A New Years Resolution WHAT?!?!

What's up people?  A lot has gone down since my last post here.

We moved.  No, not south you silly, to frozen hell.  It literally snows every day up here.  If any of you point I am from Wisconsin I will likely just flip you off and ignore you the rest of the time you are speaking to me. I can almost see Canada from my house.  Not really,  but I could see all the smoke from their fires this summer.  Here were my specification for moving up here, all reasonable IMHO:

1.  House must NOT be being built it better be ready to move into.  So of course we can only get a house that had just been framed when we got here.  I got to know the folks at the Candlewood REALLY well seeing as I was there for 3 damn months.  I got a call one morning just before close from the owner of the company we were buying from and he started screaming at me because he couldn't find our lights and contractor was out of town so of course it was my fault.  Asshat.  Once the guy we were working with found out he did that he was kissing the ground I walked on and really made an effort to get the house done.  The fact that I cornered him at a meeting and said if I EVER get a call from that jerk-off again I would get my lawyer on his ass faster than he could blink his eye.  I wanted out of their lives as much as they wanted me out of theirs.  We ended up owing NOTHING at close, though we went over about 7k with upgrades.  Asshat's way of saying he was sorry.  Too bad I was not done with them kissing up yet...more on that soon enough.

2. House has a pellet stove or a fireplace.  Nope would have taken another 6-10 days if installed.

3.   I have an office.  I got it, it is located in the dungeon of the house.  It doesn't bneed air conditioning, even in the summer.  Right now the temp on the floor is about 45 F.  

4.  Want a fence for the dog, and just because.  If ever God stepped in and said "No, you don't get a fence,"  he did this summer.

5. I pick the room colors and have final say in cabinet, carpeting, etc.  Got most of it, and Little Dude (whom is referred to as Little Badger) even got his yellow room.  

6. Good school for Little Badger to go to.  Sure form the look and rep it is a "good" school.  Due to the oil boom out west, every Tom, Dick and Harry brought their families here to live.  12 elementary school, all overcrowded, 2 more being built.  He goes to school across town because whomever drew up the boundaries was obviously smoking crack.  I thought the crap I went through in Hillbilly Hell was bad, I stand so f-ing corrected I can't believe it.  He attends a school where due to overcrowding they have classrooms in the janitorial closets.  LB has been sliced, yes you read that right SLICED across his abdomen by a kid talking about gutting people   Got off the bus on a filed trip and let right out to recess where he got the living hell kicked out of him.  Why the F did he not fight back as he is trained in TaeKwonDo you ask?  His thinking is soooo black and white that if he were to defend himself, just defend himself like he had to in Hillbilly Hell he would be seen as a bully.  He would rather get the holy hell kicked out of himself than hurt someone.  Seriously, if he wasn't the spitting image of my dad, I would swear there was a mix-up at the hospital when he was born.  The Mama Badger claws came out and I. Was. Pissed.  A meeting was called with the principal, his teacher, and the school councilor to sort this shat out.  They want to find a way in which he won't feel like a victim   Ummm are you F-ing kidding me, you are putting this on MY kid.  It took every ounce of adulthood I had not to leap across the table and slap them into reality.  For real, I dread him going there every day and what he will tell me happened when he gets home.  His grades have taken a dive, like off Mt' Everest because of this too.   I would homeschool, but that would punish both of us.  More so, him as he is a social beast.  The new school will be completed by the start of 5th grade for him.  Just need to hold on until then.

See not an outlandish list of request, and nothing came easy.  All magic comes with a price, or something like that.

I hated the wait for the house and I was on FB one day and saw a picture that a friend posted from a Harry Potter fan page.  I went to it and was immediately engulfed in the fandom,  I was one with the peeps in there.  I could say something and they would actually get it.   I was also on Pottermore and was sorted into Hufflepuff House, which has a badger as it's mascot.  This WI loved it.  LB was also sorted into it.  THe Claw, well he went Ravenclaw.  I had a choice of Claws or Puffs and chose Puffs.  It's just the place you stick those good at everything.  :)  I was given the Nickname Mama Badger on the FB fan board, after, well mothering the admins and fans with advice, and the likes.  I am now an admin on the page, and I have taken on the name Mama Badger in the fandom.  Half the time I am on FB, I am on as Mama B.  I have even signed stuff with my admin tag, including messages on FB and LB's assignment notebook!

I got a job!  Like one I actually went to school for too!  Oh and I graduated, with honors, but really a JOB!   When I went to school for coding and ended up loving transcription I excelled in basically all subsets medically, but swore I didn't want mental health or anything that dealt with children.  So, of course I am contracted out by a child psychiatrist in MN. I also pinch-type for an adult Psych Dr and an allergy Dr. in Omaha.  I loke my Dr. and English is her first language making it much easier, but boy does she talk fast sometimes, like Micro Machine Man fast.

So we get the house ready to close on and we contact the moving compant that is contracted to store all of our items in a LOCKED, SECURE, TEMPERATURE CONTROLLED facility deliver and set up our stuff.  We theses asshats stored our stuff on a leaky F-ing truck.  So, as the weather fluctuated from snow to melt to rain and snow again our stuff at the front of the truck was getting water damaged.  Did we know this, of course not.  AS they were removing the boxes I mentioned an musty smell that cough in my nose and made me gag a bit.  As they got all the wat to the last boxes in the very front they came out either sopping wet or fell apart.  Those boxes consisted of ALL of LB's Harry Potter Lego sets ALL of them that you can't just go out and get.  In boxes and together.  As sson as I saw it I went bolting form the garage up to our bedroom behind the guys that just put LB's frame in for his bed, more like tossed it on the floor and our log bed.  I started sniffing the air with the super sniffer.  I'll be damned if they didn't drag BLACK MOLD into my brand F-ing new house, ALL 4 floors!  BTW, if they say a memory foam mattress cannot grow mold, I have pictures to call bullshit on that.  So SERVE PRO was called, we were once again homeless for 4 days.  All this time the one rock I had was Sully.  Who was not taking the move well back out of the house.  He started acting REALLY weird.  He even peed on the floors once we were back in.  The Weatherman (to whom is called The Claw now) was saying he had mental issues and was just an unhinged dog.  What. An.Ass.  The Claw coped with his "unhinged dog" by ignoring him, which wasn't hard as he is usually a fairly laid back dog.  WE got him in for a grooming with the mobile groomer.  She charged 100 bucks for him to basically be shaved down to nothing.  NOT what I asked for at all.  I wanted him shorter, as we had nothing but dirt in our yard and we took him to the weeds behind us to go to the bathroom.

Fast forward to him pooing on our floor two nights in a row.  He tried to hide it by putting clothing over the runny poop.  That was it The Claw formally hated Sully with a passion not to be matched by anyone with OCD.  The week before LB's birthday we decided to surprise him with a trip out to Medora and to go to the musical out there.  We had a kennel lined up for Sully and were just waiting for Sunday to get here so we could go.  Saturday through the following Monday were markedly the worst days of my life to date and that is saying something.  The Claw let Sully out in the morning complaining he was taking too long to pee like he did last night and tossed him on the bed bottom again insulting him all over the place.  He got back into bed and Sully BOLTED for the door.  Like launched off the bed and out of the room.  This was not typical. as laying on the bed for him was like the bestest thing since beef jerky for him.  The Claw put him back up, once again bitching   Sully settled at my feet as usual, but was shaking like a leaf, just the tiniest of whimpers and only twice.  I knew something was not right.  I went down and started looking for a vet.  The Claw came down with Sully and put him on the floor to which Sully returned the favor by promptly and without warning yacking all over the floor.   He kept on for the next hour or so as we waited helplessly for the vets to open in the area.  I got the one closest to me to answer the phone finally and I insisted with the vet tech to let Sully be seen and I could give a shat less how booked the vet was Sully was sick!  She said she could sneak him in at 11:30 and even then there was likely a wait.  Fine. Whateves at least he was getting in.  9:15 came around and he was lying next to me quietly shaking uncontrollably he stood up, fell over and vomited out blood.  I scooped him up, grabbed my keys and was out the door, to hell with appointments.  I got there and she took one look at Sully and put me in the room.  The Dr. came in and felt his abdomen, it was engorged.  Cause, likely bladder blockage.  They would drain him, stick him in obs for a few hours and he would come home good as new.  NOTHING since we moved has been a cakewalk though.  It was so hard leaving him there, he looked at me over the techs shoulder as  she went to prep him for drainage.  Dr. came back in and said had I waited for my appointment, he would have died.  I signed a paper giving him pretty much free reign to do what was needed to drain his bladder.  VERY routine I was assured he would call me after 4:00 p.m. so I could come pick him up.  Again refer to the not easy since we moved here comment.  4 came and went, and at 5:45 I was crawling up the walls wondering when I could get my dog back.  Dr called finally, there had been a setback, when they cathed him blood came gushing out as expected along with urine and what appeared to be a clay-like substance   WTH?  They wanted to keep him overnight.  He lived next to the clinic and made rounds every 4 hours.  He told me what an amazingly sweet dog I had.  I was already a mess and started to cry.  He assured me, he would be back tomorrow.  LB's 8th birthday  the day were were to leave for Medora where there are no vet clinics if there would be an emergency.  He said he would keep him for obs because the cathing was not going as they had hoped.  An ultrasound was scheduled for Monday to get to the bottom of it.  Likely stones, simple and easy to remove.  See above about easy.  LB's birthday came and it was the most uncomfortable us 3 have EVER been together.  Sully's absence was echoing off the walls.  We opened his gifts, and said screw it and headed off to Medora.  All I could think about was how Sully was dong and how I couldn't wait to get him home.  I have like huge guilt only being ha;f engaged while we were there in Medora.  LB didn't seem to notice and if he did, showed grace and didn't point it out.  He got to people watch  which is honestly a freakish hobby.  It really is a town of tourist and performers and he freaking LOVED it!  The Claw went all OCD on the room so we chwecked out after an hour.  THAT pissed both LB and I off.  He was not leaving without seeing the musical and that was that.  We stayed, it was admittedly fun.  LB was in hog heaven going up on stage and meeting the performers afterwards at the meet and greet as you leave.  The girls cooed over him and he ate it up and the guys were all whatever guys are.  Now, we had a 25 hour birthday since we timezone jumped.  LB was awake until after 3:00 a.m. when we again arrived home at the empty house.  I tucked in LB and wished him a happy birthday.  He smiled and said it was the best one ever.  My heart melted.  All my shortfalls as a parent, and he sees all the good.  Monday morning came fast as we had tennis camp hours after crawling into bed,  LB was rearing to go, I not so much.  The Claw made it for the first time to a camp to watch.  I was chatting with another unconventional mum there as my phone rang, it was the vet, so I excused myself and walked around the building.  The Claw kind of lurked nearby, I think curious, but not wanting to admit it about Sully.  I was expecting, yep stones, surgery and good as new.  What I wasn't expecting was him to say there was a mass inside his bladder the size of a walnut and they didn't know 100% what it was from the x-ray and he was still passing the clay like substance in his still cathed urine.  I agreed  to the ultrasound again and he said he would get back to me.  25 minutes later my ground was shaken.   There were stones there but there was also something no one thought would be in a 5-year-old dog, cancer.  I guess my face said it all because The Claw new something bad just was told to me.  He almost fell over when I told him.  He started to tear up too  when I told him we had 4 hours to decide to do an invasive exploratory surgery that he may not survive or put him down.  There was no doubt in my mind what the answer was, but we talked about it once we got home and I called and gave him the go-ahead.  The stones were actually embedded in the lining of his bladder, so to remove them, they had to shred his bladder but all were removed, as was the infected cells.  I was warned that it would be a rough recovery.  I asked if I could see him, he told me no.  I was like excuse me.  He knew that I was the one person who would hamper any progress in healing because he would try to be near me and he needed to do nothing at all for at least 48 hours.   Harsh, but what was best I did for him. He did try to jump into my arms from the tech, but almost fell because he was so doped up and wearing the cone of shame.  I was letting him out every 1/2 hour 24/7.  This is where my sleeping like shat comes in handy.  He was straining so badly when he tried to pee that it was horrible to see, it sent him into convulsions.  I got something to halt the straining and it was a bit better.  I had to drug my dog every night for almost a month and by the end he was sleeping 4 hours at a shot.  There was sooo much blood.  HE was just dripping it from his bladder as it was trying to heal.  I was pretty much run into the ground.  Up all night with him and LB home for the summer and working from home.  I wondered if I did the right thing in keeping him alive.  Had I been so selfish and he was suffering because of it?  Seriously the guilt and second guessing was almost drowning me.  He has come around.  He is a fighter, a true member of this family for not going down without a fight.  He sits next to me in his sock monkey bed having puppy dreams.  He is my constant companion and I really don't know what I would do without him here to fill my time in these late nights or the days I am alone in the dungeon.  We are unsure if we have 6 months or 6 years left with him.   The cancer could come back, or be gone forever.  We just don't know.

So to change the subject, because ther are far too many feels in that last part for my liking, I announce that Little Badger hated TeaKwonDo up here.  It isn't his home dojang and they really focus on the sparing here. I would kick ass here as I still stand undefeated in sparing.  Little Badger is more into the art of it all as taught to him by the folks at our home dojong.  We took him out of it up here, and know if we are ever in the area we know where to go visit for sure.  I miss the people there so bad.It was sooo fun hitting the floor and working out forms and mentoring others.  We told LB that it was fine if he left, but needed to pick up an activity.  He chose tennis and has thrived.  His power is unbelievable and once he actually makes the effort to control it all the time, he will be off the wall good.  At 8 years he is able to hit the ball from the Serving line on one side, over and across to the other side and up onto the track with it still having zip in it.  They love having an ambi tennis player. He gets bored playing right, he switches and just screws up opponents.  He loves the kids and instructors too, so we found him a home here and that puts me at ease in that respect.  There always needs to be that place outside of home you can go and feel at home.

Well, I should get back to work, as I have a deadline for my files and should probably try to pretend to sleep before I get LB up in a couple hours.  I will try my best to be here form time to time as I can be.  Keep reading and commenting to remind me that this is here and I will be here.   That is my new year resolution. :)   ~KK