycycline, so he started on that yesterday and all seems well. The only lingering problem is a persistent cough so they still have him doped on the vicodin/cough suppressant so the coughing doesn't irritate the bronchial system or cause his trachea to collapse (in which case we will be back at square one). So it's all good news. This morning I had him in the park for a couple hours just chatting with people and he really enjoyed the time outside - until the vicodin kicked in and he was sprawled out snoozing on the pavement, but that was sweet too. The weather change seems to be helping as well - down to the 70s today, after almost a week of 95 degree heat. I'm appreciating the reprieve as well.

Yesterday I went shopping with Cara for a few hours. No outing with Cara would be complete without hitting a yarn store, and I was particularly impressed by the sweet women at The Stitching Bee. I picked up two skeins of Rowan Calmer, one in blue and one in white, to add in some stripes/colorwork with the red Calmer I have planned for some knitted baby item (hat and cardigan, maybe?). I also picked up the Ann Norling Fruit Cap pattern. The strawberry one is just too cute to not make.

An update on the fair isle baby cardigan - front and back are done and I am casting on for the sleeves tonight. Then the button band, some seaming, and it will be another FO. Pics, soon, I hope.

Ooooh - massive thunderstorm. Off to calm the pug before he starts in with the coughing. (I just love thunderstorms - so beautifully violent and all.)

Update part II

Oscar (and Dave) came home last night. I picked up the hubby at the airport on the way to the vet hospital. Around 9 pm they brought Oscar out to us, coughing something awful. We had a meeting with the doctor on staff who said that he should settle down in a bit, especially once we made it to a pharmacy to pick up his vicodin prescription. Four pharmacies later, we made it home around 11:30 pm and hit the sack. It was a rough night, with a lot of coughing on the part of Oscar. Thankfully, each episode lasted only 5 to 10 minutes and he was able to settle down for a mini nap afterward. Around 5 am, I suggested that Dave go sleep in another room to get at least an hour's worth of sleep before heading to work.

Oscar seems a bit better this morning. He's had another dose of the vicodin and his other meds at this point include just one antibiotic (primor) and a bronchodilator (theophylline). The cytology and other lab results from the procedures yesterday won't be in until Friday afternoon, but his blood tests came back fine, there were no evidence of foreign matter or cancer in his trachea or lungs. His heart checked out fine except for the benign murmur we knew about. There was significant inflammation of his bronchial system, but the cause is still unknown, and a slight collapse of the trachea, but not enough to indicate surgical intervention. So right now we are still at a symptomatic treatment approach, which once we find out the lab results we will be able to treat more targetedly.

That's all the news for now. I'll post more knitting related content with tomorrow's Oscar update.

Update

Oscar spent the night at the hospital and is stable. This morning the vets will do the tracheal wash as well as a bronchoscopy. While he is under general anesthesia, a surgeon will evaluate his tracheal soft tissues to see if there is anything that can be done to address his collapsable trachea, and a cardiologist will check into his heart function.

The vets at Oradell hospital are nothing short of wonderful in keeping me informed, which is good otherwise I would be the type of dog owner to camp out in the waiting room. Yesterday they called four times with updates and I expect another call this morning once the procedures are finished. Results from his blood work and other lab tests should be back this morning.

Natalie suggested that I send over my Stitches blanket for Oscar to cuddle with. :) I'm going to keep it here nice and clean so he can snuggle with it when he comes home. Here's a pic of him with it on the couch a couple weeks ago:

 

And for another update - yesterday I spent knitting at Cara's. At my house, which is still the construction zone that we love to hate, I have no central a/c and we are relying right now on just one little window unit that we use in the bedroom. This is where Oscar stays when he's home since the rest of the house is too warm. Our current discomfort will change shortly - next Tuesday, to be exact, when the cooling guy shows up to install our central a/c system. FINALLY!

In fabulous friend fashion, Cara invited me to hang out in her perfectly cooled 70 degree home and watch a movie while knitting the fair isle baby cardigan that I started on Sunday. Talk about a fun, fast knit - I've finished the right front, have almost finished the back, and the left front is about 2/3 done. Should have sleeves by the end of the weekend and this will by far be the fastest I've knitted anything. Nervous energy and all, I suppose.

If you want to read how ignorant of pop-culture I am, feel free to read Cara's blog post from this morning. So true, so true. Oh, and she's right - I have *not* seen Educating Rita, although I have a sneaking suspicion that by the end of the summer I will have. :) It's not that I dislike movies or television, in fact, I have become massively addicted to HBO In Demand over the past two years. It's that in rebellion to my family who usually had four tvs blasting simultaneously, I stopped watching tv around age 12. Didn't start back up until I discovered Seinfeld through the rabbit ears on my friend's 12" television at age 21 my senior year in college. That's a lot of years to be out of the loop. Add to that the fact that I traveled a lot, lived and worked overseas, and well, I missed a lot of movies that came out here in the States as well.

It drives Dave nuts because his brain is chock full of tv and movie lines or references that I just don't get. For example, one weekend last month he kept coming up with these very funny one-liners. I laughed and told him how wonderfully creative he was and he said "you don't know where that's from, do you?" Of course I don't, so he let on that it was the weekend of Weird Science movie lines. I mean, who the heck remembers multiple movie lines from 20 years ago and then finds a weekend to work them all into conversation?!?

But I get away with my wide-eyed naive responses to the pop culture references because most people think I'm being very clever. One of Dave's coworkers told him last summer that she enjoys hanging out with me because I've got such a wicked sense of humor. Dave told her that is the case sometimes, but mostly, I just don't get the joke and whatever I say comes out funnier than if I did get the joke in the first place. At least we understand each other! I hope that this isn't lost as my Education proceeds at Cara's house...perhaps it will just be replaced by the new me - that is, the sarcastic pregnant bitch I seem to have morphed into the last few months (and which Cara swears she loves). I swear this baby inside of me has the real wicked sense of humor.

Poor Oscar!

My baby is in the hospital. He's just sooo sick and it's freaking me out. I posted about him being sick a couple weeks ago, and although he seemed better for a bit, he's seriously bad off now. Here's the timeline:

May 2 - seen at vet for intestinal issues (diarrhea) and allergies. Put on metronidazole (an antibiotic) for 10 days and hydroxyxine (an antihistimine).

May 14 - trachea collapsed at home, Oscar stopped breathing and had a seizure. He came to after about 30 seconds, then he was absolutely fine. We decided not to go to the emergency hospital and instead call his vet on Monday a.m. to talk about it.

May 15 - left ear is hot and red, but he seems happy and it isn't bothering him.

May 16 - seen at vet, dx with an ear infection and fluid (slight pneumonia) in both lungs. Allergies worse, causing fluid build-up. Put on different antibiotic (clavamox) for 10 days as well as on prednisone, a steroid, for 21 days.

June 3 (Friday) - seen at vet for repeat of diarrhea. Put on first antibiotic (metronidazole)  again, told to finish the first round of prednisone next week and then re-up the steroid treatment for another 3 weeks. I'm beginning to have my doubts about how good this vet is, but they waived the exam fee and reassured me he was getting better.

June 6 (Monday) - Oscar woke up at 5 am with severe coughing and labored breathing. When the vet opened we went back and he had a chest x-ray showing inflammation throughout his lungs and a slightly narrowed trachea. No sign of pneumonia anymore, but the inflammation of his bronchial system is reason enough to worry. He was given an injection of theophylline (bronchodialator) and sent home with theophylline pills to help open his airways. He was also given a second antibiotic (primor) for 14 days to treat any residual bacterial pneumonia in addition to keeping up on the metronidazole antibiotic from Friday. So many pills - I'm getting really worried about how much the meds are taxing his little system!

June 6-7 (last night) - Oscar's breathing worsened around midnight, with coughing, wheezing, and lots of mucus. At 1 am I decided to give him another theophylline pill to help him breathe, even though he wasn't supposed to have it until the morning. He slept for about 45 minutes, then his breathing problems started up again. At 5 am I considered going to the emergency vet. At 6 am I was getting dressed to take him and he vomited. We were on the way immediately - his wheezing was severe and he was listless, with glazed over eyes beseeching me to help. I have never felt so helpless. Thankfully the NYC morning commute traffic was not at the gridlock stage yet.

June 7 (this morning) - at the emergency hospital before 7 am, and Oscar was put on oxygen and under constant supervision. The vet is keeping him for at least the day, probably until tomorrow. Today's procedures and treatment includes another chest x-ray, a Tracheal Wash (under sedation), a fecal test for lung parasites, and a heartworm test, in addition to symptomatic treatment of the coughing and breathing difficulties.

Dave is on a business trip in Canada, so I'm sitting here fretting on my own. Sweet Cara invited me over for some movie watching and knitting today, which will be a much-needed distraction. Hopefully the vet at the hospital will call me early afternoon with an update. Having little Oscar so sick and not being able to help him is just torture - he's in good hands, though, and for now I just pray that they can fix whatever is wrong with him and give us our sweet pug back again.