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For the last 2 weeks I’ve been having to deal with “all the pains.” Between the loss of 2 pets, the stress headaches from that and trying to complete all my interviews, and now excruciating tooth pain, I’m seriously over all of this.

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2 Pets In 1 Week

If you follow me on the social medias, you would already be aware of the reason why there was an off week for the podcast. Long story short, in a matter of 2 days, more than likely in 1, we put our 12 year old Dalmatian to sleep and also woke up to a dead tortoise.

If you recall, in my last episode, I talked about how our dog, Emmitt, had been sick and not eating. He actually had not eaten anything substantial in about 3 weeks. We had blood tests done, dental exams, x-rays. Every test just came back with more questions because nothing was able to explain why he wasn’t eating. They gave us a medication to try to stimulate his appetite, but it’s hard to give a dog medication when he’s not eating anything in the first place. We were given an suggestion to see a specialist and get ultrasounds and biopsies and such, but all of those things take time to scheduling and waiting on results. Time he didn’t have. Every day we waited on tests was a day he wasn’t eating and a day he wasted further away.

Ultimately, we made the decision to put him to sleep rather than watch him slowly starve to death. He had gone 3 weeks without any legitimate meals and at least 1 whole week without anything at all. He couldn’t even drink water anymore. Although we knew that he didn’t have a long time left, as he was already coming up on his 12th birthday, this was not how we wanted him to go. Always our protector, even to the very end, he did try to growl at the Dr. when she went to give him the shot. But he went calmly, without any other fight, and I would rather we went that way, with us holding on to him, than slowly wasting away.

That Was Just Tuesday

To add some icing to the crap cake that started off that week. (That all happened on a Tuesday.) We awoke the next morning to find our tortoise, Shelby, had also died. If you recall, at the beginning of the summer, we had been having issues with her as well. She wasn’t really eating right. She wasn’t being very active. There was an incident of her possibly over-heating. But we were kind of at a loss for what to do with her. Our regular vet didn’t treat reptiles, and the nearest exotic pet clinic was an hour away. But every morning I would turn on her lamp and put out some food. I’d give her a little pat on the shell to wake her up, and she’d move on over to her basking spot. But on Wednesday morning, when I went to wake her up, she didn’t. I picked her up to check on her, and she was ice cold. I took her to the sink to run some warm water over her, but nothing.

My wife, who was already still having a rough time after the loss of Emmit, was more than a little upset with the news of another loss. Understandably, she needed to take some time to grieve and deal with everything. We have chosen to have both of the animals cremated, like our Boxer, Cheyenne, was a few years ago. We also purchased a living urn for Shelby, which turned out to be enormous by the way, which will contain a small tree, in place of just a standard cedar box for her ashes.

Bring on the Dental Pain

If you’ve known me for very long you know that I’ve struggled with dental issues for my whole life. At the time of writing, I currently wear a partial upper denture to replace my 6 front teeth. I’ve also had just about all of my molars removed on top and bottom. Eating is fun times. What teeth I do have left, generally are a regular source of aggravation. You may not know this, but when you are missing teeth, the remaining ones will drift apart to fill in the gaps. That has happened to me over the years. My upper natural teeth have rather large gaps between them, which results in large amounts of food wedging in there with just about every meal. This also leads to a great deal of pressure and, in some cases, extreme pain if I do not remove said blockages promptly.

Regardless of how I take care of my teeth, they still continue to degrade. I’ve now found myself in a constant state of pain from 4 of my remaining teeth on one side. At this point I cannot eat almost anything truly solid. I’m seriously considering buying up a shit load of Ensure just to get me through to this weekend.

I say that because, on Saturday morning, I have an appointment with a dentist to see about this pain. It is highly likely that they will be removing some, if not all of the offending teeth. The problem is that 2 of those teeth currently hold in my front denture. I may actually walk out of the dentist on Saturday, not only without the ability to chew on one side, but also without the ability to wear my other teeth. Maybe it’s time to just rip them all out.

Working through grief

I’m the kind of person who buries myself in my work to deal with grief. I’m not saying I don’t cry. Realistically, I’ve cried a bit just writing this post. But when I need to move on from painful things, I tend to bury myself in projects. I realize that it’s basically avoidance, but it helps me get through things. As such, I’ve spent a completely unnecessary amount of time working on designs for the ODO Merch Shop. I’ve made new designs for backpacks and duffel bags, and redesigned the old ones. I’ve added shoes, and buttons, and magnets, and more things for people to buy with my face on it. The thing is, it’s all just for me. I enjoy making things. I get a certain sense of accomplishment from designing a new bag or shirt that someone out there could buy some day and enjoy. Even if nobody ever buys them, I still created it. After all, it’s really all just a distraction from all of the pain we’ve been dealing with in this house for the last 2 weeks.

Promos And Shoutouts

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Chris Osborne from Play Comics

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Some Kind Of Brown

A Girl And Her Horror

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