I’m sick to my stomach. My healthy labrador died suddenly on Saturday. He was fine Friday afternoon, got nauseous Friday night, and I was waiting for the vet to open at 8am Saturday to get him in there. He got unresponsive and barely breathing around 6am and I rushed him to the vet ER, and he didn’t make it. The vet said he had a “torsioned spleen” or something like that.
I’ve got an absolutely soul crushing amount of guilt that I didn’t get him to the ER on Friday night. My dog trusted me to protect him and take care of him, and I completely betrayed that trust. I’m in such a place of deep sorrow that it’s impossible to explain with words. Every time I start to fall asleep, I’m suddenly wide awake trying to figure out why I decided not to act sooner.
Not sure why I’m sharing this, I guess I just had to get it off my chest.
I'm so sorry for your loss and what you're going through 🫂
It might not be possible right now but please give yourself some grace. You were attentive to his condition and when it worsened you acted immediately. I can't imagine a better kind of human to place trust in, and I can't imagine him not knowing how hard you tried, how much you cared, or that he would ever blame you.
Hey thanks, I appreciate you. What you’re saying is all probably true, but I can’t shake this horrible feeling that I failed him. I like my dog more than I like most people I meet, and he was with me all day every day. I hope this feeling lessens with time.
I'll tell you that it does - or at least, the remembering becomes slightly less painful as time goes on. The lessons really stick, but it becomes easier to remember all the good stuff, and those are the things you should hold on to the hardest during those difficult times.
And I'm glad you shared with us, if for no other reason than helping you process your grief. I'm sure we're all sending our love, hoping to lighten the load in some small way.
The past two weeks were amazing, and I'm an Orff Level 3 certified teacher now! Also last night I finally made it back to that little karaoke spot I found about a month ago. The owner is such a cool lady and there's this wonderful feeling of community I've felt totally welcomed into. It will be another month before I'm able to go back since I'm about to do some traveling, but I definitely anticipate it being a regular haunt for me.
Think I might be in early stages of a hypomanic episode, but not sure.
Need to chill somehow. Running with assumptions, though. Might just be a bad few days; just haven't had them this suddenly in a while.
Might end up making this comment and by the time next week's thread is started in a day or two, I'll be feeling fine(-ish) again. Wouldn't be the first time.
Could really do with something interesting like the Olympics right now, but that's still almost a month away.
I don't even enjoy most sports, but it's a nice distraction. If I'm being honest, all I'm really interested in is the women's football portion, although there's at least more Euro 2025 qualifiers and a handful of friendlies in a couple of weeks to hold me over until then.
Not the best. Have some kind of recurring fungal infection that I've just been slapping with OTC cream, but it keeps popping back up in random places. Had two yeast infections this month. I don't think I'm particularly unhygienic so I don't know what's going on, but I've racked up enough medical bills and my savings are gone due to moving expenses.
Speaking of moving... no progress. My friend who owns a van forgot they were going to help me on my day off 🙁 I think I'm getting depressed being stuck in my current place surrounded by boxes.
I'm also lonely. I lied and told my long-distance friends that I'm taking a screen break to focus on moving, but actually I needed time away from them. I have moral scrupulosity OCD and they know it but keep doing things that aggravate it, like reading these really intense moral stances into things I say and self-flagellating for not conforming to what they think my opinion is. One of them told me outright that he bases his morals on me. (I'm a mean, paranoid dropout with no background in ethics, social sciences, or philosophy, so this is a baffling choice.)
I know my mental health is my responsibility and it's not their fault I have OCD, but my mind tortures me when I'm around them. I feel like a cult leader. Like I'm going to break them, or lead them into trouble. On top of that, they can't stand the rituals I developed before talking to them. So in this case I think taking responsibility for my mental health actually means fucking off. I'm focusing on befriending my coworkers and keeping it extremely casual. I never want anyone to be that invested in me again.
I hope next week I can post about how I'm happy in a new place and my coworkers liked getting sushi.
Congrats on taking control of your mental health and distancing yourself from people who make that hard to do. I hope you're able to have some fun times with your coworkers!
Thank you ❤️ it makes me sad though, because I know my friends act the way they do because they have trouble controlling their anxiety. Now that I've thought about it, I don't hold it against them because that's exactly what my disorder is.
It just sucks because I don't want to let this shit control my relationships, and I doubt they do either. They're all really funny, creative, passionate people, and they deserve safe friendships as much as I do.
got some teva sandals for children that i'm digging and a shade hoodie for those really hot days when i don't wanna wear sunscreen.
went to the beach over the weekend, which echo loved! jean (little dog) hates the water, and i didn't want to have to clean all the sand out of loki's coat, hah.
new to us (15-year-old) mazda5 was awesome for hauling all three dog crates and our gear, but the AC stopped working 1/3 of the way back home, so it was a hot ride. 🥵
I have two shirts like this from (the company) patagonia and they breathe until I start to sweat about ten minutes later. If yours was better than that, care to drop a name for me to go look into?
Our boy would sympathize with Jean - he loves the beach but not the water. We still take him every so often, but he wants the smells right on the edge of the waves and sometimes the ocean sneaking up on him is just too much
If yours was better than that, care to drop a name for me to go look into?
i ended up getting the sahara shade hoodie from REI because it was on sale. i don't have much to compare it to, but i thought it was really breezy! i even wore it on my ~10 mile bike ride and didn't feel too bad as long as there was a bit of wind.
Last few days before summer break. All my final projects are in and I've got one last final exam to study for. Home stretch. Just gotta make it a few more days.
Going pretty well so far! A friend reached out this morning to see if I would be interested in receiving some plants from her (yes) so in the near future I'll get to go hang out with an amazing person, and will get to grow some new plants with which I have no experience.
And I'm giving an introductory talk about biochar at my town library this evening, which will hopefully be a bunch of fun for everyone. I couldn't come up with as many biochar puns as I did for my compost presentation, so I'm leaning on memeing for levity:https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/acf7290e-980e-4ead-95ca-7cd3797ebee4.webp
I have no idea how attendees will react to these, as most of them are retirees.
Our solo duckling is still solo, which is concerning at this stage. That said, there has been a lot of co-nesting and additional shuffling of eggs between hens which likely impacted incubation. I'll keep my eyes peeled for more chances to shove pictures of ducklings in y'all's feeds