I was skeptical, but this is a three-second exposure in Maryland.

I'm compiling. Exported LJ to DW in hopes of deleting the LJ, but then ... all the things that takes with it. All the history. The decision is not yet made. But tidying up my internet footprint. I want to roll up like a pillbug, tidy and contained. We'll see. 

Some have noticed a brief outage earlier today. That was me, moving OnePo and friends to a new server, running a new long-term-support OS.

We're on Debian 12 Linux now, for those who care about such things. Supported until mid-2028! A genuine, democratically run community project!

In mid-2028 I may even be able to upgrade in place, although it's usually a good practice to redo these things from time to time.

This all went much more quickly than it might have. Like... two hours of knocking around? Tops? I had minimal trouble moving my nginx, certbot, postfix and opendkim configurations over as-is.

[Knocks on virtual wood]

I also got a slight price cut out of the deal.

Still running on Linode. I considered moving to AWS Lightsail, but Lightsail is just a less convenient clone of Linode for people whose bosses insist on AWS, and I'm not one of those bosses. Except when I'm at work. Linode offered shiny-modern Debian 12 as a standard option, and the ability to just swap my existing IP address to the new server as soon as it was ready to go. Bamfl!

I'm keeping the old server around, powered off, for one week juuuuust in case I missed something.

Tybee dragged me off balance on a slippery slope and I subsequently fell halfway down the mountain all by myself.  I found this cool snail shell where I landed.

"Let's sit and hate a bunch of people..."

So yeah, I'm still alive. Spike had a visit to the emergency vet last night, and I am about a gallon short on sleep. Longwinded version below. I will extract a few highlights on Mastodon (@thatdawnperson@toot.cat) later today when I'm less wiped out.

Spike Spiegel, an orange and white DSH born in a barn 11 years ago, is on the mend. The cat does not die or become tragically ill at this time.

There are many goings on at Sanctuary, home to me and S and cats Spike and Greg (18 months). Yesterday morning, the humans made an expedition to a suburban Ikea store for research purposes. Unlike many Saturday mornings, the cats were unsupervised for about four hours after breakfast. We got home in the early afternoon and all was well within parameters.

A few days ago, Greg had tagged Spike while frolicking. This happens sometimes, and the wound we had noted was not a concern beyond normal vigilance. We keep an eye on physical state, inputs, outputs, and behaviours routinely because that’s part of pets in the family.

We usually check both cats’ front claws regularly to keep damage to a minimum. We have 3 cat trees, all well used by both for stropping and play. Checking and trimming Greg’s claws was on our list of this weekend’s to dos.

About half an hour into watching a movie yesterday evening, I didn’t notice anything odd but S did. Spike was in the top cat hammock, a ceiling-level place where he likes to chill. He suddenly shook his head, and dashed off to a different one of his regular haunts, a windowsill that gets excellent sunlight. S went to investigate and we stopped the movie. Greg noticed something was happening and trotted along to make sure she was involved. S indicated there was a concern with Spike’s eye.

Spike ran back into the room after the brief examination. He hid in the circular cat tunnel that sits on the floor behind where we had been watching the movie. Greg wanted to interact but I waved her off. I kept an eye on the hiding spot where Spike had hunkered down. If we needed to check him out further or bundle him into a carrier for transport, it would be much easier to do that from here than wherever he might dash to next. Spike’s eye had a concerning discharge and the surrounding skin appeared red and a little swollen.

Eye infections can get bad very quickly, so we agreed to divert all energy to getting medical care for our suddenly unhappy cat. I looked up the affiliated emergency clinics from our regular vet’s web site. The closest is about 1km away. S called them and described the situation and symptoms. Bring him in, expect a minimum fee and a few hours waiting time. Emergency clinics are busier on late weekend evenings, whoever they’re treating.

I wrangled Spike into the carrier as gently as I could while Greg wanted to help and S looked for an available vehicle. Weekend evening: of course there were none. We took turns carrying and speaking softly to Spike on the walk down. Aside from the usual piteous cries when starting a trip to the vet and using the elevator, he was quietly interested in the passing scenery. The air was heavy with humidity and some particulate matter.

I was still unable to deal with speaking to strangers, so the burden of registering fell to S. I added details where I thought them relevant, but mostly just settled in to a chair to wait with as little movement as possible, Spike in the soft-sided carrier with a good view around him on my lap.

The waiting room was empty of people, though it didn’t remain so. In addition to black plastic chairs fixed in place, there was snack vending machine, a coffee station, a bathroom, a poster summarizing clinic policy, a fish tank built into one wall, a TV showing CP24 news, and a TV showing a “pet TV” video loop of facts, trivia, tips, ads related to dogs and cats, and “meet our staff” pages. It was a comfort to have the light topical infotainment to draw focus away from anxiety, even the sixth and seventh time through.

A cat with a history of heart  problems came in. A dog who had eaten some string and not thrown all of it up.  A dog who had landed badly from a jump. Others, each with a problem they’d go to the vet for if their regular clinic were open. A triage clinician spoke to each, not in order of arrival but based on the severity of the issue. Pet names were used throughout conversations. Pets were taken into the clinic area when it was their time to be seen. Humans went into the clinic only when called, generally briefly.

From time to time, a staff person brought a dog through the waiting room to outside for a short walk, then back in to the clinic. The dogs I saw mostly had leg bandages. One had what looked like hotter monitor patches. One had a cap tied around their head. One was carried out and back, with a second person wheeling a gas cylinder attached to the dog. That dog left a spot of blood on the floor, which someone came and mopped up after several minutes.

One blind person with a working dog and a human companion came out at one point, asking when they could go home. Something about not eaten since breakfast, when will we be allowed to leave. They had to wait, and eventually they left with meds and instructions. Other people paid their bills, received discharge information, and took their patient home.

S and I mostly put ourselves into standby mode. Some people used their phones. Some left and returned. After Spike was taken into the clinic for his examination, I pulled up my phone two or three times to work on a crossword puzzle. Metta/maitri was easier than distracting my mind: meditating benevolence to others and self.

All the staff were thoughtful, comfortably and practically dressed, empathetic, actively paying attention to the needs of human and quadruped clients. The cleaner only ran the vacuum in a space when it was empty of animals.

Not long after Spike was carried in, about as long as you’d spend for a well-cat checkup including the wait for the vet, his people were called in. It could be a wound to the eye or surrounding face, or a dental abscess (I need to get dental care going consistently). We answered questions, shared possible factors, and discussed the treatment plan the vet proposed.  Stain the eyeball to check for injury, 3 daily doses of NSAID for pain and swelling, a week of twice-daily antibiotic. Total bill would be ~$600, copy of their report to be sent to our vet.

I was a little confused when the carrier came out empty, but I took it. After about a full loop of Vet TV, someone came and took the carrier back in.

A small eternity later, while S took a walk around the block many times, I got the results with a paper bag containing Spike’s report and meds and paid the bill. No eyeball or eye injury, administer one syringe and 1.5 pills with food as prescribed. I texted S the info, though doubted they’d read the messages because it was past our bedtimes. S appeared at the door just as I was on the way to the exit with Spike. I wished the human whose cat was experiencing possible heart failure a good outcome.

I provided S the details just outside, Spike sitting in his carrier on a raised garden bed in front of us. We talked through the medication and food stuff, hemming and hawing on how to deal with a midnight first dose and 8am being the likely second dose. We started walking home, mostly S carrying Spike because I was too unsteady from fatigue. It would be good to wash the salt anxiety humidity sweat off.

Spike was a bit less actively engaged but still alert on the walk home. He didn’t yowl in the elevator, though he usually does. Walking up that one block of Church (heart of the gay village) near midnight on a Saturday night was not the best choice given the crowds but all arrived home without incident. That drag queen in the bar we passed was not my idea of a Swiftie but she was rocking her impressively muscular booty to something I recognized.

I put Spike’s carrier on the kitchen counter and monitored Greg’s curious interest while S got ready to administer his meds. I prepped the usual bedtime wet food (oh no! nothing but kibbles were left and few of those!) but did not put it down, to Greg’s quiet annoyance. I got the pills ready. S dealt with the troublesome bottle and syringe. Dose. Swallow. Dose. Swallow, no really swallow, okay I saw a gulp. Mouth is empty.

I didn’t have to encourage Greg away from the food. It was harder, though to keep her from getting her nose all up in Spike’s business with the unfamiliar scents he’d brought home. Fortunately, he ate a good portion (enough to satisfy, not so much as to risk vomiting) despite her persistent cat scan around his back, sides, and butt.

We trimmed Greg's claws. Dang those things get sharp, but it's quick to take care of.

Shower was a palpable relief. I washed about four times as much as usual. Did I fall asleep right away? I don’t remember. I woke up to stay awake 5 hours and 17 minutes later to start fetching water, feeding cats, cleaning, chores.

Spike has been more skittish than usual since coming home, understandably so. He's demanding more than double the usual attention and purring strongly. We’re doing our best to provide. This was going to be the weekend I rest up to get ready for my big medical adventure near the end of the month. Oh, and helping K move again before that, and preparing to hand over work deliverables, and and...

From each according to their ability, and get some gorram rest so we can keep on keeping on.

It's being a bit of a year.

I'm 53 years old and have three kids.  Not that they're really "kids" any more--the youngest (who tentatively identifies as non-binary) is 16, and the others are Simon (24) and Luke (22).  What with Covid, and the job/housing market, Simon, although he has graduated, is still living at home, as is Luke, who has been going to university.  Though he's taking a year off at the moment.

Luke in some ways is the classic middle child, being the one who's been most likely to help out around the house, which is helpful in this likely undiagnosed-ADHD-ridden household.  He has had his ADHD diagnosed, and anxiety, and has gotten his own medications for those.  He got a part-time job as a parking attendant, which is more than Simon has managed.  (Simon took a Comp.Sci. degree and wants to get into game development, and has been fruitlessly job-hunting since he graduated, but has been largely unwilling to apply for jobs outside of software development.)

A couple of years ago (not quite sure when it started, but as of last August it had definitely been a thing for a while) Luke started getting lower back pains.  So he started trying to fix his posture (he's quite tall, so probably had a bit of a tendency to slouch), he tried to be more active, and of course he went to doctors.  They couldn't figure out what it was; one of them thought maybe it was a problem with his gluteal nerve being inflamed or something, and there were some plans to try to deal with that.  They did an MRI.

Then they did a biopsy.  And apparently this is a more loaded word than I had thought, because this was when my wife started getting anxious but I remained clueless.

Because what they found was cancer.

They weren't 100% sure about it, but it looked like something called a "Ewing sarcoma", a rare bone/soft tissue cancer which often appears in the teens.  Apparently in Luke's case it had shown up in his sacral area.

My wife had a cousin (once removed) who got cancer young and did not make it.  My mom went through breast cancer a few years ago and came out of it okay, but her husband's bout with it a few years later was not as successful.

So we went in to the Cross Cancer Institute, a local institution which is pretty state-of-the-art, to talk to the oncologist and her team.  They had to do some more scans to try to see if it had metastasized, which is of course always the big question mark and a major determiner in how screwed you are.  They didn't find much except a tiny spot on one lung, which they eventually concluded was nothing to worry about.  Which was a relief, given how long it had been since the pains started, and we started to relax a little bit.

In about March they started him on an aggressive chemotherapy schedule--chemo every two weeks, alternating between a week with a half day of treatment and a week with three full days of treatment.  Which got to be a bit of a grind, especially for a one-vehicle household in a city that doesn't have the greatest public transit infrastructure in the world.  And of course after a full day of getting toxic substances pumped into his veins, Luke didn't particularly want to have to get home on his own anyway, so we tried to juggle things so that one of us could pick him up.  I'd been back in the office since October 2022, but I started taking more WFH days, with the approval of my immediate bosses who are, luckily, entirely sympathetic.

Luke's hair fell out; he wore a wig briefly while it was still patchy, but has pretty much given that up by now.  He had to get some pricy medications, which were generally covered by the Blue Cross plan I have through work or by his student healthcare plan (Canada healthcare is good enough that we weren't even charged for anything apart from that, but our pharmacare is still vestigial), and they have "drug coordinators" to help fill in the gaps.  He quite his job right away, and finished his university year in April but didn't sign up for the next year, because that had been enough of a struggle.  One of the drugs, Lapelga, was designed to try to help his white blood cell count, because of course the cancer-fighting drugs also beat those down too.  (My mom's white blood cells apparently got really low during her treatments.)

We're now into the second half of the treatment.  His white blood cells have also gotten low; he started off by getting an actual blood transfusion to try to bring them up, and he's now on chemo every three weeks to give him more recovery time.  But the cancer is getting beaten back.  He's now starting on radiation treatments as well (anecdotally, radiation is supposed to do quite well against Ewing sarcomas, so here's hoping), but that schedule looks like it'll be even more grueling: treatments every day (well, every weekday) for six weeks.  (What happens when they overlap with the chemo days, I'm not sure yet.)  His energy levels are up and down--chemo weeks he'll spend more time sleeping, but he still tries to hang out with his friends from time to time, often online.  I'm sure he understands that his job right now is just fighting cancer (or hanging on while the cancer is being fought, at least).  And presumably when the chemo and radiation are done, what's left will be a tiny thing they can surgically remove.

Apart from when we first got the news, the mood in the house has been generally positive.  The doctors seem optimistic (though of course maybe they always do that, to keep people's hopes up), they do seem to be making progress, it doesn't seem to have metastasized...  It's a lot of effort, but maybe it'll just be One Bad Year and after that things will be Okay.  I am a little vague on what the cancer is actually doing to his bones--are they going to need to be repaired somehow once the tumour is gone?  Will he still suffer pain there for the rest of his life?  And, of course, the lingering question of...will the cancer come back?

One of the books I'm reading right now is Risk, a.k.a. The Science of Fear, by Dan Gardner.  At one point he's talking about how people often deliberately exaggerate numbers to make something sound worse than it is, because that way they can convince more people to do something about it.  And cancer is one of those things.  A lot of work has been done on treating cancer, and it's not an automatic death sentence by any means.  And one reason we're getting better at treating it is because it's been treated as a serious problem...but the better we get at treating it, the less serious the problem becomes?  I'm glad that chemo and radiation treatments are getting as effective as they are.  I'd heard a thing recently about using these newfangled mRNA vaccines to get someone's immune system to attack cancer cells; sounds like that might work better with someone whose white blood cell count was up to the task, but it sounds promising.

Last summer we lost our cat (to what I believe was lillium poisoning after we stupidly got a stupid free bouquet from the store).  We've talked about getting a new one, and maybe now is the time.  Bring some cheer back into the house.  (Which means, of course, we'll probably be biased in favour of getting a cute kitten rather than a mature or elderly cat which may have its own health problems.)

Did y'all go to Betsons or something?