The Tanner Saga (WARNING: Graphic pictures)

 

Tanner getting lasered; what a badass!

Our story begins on a typical Tuesday morning. The lady of the house, A.K.A. the boys’ momma, was getting ready for work when she noticed one of her many dear boys limping. Tanner was walking across the counter, as was customary for this ungodly hour in the morning, but his left front leg wouldn’t support his weight in the usual fashion. The momma decided to check it out, even though she assumed he must have jumped oddly on it, or maybe had a piece of litter stuck in his paw.

You see, Tanner wasn’t the lightest of cats, and it would not be surprising for him to have twisted his ankle jumping from the counter. (Something he did all the time.) The boys’ momma grabbed her phone to pull up the flashlight since the dad of the cabin was still asleep and she didn’t want to disturb him for a little ankle pain. She walked over to where Tanner was eating on the shelf, and lightly grabbed his paw to see what was going on with it. She couldn’t feel anything protruding from the leg nor paw, but as she turned it toward the light she could see there was a fairly deep gash on the backside.

Luckily for Tanner, his momma works at a vet clinic, and was able to bring him with her to work. It was decided he would need stitches, but they would have to do it the next day so they’d be able to sedate him. (There is no way he would have let them do it awake, and he had already eaten so they couldn’t do it that day.)

She didn’t know how he could have done it, since they lived in such a small place and she didn’t think there was anywhere he could have hurt himself like that, and in that spot. The dad of the cabin found the culprit, however. There was an unused aquarium in the utility room that Tanner must have jumped on a million times. Apparently this was the final time, seeing as the broken glass and light bulb from above it were scattered inside. He must have sliced his wrist either jumping in or out of the aquarium. His dad got rid of it as soon as he found out though, even before the momma got home!

The next day, Tanner went unhappily back to work with his momma. His wound seemed all right and like it was trying to heal up. When they put him out and were able to shave around it, however, they realized it was still incredibly deep. They cleaned it out and he went in to surgery. While the doctor was working on sewing him up, she told his momma the cut was one millimeter away from his artery. ONE MILLIMETER FROM HIS ARTERY!!!! You could see the thin blue line that was his artery!! His momma definitely freaked out about that one. Tanner for sure used up one of his lives that day; he missed nerves, tendons, his artery, and only had a cut that needed two layers of stitches.

Tanner was able to go home later that day, although he had to stay the night in the kennel because he was still ‘drunk’ from the anesthesia. The next day he was released from that prison, and had made a sore on his nose from trying to get out of the kennel. (Something else his momma felt horrible about.) He was still ‘drunk’, but ate and drank some water and seemed to be doing just fine.

He was still limping yet doing well, but then Saturday night rolled around. His momma was holding him and noticed what felt like a mat on his left side. She had his dad grab a light and look at it while she was holding him. He said it looked like some type of cut, and they decided he must have had another cut from the aquarium that they had missed. His momma would bring him to her work on Monday.

Monday rolled around, and she took Tanner in to the vet clinic to have him looked at yet again. The doctor took a slight look and thought it seemed like more of a bite than a cut, and had her technician begin shaving the fur around it. It definitely looked red and infected, and they decided to keep shaving until they completely found the edges of the infected area. When all was said and done, his whole side was pretty much shaved and red from the bite. It had to be a brown recluse, that was the only thing that made sense. Poor Tanner was having quite the week!!

He got some more medicine, and later the next week some pain killer meds to help him hopefully feel even a bit better.

Now, let’s cut to today. Tanner is doing extremely well, his bite is beginning to peel around the edges and has completely necrosed, and he isn’t limping much anymore although he still holds his paw up when he’s siting somewhere. This all seems good, but then a couple days ago the dad noticed a lump between his shoulder blades. His momma took him back in once again to see what the doc had to say.

Luckily, she thinks it’s just a shot knot and that it’ll go away on its own. They just need to keep an eye on it, and bring him back in if it gets any worse, or hard and bigger. (Hard and smaller is okay though!)

So there you have it, ‘The Tanner Saga’. They say things come in three’s, so let’s hope the shot knot is the third and it isn’t anything more serious!! Because let me tell you, Tanner’s momma needs him.

His wrist wound.

After the stitches!

After coming home from the doctor.

A few hours after being home!

Still healing and peeling a little.

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Please check out Yonder Worlds, for S.R. Anand has been a huge inspiration for me to get back into writing, and back to all of you. ❤

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Happy Halloween/All Hallows Eve!

It’s been a long while, friends! How are all of you doing? Enjoying the weather? It’s 80° here today! I remember when there was snow on the ground when I went trick-or-treating as a kid.

I’m going to ramble for awhile; hope you don’t mind. I now am on 200mg of Lamictal, and 50mg of Zoloft, and let me tell you: IT IS AMAZING. I think (knock on wood) this is the magic amount and type of drugs for me! I was telling Lucas the other day it’s probably how ‘normal’ people feel all the time, but for me I feel like I’m on drugs because I’m so happy and actually myself! It’s wonderful. (Granted yes, I am on drugs, but I mean like non-prescription drugs. You get it.)

I’m still at the vet clinic; it’s just me and The Groomer now, so I’ve been doing prep work, all the bathing, and then helping to finish whatever dogs are left. So a few less dogs that I’m finishing, but I’m still really enjoying it, learning new things, and getting more hours which is great!

Lucas and I are doing very well as are all the animals! Lunar Tides is going great and we’ve had a few live shows in our area!! That’s been a lot of fun; we have another on the 19th of November. In two months it’ll be a year that I’ve been sober. I’m pretty proud of myself for that. I’m sure a million other things have happened since I’ve been gone, and I know tons has been going on in your lives too! I’d love to hear all about it. I can’t promise I’m back for sure now, but I felt like doing a bit of blogging today and we’ll see where it leads us.

 

Have a fantastic week you wonderful WordPress friends. ❤

 

Jeff the Killer & Dia de los Muertos celebrator!

Tanner and Dark Tides

Tanner ❤

Rocky ❤

Dark Tides ❤

 

 

 

 

I’m Still Here!

Hello, Blogosphere! I feel like it’s been forever since I last posted, probably because it’s been over a week now! I’ve been busy working; I had over 40 hours last week, and will have close to 40 again this week. I’m not complaining though, it’s just been pretty busy.

I am absolutely loving the groom room! The Groomer tries to teach me something new every day, which is really great. We still don’t have the proper dryer, so that’s been a lot of fun! In a way I feel like it’s been helpful though, because once we get the correct dryer, I’ll be able to do an even better job and perfect my technique with more ease! It’ll be nice. Plus it’s good to learn how to compromise early on.

My job right now is to help the other Bather with washing and drying the dogs. The Groomer preps them, and then we wash and dry them. The prep work includes: checking their ears and taking out any hair that’s growing in them, cleaning the pads of the feet (sometimes done later), sanitary trim (sometimes done later), clipping the nails (sometimes done later), and taking hair off if the dog is going to have a lot of hair coming off them. This way, when we wash we don’t have to wash a ton of hair and take a long time drying it when it’s just going to come right off anyway! When she does this, she just does a general trim of it, but goes back and does the actual groom once we’re finished with the dog. Some groomers refuse to do this since it can shorten the life of the clippers/scissors by using them on dirty hair, but our Groomer doesn’t mind and it helps our workload which is really nice!

It’s now Christmastime, which is how long they had scheduled me working three days in the groom room. Some changes are taking place; the team leader for boarding is being switched to someone else, since the lady in charge right now has some health issues and isn’t able to be there as often as a team leader needs to be. If the new team leader works out (which she should, she handles a lot of the stuff anyway), the Boss Man is going to hire someone else for boarding, and I will be moving solely to the Groom Room!! 😀 I am super excited. We’re not expecting that until March, but if things work out and he can find someone for boarding it could happen sooner. I’ll let you know! So for now I’ll keep my three days, but since I’m doing really well in there, and they can tell I want to continue learning and working in the groom room, I’ll be getting more hours in there in the future.

Depending on how everything works out, The Groomer and I have talked about perhaps having me come in sooner and take over the prep work as well at some point in the future, and then seeing how it goes with learning more on the grooming aspect of things, I might be able to eventually get my own dogs to groom! We have a lot of ‘regular’ dogs who get groomed every few weeks, so those dogs are much easier to do since they come in a lot. Depending, I might be able to get a couple of those dogs to do all on my own! It’ll be a ways away from now, but I’m really looking forward to that. It’s been a great opportunity so far, and I’m absolutely loving it which is great!

That’s what’s been going on with work for the most part, I’ll try to write again sooner than over a week next time! Since this is getting long, I’ll save my update on Rocky and the cats and whatnot else in life for the next post. I hope everyone’s having a great week, and looking forward to the holidays!! Any big plans for Christmas??

Meet Stephen and Tammy!

Tonight Lucas and I were able to meet up with my dad and stepmom for a little bit on their way to Oklahoma. We sat and talked for a few hours, and it was a lot of fun!! I saw my dad over the summer, but haven’t seen Tammy in AGES, so it was really great to see both of them. 😀 Hopefully we’ll be able to see them again in Iowa as well!

Tonight and probably tomorrow will be short posts since we’ll be heading to Iowa when I get off work tomorrow. I promise I will get back to all of your comments and blog posts when I can though, I always appreciate hearing from you all!! 🙂

And to those wondering, grooming went fantastically today! The dryer is broken, so we had to improvise and use one not meant for that, but it worked and was a good learning experience. 😉 I was able to wash and dry/brush my first dog too! The Groomer said I did really well all things considered, so that was pretty awesome to hear as well. I can’t wait to go back tomorrow!

See you all soon!!

Dad and Tammy!

Grooming

I will begin working in the grooming room next week!! The Groomer talked to the Boss Man, and they decided it would be fine for me to start working in there. She said she was excited to have me start, which made me feel really good since it’s a pretty tiny groom room and she was saying it was important to get along with whoever you were working with in such a tiny space! So that must mean she thinks she’ll be able to tolerate me. 😉

I think I’ll be starting off working about three days in the groom room, and then also still work in boarding as well. She was telling me that when the last bather started, they began booking more dogs to do since it wasn’t just the Groomer and the part-time bather working anymore, and they could get to more dogs. When the bather left, they were pretty much screwed, since they still had that many dogs to do and couldn’t just un-book the appointments!

I’m pretty sure I’ll love it though, so after a few weeks I’ll let her know that I’m definitely on-board, and maybe then I can start working in there more often. I won’t be able to learn as quickly if I’m not in there as much as I could be! She was warning me that I’ll be super sore (working muscles I don’t realize I have!) and my hands and arms will get really dry. (being in the water all day!) She said after a few weeks my body should be acclimating to it, as long as I can hang in there! I know I’ll be able to though; perhaps I can talk Lucas into giving me some back massages. 😉

The Groomer also gave me some magazines and an older version of the AKC (American Kennel Club) book, plus another dog grooming book to look through. The latter one she wants back, but is letting me keep the others! That was super nice of her, and she gave me a card to sign up for the Groomer to Groomer magazine for a free year’s subscription! I’m really excited. 😀

Here they all are! The Groomer magazine has the black since it had the address and her name on it.

She said when she went to school she mostly just learned about dog breeds, the anatomy, and how each one acts for the most part, and learned all of the actual grooming from her apprenticing. There’s a Half Price Books up in Iowa, so when we go up there for Thanksgiving I’m going there to look for some dog anatomy books and other grooming books! Hopefully I can find some good deals.

I’ll definitely be keeping you posted on when I start; I think it’ll be Tuesday and Wednesday starting at nine; they were going to have me come in Thursday too, but I’ll be going up to Iowa then so I’ll have to wait ’til the next week to continue! I can’t wait!!

Career Path Determined

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do with my life. Right now I’m on my dad’s insurance, but in a few years I won’t be anymore, and let’s just say that my Diabetic supplies are nowhere near cheap! I’ve mentioned tossing around the idea of Cosmetology school, and that I really like the vet clinic but don’t want to become a veterinarian.

Do you see where I’m going with this? Yeah, should have been super obvious to me, and I think the idea was slithering around in the back of my mind, but this weekend I finally put my finger on it and decided to do something about it! I’m going to be a dog groomer.

Randy and I were talking about my Diabetic supplies and insurance and whatnot this weekend and I brought it up, and then did some more research when we came back to the cabin. Apparently you don’t even need a license to be a dog groomer; if you want to throw a sign on your door and open for business, you can! I think they’re talking about making it so you have to get a license, but as it stands now you don’t.

At the vet clinic we have a groomer, so today I was peppering her with questions. I started out with  my feelers, asking her how long she’d been grooming and if she liked it. She was telling me that she knows someone who works in Vegas and makes half a million dollars a year grooming dogs!! How crazy is that? The field is full of possibilities, it just depends on how ambitious you are and how far you want to go with it.

I don’t have to go to school, she said she did but didn’t learn anything there. The only thing it’s really any good for was learning the breeds of dogs and their anatomy. Helllooo used book store!! 😉 Instead, she said she learned the most apprenticing for a year and half under her first groomer. Hands on teaching is a good way to learn anyway!

A great thing for me, they used to have a bather at the clinic who had to leave six months ago and they never replaced her! This person would get the dogs prepped for the groomer to be all ready to go to groom. Guess who’s going to try to get that position? At first I thought I would still work in boarding and then help her before my shift or something, but she made it sound like she’d want me just working with her in the grooming room! I am SO excited.

They have a weekly meeting on Tuesday’s, so she’s going to bring it up tomorrow and hopefully they’ll figure it all out to see if I can start working with her! I’ll be just helping her, and hopefully learning a lot about grooming! Perhaps after awhile I’ll be able to groom my own dogs, and who knows where I could go from there?

I’m excited that I’ve figured out a job path where I think I will be truly happy, and hopefully will be able to support myself and get on some insurance, or else be able to afford my own! I’ll keep you posted on what I find out and how it goes and whatnot. I hope everyone else’s Monday has been as good as mine has! 🙂

Meet the Crew!

I worked today, and had more sleep than Lucas (he only had five hours!) but am still a little tired anyway. We’re over in the band room getting all set up for tonight, and I did get a microphone stand!! So I’ll now have to talk to everyone in stream. haha. Anyway, I know people have commented back to me and have left comments for me, but since I’m over here and my laptop mouse-pad has a mind of its own (I forgot my mouse next door) I’m going to wait until tomorrow to reply and read through all of your lovely blog posts! So don’t think I’ve forgotten you; I just want to keep up with NaBloPoMo and make a post, and I will definitely be getting back to you tomorrow! 😀

I figured I would show you all pictures of the animals living at the vet clinic today! I don’t think I’ve shared photos of them yet. (If so you just get more 😉 ) Now, I don’t know if I’m supposed to take pictures of them, but I figure since they have the vet’s dog on their brochures and such, they wouldn’t mind me taking some pics of the other ones who live there day in and day out. Plus these aren’t any of the customers’ pets.

Pete

Here’s Pete! He’s a little camera shy, if you couldn’t tell! This is the best picture I have of him so far. He can be sweet, but he also likes to bite a lot! He goes and sits up front in the hospital part of the vet clinic on the desk up there. He has a bed and food and water dish, what a spoiled guy! 🙂

Lizzie

Here’s Lizzie! She’s a sweetheart. She sleeps in the back in the cat room all day, but then she’ll go and sit on the rug and meow when it’s almost time for dinner. As you can see, she definitely isn’t lacking in the food department, and we only feed her twice a day, which is why when it’s time for food she knows it and wants it! 🙂

Ella

Here’s Ella! She’s the newest addition to the vet clinic family. As you can see, she only has three legs and a bob tail. She was brought in and was going to be put down; she had maggots on her leg and tail apparently, the poor thing. 😦 The vet decided to amputate them both, and the day after the surgery she was up and wanting to run around! (not that they let her!) She’s definitely a kitten, she’ll be lovey one minute and trying to eat you the next! It’s amazing how quickly she gets around with only three feet, you wouldn’t know it from watching her! 🙂

Bebo

Here’s Bebo! He’s also camera shy. He’s the bird in the vet clinic, and doesn’t do much but talk to himself and try to kiss himself through the mirror. 😉 He’s pretty fun to watch though, and actually doesn’t smell which is great!

Butch

Butch doesn’t actually live at the vet clinic. He came in around the same time Ella did, even though he’s much bigger than she is! However, one of the ladies who work up front decided to adopt him! She always brings him in with her when she comes to work though, so he has his own cage all made up all the time. I always enjoy it when she works so I can go play with him! He also loves to bite and attack you, but he’s so cute I don’t mind. 🙂

I forgot I was going to take a picture of the hamster that lives up front! I actually don’t know his name though, so maybe it’s better if I just wait until I can put a name with the face. 😉 I hope you enjoyed meeting some of my vet clinic friends!! 🙂

Vet Clinic Woes No More! (for now)

Guess what? The owner of the two quarantine dogs FINALLY came today to pick them up!! I wasn’t there when it happened, but apparently the dogs were happy to see him, and although he wasn’t originally going to pick them up, it seems like he did get around to doing it! I was so happy to hear that they’re going back home, and not going to have to be put down. Crisis averted this time!! 😀 I’m so thankful and happy about it.

In other news, I think Lucas and I are going to get haircuts this weekend! I’m pretty excited about it, although I won’t be doing anything crazy with mine. Lucas’s has gotten so long, it’ll be interesting to see what he ends up doing with it! I think he’s still debating on whether he really wants to get it cut. 🙂 I’ll have pictures at some point! What are you doing this weekend?