Archives 2026

This weekend I finally got around to setting up my SnapMaker U1 printer which was sitting in it’s box for most of the week. The set up process for this printer is significantly more involved then what I have been accustomed to with my last three Bambu Lab printers. If I were to guess I probably spent double the time getting the U1 up and printing compared to my Bambu’s.

That being said, the process was not difficult. It was made very straightforward by the excellent manual that they include with the printer. The U1 takes a very different approach to multicolor printing utilizing four print heads instead of one as the Bambu Lab printers do. The advantage to this is two fold. There is significantly less waste material when doing multi-color printing. When I say less, it’s a minute fraction, especially with a print that has a lot of color changes.

The other advantage is speed. I loaded up a multi-color print on one of the Bambu printers and the U1. On the Bambu the print was estimated to take over 14 hours. On the U1 the estimate was 5 hours, that’s crazy how much faster it is because of the multiple print heads which have their own color assigned to them instead of one print head servicing all filament colors which requires tons of time purging and priming with every color change.

On the negative side the printer is louder than my Bambu printers, mostly due to it’s open top construction. It’s touch screen is nice but not moveable. I would say the overall fit, finish and quality doesn’t seem like it matches Bambu either but it’s less money while delivering much faster prints with almost no waste so that is a trade off that most will be willing to make. The U1 branded version of Orca Slicer is not as polished as the Bambu Studio version but it is fine. So far I am very happy with the U1 and plan to be putting it through a bunch of testing.

I spent a little more time in WoW over the weekend, speed leveling more characters to 80. At this point I have a system in place that seems to work great. My goal is to get all of my characters to 80 before the expansion launches, it might be doable if I get enough free time to do so.

I played pickleball Saturday morning but didn’t enjoy myself as much as I normally would for several reasons. They had 5 courts closed because they were a bit wet with dew which I thought was stupid. In the 4+ years I have been going there they never did this. It’s pretty simple, if the court is a little wet you take a little extra care with your footing. It was like they were treating the players like kids in my mind.

With less courts available it made the wait between games even longer than normal. I was waiting at least a half hour in between playing which sucks. By the time I got back on the court again my body had already cooled down significantly which is not great for my problematic knees/IT Band. Despite being there two hours I only got three games in and I had a sore IT band as a prize. I was not happy.

Elsa had a pretty normal weekend. She is now off the appetite stimulant and diarrhea meds. I have noticed she is not eating as much and requires either myself or my girlfriend to get her started eating by hand feeding her which is frustrating. She still has issues with “leaking” although my system of big absorbent pads that I can throw in the wash seem to mitigate the damage. I did not have to wash the bedding all weekend which was progress. She was acting more or less normal otherwise except for drinking a lot of water.

The next hurdle will be trying to transition her to kidney friendly food. I have a box of it coming. It is expensive as you can imagine since it requires a vet prescription. The food is lower in protein and phosphorus content. If she does not like the way it smells she won’t eat it, period so I am crossing my fingers she actually likes the stuff. It’s supposed to be human grade food. The stuff we are giving is high quality but has more protein then it should with her kidney numbers.

The Winter Olympics opened this weekend. I saw some of the opening ceremony which I thought was well done. The venue and backdrop in northern Italy seems absolutely beautiful. I caught a few events on TV over the weekend as well. I have always been a big fan of the Olympics. The idea of competing against the best of the entire world has always fascinated me. I also find myself amazed at the amount of planning and preparation that has to go on while hosting the Olympic games. It must take a team of thousands to get all of the details handled.

I watched the Super Bowl last night and although I had no significant rooting interest I preferred if the Seahawks won, which they did on the back of a crazy good defense that made the Patriots look clueless for most of the game. I did not pay close attention to most of the commercials although the one that I did see and like the most was the Dunkin Donuts spot which had a ton of famous actors in it from the Friends cast, Ben Affleck, Ted Danson from Cheers and more.

There was a lot of anticipation about the halftime show featuring Bad Bunny. Trump has been very active criticizing the singer who is very well known in the hispanic community. Bad Bunny has been vocal criticizing the activities of ICE and what it represents. So everyone was curious exactly what the halftime performance would be like. I was not impressed.

I understand the point he was trying to make but doing every song in Spanish on a Super Bowl stage was lame in my opinion. If this was a soccer game, sure, but this is American football, doing the entire performance in spanish just was not cool nor necessary IMO. Even my girlfriend who is hispanic didn’t like the show and said even she had a hard time making out the words because of the way Bad Bunny performs/sings which is very fast and poorly enunciated. It was probably the least enjoyable SB halftime show I ever witnessed. As a throw in they had Lady Gaga sing a quick song in English but other than that it was todo espanol. There are plenty of ways to make the world aware of the outrage over current day events. I don’t think taking the Super bowl halftime show hostage was a good way to do it, IMO.

Yesterday I had an opportunity to talk to a co-worker who also is an ex-neighbor of mine. We were talking about my old house and how it has been sitting empty for sale for months. He then described just how bad the traffic situation has become since I moved due to the crush of housing and retail they are building in the area now. He said just to make the left turn off our street onto the main road takes around 25 minutes. There is no stop light and a near constant flow of traffic to try to cut into so it is an absolute nightmare. It sounds almost as bad as the early days when Immokalee was a two lane road filled with dump trucks. Back then the commute of 25 miles could take 90 minutes. It’s not back to that level yet but it’s getting there. After hearing the story I felt even more happy that I got out of there just in time.

Elsa had her return visit to the vet yesterday. They checked her heart, blood pressure and did another blood test. The roughly 30 minutes in the office rung up another $400 on my credit card. The news was a mix of good and less than good. Because she has been eating so well she is back up to her normal weight, she had lost a couple pounds when this ordeal started. Her pancreas numbers which were elevated are back to normal as well. However she still has a heart murmur, elevated blood pressure and her kidney values have gone back up a little which were already in the bad zone.

So I talked through the scenarios with my vet. Although Elsa has been eating great for us, the food she is eating is not ideal for a dog with kidney issues. High protein and phosphorus are the enemy of weak kidneys. She wants me to try starting her on a renal support diet. The catch is it has to be something she will actually eat. Food for Dogs has human grade meals that support the kidneys so I am going to get some of it and see if Elsa will eat it. In addition the vet is considering putting her on some meds for the blood pressure because elevated blood pressure is not good for kidneys either.

I would like to make one change at a time to see how she reacts. Get her on the renal food first and see where the numbers fall. That is a big if just because Elsa is so fussy normally with what she eats. We are still initializing her food sessions by feeding her by hand. I told the vet that it’s difficult to change things when she finally is more or less back to normal other than her incontinence returning due to us removing the med to control it. Speaking of that…

As I mentioned in the last entry I sprung into action with multiple layers of leak protection buying in addition to running my washer and dryer nearly non-stop when I am home. Last night I had the two big leak pads on the bed which Elsa was laying on when I fell asleep. Well during the night she must have gotten up and shifted to the point where she was on the edge of the pad, pressed right up against me. She had another accident which resulted with me waking up with a wet pair of shorts and inciting an early morning round of laundry and bedding rotation. Of course it is frustrating but I can’t get mad at her, I just have to keep trying to mitigate the impact. I might try to get her more accustomed to the diapers this weekend.

Last night I shot a quick 5 minute video talking about the ITC filing one of the prominent EUC dealers in the US is involved with. It has created an absolute uproar in the community because it is basically a cash/money grab over a seemingly frivolous patent claim. If you want to find out more details about take a look.

This weekend we will continue focusing on Elsa’s wellness as well as taking in the Super Bowl although I have no rooting interest. I also have my Snapmaker U1 3D printer that needs to be integrated into my office. If I wasn’t focused on Elsa’s health I would have had the printer up and running the day after I received it normally. Oh well, you have to be able to roll with not normal periods of life as they will never stop coming.

Speaking of not normal, I received a notification that 5 years have already passed since my last colonoscopy and I need to schedule another one. I will be procrastinating on that call back for a little while.

There have been a number of shifts in my daily routine since Elsa has entered this period of health issues that require attention. In addition to all of the cooking of the food we give her which is done almost exclusively by my girlfriend, feeding her takes more time as well. Instead of just dumping some food in a bowl and calling it good we now put the food on a plate and at least initially will start feeding her pieces of chicken or other food by hand, she actually likes this. Eventually she will start eating the rest off the plate by herself but if we just put a full plate in front of her she looks at us and waits for us to give her some food by hand first. I also act like I am blowing on each piece of food to cool it, it seems to help to identify each morsel as “special”. We need to carefully embed the couple pills she is taking inside of the food to avoid detection which can be tricky as sometimes she can smell them and will not eat that piece of “contaminated” food. The good news is she has been eating very well and has had normal BM’s which has been our short term goal.

The bigger issue is that we stopped giving her the pill that helped control her incontinence, at least for now on vet’s suggestion. That has caused Elsa to “leak” quite often when sleeping. Since she normally sleeps in the bed with me I have been basically running a laundromat, having to wash the bedding daily.

It also incited a rash of buying to come up with a better game plan. I purchased a second mattress protector and bedspread so if there is an accident I can just swap in a fresh set instead of having to rush to get the bedding washed, again. I also bought these large absorbent, washable pads that I used on the bed last night. Two of them pretty much cover the king size bed. The thought is if she leaks on them it’s much easier and faster to throw those in the laundry than all of the bedding. Finally I also bought a 12 pack of dog diapers and tried those Monday night. Elsa allowed us to put them on but when I woke up in the middle of the night to check on her she had managed to get it off although the diaper clearly had absorbed liquid in the process. I may try to get her more used to the diapers.

I will be checking with the vet once we get the next round of blood work done tomorrow to see what her thoughts are on treating the incontinence either by resuming the med she was on or by some other means. If the vet says she should stay off the pill, so be it. I’ll just wear out my washer and dryer if need be.

Elsa has gone through the last two days at home ok albeit with more leaks. I have been monitoring her with a Ring camera. Her energy and emotion seems good. This is the most consistent nutrition she has had in a long time. She has been making 3 BMs a day at this point. Once a day was the old normal. Anyway to accommodate all of the extra steps I now have in Elsa’s daily care my official alarm time has been moved from 6:30 to 6:00 AM, not the end of the world.

Yesterday my new Snapmaker U1 showed up. I did not feel like investing the time to get it set up last night. Instead I logged into WoW and finished leveling another character from 70-80. Right now they make it stupid easy and fast to do so, so I am taking advantage of it.

I’m sure most people have had situations where a loved one has some sort of health issue. Depending on the issue and the loved one, addressing that issue makes most other things in your daily routine seem somewhat trivial and lacking importance. That is how my weekend sort of felt where the focus was on getting Elsa eating, drinking and pooping normally. It seems like at this point, she is.

The vet has given me a total of 5 different bottles of pills. The only ones I have been giving her is one for the diarrhea and another which is an appetite stimulant. The running faucet that was her poop on Friday has stopped and she has had three or four solid BM’s since. She also has been eating regularly albeit due to my girlfriend cooking for her during the weekend, making chicken, rice, veggies and ground turkey among other things. It also isn’t as simple as just throwing down a bowl with food in it. We normally have to feed her some pieces of chicken by hand and then she will keep eating on her own. She also seems to like the freeze dried ultra expensive food I bought for her.

One of the things the vet advised was that we stopped at least for now giving her the med used to help with her incontinence problem, something she has been taking for well over a year. The end result of that is her having an accident in my bed the last two nights requiring me to throw the bedding into the laundry and redo the bed daily. I have an alternative medicine for incontinence coming as well as some washable absorbent pads that I could keep under her in the bed as well as dog diapers, yes dog diapers. One of these options hopefully will handle this issue.

However other than that Elsa has been acting pretty normal. We went for a couple walks and my girlfriends dog hung with her a bunch this weekend which she liked as well. She is scheduled to go back to the vet on Thursday to get her numbers checked again. The blood test on Friday revealed her numbers had climbed some but I am not surprised since they were taken the morning after a night of diarrhea and throwing up twice. I am hopeful if we can keep her eating and drinking normally that her numbers will normalize more. I do think however that she clearly has some degree of kidney dysfunction, it’s just a matter of how well it can be managed.

Like I mentioned I was sort of in an Elsa bubble all weekend. It wasn’t hard to want to stay home with her as it has been bitterly cold by Florida standards. I walked outside this morning to temps in the 30s. I got my base chores done this weekend and dug into leveling more characters in WoW to level 80, the starting point for the new expansion that drops soon. I now have a system in place that allows me to go from 70-80 in roughly an hour, which is kind of nuts. I now have 5 or 6 characters up to 80 and will speed level the rest as I can. It is fun for me as they have simplified the game for me to the point where after a few mouse clicks I can get up and running with a character without having to set up and learn all of my abilities in depth. I am sure purists don’t like this but for me, it’s great.

So the other unknown in Elsa’s condition is how much help I will get from the pet insurance carrier I have. I recently switched in December because the old carrier made some ridiculous changes in their coverage terms. I am hoping the new provider doesn’t require me to fight them tooth and nail for every charge. In the span of a week of care I have racked up some pretty incredible bills already. Sure, I can afford to pay them but I really hope the insurance reimburses me partially to dull the financial pain a bit.

As I documented yesterday Elsa’s eating had improved and with it her overall demeanor. When I got home from work at the end of the day she seemed happy and energetic, even jumping up to greet me a bit. I also took her for a short walk, something I have not been able to do all week. However during that walk her poop was pure diarrhea, a sign of things to come.

She did eat more food my girlfriend made last night although significantly less than the night before. We wrote it off to her eating a bunch of food the last 24 hours. She was still acting ok although each time I let her out to pee she also had some diarrhea action which concerned me. The last thing she needs right now is something to dehydrate her as diarrhea can do.

Last night was not good. I took her out twice in the early hours of the morning where the trend continued of doing a number 1 and runny number 2. I decided overnight I was going to use PTO today to stay home with her as I did not like the way things were going. Once I got up in the morning I discovered she also had some accidents in the master closet and in the bedroom. In addition she threw up twice, something she had not done since last Sunday.

I already was going to the vet for her to get more fluid injected under her skin and for them to take more blood work. When I described the events of last night they gave her meds for diarrhea, nausea and yet another special food that I am confident she won’t touch. I have a feeling it is going to be very difficult for me to get her to eat anything right now.

The blood test results from today are going to be very significant. If the numbers swung significantly back towards the bad side since Wednesday it is going to indicate that she is having significant kidney dysfunction which would translate into her ultimate demise. As I have been reading about kidney failure in dogs and the symptoms of it I realized that she may have been having issues for a prolonged period of time. Things that I wrote off to her just slowing down some as she gets older and Elsa being Elsa, like an unwillingness to eat at times, sleeping a bunch, drinking a lot of water and the odd behavior with eating non-food objects obsessively was likely misguided.

She had a full physical including blood work in August and although the kidney related numbers were somewhat elevated they were nowhere close to dangerous levels which is why I have been collecting urine samples for them to analyze several times since then as a precaution.

I can only hope that the numbers today are promising although my gut is telling me that things are not looking good. Compared to my other dogs I have owned Elsa has always been the most care free with very few health issues her entire life (11 years). For this potentially fatal condition to become front and center suddenly is a very tough thing to deal with. Just thinking about the possibility of losing her has made me tear up repeatedly over the last few days.

So yesterday Elsa spent the entire day at the vet again receiving IV fluids at a reduced rate while they tried to get her to eat various canned dog food with very minimal success although she ate mini Milk Bones like candy. They gave her some sort of shot to stimulate appetite but still had little success getting her to eat. I already told them how fussy she can be about eating but they seemed to think it was something else causing her not to eat. In addition to the appetite stimulant they sent me home with four bottles of pills to address various things related to appetite and one for pain/sleep. I was confident that her not eating was totally because of what they were trying to get her to eat, not because she was not hungry. Last night she proved me right.

My girlfriend cooked up chicken breast in a pan and mixed it with rice. Elsa ate a plate and a half of it. I did not give her any of the pills. She has kept the food down and her energy level seems good right now. Everything is not roses however, she had diarrhea when we brought her home but she was ok afterwards. She had a more solid BM at 3AM when I took her outside. Last night she had several times when her body was shaking. Each time it happened it stopped relatively quickly and I did not notice it this morning. That was another reason I wanted to not pump pills into her unnecessarily, who knows how they interact and what symptoms they could cause.

Her blood work numbers relating to kidney function have improved but are still in the danger zone. The big question is if there is significant permanent kidney damage. We won’t know that answer until more time passes and more blood measurements are done. When I talk to the vet yesterday she made an indirect reference to the possibility of Elsa ultimately not pulling through this which hit me hard. We certainly are not going to concede that outcome.

This morning I was back at the vet. They removed the IV port but wanted to inject fluid under her skin to assist in keeping her hydrated. She emerged with a big bubble on her back which looked odd. I took her back home. I am a bit nervous leaving her alone but I will be skipping the gym to go check on her over my lunch hour. I also set up an indoor Ring cam so I can monitor the main living space to see how she is doing.

It already has come in handy when I used it to see that she had drug out a few things from under a table that I forgot to put out of her reach. I immediately ran home, fearing she chewed/ate something again. Luckily it appeared she did not.

My girlfriend and I will keep doing whatever we can to weather this health storm for Elsa. It’s been challenging so far and I expect more challenges to come.

When I picked up Elsa from her overnight stay at the emergency vet the clerk said it showed I was owed a $558 refund. That was the estimated charge for the night so it made no sense why it would be refunded but hey, I was not going to ask questions, maybe this was just a small stroke of good fortune in the midst of this mess. Of course when they reopened at 5PM I received a message that the refund was an error and I received a new request for payment which I fulfilled. So much for found money, of course it was too good to be true.

So Elsa spent the day once again at the vet, receiving IV fluids which were bringing down her high kidney related numbers. However early afternoon I received a call from the vet. She said she had to reduce the flow of fluids because Elsa’s blood pressure was getting high. She said that when you are doing intensive IV fluid rehydration a potential issue can be it stresses the dogs cardiac system, great. So they dialed back the fluids and I picked her up after work. They gave me two different types of prescription food that they wanted me to get her to eat. They said they got her to eat some of it during the day. They thought that she would be more willing to eat more of it at home. I told them right away that if she doesn’t like the way the food smells she will just not eat it, no matter how hungry she is.

So once I got Elsa home my girlfriend came over. We tried repeatedly to get Elsa to eat the special food. She absolutely refused. She was laying in the bed and just looked exhausted, probably partially because she has taken in so few calories over the last few days. She had some periods of shallow, rapid breathing which were worrisome as well.

I told my girlfriend we should just make her some chicken, she needed to eat something. We cooked some boneless chicken breast in a pan and then gave it to her on a plate. It needs to be on a plate because if it’s in her dog bowl it somehow means it’s not special. Yes Elsa can be that neurotic. Thankfully she ate the chicken, clearing the plate. After eating she seemed a little more normal as well. She also would eat some of the expensive freeze dried raw food I bought for her recently as well as her treats so she definitely got some calories in her. She also had her first small BM in a few days last night which is a positive. She had a good night of sleep outside of getting me up at 3AM to let her go pee.

So this morning I tried to give Elsa more chicken however it was not nicely grilled like last night. My girlfriend boiled the remainder so I cut it up and heated it briefly in the microwave. Elsa wouldn’t eat it. I was very frustrated. I even took the chicken and threw it in a pan to heat it up, thinking that extra step would convince her the food was “special”. Nope, she still walked away from it. The only thing she would eat this morning were her Blue Buffalo steak treats. So I know she is hungry, she just is so picky at this point it’s a crapshoot if she will actually eat or not.

I dropped her back off at the vet this morning. I told them how eating the special food was an absolute no go but that she did eat some chicken. I told them about the periods of erratic breathing which they said they need to keep an eye on. Today they will be monitoring her blood work numbers as well as administering more IV fluids if they feel they are necessary.

To be quite honest my state of mind is not good. I don’t see a clear path to resolution yet based on what I am being told by the vet. All I want is for Elsa to return to normal but instead I feel like we are currently in a rabbit hole of uncertainty, not only about how her numbers got so elevated but also how we fix it.

Yesterday at the end of the day I headed to the vet to pick up Elsa, expecting to get further care instructions once I took her home. They told me they had her on IV fluids all day and as a result one of the two bad numbers had started to drop but they recommended that I admit her to the emergency vet to continue IV fluids all night as well.

The recommendation took me by surprise and my knee jerk reaction mentally was a hard no. Elsa is very nervous and gets freaked out easily so the idea of leaving her at the emergency vet overnight sounded very unappealing. My vet is very understanding and nice. She said that the IV fluid has started getting her numbers down and allowing them to continue overnight would keep that progress going. So I eventually agreed to follow their advice as it was the best thing for her health even though it is not ideal as far as her comfort and anxiety goes.

After stopping at the house I loaded her back up in the truck. My girlfriend and I got to the emergency vet which is only open 5PM to 8AM around 6PM. We were surprised to see a very full parking lot. We sat around for close to an hour before getting put in a room. While waiting we saw some animals in sad shape, the saddest being a small older dog that evidently had a heart attack and was eventually put down.

My regular vet had already sent over instructions for Elsa’s care but even so we had to go through the song and dance of the new vet doing yet another exam of her before they admitted her. I guess procedurally they have to. Elsa was surprisingly chill during most of the process, a byproduct of some meds she was given earlier. It wasn’t fun allowing the lady to lead Elsa back to the kennel area. She has never stayed anywhere overnight away from me or others I have trusted to babysit her during her lifetime. So the plan was to come back first thing in the morning to pick her back up and then take her back to my regular vet for another full day of getting IV fluids.

I woke up before the alarm I set which was already an hour earlier than normal. I was eager to pick up Elsa. They said she did well outside of not being interested in eating the special bland food my vet wants her to eat for now. Elsa was glad to see me but also still a bit disoriented. I covered her with one of her favorite fuzzy blankets for the ride to my vet since the temps were in the 40s this morning.

When I dropped her off my vet said that the plan is hopefully to allow Elsa to come home with me tonight as long as there is more progress in getting the bad numbers down. The effort however will continue as there is going to have to be careful monitoring going forward to make sure she does not fall into kidney failure. We also have to ensure there are no opportunities for her to eat foreign objects going forward. I just want her to be healthy and happy so life can get back to normal.

I played pickleball Friday at lunch and again Saturday morning. For whatever reason it was some of the best play I have had in quite a long while. On Saturday I won all four games I played and some of it was against some good players. I was just seeing and reacting to the ball well at the kitchen line. I have this habit of going for third shot drives instead of drops more often than I should. It goes back to my pitcher mentality, you want to overpower your opponent with pace.

The thing is even if you hit the ball hard from the baseline, because of the physics of a pickleball which make it travel slower, most decent players will be able to block that drive without much issue and you are stuck back at the rear of the court which is a disadvantage. However if you do a successful drop into the kitchen you make it difficult for your opponent to attack the ball as well as give yourself time to get up to the kitchen line yourself which is always the goal. Anyway the cliff notes version is I played smarter on Saturday, dropping and dinking and trying to be aggressive only when there are good opportunities for it.

I watched a good portion of both conference championship games. I loved that the game in Denver turned into a snow game which always makes things significantly more entertaining with New England pulling out a very close low scoring win. The Seahawks and Rams were the opposite, scoring regularly with Seattle coming out on top at the end. I don’t think the 2025 Eagles could have beaten any of those four teams. I also don’t think anyone at the beginning of the season would have picked those four teams to be in the championship games. Watching Matthew Stafford play QB makes me wish Hurts had the ability to make quick, decisive and accurate throws like he does.

Over the weekend I installed an auxiliary light in this cool barrel you see in the picture. This barrel was custom made by my uncle over 50 years ago for my parents. It made the move to Florida with my mom and wound up in my possession after my mom passed. The built in light that is wired never worked since I have had the barrel so I randomly decided to fix that Saturday afternoon, installing a LED bulb connected to a smart outlet so it turns on and off automatically every day. The stained glass becomes much more noticeable and cool when the light is on. I really enjoy seeing the barrel lit up now.

Installing the light meant I had to get inside the barrel. I pretty much forgot what was in there since it hasn’t been touched since I moved. I realized I had pet ashes in there from both of the cats we owned as well as two of the birds. Alison was into keeping ashes. Inside was also the paper I made up for my mom’s memorial service as well as her glasses and her purse. It was a mix of emotions to see all these things front and center again.

We had another horrific incident of ICE killing a man for no valid cause. The spin thrown on this by Trump loyalists would be comical if it did not involve an innocent man’s murder. Their spin is the guy should not have been carrying a gun so it was his fault that he got shot. Yes he was a legal gun owner something most Trump acolytes firmly support. Hell many will say the solution for gun violence in America is for more people to legally own guns. So despite this hypocrisy, the footage clearly shows the man was holding a cell phone, not a gun, yet was extinguished by yet another ICE officer on a power trip. The question is, what are the consequences for this repeated abuse of power and how long is this going to be allowed to continue? Unfortunately it is clear that walking around with protest signs doesn’t move the needle even a little bit.

So Elsa is currently at the vet. In the past year or two she has become increasingly obsessed with eating non-food items. She has swallowed parts of her stuffed toys, various paper products, plastic pee pads, a piece of rope from a beach bag and many other things. As a result I have been locking down the house further and further to limit her ability to do this. It’s crazy.

Well Friday evening she ripped apart and ate about half of a small sock she got a hold of. Typically when she eats non-food items the symptoms can be diarrhea and/or throwing up as well as low appetite until she passes whatever the object was. Well Saturday afternoon she threw up a huge amount. It almost looked like a snake of organic matter. It was hard to tell if there pieces of chewed up sock in there or not.

She resumed eating but has repeated the binge and purge cycle two more times, throwing up early Sunday morning and then again last night after she had eaten more food during the day. By nature I am a wait and see person when it comes to medical issues and since she typically would just pass whatever item it was and normalize I didn’t want to panic. However when she threw up for the third time last night I was genuinely concerned she may have some sort of GI blockage causing the issue. I called the vet this morning and left a message. They called me back and advised me to bring her in early, which I did.

They took an x-ray and said it did not seem to indicate there was a blockage which is good. The also did some blood work and it revealed some very concerning numbers related to her kidneys. They have been monitoring Elsa’s kidneys via urine tests for about a year or so. The numbers were elevated but not in the dangerous threshold. Well the numbers in her blood work were very high, well past danger thresholds. The vet asked if she could have eaten anything else that might be toxic as that could cause a spike in those numbers. I told her it’s possible but I saw no evidence of her eating anything else bad recently.

So the plan is to let them treat and monitor her during the day to see how she is. She ate some food this morning so they want to see if it goes through her GI system like it should. Hopefully the bad numbers slide back to normal, otherwise we could be dealing with a serious kidney issue. Elsa is like my child so not having the ability to know exactly what is wrong/hurting because she can’t tell me is frustrating. It’s equally frustrating that she continues to cause herself issues by eating this shit. I am crossing my fingers that she comes out of this ok. Just the image I have in my head of her being at the vet scared and wondering where I am makes me sad.

I wrote recently about how outrage is a word used so frequently when reacting to US politics and the actions of both Trump and his appointed minions. People that are not certified Trump cultists generally have a very hard time understanding how people could so blindly follow the words and guidance of a man that is clearly corrupt, an egomaniac, and that sounds like a child with his manner of dealing with people and conflict, resorting to name calling and insults instead of intelligent discourse and debate. Yet, there are a hardcore dedicated segment of the population that literally puts Trump on a God-like pedestal. They will follow and obey his every word.

I remember when I dug into scientology and how outrageous it was, they way it endlessly taps into its followers wallets while asking for iron clad loyalty in return. If someone in a family does not buy into the bullshit of scientology they are cast out, scorned and if they dare open their mouth are subject to retribution by “church” officials. Sound familiar? Trumpism is really just the latest iteration of scientology where a false idol is propped up and worshiped with great promises of rewards for doing so when in reality those actually being rewarded the most are already at the top of the food chain. It’s depressing to me to realize that human beings can still be manipulated/brain washed in this manner but it has always been this way throughout history and will continue to be that way until we devour ourselves in the end.

This weekend I will do my best to insulate myself from the madness that flows non-stop like a river via social media and news.