Please Forward to the Recycle Bin

It is amazing to me how much false information gets absorbed as truth. Well, actually, it’s quite irritating really. Everyone, including high profile information authorities such as Dan Rather, seems to bypass the formality of making sure the information they are receiving is true. What’s even worse, this same information is passed on to others as validated truth.

Millions of people receive ‘tons’ of megabytes via e-mails in the form of forwarded messages. Pages and pages of internet text pass before our eyes and the amazing thing is that we absorb a lot of it! I am as guilty as the next person, but I have determined that I will try to be more discerning in the internet traffic that I contribute to. Of course, I am going to have to change a few habits and be a little slower at pulling that “forward e-mail” trigger. The biggest problem is that forwarding e-mails is just so darn easy to do.

Tonight I received a forward concerning Mars and its close orbit in relation to earth. This e-mail made several claims, one of which stated that Mars would appear to be as large as the moon to our naked eye. I like looking at the stars and stuff so the forward was interesting to me. In fact, the kids and I went camping this summer at a Texas park that had an observatory. It was really, really neat. I saw things (including Mars) that I had never seen before in my life. The experience was quite remarkable and very memorable. So what did I do with this e-mail? I forwarded that sucker on of course.

It was too late when I began to realize how *stupid* it was to consider that the planet Mars would appear that enormous in our night skies. For it to do something like that either Earth or Mars (perhaps even both) would have to be terribly off course! Talk about an astronomical calamity.

So, I am trying to rectify the situation here. Here in my little blog. The picture is from the Hubble website; and go to the NASA website for information about this interesting current event in astronomy. Enjoy viewing some real pictures and reading about some actual facts.

later…

The Heart of the Matter...

People wonder what all I do. Some folks think that all we do in a veterinary hospital is play with the dogs and cats. While there are many rewarding moments, this is far from true. Veterinary medicine can be very challenging and physically demanding work.

One of the things I do is ultrasound pets’ hearts and abdominal organs. Usually, when I see the pet, things can be fairly grave. There are many times when the pet has advanced heart disease or a cancer in one of their organs. These are very stressful and heartbreaking times for the owners.

Echocardiograms (echoes) are ultrasounds of the heart. Echoes give us an inside view of the dynamics and structure of the heart and its function. This is very helpful if a pet is suspected of a cardiac insufficiency of some sort. If the condition is not progressed, the doctors can prescribe medications to help the heart work more efficiently, but only for a while. Heart disease cannot be cured, but there are many times when it can be managed for a period of time with medications. When the pet’s heart starts to decompensate (or fail) there is not much else that we can do medically.

The pictures that I have posted are two separate views of a heart. This heart is having a hard time as there is fluid within the sack surrounding the heart. This pet’s heart has cardiac tamponade which is usually caused by a cancer. A general term for fluid within the pericardial sack is called pericardial effusion.

Preventative medicine is the best thing any pet owner can do. Keeping teeth clean is a must. Dental tartar and gum disease is a major contributor to shortening a pet’s life. The bacteria that is involved in these processes get into the blood stream and affect the heart, kidneys, and liver. Many pets die young due to heart disease, renal failure and liver failure. There are so many pets that we see in the hospital every day that have terrible plaque accumulations, gum disease, and infections. Everyone wants their pet to live a long, healthy and comfortable life, but sometimes we kill them with “kindness”. We over feed our pets, or feed the wrong foods and give them table scraps. Sometimes we fail to see the obvious and don’t take care of the basics like their teeth.

later...

Heart Base View...

The Tastes of Life...

A plate full of fried okra, vine ripe sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and fresh peppers is a perfect meal for me. Summer has so many good things to offer. I was so thankful when my neighbor, Sue, invited me to share her garden spot with her this year. Her son-in-law, Lynn, volunteered to do the tilling of the soil. Aren’t good neighbors just wonderful?

It has been a very long time since I have had a proper vegetable garden. The backyard flower bed just hasn’t cut it these last several years. Too much shade. There have been a few glitches with my garden though. All hasn’t been absolutely perfect. Everybody has problems here and there. For instance, the birds like to take bites out of my ripening tomatoes but I am ever so thankful that the dogs don’t eat them like Linda’s dog does. Linda lives on the north side of me. Linda says that she has to pull her tomatoes green because her dog picks them and will eat them all! Right off the vine!

The spider mites always hit when the weather gets hot and dry. The only thing that I have found to work very well is to spray my plants with copious amounts of water. I use the water hose and a spray nozzle and hit them pretty hard with a blast of water all over and under the leaves. This is about the most effective method that I have found to control the little buggers. I have tried commercial insecticides specifically labeled for spider mites to no avail.

I did have a disappointing surprise among my plants though. I had purchased a bell pepper plant along with my tomato plants. But, to my dismay, someone had thought it funny to switch the tags in the pot and my bell pepper plant turned out to be a jalapeno plant. *sigh* I am not a great fan of jalapeno peppers. While I will eat jalapenos on occasion, I definitely do not have the stomach for the prolific proffering that that this little plant has given me this summer. And wouldn’t you know it, not a bug, hazard, or calamity has come its way. I didn’t have the heart to murder it and let it die from lack of water. Consequently, I had a kitchen counter full of the emerald green fruits and couldn’t eat them all or give enough of them away. Thank goodness that Sue’s pastor is a fan of the jalapenos. I sure hope that he can eat jalapenos the rest of this season.

There is always a curve being thrown my way it seems, and I always do my best to try to make ‘lemonade out of lemons’. I experimented a bit with the jalapenos and I have discovered that if you slice them up and bread them with the okra, fry it up all together, that it does make a tasty little twist to the traditional skillet of fried okra. The jalapeno pepper is not so hot when it is fried and there is a pleasant taste added to the okra.

Now I am diligently hunting for some zucchini squash seed so that I can have a fall garden. Sue and I can’t find any anywhere. I have made a phone call to my mother in Texas. Moms always have everything you need. She has some seed leftover and she said that she would mail me some. Oh how I am enjoying the fruits of this season! And I am diligently praying that I am afforded the same wonderful opportunity next summer.

later…

Intestinal Foreign Bodies...

Dogs are amazing when it comes to swallowing things. They can swallow items that appear to be four times the size of their esophagus and yet when you want to put a pill down them they run, fight, gag, drool, and spit up the medication. Stick a tiny pill in a yummy morsel and be amazed at the nimble dexterity of the canine tongue. Fido looks up at you grinning, his treat swallowed and your now semi-solid pill at your feet.

This morning we did the usual routine. Everyone is let out of their crates, runs out the back door, does their 'jobs', terrorizes the cats, and then they look for any inedible tasty morsels in the yard that might have been deposited or overlooked since last night. Okay, that's enough. So we come back in the house, everyone to their crate for a treat or new rawhide. This morning, Norma the English Bulldog, ran to her crate anticipating the CET rawhide chew that she saw me get "for her". She was grinning from ear to ear. She attacked the specialized dental treat with zeal. Four minutes later I hear a slight gag and a cough. Norma has swallowed it down whole. So much for the extra money I paid for an oral and dental hygiene product.

Sometimes I wish that humans had that ability. You know, be able to swallow large, and maybe not so palatable, things down whole so you don't have to go through the processes of cooking, cutting, and mastication.

Hmmm... but now that I think about it, maybe we already have this special canine ability. We already swallow a variety of large and unpalatable portions without scrutiny that some of the media dishes out to us every day.