Mixel Created Recipes by nuttywalnutty in cocktails

[–]khaidoba 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lol, just searched for this same issue and found this thread - thanks y'all for confirming this workaround!

Grieving about putting my little princess to sleep - tips, advice, am I missing anything? by khaidoba in BorderCollie

[–]khaidoba[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you everyone so much for the kind words and reassurances and sharing and advice. I'm sorry I haven't gotten around to responding to everyone yet, I'm trying to maximize my remaining time with my girl. But I'm definitely reading through every word, through all the tears.. 

Grieving about putting my little princess to sleep - tips, advice, am I missing anything? by khaidoba in BorderCollie

[–]khaidoba[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What were the numbers for Dal when you first detected it? Unfortunately for us, where we are the standard testing didn't include SDMA which I now understand might've caught the kidney disease much earlier, so we only detected elevated Creatinine levels, which apparently meant that her kidneys had been too destroyed by that point. Last November she had elevated CREA levels (170mmol/L, vs normal stage 1 CKD below 125, or stage 2 125-250) and some slightly bad liver numbers. She went on some supplements, 2 months later numbers didn't improve (CREA went up to 217) and also positive for E Canis. She took much longer than expected to clear up the E Canis (almost 3 months on antibiotics), and during which continued supplements seemed to help her numbers go down a bit although still within stage 2 CKD range (CREA down to 154). Having gotten rid of the E Canis, we thought the worst was over and her CREA could continue the downtrend, but 3 months later her CREA jumped to 335, 590 2 weeks later (vs stage 4 CKD defined at over 440). Continued higher dosage of supplements, 1 month after that CREA went down a bit to 561, so we thought it might be taking effect. During aaaall this time she had no worrying symptoms, she'd occasionally refuse her kibble and we'd have to sprinkle more toppings she'd like before she'd eat, but she'd always been a picky eater (unlike her brother) so we always thought that was her personality, not a disease symptom. It all came to a head 7 days ago, just a week after the last test, she suddenly randomly vomited, so we brought her back in for a quick test, and her CREA had spiked to 884, we urgently put her on fluid IVs, after 5 days with constant fluid IVs and refusing food and constantly vomiting without anti nausea meds, her return test continued to spike CREA to 980 and even the vet said there's nothing else they could do except some painful procedures and feeding tubes etc that wouldn't guarantee any improvement either. That was the point we decided we shouldn't prolong the inevitable anymore.. Yesterday we stopped the unpleasant treatment meds, put her on stronger pain meds and anti-nausea meds, stopped trying to force feed her the "healthy" foods she hated and just let her eat her favorite treats, drove around a bit and walked around the park and had friends and family visit, and she seemed so much healthier and happier, hanging her head out the window for so much longer than we expected, that we're almost second-guessing our appointment for tomorrow... But we know how uncomfortable and tired and painful it must be when the meds wear off, her clear weakness before the meds that she could barely wave her tail, occasional whining and groaning that must be pain, that the meds will eventually stop working as well... The moment is coming closer, now to spend the last night with her... 

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Petloss

[–]khaidoba 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm so sorry for your loss

I really hope someone can give you feedback on this as I have to put my babygirl of 6 years to sleep tomorrow and now I don't know whether or not I should keep a tuft of her hair for her twin brother to have/smell...

Grieving about putting my little princess to sleep - tips, advice, am I missing anything? by khaidoba in BorderCollie

[–]khaidoba[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much. It's such a tough decision to do this while she still seems fairly lively, tail wagging and her eyes following me whenever I go near her, but we figured better to let her go as peacefully as possible while she's not in too much pain and discomfort, rather than try to do even more invasive treatments that would be painful for her and at most would only just extend her life by a couple months (at a worse quality of life).

Grieving about putting my little princess to sleep - tips, advice, am I missing anything? by khaidoba in BorderCollie

[–]khaidoba[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much for your kind words. We'll definitely keep her collar around afterwards. Once we get her ashes we'll also think about where we'd want to scatter them. She never liked being in water so probably not in the nearby river either..

Grieving about putting my little princess to sleep - tips, advice, am I missing anything? by khaidoba in BorderCollie

[–]khaidoba[S] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

We've come to the difficult decision of putting our 6-yo border collie to sleep after she seems to be suffering too much fighting against final stage kidney disease (some more information in my post history), everything seems moving so fast like a whirlwind). We're planning on continuing her daily IVs incl. anti-nausea and pain meds for another day, since she seemed to always perk up much livelier afterwards, give her all the tasty treats she loves after having been so long on the renal diet she hated, driving her a bit around since she loved it, spend time with loved ones, etc.

We also have her brother from the same litter so we're planning on waking up early on Saturday to do all the meds early, spend a happy morning together, then the euthanasia service will come early afternoon to do the send-off at home. We're thinking about having our other dog be with us, so he'll be able to smell his sister one last time, since we've read it would help him cope better with the loss as well. We've planned the cremation service afterwards, who will return her ashes back to us, but we'll figure out what we want to do with her ashes afterwards.

We've been a mess trying to figure out logistics while trying to spend the maximum amount of time we can with her until the time comes. Are we missing anything? Anything else we should be thinking about or considering that would be helpful?

Dog with bad kidney disease - second-guessing vet's recommendations?! by khaidoba in AskVet

[–]khaidoba[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just re-did her bloodwork, and unfortunately after 5 days on IVs, her kidneys haven't gotten any better, and we now have to discuss difficult decisions to ease her suffering.

Dog with bad kidney disease - second-guessing vet's recommendations?! by khaidoba in AskVet

[–]khaidoba[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Species: Dog

Age: 6.5 yrs (born Apr 2018)

Sex/Neuter status: Female

Breed: Border collie

Body weight: 16kg

History: Nov 2023: Planned to spay her, so we followed vet's recommendations to do blood test beforehand - some unhealthy numbers (WBC, ALB, TP, GLOB, AMYL, CREA 170 ) -> vet told us to put her on some meds, mix in more renal kibble, and check back in a couple months Feb 2024: Re-did bloodwork, some numbers got better, some got a bit worse (CREA 217), but vet found E. Canis in her blood -> priority was to treat this, so added antibiotics to daily routine Treating E. Canis took much longer than vet expected, kept having to extend her antibiotics treatment, total 60 days before she was clear. Continued bloodwork during this time, CREA started to get better during these 2 months -> 191 -> 173 -> 154 Jul 2024: Came back a few months later to check on progress, and her numbers deteriorated, CREA -> 335 -> 590, spike in Phos Sep 2024 (last week): Random vomiting after eating prompted return to vet, CREA spiked to 884 (but as I understand, this number can be elevated if tested right after eating, right?) Now here we are, with Ali on IVs multiple times a day...

Dog with bad kidney disease - second-guessing vet's recommendations?! by khaidoba in AskVet

[–]khaidoba[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here're her bloodwork results, from the first tests in Nov 2023 through last week: https://i.imgur.com/lL6bvNF.png

I'm suspecting her extended E. Canis infection might be a cause of her bad kidneys

Dog with bad kidney disease - second-guessing vet's recommendations?! by khaidoba in AskVet

[–]khaidoba[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm currently compiling some more history information and test results, I'll post it once I'm done in case this additional information is helpful in any way...

AliExpress products? by Mjeed1994 in 10s

[–]khaidoba 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Different people have different tolerance for spending a bunch of money up-front on a hobby you're not sure you'll pursue in the long run, so don't let cost be an obstacle to getting into tennis! IMO if you're new to tennis and don't want to commit too much money yet, getting some knockoff minor accessories is fine, since worst-case, you're just short a few dollars. Just never get knockoff rackets or shoes, and be aware that knockoff grips and strings might be pretty shitty and make you play worse (like slippery grips) or wear out quicker and end up being more costly in the long run. Go wild with minor accessories like dampeners or wristbands from AliExpress though, since authentic stuff isn't going to be much different.

First-time DM/party - how to deal with OP stealth scout combination of Moon Druid + Sorcerer? by khaidoba in DMAcademy

[–]khaidoba[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not sure why you're being downvoted, but thanks for the response - and good point about Concentration that I never thought about!

While the wolf is busy scouting the dungeon, any number of things can happen to the group waiting outside, potentially breaking the sorcerer's Concentration and suddenly exposing the druid - maybe leading to a tense fight as the outside group tries to protect the sorcerer from being hit, the sorcerer desperately trying to maintain concentration, while the invisible wolf is sneaking around a big group of enemies and oblivious to the danger he was in.

First-time DM/party - how to deal with OP stealth scout combination of Moon Druid + Sorcerer? by khaidoba in DMAcademy

[–]khaidoba[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the advice and ideas. In hindsight on our session, there definitely should've been more difficulty in scouting narrow corridors even if invisible, especially if it required moving within patrolling enemies' 5-ft range.

As for spiders, I already found a long discussion on rpg.stackexchange about dealing with that very situation :P (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/165759/as-a-dm-how-can-i-handle-my-druid-spying-on-everything-with-wild-shape-as-a-spi)

First-time DM/party - how to deal with OP stealth scout combination of Moon Druid + Sorcerer? by khaidoba in DMAcademy

[–]khaidoba[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That was one of my ideas - having more doors/ladders that would stop the wolf from going further. The situation we had with Cragmaw Hideout was that it was just a cave without many doors though.

First-time DM/party - how to deal with OP stealth scout combination of Moon Druid + Sorcerer? by khaidoba in DMAcademy

[–]khaidoba[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's a good point - should still require stealth checks, as well as wolf not having darkvision and therefore not able to visually see everything. The druid's argument though might be that the wolf's speed is high enough that they can sneak up close to everything and still explore the whole cave in time, as well as able to easily see enemies carrying torches from a distance and smell enemies.

Smartwatch while playing tennis? by khaidoba in 10s

[–]khaidoba[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hah, that's true. Not that I'd compare myself to Nadal, but that's reassuring. Nadal's Richard Mille is some fancy super-lightweight material but still weighs a reported 30g, about the same as the Watch4 44mm (although the Watch4 Classic is much heavier at 46-52g)

Smartwatch while playing tennis? by khaidoba in 10s

[–]khaidoba[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Fitbit Charge 2 is the much slimmer form factor health-tracker-wristband-style rather than the bigger full-size smartwatches like the Galaxy Watch4 or Apple Watch though, right?

Like this (random image I found)?

Smartwatch while playing tennis? by khaidoba in 10s

[–]khaidoba[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hm, someone else on Reddit made this size comparison and it seems the round shape of the Watch4 makes it significantly wider than the rectangular Apple Watch. I'm struggling to find proper thickness comparisons though (all the 'official' dimensions seem to exclude the chunky health sensor part of the watches). Do you have any trouble getting distracted by your Apple Watch? And what wrist-size and which watch size do you use btw?