I've been giving our dog the monthly injections of Adequan for his arthritis and that seems to be helping a lot, but I've run out. I called the vet office yesterday to see if there was any way they could just mail me the vials and I pay over the phone, so I don't have to drive an hour each way. Or if that wasn't going to work, maybe they can give me the prescription to fill online or something. But, she said no problem, she can send me some vials. She's not set up to take a payment over the phone with credit card, but don't worry, she'll include the invoice with the vials and I can send a check in. This is when I love small towns, LOL. She said she might not get it out today, but tomorrow for sure. I said no rush, I have 2 more weeks until he's due for his next injection. One more item checked off my to do list.
I'm getting comfortable now at giving him the injections. My only problem is trying to get the last 1cc out of each vial, without a bunch of air. Each vial is 5 cc's. He needs 2 cc's a month, so a vial lasts 2 injections, but then the 3rd injection I need the last little bit of 1cc left and then 1cc from the next bottle. The stuff is very expensive, so I don't want to waste it. I'm sure there is a good/easy way to get the last part out, but all's I seem to do is end up with a bunch of air in the syringe after I manage to get the last cc out. A nurse, I am not! I think the reason he's giving it in these vial sizes is that it's actually the horse dosage, but for dog only use 2 cc's. He had mentioned it was cheaper this way, than actually getting it in the dog application version. I just need to figure out better how to get the last cc out, haha.
DH has been working on his hoard - a bit. Again, very baby steps in actually getting rid of stuff, but I think I mentioned over the weekend he got a a wheelbarrow full of old planter pots thrown out. Then he showed me another wheelbarrow, that was super old and needed to be thrown out. He got part way with it, LOL. He took off the plastic "barrow" part and threw that away. The bottom part is made of wood (that's how old it is, haha) so he wanted to know if he should make a wood box for it and we can use it as a yard flower planter, like in the rockery area. That would be good, but at least the part that is left is taking up less room in the garage, until he gets the box for it made, then it can be put outside. But, then yesterday he mentioned he might just throw the bottom part out too. I said that is fine with me. He also threw away a few things and got rid of some extra boxes (he doesn't need so many!) out in his shop. Then he moved some things taking up floor space up onto his car trailer. Now with that clear floor space (and a little more finagling) he's going to move our old T-bird back into the shop for the winter. It's been sitting under a car cover in our garage, but he wants it in the heated shop for the winter, since our garage is not heated. That will leave some open space in the garage now, so that's good. As I've tried to tell him before, just starting to get rid of stuff, even if its not much, will leave room to get to other stuff he can start looking at to see what to be done with it and eventually he'll start seeing some room to actually move around in! Well, ya, that's the idea, but it will never completely happen. I just thank God he's never hoarded in the house, because I couldn't stand living like that. Our house is big open space, LOL. No clutter. He's a very bizarre hoarder, LOL. He's OCD and has to be extremely organized. Nothing is ever just tossed somewhere, so it's strange that he can stand so much stuff. Some of it must go back to his childhood, where as one of 5 kids in a poor family, none of them had anything of their own, until they got to be teenagers. DH said even birthdays were shared, which is really weird. DH and his younger brother were 15 months apart. On dh's birthday, the little brother got gifts, too, and I guess the same went when it was little brothers birthday, dh got gifts. Whatever they were given was pretty much understood it belonged to all of them. Even if as a kid, he earned some money and bought something for himself with it, it really wasn't his. So, maybe when he got to be an adult he had this need to keep everything, now that it was his and no one else's. I also think he thinks if he holds on to something he's keeping the memory intact, though why he needs a hundred plastic planting pots, is beyond me, LOL. But, hey, at least they are all stacked and organized and in their own labeled bin. Whenever I buy a new outdoor plant I have to get the pots into the garbage can right away. If they sit around too long, he will end up saving them.
DH has to get another covid test done before his endoscopy next week. They had originally told me he could do it at the local hospital here, rather than having to go into the city. But, a lady called yesterday and that's probably not going to work. He can't have it more than 5 days before his procedure and it's taking at least a couple days, if not more, to get the results back, out here at our hospital. They also don't do testing on weekends (Saturday is the first day he can get it done) so he couldn't get it done until Monday and they can't guarantee the result would be back before he procedure Thursday morning. So, on Monday we have to drive into the city, where that hospital has a drive up testing station and she said the results will be next day and assured before his procedure. If they would just let him have it on Friday afternoon, we will already be in the city for a different doctors appointment, but nope.
I'm not sure how long an endoscopy takes. If it's going to be awhile I might just either run over and see my mom or go get a little shopping out of the way. At least we know right where to go. It's on the same floor as where he had his ultrasound done, just down at the end of the hall.
That's odd that your vet's office doesn't take credit card payments over the phone! Our vet has been doing drop-off service only since March 2020, and they take our credit card info over the phone immediately following the appointment.
ReplyDeleteit's a very rural small town vets office. They have a machine to slide a card through, but not able to enter it over the phone yet. She said they are working on it.
DeleteWhen I was a child I had an aunt that would give us a Christmas gift, then give a game for all of us. I had one sister who is still pretty selfish and evil who would destroy the game if she could not win. She was the baby and seven years younger with two siblings between us. I was the oldest. She was allowed to get games out when she was three and strew them about and walk on them (an accident, she said). As a result, when I was about twelve, I wanted Santa to bring me a Monopoly game, but only if it was my game and I controlled who played and when they could touch it. It was not a selfish thought. I just wanted to be able to keep it more than six months. I told Mama that if it was for everyone, I did not want it. And, if she got it for everyone, that I would never play it. I got the game and controlled it. It lasted over 50 years, and was only destroyed in my house destruction.
ReplyDeleteI think the experience with my siblings made me very territorial. "It is mine and leave it alone!"
So, I understand your husband.
It is too bad they do not make that medicine in a needle like insulin and other meds are made. Long ago, I had to take allergy shots and found a problem trying to get the last dose.
I can understand your Monopoly game. I have the game my mom had when she and her brothers were kids. It's old! and a Clue game, too. I'm not sure what happened to dh's sister who is 4th out of the 5. She turned into an evil person who doesn't want anyone (and especially her siblings) to have anything, if she can't have it.
DeleteMy sister is 4th of five, the baby for seven years.
DeleteIn a way I guess I also understand your husband. I grew up poor in a large family and it just wasn't done to throw anything away, particularly with mom and dad both serving in WWII AND living with rationing afterwards. So I grew up watching that (although they weren't hoarders) and to a certain extent I became imbued with the "waste not, want not" way of life too. I'm much better at getting rid of stuff now, of course, but it still has to be donated or recycled and not thrown! At least your husband has it nicely organized!
ReplyDeleteyes, at least it's organized, LOL.
DeleteI have to give my husband injections every week and it is rather difficult as the medication is in powder form in a vial and then I add sterile water. I use 2.3cc's of sterile water and then his injection is 2 cc's. It is hard getting it all but what I have found is that when I am drawing the medication and the the vial is upside down if I pull the needle almost all the way out of the vial I am able to get it all with little to no air bubbles. It has taken lots of practice, but hopefully this will help you! - Monica
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! I think I do just need lots more practice. I think I'd be a nervous wreck trying to do it for a person. A dog is bad enough, haha.
DeleteTo get the last bit of liquid out of the vial pull a small amt of air into the syringe. put the needle into the vial and turn the vial upsidedown. inject the air into the vial and then pull out all the medication. The extra air helps get it out. Practice by adding water to an empty vial and using a used syringe. You will find what works best for you.
ReplyDeletepracticing with water sounds like an excellent idea, but I see no way to get the top off these empty little vials, it's like it is fused on there or something
DeleteOh, you poor dear. Hoarding is a horrible thing to deal with, even if it is a contained hoard. This I know. I have two in my family who certainly have the tools to become hoarders, Girl, and DH. They aren't inclined to amass a lot goods, fortunately, but those they do get tend to stick around a long time. And, it is not the objects themselves that drive the behavior, but rather their dysfunctional decision making skills. With The Girl, she tends to become proprietary about the decision making. By that, I mean, SHE wants to be the one to decide what to cull and on HER time, not anyone else's. This manifests itself in, say, getting upset because I tossed out, say, a burned down jar candle. ("I was going to reuse that jar.") In actuality, she's just upset that I made a decision which she felt wasn't mine to make. On the upside, she likes things neat and orderly, so it balances out with a few hiccups on the way. With DH, his hoarding is fear based, but not a depression era type fear of doing without. It's more a desire to not have to deal with the responsibility of making a decision. If he doesn't make a decision to toss an item which *might* prove useful at some point, he feels he doesn't have to deal with being responsible for the consequences of no longer having said item. In fact, by the time we moved here, his closet in our old house was unusable, and this was AFTER I tossed a good 5 garbage bags of power cords out--yes, just power cords, without his knowledge. He had no idea what was in there, couldn't reach the items to see, and hadn't been able to reach the clothes on the hangers for about 5 years. He was all but frozen with fear at having to go through the stuff and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. Of course, I got the passive aggressive, "fine, throw it all away!" While that certainly would have been the more expedient method to deal with it, I told him no, because I wasn't going to let him put the burden of his hoard on me. In any case, that was a long, hard, day, with me taking out each and every item, and, forcing him to designate it to a keep, toss or donate pile. What *HE* wanted to do was put it all in boxes and move it here, and tuck it in a corner of the garage. I absolutely refused to allow that. Cleaning his closet out literally took as long as moving the entire rest of the house did. The good news was that I was able to get him to discard or donate almost 90% of the things from his closet, but it took a humiliating event to do that. The event: While pulling items out of the closet, I found the toy pocket watch from "The Polar Express" book one of our kids had bought from a book order about 15 years earlier. I tossed it in the trash pile without a second thought, and he had a fit, claiming it was his father's pocket watch. I pulled it out, showed him the "Made in China" on the back, the "on time, early, late" on the face, and tapped it to show it was plastic. The job went pretty darn quickly, albeit silently, after that. He was truly humiliated, so much so, that, were it anybody else, I would have felt badly for them. He's been a lot more proactive about managing items in this place,--and I have taken A LOT more liberties with tossing things out without his knowledge. I certainly don't understand the fear which drives hoarding, but I do understand the frustration of living with a hoarder, and I feel for you. Thank goodness he is a contained hoarder!
ReplyDeleteI can relate to what you go through with your dh. When we were packing to make the big move out of state, I had a box started for goodwill...of mostly like duplicate kitchen items. He would take them out! This from a guy who never has cooked a day in his life! It is a strange mindset, to be sure. I think dh is similar in that he doesn't want to deal with the consequences of not having the item if he makes the decision to get rid of.
Delete