Nightingale

Buying a gun and learning how to use it, and learning martial arts are just two different forms of self defense. Personally, I advocate both.

That girl just asked to be raped with that mini skirt on... yeah.... I think they meant that the parents or school was the enabler, not the victim.

I don't live in an overly violent society either, but I've met too many victims to feel safe. As a karate instructor, too many of them came in to the studio to learn to defend themselves after something had happened, rather than being proactive about their safety beforehand. # Every two and a half minutes, somewhere in America, someone is sexually assaulted. # One in six American women are victims of sexual assault, and one in 33 men. # In 2004-2005, there were an average annual 200,780 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. # About 44% of rape victims are under age 18, and 80% are under age 30. -2005 National Crime Victimization Survey

How about older, more mature, college professors? It would've been nice if a few of them had been able to shoot back in the Virginia Tech incident.

Yep. It seems like wherever you go, you're either in Hurricane country, Earthquake Country, Tornado Country, or Wildfire Country...

Yes, it does. I feel like an idiot. I keep crying over the dumbest things... a cat barf stain on the carpet that I missed last time I scrubbed... the healing scratch on my leg from the very last time he ever scratched me, when I tried to feed him like the vet told me to when he didn't want to eat... a kitten on the LA City website in the little "pet adoptions" box that looked just like Ani when he was little... these stupid little things just set me off crying again.

Thank you. I'm sorry for your loss too.

Whenever I did laundry, Ani the light colored cat would invariably want to sleep in the dark colored clothes fresh from the dryer. Indy the dark colored cat is always found in the whites basket. I think they choreographed this on purpose.

Thank you for that. I read it, and it did help, although it made me cry again.

I was thinking about it, but Anakin's only experience with freefall was a tumble out my living room window, and I don't think he enjoyed the experience.

My mom's a junior high teacher. We can probably get you in touch with the resource teacher there in orange county.

I used CareCredit to pay for my kitty's medical bills. I think they ended up totaling over $7500 overall. Depending on whether your vet accepts care credit and what deal they've negotiated, you can end up with between 3 months and 4 years interest free to pay off the bill. www.carecredit.com

Thank you, everyone.

He did, and you did. Everybody's been saying that, and I really hope they're right. I miss him so much, but I hope I did what was best for him.

update here: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2987895;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread

I talked with the vet extensively this morning, and we pretty much decided that medically, there wasn't much more that could be done, and nothing at all that had a decent chance of a good outcome. They told me that Anakin's disease was incurable, and the absolute best we could hope for is six to eight months of managing it before it came back much more strongly, and even management was unlikely at this point because he was already so sick. I didn't want to put him through any more. My dad, mom, and I went down to the vet's office to see him, and we brought my other cat, Indy, who kept running all over my condo looking for Ani every time I came home. We thought it might be easier for him to understand if he was there. We talked to the vet again and went over all the options, none of them good, and decided that at this point, euthanasia would be best, because his quality of life would really have sucked, and it would've been constant trips to the vet and a lot of needles and surgeries for an outcome that wouldn't be good any way you looked at it. Apparently, cats just don't get better from this form of disease once it gets to this point. He had tubes coming out of his nose, bladder, and veins, and kept meowing and couldn't get comfortable, but it was so damn hard to tell the vet to go ahead. We all said our goodbyes, and the vet asked if I wanted to be there. My dad said he would stay if I couldn't, but I felt that he was my cat, and I owed it to him to be there, because he'd been the most wonderful little friend. So, I stayed, and my mom and dad and Indy were there, and the vet just injected the port in his central line, and he was gone in a few seconds, peacefully and painlessly. I kept petting his head and telling him how much I loved him and would miss him and that I was sorry, but we just couldn't fix what was wrong. I hope he understood and that I did what he would've wanted me to do. It took me about an hour to stop crying afterwards, and my mom and dad weren't dry-eyed, either. Indy, on the other hand, is now acting much more like his usual self, although a bit quieter than usual. I think he just needed to be there to understand. Well, at least, I hope he understands, because I don't. I keep finding myself talking about Ani in the present tense, and then crying again when I remember. I miss him so much. I hope I did the right thing.

an update. I am absolutely furious with two different vet offices at the moment. The first vet missed the diagnosis of "Classic mast cell disease" not once, but four times over a five week period. I asked them repeatedly to biopsy the skin lumps, and four different vets insisted that no, this is an allergy, a biopsy will just tell us that it's inflamation, and we already know that, so no biopsy. The only reason he finally got one is that I flat out demanded it. According to the three vets he's seen at a different vet's office, his symptoms are very typical for mast cell, and the other vets shouldn't have dismissed the skin lumps as unrelated to the vomiting, especially since they both showed up at the same time, and the lumps remaining unchanged for weeks should've ruled out an allergy anyway. So, we have a missed diagnosis. Then, they tell me that Ani is ready to go home yesterday. So, I make arrangements to pick him up after Disney with Beth and Debs. So, I show up with his carrier, they say they're getting him ready to go, come back an hour later, say they just need to pull his central line, and then he's ready. Then, after that's done, the vet comes in with the cat, and after I put him away in the carrier, says "we wish we could've given him another blood transfusion." I looked at her and said "why didn't you?" (I'd already authorized any treatment necessary). She said "because you wanted to take him home." I said "I only wanted to take him home because your office told me he was ready to go home!" I wouldn't have even been there trying to take him home if they hadn't told me to come get him. Now, we've got a vet telling me he needs a treatment only after making it much more difficult and traumatic for him to get it. I'm guessing this was some kind of miscommunication on their part, but I'm still pissed. So, he goes back into the back room for a second central line and more blood, and Beth, Debs and I go back to my place. About an hour after we get back, the phone rings. The vet tells me he's had a massive mast cell issue that caused the discharge of histamine, and the usual treatment for this is benadryl. He's violently allergic to benadryl. The vet asks me what I want her to do. I don't know. I'm not a vet! Then I hear that he's going into cardiac arrest, and the vet puts the phone down, and I'm listening to the CPR and all that, and my other cat is sitting on my chest purring, and I'm hysterical because I can't see what's going on. Then, they come back and tell me that he's got a pulse and is breathing, but has no brain function. I'm thinking WTF, he was having circulation issues for all of twenty seconds. How is he brain dead? The vet asks what I want to do. Since he's breathing and has a pulse and isn't in pain, I say to wait and see what happens. The vet says he has a less than 10% chance of ever being able to go home. They call me back two hours later saying that the brain function is back, that he's doing much better than expected, although this incident left him weak and much less stable than he had been, and there's nothing stopping the tumors from causing this again. They're going to call an oncologist and find out if doing chemo on a patient this unstable would hurt him, or would help him by killing off the bad cells and letting him heal. The vet says that his prognosis would've been much better had the mast cell disease been dealt with weeks ago while he was still strong and doing pretty well. They didn't give me a revised prognosis, and say I should come by to see him today. I have no idea what to do.

Thanks, everyone. Things are still pretty touch and go now.

We've raised over $5000!!! Thank you to everyone who has sponsored us!!!

Small hands? I have fairly small hands and the Sig fits great. My hands aren't very wide, but I have a long palm and fingers, and the sig just feels wrong.

Yep. 22/45

Most sigs don't fit my hand right, but I will look into it.

I went to the range today, because after the week I've had I really needed to blow off some stress. I felt like shooting something that would make bigger holes in the target than the 9mm Glock 17 I usually rent when I want to practice with something with more power than my .22 ruger, so I asked for an HK USP .40. That gun is a wonderful piece of engineering! I've crossed the 9mm off my "to buy after vet bills are paid" list and replaced it with the .40. It's a little more expensive to practice with, but the extra firepower is probably worth it. Opinions?

Target shooting is a fun hobby. After everything that's happened this week, going to the range today and killing some paper with a .40 really felt good. If someone who wants to hurt me or someone I care about, I'd like to be able to do something about it.

It's great if you want to poison yourself with vitamin A. "Airborne's 5,000 IUs of vitamin A per serving has become another major health concern. The recommended safe upper limit for vitamin A is 10,000 IUs daily.[9] This amount is easily exceeded when following Airborne's directions, as it is stated on the packaging, to "repeat every three hours as necessary" (with a maximum of three doses per day)" -wikipedia