The many adventures of Enigma Girl and Enigma Dog.

Where to start?  We sent out invitations, so far two people’s spouses didn’t know who we were, and were shocked to get invitations for a wedding of someone they didn’t know.  My personal favorite response to the invitations was:

I am still laughing about it.  :P  Thanks John.

As for me, Enigma Girl,  I went to the doctor twice this week.  The first time was to get an ultrasound (no, I’m not pregnant, thanks.) of my bladder, and kidneys, which appear to be fine.  Then I went in for a cystoscopy (fun!) which I thought I may die at.  I did survive, and nothing is wrong with my bladder.  This sucks for so many reasons.  First, I have obnoxiously high co-pays for specialists, which I have now paid three times, for absolutely nothing.  Second, there is something wrong with me, I still have to pee all the time, and sometimes I think I have to pee, and I don’t.  It’s really more miserable than it sounds.  Another medical condition, not found, and undiagnosed, and another doctor saying , “Sorry, don’t know what’s wrong with you, try again.”  On a happier note, the inside of your bladder looks pretty nifty, although the places where your kidneys drop fluid into it, are sorta creepy, if I do say so myself.  : )

As for Enigma Dog, (Jason said he takes after me) Landon, he had a punch biopsy last week, which left him with one stitch in a quarter sized hole about 1/4 inch deep, with no wound covering.  He had to be in an E collar so that he wouldn't chew it.  The vet didn't get the results until Wednesday, and didn't have a chance to review them and call us until late Thursday (we were told we'd know by Tuesday.)  Turns out Landon doesn't have cancer (yay!) However, that leads to either bug bites, or self mutilation.  Either way, we figured it was self mutilation because if he went after the bugs, he'd more than likely bite himself more than the bug, until we came to one realization: the way his tail hits the inside doggie door.  This sucks for a ton of reasons.  One, we're pretty sure that this is it.  He hasn't gone in or out a doggie door in almost a full week, he was without the E collar all day, we put them in the kitchen, gated up, with no doggy door access; tail was fine when I got home, and he had all day to chew on it if he wanted.  As soon as I opened up the laundry room door, allowing them access to the garage, his scab mysteriously went missing, and a few more in-and-outs, and his skin was torn, and bleeding.  (Albeit, his tail as a whole looks SO much better.)  We can either get a new, larger doggie door (which stinks because we just forked out $600 for these two to be installed) or figure out some way to rig this one so that it doesn't scrape his tail.  This also obviously is a pain in the ass financially because of how much money we have spent trying to figure this out, as well as putting this poor dog through a myriad of painful tests and procedures.  Ugh.  We are such bad parents.  : (  This is like letting your child stick it's finger in a socket and not being able to figure out why he's smoking and his hair is all crazy.  His stitch gets taken out tomorrow.  I guess we could ask the vet for suggestions as well.

[caption id="attachment_434" align="aligncenter" width="255" caption="Pre-biopsy and stitches :("][/caption]

Hard Times.

Marriage counseling went well. We figured out our one major problem, and now we just have to work on it. We look forward to doing more of it, but now we are kind of crunched for time as our reverend will be out of the country for most of August, and he doesn’t want to necessarily take care of this in September, as he thinks we will be bogged down with last minute things. (And he is probably right.) Why are you doing this, you ask? Because, well, we actually discussed it before it became an option, because honestly what could it hurt. Then we discovered there are actually two different kind of marriage licenses. The difference is this:

The main difference between a contract and a covenant is the enduring commitment between two people, while a contract is based on convenience.

“A contract is convenient as long as the agreement is lived by. A contract in a marriage is nothing more than a non-binding contract between two people sustained only by emotional feelings. It is easily terminated through a no-fault divorce. When things and feelings turn sour, it takes the easy way out rather than working through the problem,” he explained.

“But that’s not what the Bible tells us our relationships should be based on. Our relationships are to be based on a covenant. It is based on an oath spoken between two parties and a covenant is a blood-bond for life. It says no matter what happens, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, that nobody leaves this relationship. A covenant marriage says ‘I’m yours by covenant, you’re mine by covenant, and that means that neither one of us is going anywhere.”

Who’da thunk marriage was supposed to last forever? Hrm. Anyway, we have to go through marriage counseling in order to obtain a covenant marriage license, and we have to have an affidavit signed by our “representative” stating that we have gone through the counseling, and that we understand the ”rules” if you will. So there you have it.

In bad news; Landon had two scabs on his tail on Memorial Day. We waited a few days, and when they didn’t get better, we took him to the vet. Originally thinking it was a bite; she shaved the area, and found another lesion on him. She sent us home with antibiotics, and a wash that we had to do twice a day. After 9 days, we went back, and the problem was not better (just the swelling was down) and now the 3 had grown to 4 lesions. Her first thought was either Valley Fever or Cancer. Both of which would possibly lead to amputation should the infection be bad enough. We got the Valley Fever test done on Saturday, along with a Blood Panel. Monday, we hear back that it is not Valley Fever, but no word on the rest of the stuff. Today, Jason hears back that everything checked out normal. Next step: Punch Biopsy. This is where they will basically knock him out, and take a punch of tissue out and go from there. She is not certain what to tell us, except that it is probably something in the bones since the lesions line up with the vertebrae in his tail. I hate this, it is so heartbreaking. He has been through so much, and I feel like we have let him down. :( We also took Lucy with us the second time we went so that she didn’t think we were neglecting her, and she FLIPPED out when they took him to take his blood. Like howling and whining flipping out, looking at us like, “What are you doing!?! Why are you letting this happen to him!?” She loves him so much… I think she’d die of a broken heart if anything happened to him. :( So sad. I can barely stand to talk about it.

Today...

We have our first day of marriage counseling.  The person who is marrying us is the person who is doing this.  His first assignment?  List your expectations of marriage.  His warning to me?  You will probably have a lot more than Jason will.

Great.  We may kill each other before this is over.  :P

More later...