A diaristic entry
Jun. 3rd, 2006 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
womzillaI've been tired all week, in part because of the disruptions caused by Ozzy's death on Tuesday morning (I got about five hours of sleep that night and didn't get a chance to catch up) but because in general I've been sleeping poorly. Various crises at work have literally had me losing sleep as I worry about them, including one night spent worrying that our back office manager had gotten himself severely injured or killed. (Good news: he hasn't--it looks like he's have mood disruptions as a reaction to medications he's taking for arthritis and couldn't get out of bed or answer the phone, but he should be all right before too long.)
Anyway, so I went to bed early last night rather than going out gaming in Long Island (as I often do on Friday nights), which in turn meant that I could get up early today. The only important things on my schedule were to go to the Recycling Center (as I do most Saturdays to drop off newspapers, bottles, and cardboard boxes) and take the mortal remains of two of the rats to the vet in Manhattan for necropsies. I woke up slowly and lazily and spent some quality time with the family before heading out.
The trip to Manhattan and back should have taken about 90 minutes, but because of the steady, sometimes heavy rain New York has had over the last couple of days, parts of the highway were flooded and it ended up taking nearly twice that. I also had some serious hydroplaning; I thank the spirit of the Irish automotive demigoddess Sue Baru for all-wheel drive.
We have the results from Ozzy: the cause of death was collapse of one of his lungs from severe abcessing. Dr. Pilny says he's never seen such advanced infection--three of the abcesses were "the size of green peas" and there were several smaller ones. This is distressing, that he was in such bad shape, which indicates that he was sick for a long time, but in a way that eluded detection during some of his later vet visits. Abcesses in the lungs are extremely hard to detect, hard to treat, and can get worse without warning. One of the things that was so shocking about Ozzy's death was how he went from "pretty good" to "falling over" to "dead" in less than 36 hours, but this helps explain how. We can't keep every rat alive for two and a half years; some of them are going to die younger, and at least we didn't overlook anything obvious or leave undone anything clearly required in his case. We are probably going to get a histology workup on the infection to see if there is anything we should be doing to protect the others.
Anyway, I got home just as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nellorat was getting ready to leave for an afternoon teaching session. So I spent the afternoon playing with my computer: reading Usenet, working on my comics subscription list (have I mentioned that the Dark Horse collections of Penny Arcade are superbly well-done? And Dork! is returning! Yay!), and, most importantly, installing a functioning DVD burner. I've been filling up my hard drives with Bittorrented material and I desperately need to free up some space. It works quite well--it's amazing to burn 4 GB of data onto a DVD in less than 4 minutes; if only the video conversions worked that quickly.... Now I need to install the new wireless router so that my connection doesn't keep dropping. (I'm at the far end of the house from the wireless access point and it just isn't quite up to the job.) Update 6/4/06: Router installed. Connection seems more reliable but no faster. Hmph.
Come evening,supergee and I drove out to Long Island to join nellorat for dinner at our favorite Chinese buffet. Most Chinese buffets have low-quality food but lots of it; Harvest Buffet, in Great Neck, has generally high-quality food--some of entrees are as good as any Chinese food I've ever found in the price range--and they have terrific variety. I'd forgotten how much they jack the price up on weekend evenings, but even beside the entrees they brag about (like crab legs and prime rib), they have even more offerings than mid-week. And all-you-can-eat eel sushi, roast duck, and satay and all-you-can-drink Thai coffee really are quite comforting. Heck, I've been in restaurants with fewer entrees than Harvest Buffet has bubble teas.
Home again home again. We gave the new boys (Artie and Brooks) some more tub time with their future cagemates (Teddy and Sophie)--playtime on neutral territory so they can get used to each other. Then we returned them to each others' cages, an acclimation step we've never actually tried before. We will try them all in the same cage either tomorrow or Monday.
And now I'm spending quality time with my LJ friendslist and expect to do so until I go to bed. Good to see you all!
Anyway, so I went to bed early last night rather than going out gaming in Long Island (as I often do on Friday nights), which in turn meant that I could get up early today. The only important things on my schedule were to go to the Recycling Center (as I do most Saturdays to drop off newspapers, bottles, and cardboard boxes) and take the mortal remains of two of the rats to the vet in Manhattan for necropsies. I woke up slowly and lazily and spent some quality time with the family before heading out.
The trip to Manhattan and back should have taken about 90 minutes, but because of the steady, sometimes heavy rain New York has had over the last couple of days, parts of the highway were flooded and it ended up taking nearly twice that. I also had some serious hydroplaning; I thank the spirit of the Irish automotive demigoddess Sue Baru for all-wheel drive.
We have the results from Ozzy: the cause of death was collapse of one of his lungs from severe abcessing. Dr. Pilny says he's never seen such advanced infection--three of the abcesses were "the size of green peas" and there were several smaller ones. This is distressing, that he was in such bad shape, which indicates that he was sick for a long time, but in a way that eluded detection during some of his later vet visits. Abcesses in the lungs are extremely hard to detect, hard to treat, and can get worse without warning. One of the things that was so shocking about Ozzy's death was how he went from "pretty good" to "falling over" to "dead" in less than 36 hours, but this helps explain how. We can't keep every rat alive for two and a half years; some of them are going to die younger, and at least we didn't overlook anything obvious or leave undone anything clearly required in his case. We are probably going to get a histology workup on the infection to see if there is anything we should be doing to protect the others.
Anyway, I got home just as
nellorat was getting ready to leave for an afternoon teaching session. So I spent the afternoon playing with my computer: reading Usenet, working on my comics subscription list (have I mentioned that the Dark Horse collections of Penny Arcade are superbly well-done? And Dork! is returning! Yay!), and, most importantly, installing a functioning DVD burner. I've been filling up my hard drives with Bittorrented material and I desperately need to free up some space. It works quite well--it's amazing to burn 4 GB of data onto a DVD in less than 4 minutes; if only the video conversions worked that quickly.... Now I need to install the new wireless router so that my connection doesn't keep dropping. (I'm at the far end of the house from the wireless access point and it just isn't quite up to the job.) Update 6/4/06: Router installed. Connection seems more reliable but no faster. Hmph. Come evening,
supergee and I drove out to Long Island to join nellorat for dinner at our favorite Chinese buffet. Most Chinese buffets have low-quality food but lots of it; Harvest Buffet, in Great Neck, has generally high-quality food--some of entrees are as good as any Chinese food I've ever found in the price range--and they have terrific variety. I'd forgotten how much they jack the price up on weekend evenings, but even beside the entrees they brag about (like crab legs and prime rib), they have even more offerings than mid-week. And all-you-can-eat eel sushi, roast duck, and satay and all-you-can-drink Thai coffee really are quite comforting. Heck, I've been in restaurants with fewer entrees than Harvest Buffet has bubble teas. Home again home again. We gave the new boys (Artie and Brooks) some more tub time with their future cagemates (Teddy and Sophie)--playtime on neutral territory so they can get used to each other. Then we returned them to each others' cages, an acclimation step we've never actually tried before. We will try them all in the same cage either tomorrow or Monday.
And now I'm spending quality time with my LJ friendslist and expect to do so until I go to bed. Good to see you all!
