Still not dog walking and it feels so strange. It is a good thing that I am not out there this week, that I don’t have those obligations. While I’m a little better today, after four days of rest, I’m in no shape to be walking miles with dogs. I’m afraid I would end up sitting down on the job.
I am on the mend and that’s great. Saw the doctor and went through the torture of getting two cortisone injections into my inflamed tendons on my hand to treat the Dequervain’s tenosynovitis that has been plaguing me for months. If you’ve never experienced this kind of pain, you won’t have any sympathy for me. For those of you who know what it is, and have had the injections, I’ll be you’re re-living your own pain.
And I’m optimistic that some further tests I’ll undergo when I see the neurologist will get me on a course of treatment that explains this severe muscle weakness and helps me gain strength to keep up with life.
Meanwhile, I’ve been watching way too much television. Some of it just makes me laugh out loud, some makes me fume, and some makes me cry. I think the writer’s strike and all the re-runs is making me watch more “reality” shows than I usually would.I’ve become addicted to one in particular: “The First 48″ on A & E. The series shows the real life working of two homicide cases in different locations and how the detectives solve the cases. The first 48 hours are said to be the window in which the crimes are either solved or turn into cold cases. It’s really very interesting. I just saw one episode where the young man who pulled the trigger (in the course of a robbery of a young business man for his hub caps or something trivial like that) was being interrogated and you could see the moment, in his eyes, when he understood that he had thrown his life away, that his life was also over just like the man he killed. It’s all very tragic.
In dog news, I see that Diamond Pet Food (the company that made contaminated pet food that killed dozens of dogs nationwide) has agreed to a $3.1 million dollar settlement with pet owners. The pet owners who file claims would be reimbursed the for medical expenses, the cost of a new dog, and receive two bags of pet food (egads). Here’s a link to an article on MSNBC’s website.
I hope everyone who was affected by that tainted pet food knows about the class action suit and files their claim.I haven’t seen anything (have you?) about the other contaminated food that also killed numerous pets. That was the contamination problem that prompted recalls of more than 100 pet-food brands in early 2006, when investigators traced pet deaths to a toxic chemical, melamine, that had been added during manufacturing in China. The Diamond Food contamination was a little more sinister, in my opinion, because (the following is a quote from the MSNBC article):
Diamond Pet Foods, based in Meta, Mo., acknowledged that workers at its Gaston, S.C., plant failed to follow internal testing procedures to ensure its products were safe. The company made the acknowledgment after the Food and Drug Administration released a report showing the company has no record of test results for 12 shipments of corn in 2005, when grain tainted with the deadly fungus slipped into the plant.
I think I had better stop keyboarding before my tendons start acting up again. Just a reminder, if you want to vote on Super Tuesday, you have to be registered and you have just a few days left (see my earlier post) to get that registration form post marked.
