The Diaries of a Fat Chick

Last night we took Cassie to the vet because I had found two lumps on her belly. The vet found four lumps total when he examined her. All four of them are mammary tumours.

Ben took this picture of Cassie this morning before I dropped her off at the vet to have surgery to remove the tumours. You’ll note the less than thrilled look on her face, she couldn’t understand why Ben was taking her picture instead of feeding her breakfast like he normally did. You can imagine she was even less impressed when we didn’t gave her breakfast and instead invited her for a car ride. The girl likes her car rides, but she likes her breakfast more.

The vet will do chest x-rays first to make sure that it hasn’t spread to her lungs and if they’re clear then they’ll go ahead with the surgery. It was difficult dropping her off at the vet this morning, she’s an old dog and it’s major surgery. To make matters worse, she most certainly did not want to be left behind. Bulldogs appear sad at the best of times and to see them actually looking sad and scared is heart wrenching.

The worse part of this whole bloody mess? (and nope, it’s not the surgery bill although that certainly made us cringe!) These tumours were completely preventable if only her previous owners had spayed her when she was young. They did eventually spay her but she was 9 years old at the time and they only did it because she had a massive ovarian tumour that was killing her. They put off the surgery until she was so anemic that she almost died after the surgery. People? They suck.

Something of interest to note - most dogs have 10 nipples, Cassie has 12.  As our vet said, that’s not half bad for a dog who can’t even have puppies without a ceasarian.  Mind you, after today she’ll be down to 9 as she’s having a triple mastectomy to remove the two larger tumours.  Because her previous owners didn’t spay her, Cassie went through a false pregnancy as well.  Consequently the girl’s boobies?  They hang low (Do they wobble to and fro?  Can you tie them in a bow?).

If she’s out and about with us, we constantly have people asking us if she’s pregnant or nursing, it was always awkward to answer that question without getting into a big discussion about previous owners and their inability to properly care for their pet.  Also, I would generally get very loud and animated and wave my arms in the air about stupid people (and I admit it, sometimes curse inappropriately) until the people who were asking slowly backed away with fear in their eyes.  I finally came up with the perfect answer… “Nope, she just has big boobies like her mama.”  The people laugh nervously and walk away while Ben slowly shakes his head in disapproval. 

But on the bright side?  Now not only will she have boobies that hang low, but there will only be 9 of them.  That’s bound to be a conversation starter while waiting in line at the local pet store.

So what’s the lesson we’ve learned today children? Always listen to Bob Barker and have your pets spayed or neutered. Wiser words have never been said Bob. I hope you’re enjoying your retirement.

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We spent the weekend spreading holiday fun and Christmas cheer. And eating. We had three Christmas parties to attend this weekend and while I appreciated that we got all of our obligatory Christmas schmoozing done in one fell swoop, did I mention the eating? I woke up Monday morning feeling quite similar to what I’m sure Homer Simpson felt like after the Simpson’s episode where he went to Hell and had to eat donut after donut from a big old donut conveyor belt machinery thingy. Bloated and oogie and just a wee bit nauseous.

However, after drinking approximately 47 glasses of water over the last couple of days (that may be an exaggeration), I’m feeling quite a bit better. God bless the healing power of water. I love water so much I want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

Friday night, Ben put on a tie and i put on my most festive holiday sweater and we headed to the accounting Christmas party where yours truly received her five year service award. I felt truly special until the Partner who was presenting the award shared a charming little story that ended with him telling the entire office and their spouses that I had worked here for five years mostly based on my keen ability as a butt kisser. Nice. There’s actually a long story behind the “butt kisser” label which has nothing to do with actual butt kissing (and more with his young son mangling the word basketball until it comes out sounding like butt kisser) and maybe some day I’ll write about it. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.  I made muttered promises under my breath for the rest of the evening that I would exact my revenge by teaching his young son a few choice words the next time he wandered into my office to play with the nerf basketball net that I use to distract the accountant’s from annoying me.

Saturday night we attended the vet clinic Christmas party where i had the pleasure of holding the most beautiful and delightful baby you’ll ever see.

On Sunday we had a Christmas lunch with our miniature group which was enjoyable despite the less than stellar buffet. And that concluded this year’s portion of “pretending to not be a Grinch at Christmas”.

Also on Sunday we stopped off at Ben’s work to feed the fish.

The cichlids ignored me in favour of their food:

The goldfish flipped me off with his back fins:

And the giant pleco spent the entire time giving me the evil eye. It sorta creeped me out actually.

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Clerk:  Ooh papaya tablets, those are wonderful for the digestive system.

 Me:  I know; the bunnies love them.

Clerk:  I’m sorry?

Me:  I feed them to my bunnies.

Clerk:  Why would you do that?

Me:  Because they’re wonderful for their digestive systems.

Clerk:  Bunnies have digestive issues?

Me:  They can.  The natural enzyme in the papaya tablet helps break down hair in their stomach that collects from self-grooming.  They can’t naturally throw these hairballs up like a cat would you know.

Clerk:  You feed them to your cats too?

Me:  Of course not.  Obviously you’ve never been owned by a cat and therefore do not know the joy of stepping on a cold, wet, squishy hairball at three in the morning.

Clerk:  Uh-huh.  And so what, you take a tablet and the bunny takes a tablet every day?

Me:  Sort of.  Except for the part about giving myself a papaya tablet.

Clerk:  You don’t use them?  Why not?

Me:  I have a wonderful digestive system.  Besides when I groom the hair on my legs, it stays on my legs, doesn’t collect in my tummy.

Clerk:  *blink, blink*

Me:  Just kidding.  Naturally it’s my husband who grooms my legs.  Maybe I should start giving him a papaya tablet every day just in case?

 Clerk:  Have a nice day ma’am*

*only I think instead of ma’am it was actually “crazy lady”.  Whatever.

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A few nights ago, Ben picked me up after work and we immediately ran around town doing all sorts of errands like going to Walmart for soap (we use Dove in case you’re interested) and the UPS store for a box to mail my brother’s Christmas present in (it was closed).  We decided to grab a bite to eat before heading home as it was close to 7pm and we (meaning I) were starving.  

As we stopped at an intersection on the city’s busiest highway, we noticed some flashing lights at the following intersection.  Growing closer, it became apparent that the lightly falling snow had caused a bit of a fender bender between an SUV and a small bus only moments earlier.  While waiting for the light to change, Ben and I talked a bit about the accident.  I mentioned it didn’t look too serious despite the presence of the ambulance and he said he thought that the bus looked like a bus that retirement homes use to transport their residents around.  Let the record note that at that point I said (and I do quote, oh my Brothers) “Oh no, I hope it isn’t one of those senior buses!”  The light turned green and as we followed the line of cars snaking slowly past the accident, we saw that it was, indeed, one of the retirement home buses.  Luckily, it did seem as though no one was seriously injured although the back of the bus was severely crumpled.  As we continued home, I turned to Ben and said:

Me:  I wonder how that accident happened.

Ben:  Well, it is slippery out.

Me:  I know, I meant, I wonder which way the cars were going and how they ended up on the meridian like that.  It’s obvious that the SUV rear ended the bus, but which direction were they coming from?  Were they turning off Pandosy?  Were they coming straight down the highway?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Ben:  I guess you’ll never know.

Me:  I guess not.

*silence in the car for a few minutes*

 Me:  Of course, if a certain someone had only eaten their dinner a little faster, then we probaby would have been right there for the accident and I would have seen how it happened.

Ben:  Yes, because there’s nothing better than seeing a bunch of senior citizens in a car accident.

Me:  That’s not what I meant!  I would have stopped and helped them, of course.

Ben:  Uh-huh.

Me:  I would have!

Ben:  Of course you would have.

Me:  I don’t like you tonight.

Ben:  Or senior citizens apparently.

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After a few weeks of frustration, temper tantrums and more than one bout of uncontrollable weeping, I finally have the new blog up and running.  The saddest part?  The entire damn thing is really just a template.  I haven’t created anything “new”, just picked a template and ran with it.  Actually, that was the easy part.  Trying to load the blog to my webpage is what caused the most gnashing of teeth, throwing of small inanimate objects and inappropriate cursing.  Until, that is, I discovered a magic little button hidden within my webpage that allowed me to load the blog with one simple click.  Talk about embarrassing.

 Back in 2006, I started a blog about losing weight (which eventually morphed into a blog about my life in general).  You’ll find that blog here:

 http://fatchickdiaries.spaces.live.com/

Feel free to read about the beginning of the whole weight loss journey at that address, this blog will continue in the same fashion as it did, only it’ll be prettier…maybe.

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