My Black Friday

[sheepdog 10]

Oh no, I was not crazy enough to get out and brave the hoards of crazy Christmas shoppers. I stayed at home where I figured I'd be nice and safe. Yea, right. Hubby was telling me about how some shopper had maced 20 people that were ahead of her to get into a store before them, I hope they locked that witch up in jail, how stupid is that?! At least I was safe from that insanity.

I also managed to survive our first real try out of our new wood splitter, (see my post from the other day here http://forums.xisto.com/topic/77315-we-got-a-wood-splitter/) with all my fingers intact. It did tire me out considerable, so I was pretty willing to go out to dinner that night when the hubby sugested it, since it was otherwise my night to cook, and also Friday night is crab leg night on the all you can eat buffett at our local chinese restuarant. So he really didn't have to twist my arm to get me to go.

Dinner was great, but after dinner when we got home things started going down hill real fast. My tooth started hurting. It's been bothering me for awhile now, I figured it was abcessing but I try not to take antibiotics unless I just have to, so I had been using my prescription mouth wash and hoping it would clear up on it's own. Sometimes it does. But not this time. I started down my list of home remedies for tooth ache. First thing I tried was the sensitivity tooth paste, earlier in the week that had been stopping it real quick. That didn't work. My next trick was to go digging threw the deep freeze to find my chewing tobacco. Now before you start thinking I've gone all redneck hillbilly on you, no, I only chew when I have a tooth ache. Tobacco draws the poison out when you have an absess. Usually, anyway. But no, not on my black friday. Next thing you know, I'm rumaging in the liquer cabinet, hunting some wiskey, all I could find was Ameretto, but figured that would work in a pinch, soaked my mouth with that for awhile and that did take the pain down a notch or 2 but it was still pretty bad. I figured my only course left was to start on antibiotics and just deal with it till it quit hurting.

Hubby had the good sense to go to bed early, avoiding my grouchy she bear wrath, and by then I was getting pretty tired and ready to give it up for the night myself. I still needed to make a big pot of tea for the next day, which I did, and decided I needed to cool it off quicker by putting it outside on the back porch overnight, since I was low on ice and it doens't cool off that fast in the house. It had only been off the boiling point for a few minutes. I managed to get it out the back door, despite the screen door sticking and not wanting to come open, and having a hot pot in both hands leaves only elbow's to hit at the door latch, anyway, got out and was standing there reaching out to put the pot and it's gallon of hot tea on the porch rail and I'm not really sure what happend, but somehow I dropped the whole pot. It hit the deck and splashed nearly boiling tea all over my feet, even splashed up some on my arm. I had just gotten a brand new pair of warm fuzzy socks that I was so proud of, they were nice and thick, and they soaked up that hot tea like magets so my feet got a real good dose of heat. It hurt SO bad for a minute I just froze and couldn't move. The pain was just terrible. I knew I had to get to the tub and get some cold water going on my feet but I couldn't even move, at least for a few seconds, which did indeed seem like an eternity. I stumbled across the house squalling "it hurts, it hurts," woke the old man up, he thought it was my tooth and I was hurting too bad to even tell him what had happened. I finally made it to the bathtub and started the cold water running on my feet, socks and all. I was actually afraid to take the sock off at first, I was pretty sure it had melted right into my foot from the way it hurt, but fortunatly, it hadn't. So I spend the next hour or two running back and forth from the couch to the tub, I'd only be out from under the running water for a few minutes before it would start hurting again. Hubby brought me the big jar of Aloe Vera I had in the refrigerator, so I'd go from the cold water to the aloe, sit on the couch a few minutes and then back to the tub and the cold water.

My right foot caught the brunt of the damage, I thought both feet were cooked but my left foot and arm never even got a blister. The blisters were coming up on my right foot in less than an hour, and what really had me concerned was that my whole foot actually swelled up. I didn't realize burns caused swelling, other than the blisters of course. I did eventually did try to go to bed, but I was still hurting too much to actually sleep, which is not normal for me, usually when I have pain the only way to deal with it is to go to sleep. Trying to sleep with my feet out from under the covers is no fun either, my feet are always too cold and I like them covered, but not this night!

So the next day hubby went to town and got me some burn lotion and spray, and some non stick bandages, and a big pair of soft house shoes. I covered the blisters with the lotion and bandages, and managed to get it in the new house slipper, then covered the whole mess with a plastic shopping bag so I could go work at the kennel for awhile yesterday. But the swelling and the preasure on my foot made it pretty hard to do. Not to mention, it was raining, so even with the baggie on my foot I couldn't work outside, had to get hubby to do the chickens. Last night I finally opened the blisters to let off the preasure a little, I know your not supposed to bust them open but they would of busted on their own before much longer anyway and they were driving me crazy. I used a sewing needle cleaned with alcohol and just put a few small holes in most of the blisters, just enough so they could partially drain. Put a pillow up on the trash can to set my foot on, because our little dog insisted on sitting with me and I just knew she was going to stick a claw in my foot. Sitting with my foot up did get the swelling to go down anyway.

So today, it was back to the bandages, house shoe and baggie, and I managed to get some more cleaning done inside the kennel at any rate. And while this is not something I am going to add to my list of ways to cure a tooth ache, at least after burning my feet friday night, my tooth stopped hurting!

[velma 6]

When you said Black Friday, I was expecting a gory, brutal telling of people mauling each other but quite honestly, after reading your topic... I think you were hit with the worst of Black Friday's wrath.... Though like you, I hope that dumb woman gets jailed for macing others.

 

Dinner was great, but after dinner when we got home things started going down hill real fast. My tooth started hurting. It's been bothering me for awhile now, I figured it was abcessing but I try not to take antibiotics unless I just have to, so I had been using my prescription mouth wash and hoping it would clear up on it's own. Sometimes it does. But not this time. I started down my list of home remedies for tooth ache. First thing I tried was the sensitivity tooth paste, earlier in the week that had been stopping it real quick. That didn't work. My next trick was to go digging threw the deep freeze to find my chewing tobacco. Now before you start thinking I've gone all redneck hillbilly on you, no, I only chew when I have a tooth ache. Tobacco draws the poison out when you have an absess. Usually, anyway. But no, not on my black friday. Next thing you know, I'm rumaging in the liquer cabinet, hunting some wiskey, all I could find was Ameretto, but figured that would work in a pinch, soaked my mouth with that for awhile and that did take the pain down a notch or 2 but it was still pretty bad. I figured my only course left was to start on antibiotics and just deal with it till it quit hurting.

Would you hate me if I told you that I find this recollection amusing and yet I sympathize with you at the same time. Have you tried cloves? I have used clove oil for my tooth aches often but I am not sure how helpful it is against abscesses. There is this analgesic my brother was prescribed for his tooth ache though I can't remember what its called, I should check to see if we still have a bottle later.

 

and splashed nearly boiling tea all over my feet, even splashed up some on my arm

OUCH!!!

 

Blisters from burns are by far the most inconvenient annoying little things, they are small insignificant little zits who cause so much pain and swelling... So annoying! I have had finger tips burnt by vessels or open flames while cooking but yours wins the prize.... As for popping them, it is not something really recommended but I am guilty of popping them too.. I hope your feet are doing good now and I think you should avoid the kennels for a little while since you don't want any more damage done to your footsies

 

at least after burning my feet friday night, my tooth stopped hurting!

**claps** Talk about optimism

[sheepdog 10]

I'm finally back. I have had 5 whole weeks now of pure hell. Today is the first day in 5 weeks I have been able to put a pair of real shoes on. Ok, that might be a stretch calling deck shoes real shoes, but hey, I'm thrilled even with those. They are those stretchy nylon things and are probably a size or 2 too big, but they are stretchy enough I can get my still bandaged foot in them. I still have 2 raw spots on the right foot. It still hurts, but nothing like it did. It was so painfull there were a number of days I could do absolutly nothing except lie down or sit with the right foot up on a sort of foot stool I made up with a trash can and a pillow. Any time the foot was down the pain was just horrible. My entire foot and ankle stayed swollen up until just last week. One day, when I pushed it too much, the swelling went all the way up to my knee. I find it very hard to believe how much grief damage from a burn on the skin can do to the muscle and nerves under the skin. Now the pain is mostly reduced to a dull burning sensation, but the anoying thing is that every once in a while I still get a sudden sharp pain like some just stuck a knife in my foot. They only last a few seconds, but I never know when one is going to hit, and they are bad enough that I usually yelp which causes my poor old man to jump, (he can't take loud sudden noises, you should see him in a restuarant when somebody drops a plate!) The poor guy has really had it rough right along with me. He has been great though, getting stuff for me so I don't have to walk any more than is absolutly nessesary and bandaging my foot most of the time. Needless to say, it was really hard to keep up with things here. Believe it or not, I couldn't even sit at the computer too much, as long as the foot was down, it hurt. I would of liked to be able to at least keep up with my computer stuff, updating my web site, posting here, and answering emails. But even that fell by the wayside. So, guess what happened next!? The stupid state kennel inspectors showed up. Crap. I had to do a walk threw with them, causeing me unbelievable pain, that was the day my leg swelled up all the way up to my knee. And what a frigging joke! I got wrote up for some REALLY stupid stuff. Like my dogs not having shades IN DECEMEBER!!! Now please tell me why dogs need protection from the sun in December? (Remember we are in Missouri, not California or Florida) The inpsector justified it saying they could get skin cancer if exposed to the sun. Just to clarify, I have some really large runs, on the ground, and they all have trees growing right in the runs where the dogs are, or around the edges of the runs. In the summer the dogs all have plenty of shade. In the summer. Ya know, when they need it. What really pissed me of is the way they wrote it up, it said the MAJORITY of pens did not have shade. That is a flat out lie, I have nearly 100 individual runs of varrying size, and nearly all of them have permenent shades over them, there are just a few of the really large runs, I'd say no more than 8-10 that don't have structures added to them that rely striclty on natural shade. So that is hardly a MAJORITY. But of course when they write it up like that it makes me sound like a terrible animal abusing person. Such *BLEEP*. They also wrote me up for one dog that had hair loss, I had to take her to the vet, pay good money (not to mention more pain from hobbling around on my cripple foot) for him to write a note to tell them that the dog was not missing any hair. That dog did not have a single hair missing. I had groomed her and hand stripped out the longer hair over her back end so the hair over her back side was shorter, but there were NO bald patches or hair loss of any kind. But I still got wrote up for it. I suppose there has to be a sliver lining to every cloud, at least the inspectors gave me a few pairs of those plastic booties they have to wear to prevent cross contamination from one kennel to another. Those worked so much better pulling them over the soft fuzzy house slipper I'd been wearing than tying a plastic grocery bag over it, since the baggies didn't fit just right and left a corner sticking out that I kept tripping on. I probably would of broken my neck eventually with out the booties. So, tommorow starts a new year. I sure hope it turns out better than this year!

[sheepdog 10]

As much as I may of hoped for, my troubles have not yet ended. This has got to go down as one of the worst winters in history. Not the weather mind you, that fortunatly has remaind decent. The rotten economy lead to the worst Christmas sales I have ever had in nearly 30 years of puppy raising. I have never seen sales so slow. I had wanted so badly to get to take a vacation this year, my brother in law had a heart attach and we really wanted to get out to California this year to see them but there was just no way we could afford it. My foot was just about to get to the point I could walk around and do my work, still wearing the deck shoes, but something was better than nothing I guess. We had a week of really nice weather for January at least, so I got busy and started prunning all my fruit trees. I got the vast majority of that chore done finally. We had to cut wood one day, so I tried an old pair of snow boots, by taking out the inner lining I could get my bandaged foot in it wilth only minimum pain. Once my foot was down inside the boot it was fine, it was just pulling it on that hurt. I just couldn't get past the idea of trying to wear the deck shoes out to cut wood, and end up droping a log on my poor foot though. We managed to get a pretty good load of wood split and loaded, nearly 3 rick. I thought that was good for a couple old fat people!But 2 nights later I woke up in the middle of the night with some pretty bad pains in what I thought was a strange place to have pain. It was basicly below my ribs, but above my stomach. I got out of bed and walked it out, it passed in about 10 minutes or so. I layed it off on loading all that wood. Went back to bed, then got up about my normal time, felt ok for awhile, but then got to hurting a little, and just generally feeling cruddy. I just said the heck with it and when back to bed. I woke up again about 1 in the afternoon and actually felt pretty good by then. So I figured out I had just needed some extra rest. I headed off to the kennel and bathed some pups, had some people coming to pick up a puppy on Saterday morning real early so I thought it would be easier to bath the pup then instead of getting up before the crack of dawn on Saterday morning to do it. But by about 3 pm the pains came back. I messed around the house for maybe an hour hoping they would go away. They didn't. So about 4 I asked hubby if he thought his doctor at the health clinic could see me without an appointment. To his credit, I have to say Hubby practicly grabbed my arm and drug me out to the car within seconds of me even asking about a doctor. He knows me. I do not ever seek medical attention unless I am pretty sure death is eminent. Fortunatly there weren't many people in the office. While sitting there waiting to be seen I got worse, even had to make a mad dash for the bathroom to throw up. I can't even remember the last time I threw up. The doctor finally saw me, poked around on me for a few minutes, doing the "does this hurt" thing, and yes, I nearly screamed when he poked, so yea, it hurts doc. He looked at my old man and said, "She's really sick, I'm calling the ambulance." So they loaded me up and headed for the big city. No lights and sireens though, dang it. They started an IV in the ambulance and gave me a shot of something, don't know what but it sure did take the pain away thank goodness. The hospital ran it's battery of tests and eventually decided my gall bladder was on the fritz. So they scheduled me for surgery early the next morning. All went well and I got to leave the hospital later that same day luckily. I told them I didn't have insurance and was not going to stay anyway. That's probably why they went ahead and let me go. It's been 2 weeks now, recovery has been pretty slow. And as iff all that wasn't bad enough, on day 3 after surgery the inspectors were back wanting to recheck. I ran them off. Told them I just had surgery and could not do an inspection. They were not happy. I didn't give a hoot. After the pain and damage they caused making me do inspections with my burned foot I wasn't about to kill myself for their pleasure. They came back a week later, and we did the follow up inspection, and as I suspected, even though I told them right up frount I could still not bend over and pick things up it wasn't 5 minutes into the inspection they were asking me to pick up a dog so they could see the tatto number. They are such complete *BLEEP*s. Well, that's enough of my sob story for now.