week 5 of my class was sonnets. we had to write 2 (one traditional, one contemporary), so i posted both of them on the poetry page. one is called “late autumn” and the other is called “addicted.” i am fairly pleased with both. they need some tweaks, but i think i have a good start.

week 6 was sestinas. sestinas suck, so i’m not posting my sorry attempt. i’d like to try again but i need to work up my nerve first.

and i’m currently taking a seminar in poetry class. it’s a combination workshop/contemporary poetry criticism class, so i’m writing a bunch of new stuff as well as revising old stuff and writing essays on contemporary poetry. i posted a couple new poems on the poetry page, one called Ars Poetica and the other called Ode to Bonne Bell. i’ll try to post more stuff as the semester goes along.

and what a crappy day it’s been. dow down 778 points. wachovia retail bank sold to citigroup. no gas in the charlotte metro.

what next?

welcome to 33.

it is so awesome having a pool in your own backyard.

the pool was finished about a week ago and we’ve been enjoying it ever since. we’re having a pool party next weekend for the family; temps probably won’t be as warm as they’ve been over the last week but it’ll still be fun.

we still have a lot to do (landscaping, finishing up the deck, etc.), but that will happen slowly over the next few months. i’ll post more pics as we finish things up.

the vet added 5 more medications, so now tigger is up to 15 meds total, several times a day. that is A LOT of greenies pill pockets per day. we stuff them as full as we can, but with 15 pills it obviously takes more than 1 pill pocket. some of the meds are antibiotics, so he won’t have to take them forever.

he has to go back to the vet for more blood work in 1 week, then he goes for another ultrasound in 3 weeks. we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the lymph nodes are smaller at the next ultrasound; if they aren’t, then that’s definitely not good news. the antibiotics should take care of the gall bladder infection, but the vet wasn’t sure if the lymph nodes were enlarged because of the infection or because of cancer. we opted not to do the cancer test because if that’s what it is, then there’s nothing else they can do.

but we aren’t worrying about that right now. we’re just glad he’s home and feeling better.

he seemed a lot better last night compared to the day before. he was hungry, which is a good sign. the vet wasn’t letting him eat since he was having diarrhea and throwing up. he should be able to eat later today since it will be 24 hours with no additional episodes.

he was happy to see us and his eyes looked a lot brighter. josh went to see him today at lunch and said he looked even better today. later this afternoon the vet will do more bloodwork and test his liver enzymes to see how the antibiotics are working. if he’s responding to the antibiotics, hopefully we can bring him home by sunday or monday.

we have not decided whether or not to do the cancer test. if it is cancer, there is absolutely nothing they can do since he’s not a candidate for chemotherapy. so we almost feel like, if we can’t do anything, then do we want to find out, or do we want to just keep him comfortable and enjoy the next few months with him?

but the vet said if tigger does respond well to the antibiotics, then the enlarged lymph node may decrease meaning it may not be cancer. it could just be so enlarged from all he’s dealing with right now. so we will see how his test results turn out.

we’re going to visit him again tonight.

oh, and today is our 9th wedding anniversary. we both almost forgot with everything that’s going on. we’ll celebrate when tigger is better.

the vet did an ultrasound today and said he has a gall bladder infection, his pancreas doesn’t look healthy, he has nodes on his liver (possibly from the phenobarbital he takes, but the vet said the nodes don’t look consistent with nodes typically caused by pheno), and he has a very enlarged lymph node behind his stomach, which could possibly be cancer.

he’s getting antibiotics and IV fluids at the hospital. we’re going to see him tonight during visitation hours.

we’ve decided to keep him on the antibiotics for the next 3 to 5 days. if he gets better, then we’ll know that the gall bladder infection is most likely causing many of the other symptoms, and it can be managed with long-term antibiotics (he’s not a candidate for gall bladder removal surgery). if he doesn’t get better, then it’s likely that he has cancer and nothing more can be done.

winston keeps walking around looking for tigger. and i’m trying not to think about the fact that there’s a real possibility that tigger won’t come home.

so it’s time for a quick update…

someone hit my brand new car in the target parking lot on june 29. it left an 18″ dent in the rear driver’s side door. at least the guy was honest; he was writing us a note as we walked out of the store. his insurance (nationwide) paid and didn’t give me any problems at all. it just sucks that my brand new car now has paintwork. it was $1,000 worth of damage. i turned over 2,500 miles on the way home from the body shop.

tigger is doing really well. sometimes he acts like he’s still a puppy. it’s pretty amazing to see. we have to keep to a really strict medicine schedule, though. a few weeks ago he decided he didn’t want to take his medicine for whatever reason, and his health went downhill for a few days after that. he got back on track but it was a rough few days.

winston is doing great, although a few weeks ago he had to spend the night at the vet. he injured his jaw somehow and he couldn’t even open his mouth enough to drink water. poor thing — he yelped when he tried to drink or eat or yawn. he has a really high pain tolerance, so we knew it was bad since he was yelping. i took him to the vet and she didn’t know what caused his jaw injury (she thought it could possibly be caused by his eating sticks from the yard), but she said he was really dehydrated because of it. so she put him on steroids and IV fluids overnight. i picked him up the next day and he was already back to 90%. he had to take steroids for about 7 days after that, but by the second or third day he was back to normal. back to his normal goofball self.

josh and i decided to put an in-ground pool in our backyard. the digging started today, so we have a gigantic hole in the yard now (check out the pics in the gallery). the pool will be 16′ by 36′ and 6 feet deep at the deep end. it’s going to be in the shape of a keyhole. we didn’t want just a big rectangle; we wanted some curves in there too, to fit in with our landscaping plan. i think it’s going to look really nice when it’s all done. might take us awhile, but it’ll get there.

i have had the worst headache for the last two weeks, practically constant. i don’t know what’s going on but today’s been the worst day so far. as a matter of fact, i think i’m going to go take a nap right now.

this has been this quarter’s installment of, “the exciting life and times of jenny honeycutt.”

seriously, i’ll try to write more. i know i’ve been way too slack.

i got a new car on april 30. it’s a 2008 infiniti g35 sedan, white with gray leather. i loved my murano, but after driving an SUV for over a year, it’s really nice to be back in a car.

i posted a few pictures in the photo gallery.

well, you all know the story…he progressed quickly to congestive heart failure and within a few months was on many different medications. eventually we had to take him to the emergency room because he was passing out when he had coughing spells, which is called syncope. basically he wasn’t getting enough oxygen.

after the emergency room visit, he started seeing the cardiologist on staff there. she put him on a few more medications and, over the last year, made a lot of adjustments to the dosages. he’s on seven medications total now, about $300 a month worth. but since january or so, she made one final adjustment to one of his medications and that seemed to do the trick. he’s been fairly stable since then.

of course, he’ll never get better. we can see him aging before our eyes. he is a lot slower than he used to be, he sleeps a lot, and he doesn’t want to play like he used to. his favorite thing is to curl up with us on the couch or the bed and go to sleep.

but his eyes are still bright, he still loves to eat and get treats, he loves to get a new toy (with which he’ll climb on the couch or bed and chew as long as he can, until winston bullies his way in and grabs the toy). his tail still wags furiously when we talk to him and he barks like crazy when josh gets home from work. he’s still so incredibly smart.

he has many more good days than bad.

we know at some point that’s going to be reversed, and we’re going to have to make a terrible decision.

but we made it through year one. it’s been hard, and it’s been stressful, and i can’t remember the last time either of us got more than three or four hours of sleep at night. but we’re grateful for every additional second we get with tigger. we want as many extra seconds as possible.