User Interface Design

Sorry about the color used in the banner above. Yes, I know better. Give me a few days to experiment with the photo and the font color, and check back. I’m still learning about the attributes that WordPress gives me; I would like to move the text off of the center of the image but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.

In Memoriam

Well, Buster made it to the cardiologist (see my previous post on Preventive Medicine, below).

And the cardiologist spent three minutes with him and said, “His heart is fine. It’s not his heart.”

It turns out that Buster had a tumor attached to his spleen; a tumor that was the size of a grapefruit. And it was pressing on nearly all of his internal organs in his abdomen. I think to myself, in dumb hindsight, no wonder he wasn’t hungry. He thought he was full. This mass was pressing on his stomach.

[I use the phrase “dumb hindsight” because that’s the best way for me to describe the nature of this event, looking backward in time. However, it isn’t true hindsight, because I pointed out to one of the veterinarians in early January that Buster’s appetite was slowing down. “It’s as if something is telling his brain that he’s full,” I recall saying to the vet. It’s a comment that I wish now that I had yelled at the top of my lungs. Now that’s a true hindsight.]

And the folks at the emergency care facility, to their credit, were willing to employ all of their technology in order to treat him. That would have started with a blood transfusion and been followed by surgery to remove the mass. The platelets in Buster’s blood were at one-third the level of a healthy dog, and he was severely anemic.

None of these processes is a slam-dunk with humans or with dogs. By that I mean that any step in the treatment process can cause complications. So there are no guarantees that Buster would have even survived the transfusion, let alone the surgery. Following surgery, Buster would be in serious pain, and the vet discussed post-operative “pain management,” as she called it, with me. And if the mass was determined to be cancerous, then Buster would need chemotherapy as part of a complicated post-operative regimen.

And even if all of that is completely successful, with no complications whatsoever, Buster would have an even more uncomfortable life for perhaps 4 or 6 more months. He likely would not be able to run around the yard at high speed, to wrestle with me, to take walks, or to do any of the active things he liked to do.

And those are the reasons why I couldn’t let my friend and loyal companion suffer any more.

One thing I learned from Buster in the eight years and two weeks that he was a part of my life was that every day is a good day. Of course, Buster didn’t have to be concerned about human-adult matters, like how your job is going, or if you remembered to mail this month’s mortgage payment on time, or how your investments are doing, or whether you’ll watch Leno or Letterman tonight. Buster was way smarter than that… he knew that none of that stuff really matters anyway. And, because it didn’t matter, he could give me a big greeting and a smile at the beginning of the day, which is what he did each and every morning. And he could give me a big greeting and a smile and what I call the “twisty-dance” in the afternoon, which is what he did each and every afternoon when I got home from work. He was happy, and, therefore, every day was a good day.

And so, when you get up each morning, forget about all of your cares and declare it to be a good day. At least until you get to work, anyway.

And when you come home from work, and you walk in your front door, and you’re greeted by your wife and your children, forget about everything else – forget about your job, your commute, your taxes – and declare it to be a good day all over again. And give everyone a hug and a kiss, and remember that life is short.

Preventive Medicine?

I have an 8-year old Boston Terrier named Buster. Buster is a great companion and has a very endearing personality that, as just about anyone who owns a Boston can tell you, is typical of the breed. He’s been a part of our family since he was 8 weeks old.

Since December, however, Buster’s health has been declining. At first, I just saw some fatigue, which in itself is unusual since Boston Terriers are naturally high in energy. So I took him to my local veterinarian in early January to have him checked out, but the vet couldn’t find anything wrong with him.

As we went through January, I started seeing more symptoms: decreased appetite, trouble sleeping, trouble maintaining body temperature. So… back we go to the vet… and this time we get a diagnosis. Turns out that Buster is suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy, a form of congestive heart failure. We get a referral to a local specialist, a veterinary cardiologist, to whom we are encouraged to contact to set up an evaluation and an EKG. The thinking here is that with a proper evaluation by a cardiac specialist, Buster’s condition is likely to be treatable, since it appears that we caught the DCM in an early stage.

And this is where the story takes a turn.

So I called the vet-cardiologist’s office on Monday morning to make an appointment. “Our next available appointment is on the 14th,” the receptionist tells me. The 14th is ten days away. “Isn’t there anything sooner? What if my dog doesn’t survive the next ten days?” I ask. “If you have an emergency, come in anytime, 24-7, and we’ll treat your dog,” I’m told. After-hours care requires an additional emergency-care fee, by the way, but that’s no big deal.

I’ll spare you some of the drama, but the bottom line is this: if your pet has an emergency and is critical, you can possibly get “urgent care.” Otherwise, make an appointment, and wait your turn. (We actually went to the vet-cardiologist’s late Monday afternoon, in the hope of getting seen by the doctor after all of the scheduled patients had been examined, but we were turned away. So much for “24-7” care.)

By seeking an appointment sooner rather than later, I am trying to prevent an emergency. But they don’t have a way of scheduling an evaluation for that. Imagine how much better Buster could be feeling if we were able to get an evaluation now and get a treatment regimen started now. He’d probably be in much better shape by the 14th. Instead, I have to do whatever I can do to keep Buster comfortable, and fed, and rested, so he doesn’t deteriorate further. At the risk of sounding too dramatic, I need to keep Buster alive. I’ll keep you posted.

[Follow-up edit: My friend Perry helped put this in perspective for me. He agreed that it’s a good thing to be a responsible pet owner, trying to practice preventive medicine and address my dog’s medical issues earlier rather than later in an attempt to initiate curative treatment at the soonest possible time. He also said that for every one of me there are fifty old ladies with poodles with hangnails trying to get appointments at vet clinics.]

“Hello world!”

As many of you probably know, the phrase “Hello World!” is the output of what is typically the first exercise featured in the myriad of computer-programming books from Lisp to Java. It is also the default title of each new blog hosted by my friends at WordPress.com… and since I work in the I.T. business and, consequently, a bit of my content/rants here will be about the I.T. business, I decided to keep the default title to introduce my first blog entry. Don’t worry… I’m sure I can come up with much more sarcastic titles to my entries going forward.

I am the owner and principal consultant of an I.T. consulting company in the Washington, D.C. area. I have lived in the Washington area for over 20 years, although I am not a native Washingtonian; I grew up in Texas. In general, I’ll write articles about northern Virginia living, about my occasional forays into downtown Washington, trips I’ve taken, people I know, opinions I respect, improvements to my tennis game (don’t hold your breath on that), occasional rants about politics, traffic, the cost of gasoline, and, as I said, the I.T. business in the Washington area and elsewhere.