Tag Archives: old age

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. AFGE Local 1904. Here we are 32 weeks past the “end of max telework” and the union, such as it is, still hasn’t come through on delivering the new and improved telework agreement. Now, I’m told, the alleged negotiation has gone so far sideways that it’s been sent to binding arbitration. Resolution to that could literally take years. So, we’re going to be grinding along for the foreseeable future with only two days a week like pre-COVID barbarians… as if 30 months of operating nearly exclusively through telework didn’t prove that working from home works. All this is ongoing while hearing stories of other organizations tucked in next door that are offering their people four or five day a week work from home options. It’s truly a delight working for the sick man of the enterprise. I’m sure someone could make the case that there’s enough blame to go around, but since the updated and perfectly acceptable policy for supervisors was published 32 weeks ago, I’m going to continue to go ahead and put every bit of blame on Local 1904 for failing to deliver for their members (and those of us who they “represent” against our will) and for continuing to stand in the way like some bloody great, utterly misguided roadblock. No one’s interest is served by their continued intransigence. The elected “leaders” of AFGE Local 1904 should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.

2. Amazon. For reasons I’ll probably gin up in a separate post to discuss in more detail, I’m opting to keep Anya and Cordelia on at least some wet food every day. In order to make doing this a little easier (i.e., so I don’t have to do dishes twice a day), I ordered some shallow stainless steel dishes from Amazon. They were a little pricey, in my opinion, for what they were, but I liked them so well, I ordered two more this past Monday. Wednesday afternoon, Amazon sent me this message, “Due to a lack of availability, we will not be able to obtain the following item from your order. We’ve canceled the item and apologize for the inconvenience.” Annoying, but it happens. I immediately logged in to Amazon to look for similar alternatives. There I found the exact product from the same seller at the same price in stock and ready for delivery tomorrow. Both orders, at the time of purchase, were showing in stock at one of Amazon’s “local” warehouse facilities. I’ll never know exactly why Amazon couldn’t fulfill Monday’s order even if it happened to be a day late, but can somehow manage to ship out Wednesday’s order in 1/3 of the estimated delivery time. As a one time half-assed logistician, it definitely leaves me with questions about what the hell they’re doing over there at the local warehouse, though.

3. Politicians. After a four plus month absence from the Senate, the corpse of Diane Feinstein was wheeled back into the Capitol to retake her seat and get “back to work” for the people of California. I just about it being the senator’s corpse… but only barely. At 89 years of age, the stalwart Senator from California is just the latest in a long line of American politicians who hang on grimly to power when age and physical or mental infirmity have pushed nearly all of their contemporaries into retirement if not into the grave. I’ve never been an advocate of term limits or age restrictions for our elected leaders. As a republic, we get precisely the kind of representatives we vote for in each election. Why on earth so many voters are willing to return politicians in their 80s and 90s to office – to legislate issues of online privacy, artificial intelligence, and what the world will look like during the back half of the 21st century – has got to involve some kind insane troll logic. Literally all of our wounds are self-inflicted at this point. 

Sleeping arrangements…

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Maggie slept on my bed at night for most of her adult life until fairly recently. Usually over the course of the night she’d find her way to the floor and sometimes fine her way bac to the bed sometime in the early hours of the morning. A few times I’ve had to lift her up since her days of making the jump on her own seem to be over. In the last couple of months, she’s opted to stay put at floor level. I suspect getting herself back down for a late-night patrol was getting to be as hard on her joints as jumping up to the bed was. 

I’ve offered up steps and ramps, but even when lured with treats she doesn’t seem to have an interest. I’m not going to force the issue, so I suppose this is just the new normal night time arrangement. 

As much as I don’t miss the nightly barrage of dog breath and farting, there’s definitely part of me that misses the convoluted positions I’d need to get myself into so she could sprawl. I miss the regular head butts requesting a few more ear scratches before sleep came on.

Everyone trips over themselves to post cute puppy pictures and talk about the challenges housebreaking and training. Not many talk about the unique and often more trying experiences of making home comfortable for an aging dog. I guess those posts don’t translate as well to social media. They certainly don’t garner as many awws and likes. I have to think if more people did have those discussions, it would help an awful lot of people be better prepared for some of the harder moments of pet ownership. 

Old dogs…

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People will spend a lot of time telling you about the trials and tribulations of life with a new puppy. Poke around Google and the internet is littered with Twitter and Instagram accounts dedicated to the foibles of puppy ownership.

You’ve got to dig a little deeper to find the blogs and message boards that talk about what it’s like to live with an elderly or ailing dog. It’s not the wide-eyed adorableness and puppy breath side of having pets. It’s the astronomical vet bills, fists full of medications, and a body slowly wearing out even when the spirit is still more than willing.

Old pets are heartbreaking not just because we can sense that our time together is growing short, but also because their compressed life cycle points us inexorably towards our own fate at some point in the future. It’s one of the reasons I’m always a little bit perplexed by people who give up and give away their old pets. They have no sense of the broader context of life.

My dear sweet Maggie had a bad morning today. After years of perfect behavior, I knew she was embarrassed and upset. I could read it all over her face – and especially in her eyes. Climbing out of bed to scrub the bedroom carpet wasn’t exactly on my list of things to do today, but looking at those cloudy brown eyes I couldn’t even bring myself to scold her. Going on 11 years together she’s earned the benefit of a few hundred doubts.

Maybe this morning was a one off. Maybe it’s a warning sign of things to come. I’m trying not to let the first thoughts of my sleep addled brain read too much into it. I hope beyond measure this isn’t something that will become the new normal… but if it does, we’ll cope. Maggie is the grand dame of the family I got to pick for myself. She’s entitled to expect that level of effort in her golden years.

I wrote most of this before seeing the bloody urine this evening that set my alarm bells clanging – and before I took off to the local emergency vet to have my girl checked over. Maybe I’m paranoid or at least a bit too cautious. I’ve also seen how fast things can go bad and when warning signs start stacking up, it’s not the moment to prioritize time or money.

Diagnosis…

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After several rounds of testing, we have a preliminary diagnosis for Maggie of adrenal-based Cushing’s disease. Not being a vet, but being one hell of a good researcher, I won’t attempt to explain exactly what Cushing’s is beyond the fact that it’s a disorder likely being caused by a small tumor located on the adrenal gland that’s making her cortisol levels to go wonky and producing a host of potential symptoms.

In Maggie’s case, the symptoms include excessive thirst / drinking and the accompanying excessive urination, hair loss, and general weakness. At this stage, the disease doesn’t make her feel bad or cause any pain. Based on my observation she’s giving absolutely no indication that she even knows she’s sick. The primary treatment, should it prove to be adrenal-based, seems to be surgical removal, although there are some non-invasive options based on my cursory reading.

I won’t dwell on details at this point, frankly because I don’t have many real details to dwell on yet regarding Maggie’s particular diagnosis. Next week, we’ll be taking a bit of a road trip to a specialty vet who will do an ultrasound to visualize the suspect area and, hopefully, confirm a diagnosis so we can identify the appropriate course of treatment.

I’m already racking up a list of research I need to do between now and then – the success rates of the surgery in question, post surgical life expectancy, impacts on quality of life, and so on. I’ll also have to take a long hard look at my personal ethics with regard to invasive surgery for a dog that by any standard definition has already reached into the “old age” range. Believe me when I tell you it’s times like this when I hate being an analyst by professional and disposition. It’s one of the rare moments when being dumb and happy would appear to be a blessing.

The research and worry is all for a bit later though. Right now it’s Friday evening and I have a happy and contented, if not exactly healthy, dog sitting next to me wanting undivided attention. Tending to that feels like it’ll probably be the most productive and cathartic thing I’ve done all day.

Azimuth check…

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Tomorrow I’m going to a class titled something like “Mid-Career Retirement Planning Seminar.” Aside from the less than creative naming, it took a while for what that really means to sink in to my thick skull. This coming January, I’ll have ten years on the job. Admittedly, that’s on the low side of the “mid-career” range, but it still doesn’t quite seem possible that I’ve been hanging out with Uncle Sam long enough for a decade to slip past more or less unnoticed. Apparently I have. As a reward, Uncle wants me to find out what it’s going to take to retire to something other than an old age of dining on cat food and choosing between paying my electric bill and buying my medication.

I’ve got my own theory on how to do that, of course, and a guy who makes good money to give me advice and keep an eye on my retirement nest egg, but I’m an open minded kind of guy (stop snickering). I’m open to hearing whatever brilliant ideas this bunch of contractors came up with. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt until someone mentions Social Security being the “third leg of the retirement stool”, or working past 70 to offset potential market losses and as a hedge against accidentally living long enough to hit the century mark. Since I’m under no delusion of Social Security being anything more than a happy memory by 2040 and the prospect of dropping dead at my desk isn’t particularly appealing, I think I’ll plan for the more traditional route.

Either way, tomorrow could be anything from passingly informative to mildly amusing. That’s mostly going to depend on the performance of whoever is giving the pitch. In any case, I’ll keep my snark at the ready in case it’s needed on short notice.