The
Hey Everybody,
This installment of the L.A. Report doesn't have
any entertainment news in it. I've been concentrating on my
"real" job lately.
My job at Unitrin, Inc. was supposed to have gone
away by now but they're behind schedule converting everything over from the
mainframe to their midrange system. If I were a bettin' man (and I am), I
would predict they'll keep us around until at least next summer. And I'm
still liking it there a lot. My co-workers are just so great -
they're co-operative, competent, friendly, personable, hard-working, fun,
etc. Best bunch I've ever worked with. My manager is great, too,
although the next layer of management in
I told many of you about
One night in late May, he was acting very
lethargic, so I took him to an emergency vet. They found that he, like
Spooky, had diabetes. When they tried to re-hydrate him, the fluid went
to his lungs. When they x-rayed his chest they found out that his
lungs were about half-full of fluid and he also had an enlarged
heart! They put him on antibiotics and put him in an oxygen tent for
a few days. He looked terrible. He was having such a hard time
breathing he had his mouth permanently agape and he would have to gulp in
every breath. I thought for sure he was a goner. But miraculously,
he recovered and they sent him home after being in the hospital for about a
week. When he got home he wouldn't eat so my other vet gave me some
things to force feed him. I was terrible at it so I boarded him there so
the vet techs could force feed him. I brought him home after a week there
and he still wouldn't eat.
Over the next several weeks he got skinnier and
skinnier. He was a mere skeleton; you could not only feel his bones, you
could feel how sharp his bones were! I took him to the vet again and they
gave me prednisone, an i.v. bag and more things to try to feed him.
They also discovered that his liver was in terrible shape so they wanted me to
bring him in for an ultrasound in 5 days (they only do their ultrasounds on
Wednesdays).
When I brought him in for that they said they
also wanted to do an FNA (Fine Needle Aspirate, similar to a biopsy) but they
wouldn't get the results for a few days. I said I didn't think he would
live a few more days because he had gotten so weak he could barely walk.
I decided that any treatment they might be able to do for his liver would be a long
shot at best, given his diabetes and heart disease.
So I had him put to sleep. I will miss him
but I'm relieved that he won't suffer any longer.
Remember how I complained in my last L.A. Report
about my lack of energy, particularly during my runs? I've also had a
very slight problem with enunciation, slight dizziness and lightheadedness from
time-to-time and my eyes were doing a weird jittery thing when I would pan them
all the way to the left. So I thought, again, that something just isn't
right somewhere. My general practitioner at Kaiser Permanente (my
HMO) didn't see anything glaringly obvious but gave me a referral to one
of their neurologists. The neurologist also didn't see anything
obvious but enough to warrant an MRI. I had the MRI on August 30th and,
indeed, it was definitely abnormal.
They did some blood tests to rule out Lyme's
disease and HIV and ordered a spinal tap (a.k.a. lumbar puncture).
I'll spare you the details of the complications I had (many of you already
know). Suffice it to say I missed two days of work (bringing my
life-total to five) and two weeks of running. But the test
results confirmed my hunch: I have Multiple Sclerosis.
If I thought I would end up in
a wheelchair, I would be freaking out. But my symptoms are so
very slight and appeared so late in life (age 45) that I think I
must have a very mild form of it. So I'm not very
concerned at this point. I'm meeting with an MS specialist in two
weeks for a second opinion - not that I doubt the diagnosis but more
to get her prognosis and discuss my treatment options. All four
of the main drugs are injected; there aren't any in pill form.
I'm not looking forward to that; I already feel like a pincushion,
I've been stuck with so many needles the past three weeks!
For me, bad luck usually goes in
threes. This year was no exception. First, Kathy broke
up with me. Second,
But my bad luck is usually followed by good
luck so I'm optimistic about the near future. Hopefully, I'll have
some good news in my next L.A. Report.
I'm planning to come back to
Sincerely,
Jay
P.S. Can you believe