Meeting myself coming and going!

A week ago Sunday (the 9th) I was scheduled to give a Needleturn Applique workshop for the Warrensburg Mo. Quilt Guild and then give a lecture Monday at 7:00 p.m.. Sunday morning dawned cloudy and the weather report for Monday said snow, snow, snow.... and cold. So we decided that I would go down and give the workshop as scheduled and then come home that night. Going down (and back up) Highway 13, it only takes a little over an hour and a half.

What a great group they are. Everyone jumped right into sewing and we covered a lot - inside and outside points (stars), inside and outside curves (trees), squares and rectangles (windows and dooor) and circles (berries and flower centers). If you can master those things, there isn't anything you can't applique.

The guild always has a pot luck dinner at the end of their workshops - what a neat idea! The food all looked very good but I was afraid I'd get too tired on the way home if I ate. I am not a night person anyway and driving at night makes me sleepy so I tore myself away from the food. They made me a big glass of diet coke to go. It really helped on the drive.

This is Wooly Bully, my pride and joy. He is my dog. When I am at home, where I am Bully is. He is 10 and from what I understand, that is very old for a bulldog. I took this picture of him last summer, doing his usual thing - sleeping. He's very good at sleeping.

When I got home Sunday night he was very swollen - almost twice his normal size. I realized he hadn't been following me to the top of the hill the last few day. He goes with me to feed the chickens and then goes to the office for his treat Tara keeps for him in the desk drawer. Sunday night he looked pretty sick.

This is what it looked like Monday morning - only it was still snowing. Pep and I got in the van and took Bully to the vet. Our vet up here is mainly a large animal vet and he wanted us to take Bully to a specialist in Kansas City. Bully was having trouble breathing, he was really swollen, anemic and his heart rate was rapid. The doctor gave him some diuretics and antiobiotics (he had bronchitis) and said he was afraid Bully wouldn't make it a week. I couldn't get him down to Springfield to see my brother Jim (a small animal vet) until then.

Well going to Kansas City was out of the question. We barely made it home. (Have I mentioned that we live on top of a hill on top of a series of hills?) Pep didn't go to work that night. The schools were closed up here for 3 days until the roads were cleared.

I called my brother in Springfield. He said that it sounded like congestive heart failure and the diuretics and antibiotics were a good start. He said to take him off his lamb and rice feed and get him some Senior diet because they are very low on sodium. Until we could get out to get the feed we could make our own out of hamburger or chicken and rice - no salt. He also said we could get some nitroglycerin cream to rub on his ear since you can't get a dog to let a pill dissolve under his tongue. As soon as we could get out, of course.

The diuretics started working. I spent 2 days in the house stitching because Bully had to go out to wet about every 20 minutes. As the fluid came off and the antibiotics started working his breathing eased and his gums around his teeth were pink again instead of whitish grey.

When we could get out again on Thursday, Jim suggested that we start him on Enalapril which is one of the same heart medicines I take. With Pep's insurance we pay $2.00 for mine. Bully's costs $35.00. :) He's worth it.

I had Girl Gang at Missouri Star Quilt Co. Thursday night but Pep was off work that night and took him out. By Saturday when the down south Girl Gang met at my house, he was good enough to stay in the house by himself. He's even gone up to the chicken yard and office with me a couple of times over the weekend. I keep telling him to take it easy - he's not 5 anymore.

This is Lilly's Stars, our Wallhanging Club offering for January. We've also decided to kit Lilly's Hearts. If you belong to the Club Tara will be emailing you to see which one you want. If you belong to the Club and order them both, you get 15% off of one and 30% off of the 2nd. If you don't belong to the Club and order them both, you get 15% off of each one.

And while I was housebound getting Bully better, I started on a heart Mini Quilt. I'm almost done, working in and out of teaching and appliqueing. I'll try to show you that in the next couple of days.

Right now, I'm just so thankful my Bully is almost back to his old self. My father was a vet so animals have always been a part of my life. And this one is really special to me. I'm going to probably get a bulldog puppy this summer to ease things. Bully can't live forever - but he can try!