I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

Thanks for the link Mods. I didn't realize that we have a higher risk of getting shingles.

In hindsight, I have been experiencing increasing pain for several weeks. It started with terrible aches in my legs. Much like the pain when on taxatere but not as intense. The pain seemed to move up my back and settled in my shoulders and neck for a couple of weeks. I figured it was the arimidex or maybe my arthritis acting up or even the dreaded breakup with NED. Pain meds were helping off and on. When the blisters broke out I had waves of nausea until they started to heal. There were only a few of them so it didn't occur to me that it was shingles until I was feverish. Duh!

Anyways, I am feeling normal now. That is always when I realize how bad I was feeling before. I strongly suggest that you all look into the vaccine. I definitely think it mitigated the symptoms.

Pip....so, so glad you are feeling a lot better. Dh has those darn shingles years ago and he was one miserable fellow. Now nothing should stop you from enjoying your time away.

Carrots......double yay. So glad you can do pictures again. I am such a graphics fan I was hating it the short while I was not able to do it. I made up for it though.

Jackie

KAM... I didn't think I was so run down. However, we had a lot of company stay over for two whole weeks. I was also spending a lot of time with adorable but 'germy' little ones. So maybe my body was feeling stressed. Probably ate out a lot more (including desserts etc) with company. And drank a bit more wine. And slept less. So yeah. It is all starting to add up.

C4C - Toffee looks so similar to my cat, Xiao Mao, who is a Tonkinese and my little love.

Kam - I am so sorry about Ms. Boo. When my Mozart was diagnosed with cancer, it was so hard. He ate, greeted me, and seemed to have some quality of life until the last day, when he clearly going and the vet came and made it painless. Still hurts to write about it three years later. Spend your time, letting Ms. Boo know that you love her, and knowing that you've given her a wonderful life. The depth of our love for our fur-babies is not measured by the length of their lives, nor is the pain at losing them.

Kam, I have difficulty being there when our animals are put down too. However, the vets and their assistants are normally very carrying and sympathetic people and do all they can to make the atmosphere as peaceful and painless as possible. So don't feel badly that you were not there at the very end.

Pip - after caring that guilt around for 38 years, I was finally relieved when the Vet (who in her bio says she is especially interested in the end of life issues with pets and owners) told me most 21 year olds choose not to be with their animal. I will be with Ms Boo. I can't imagine it any other way, but I cannot lie, I am very fearful. Thankfully, I won't be doing it without a friend alongside.

Hi Gals .. wanted to write a short note before I get back outside to the dreaded leaves.

Kam .. Thinking of you as you go through this difficult time with Ms. Boo. It is so hard to let our beloved pets go. When I had to let my Bobo go a couple of years ago, my sister went with me. I was sobbing through the entire process. I had never let a pet go before him. And he was my favorite ... my godsend through all the bad shit that life had thrown at me.

Then last year when it came time to let my Winston go (beagle/basset mix) I took him to the vet by myself. My biggest regret is that I might have waited too long to take him. He was in very bad health. I cried and said good bye to him as the vet injected the needle. It hurt so bad to lose him, but at least this time I knew what to expect.

Sending you huge big hugs as you go through this hard time.

hugs,

Bren

PS ... I had them both cremated and I have their ashes sitting on the counter with their picture next to them.

Thanks Blue, really like that artist. Will look up more of his work.

SO SO SO SORRY for all those who have to say goodbye to beloved furry people, can't imagine the pain, my allergies have always kept me from having a furry friend, did have a parakeet for 12 years, which was quite a long time for a feathered friend, so guess he liked flying around my house - always kept the cage open, so he only slept in there.

Think the shingles vaccine was coming out at about the time I finished chemotherapy 6 1/2 years ago, cuz remember my docs at Dana Farber making sure I got the vaccine 6 months after finishing chemotherapy. But, Pip, if I had the symptoms you had, I would've written them off as something else, even with a few blisters. Darn, guess we still have to be on the watch for it. Sorry you had to go thru it, but appreciate your clear description, so maybe the rest of us vaccinated ones can catch it before the blisters.

Read the letters ADO, on another thread, "all doctored out." Boy, did that ever ring true. Also learned the "dog ears" on the sides of my torso are really "ANGEL WINGS" -love it.

Hoping E is more comfortable, and resting a bit in a recliner? Just know Sampson must feel awful.

And back to some of the other non mysteries of life on this Earth.

We had to send our beloved fur children to the Rainbow Bridge a few years ago. Spot and Puff were littermates - my big boy Spotty had to go first. He had intestinal cancer - we could have operated, but it would have come back. We chose to make him happy until it was time, and then we had the vet come over. He did it on our bed, on Spotty's favorite shirt, and we petted him and told him we loved him until he was gone. He was 12-1/2.

Puffy was 16 when she joined her brother at the Rainbow Bridge. She had renal failure. We kept her alive for a year with sub-cu fluids, pumpkin mixed with her food (for fiber - she LOVED it!), and by bringing home our current cat, Peaches, and her four kittens who we rescued from a woodshed out in the country. Puffy was too afraid of Peaches and the kids, so we had to keep them in the basement and Puffy upstairs. A little hate apparently goes a long way - she perked up for a year guarding us from what she called "the monsters in the basement." She would sit at the basement door, hitting at the paws the kittens put under. They thought it was a game, but she was guarding us!

We took her to the vet when it was time ... I held her and DH stroked her and looked into her eyes so that her beloved dad was the last thing she ever saw. I thought I would die from the pain - I had just been dx the first time and life sucked. We had them both cremated and we will have them mixed with us when we go. Peaches and Forrest (the one kitten we kept), too, and any other children we have in the future. We

They are our children and it is agonizing to say goodbye - but we must do the right thing for them. When we do, we are repaying their years of unconditional love by making sure we love them enough to see that they don't suffer. We give them good lives and all our love - and when they must leave us, we must bundle up all that love and use it to help them go. But it hurts indescribably to do it. They take part of our hearts with them.

Hugs to you, Kam and Ms, Boo and Yorkie and Chloe and all the others who have fur children they have loved and lost. We all know that anguish.