Jeanie update X

Jeanie close up update
Originally uploaded by zeenie.

Time for another Jeanie update! We took her to the vet for another check up and her blood count test came back at 37%! (normal range for dogs) Wow. Her parasite count remained at 0-1, although i wonder when will it ever go down to "gone! gone! gone forever and ever amen!". Thank you once again to one and all for all the offers, well-wishes, and phonecalls. We love you all lots lots!

In other news, just out of curiosity, i put jeanie's full name into this website (via Kingsley, the border collie) and got the following results:

Jeanie:
You have a strong, independent, adventurous pet who is filled with wanderlust. Your pet is certainly never dull. You may find this animal has a dualistic nature being very communicative one minute and sullen the next. Your pet has a real need for adventure and has very little fear, so keep an eye on this one! This is an animal who is quite intelligent and adaptable with a gentle nature. Your pet insists on neat and tidy living quarters. This animal has a pleasant disposition and enjoys the company of pets of the opposite sex. Your pet is excitable and hyperactive and may experience nervous disorders if not given the freedom to release this nervous energy.

Sheep:
Yours is a very resourceful animal who is basically a loner and has a strong sense of responsiblilty. Your pet is loyal and takes his/her responsibility as a family member very much to heart. Your pet is excitable and hyperactive and may experience nervous disorders if not given the freedom to release this nervous energy. Your pet is excitable and hyperactive and may experience nervous disorders if not given the freedom to release this nervous energy. This is an affectionate, physically attractive pet who responds to flattery and attention. Your pet coexists exceptionally well with people and other animals.

Lee:
Yours is a very sociable, loving pet who needs to be around other pets and humans. Your pet is excitable and hyperactive and may experience nervous disorders if not given the freedom to release this nervous energy. Your pet is excitable and hyperactive and may experience nervous disorders if not given the freedom to release this nervous energy.


Errrr, is it just me or is there a prevailing theme throughout all three names which i should be aware of? LOL. Actually, she's not really excitable, hyperactive nor prone to nervous disorders. She IS very gentle, neat and tidy though, ever since she was a puppy. =)

By the way, yes, that is her full name, since her last name follows ours and her middle name is "sheep" since she's a sheepdog. It was purely coincidental that it sounds like the name of a former Prime Minister of New Zealand (who was in power when Jeanie was born). =) Cracked us up silly when we first put it together. LOL (yes, we have a strange sense of humour)

unfair use of IP?

French steal 'Kiwi' for EU wine labels

This is abit cheeky isn't it? Sometimes, Intellectual Property can really be used to screw over people. Too many examples out there to list, maybe one day...... =)

Do not click if you like cars!

Police Have More Questions for Ferrari 'Passenger' - Los Angeles Times

Somebody managed to mangle an Enzo so badly, it looks like it got into an argument with a tree buzz saw and the tree buzz saw won. (via Boing Boing)

Jeanie update photo

Jeanie update photo
Originally uploaded by zeenie.

Jeanie has been recovering from her bout of tick fever. Finally managed to get round to taking a photo of her. She's always been upbeat through all this. Even when her low blood count made her lethargic, she would always manage a friendly wag of a tail and a grin on her face. =)

Asian Aerospace

close up of a killer
Originally uploaded by zeenie.

Managed to wrangle a visit to the Asian Aerospace and aside from the heat, it was quite enjoyable. Check out the rest of the photos from my photoset too. =)

rotfl!

WSJ.com - Cheney Accident Triggers Jokes on Late-Night TV

I was really holding my sides to stop my insides from spilling out from all the laughing i was doing. *wipes a tear* oh dear me...

especially liked these from Jay Leno:

"Cheney's defense is that he was aiming at a quail when he shot the guy. Which means that Cheney now has the worst aim of anyone in the White House since Bill Clinton."

"Although it is beautiful here in California, the weather back East has been atrocious. There was so much snow in Washington, D.C. Dick Cheney accidentally shot a fat guy thinking it was a polar bear."

"They were in a car, they drive along, they get out of the car, he shoots his friend in the face, then they get back in the car and they go hide for 18 hours. That’s not hunting ... that's an episode of 'The Sopranos'"

Dilbert blog

Scott Adams as a blog and it is hilarious! The Dilbert Blog

I especially liked this from the post "Wisdom for grads":

Teamwork is what you call it when you trick other people into ignoring their priorities in favour of yours.

and

Your hard work will be rewarded. Specifically, your boss' boss will reward your boss for making you work so hard.


LOL. exploited workers of the world unite! muhahahaha

that's a lotta memory

1.2 petabytes of storage. That's 1,024 terabytes, which is 1,024 gigabytes, which is 1,024 megabytes. That's 1,073,741,824 megabytes!

Spintronics hard drive

Spintronics is a research area close to me and it is good to see that people are thinking out of the box to use this wonderful property. To quickly explain this, all transistors work on the basis of electrons carrying charge and moving. However, electrons have an intrinsic property called 'spin', which is related to its magnetic properties. By utlizing this, harddisk sizes have increased exponentially (see Giant Magneto Resistance). Now, this new development is going to be huge. This was always an untapped area with a vast amount of potential, so it's exciting times that we live in. =)

Wowzers!

Porsche unleashes its most powerful 911 ever

Amazing. Sooner or later, everything is going electronic! =)

Btw, saw a gallardo yesterday on the expressway, tailed (but at speed limit) by an Evo IX. Very cool.

jeanie update IX

Jeanie has been rather listless and lethargic since last night and i just spoke to the vet. We are guessing the new brand of doxycycline is not agreeing with her. As her previous prescription of the drug (doxymyxin)(apparently the same thing) was via another vet, we either have to go back there for more, or try another form of the drug.

Hope that her blood count doesn't drop again.

jeanie update VIII

Jeanie went for another blood test yesterday and it came back with a blood count of 29.8 (up 0.7 from the last time), so it isn't going up that quickly anymore. The good news though is that the parasite count is down again to 0-1.

When we got the hospital, we met a nice lady waiting there with a cat. Poor kitty had a tumour that grew so big that it broke skin. What was interesting was that the cat was a stray that had been living in a hawker centre near her place and she managed to enlist the help of the hawkers to capture it (took 5 people) after 3 unsuccessful days.

GM jumps on the patent bandwagon

If you ask me, i think this particular wagon ain't going very far. One of the criteria for obtaining a patent is that it is new and inventive, but somebody might have overlooked this.

jeanie update VII

Her latest blood count came back at 29! Yay! We're all really happy and Jeanie seems to be overjoyed as well. As a treat, we brought her to her fav cafe at Botanica Gardens for brunch. Yum! Even met a nice American lady who said Jeanie was such a beautiful dog. =) Nice to know that i'm not the only one who thinks so.

Went to Harry's last night at Esplanade, the band there was rocking!! It was the most awe-inspiring performance i have ever seen. Truly amazing. Ever heard 'I shot the sheriff' with a killer riff? Or hotel califonia raggae style? Really cool mon.

jeanie update VI

Jeanie is being pampered daily by all of us and we try to buy her favourite foods. I had burger king last night 'cos she likes the fries from BK. Actually, personally, i prefer onion rings, but the vet said not to give her onions, garlic or shallots. Take note all dog owners! Do not give your dog these if they are anaemic! =)

A short note about giving a dog medication. It ain't as easy as the joke makes it out to be! Jeanie has become quite adept at dodging her pills and we have to feed her quite a few these days, including her antibiotics, vit C supplement, iron supplement (taken seperately from the antibiotics), and prednisone. We used to be able to just pop it into her mouth, then had to bury it in a bit of bread but this doesn't work any more as she would chew it up and spit out the pill. Once she even swatted it away with a paw in the hope that we didn't see it. Then we tried giving her the pill-in-bread and holding her mouth closed, but somehow she managed to use her tongue to push it out the side of her mouth. So we have to cook yummy food for her like satay or liver & rice and mix it in, but even so, we have to check that she takes her meds as she would eat around the darn pills. =)

What stories do you have to share about medicating your pets?

interesting

The law (IP) and policy of online gaming

This looking interesting although abit pricey. Some people trade online 'cos they ain't got the dough, how to pay 350 bucks to attend this? LOL

Anyone going?

Cool Tool: Tick Twister

Cool Tool: Tick Twister

Kinda late to be considering this tool, but i think it looks pretty nifty, although the same effect can be accomplished by a pair of tweezers on its side albeit a little cumbersome. Isn't it cool to have a tool for every little thing in life? *facepalm*

Jeanie is still recovering at home. No more vet visits for the next few days to allow her to rest well. Her vomitting has stopped so that's good. Her gums look pink and she is looking alert so the future is looking brighter, although we have to be very careful to monitor her blood count.

jeanie update V

Jeanie's blood test today showed that her blood count is holding steady (it's down by 0.1%, which hardly counts). Our only worry was that she vomitted on the way to the vet and vomitted there, and vomitted on the way home. Was wondering whether it was a side effect or something, but the vet assured us that she's alright and didn't want to compound the situation by giving her even more drugs. So it is more wait and see for us.

jeanie update IV

Jeanie is home!!

We spoke to the vet this afternoon and he said that the blood smear indicated that the number of parasites was halved.

So all we have to do now is monitor that her blood count goes up in the next couple of days while the number of parasites go down.

Thank you once again to everyone who offered to donate blood to Jeanie. It is very heartening to have so many dog owners come forward like that. I can be quite cynical all of the time, but my faith in humanity has just gone up after this incident.

jeanie update III

Just been to the hospital to see Jeanie. Her blood count is up to 22, from 8 yesterday, so that's good news, although this figure may be falsely inflated by the transfusion from yesterday.

Two more tests to do, one to confirm that the parasites are either under control or eliminated, and another tomorrow to confirm that her blood count is either stable or going up. (yes, i realise that i'm writing in an optimistic fashion)

Updates will follow.

jeanie update II

Latest news for today:

We received a call from the hospital this morning saying that they managed to procure some blood that is a match for Jeanie. Words failed to express the joy and relief we felt. It was especially poignant since we had just been to mass.

Jeanie was in the midst of her transfusion when we arrived at the hospital to visit her, but they kindly allowed us to keep her company anyways, provided we stayed through the entire transfusion. This was so that she did not get too excited or upset and yank out the IV line or something. She was such a good and brave girl, it was hard not to be proud of her. There she was, abit short of breath, with a needle in one paw, blood dripping from a bag to infuse her with life once more, and yet she still managed a smile and a wag of her tail for us.

We managed to chat with the vet, and the news wasn't all good. There was still a chance that her body might reject the blood and in any case, She might still need one more transfusion and they definitely do not have any more blood that matches her (due to her uniqueness). The dog that donated that blood won't be able to donate for another two weeks.

Thank you everyone who contacted me, i am so grateful for your thoughts, efforts and prayers. We are still looking around for donors, so if you know of anyone who is willing to help, please drop us a note.

All we can do now is hope and pray.

jeanie update

A cloud of gloom is covering our family, with silence reigning and tears flowing.

Our beloved border colllie, Jeanie hasn't been feeling well lately. Her symptoms include loss of appetite (and subsequent loss of weight), lack of energy and pale looking gums. After visiting a first vet on Weds, we sought further tests today from the hospital. Prognosis is not good as she has tick fever, ie a parasite is residing in her blood, causing her body to kill off her red blood cells. Her red blood cell count was 16 on Weds but now stands at 12 (a healthy dog has a count of 30+).

We were given two options. One was to take her home and let her slowly die, since a lack of red blood cells mean a lack of oxygen for her. The other option was treatment, but this was not without its risks. The first hurdle was the jab for the parasite, which was extremely toxic and would cause her red blood cell count to drop even further and 1% of cases have been known to react adversely to it by way of fits and sizures. The second hurdle is replacing her blood through a transfusion and this would require a matching blood type, otherwise her body would reject it as well. The last hurdle would be finding out whether her bone marrow, which produces the red blood cells, has been damaged.

Faced with such a choice, we chose to treat her (costs be damned). She has had the jab and is doing fine. However, the hospital has just informed me that they have not been able to find a match for her blood. I do hope Jeanie is strong enough not to need the blood tranfusion, but if you know someone with a large dog between the age of 1-7 years who is willing to help, drop me a comment.

We all are hoping and rooting for her.

If you want to know more about dogs donating blood, Kingsley wrote a great piece on this a while back.