Why hello again! It has been sooo long, and guys, I genuinely apologize for that. None of this was planned, of course. How can you plan for nearly dying from a tooth infection and your dog getting cancer? Life has been a rough and wild ride that's taken my drive to write. The story news is after my life news.
I'll tell you guys a bit about it, for those who care or simply enjoy getting nosy in other's lives. I've been dealing with a long term tooth infection. A couple of years, in fact, maybe even longer. It had gotten so bad that when I finally went to the dentist, he looked at the xrays, came over to me with some wide eyes and said "So I don't want to alarm you, but these are the kinds of infections that kills people, and I just want to say thank you for coming in." My resting heart rate was at 80bpm. I was having random and extreme panic attacks out of nowhere, my heart would race and the world was suddenly crashing. I slept 30 minutes at a time. Shit was BAD! My watch was like "Are you okay?" No, Garmin, no I was not okay. I got through three antibiotic pills and by the time I was taking the fourth, I literally felt like a different human being. Like I was a snake that had shed skin. It was wild. I had forgotten what normal felt like. I was given only a weekend to take the pills because he said he wasn't waiting on that tooth, and boy he did not. Got right in there and yanked that bastard out in three pieces because it shattered. That... was... traumatic. I'm never doing an awake extraction again. Unfortunately, the same tooth on the other side is dead, too. It hasn't given me issues, so I'm getting some other teeth dealt with first while they can still be saved, but damn, that was a whole ordeal... that my husband is now experiencing. He's on antibiotics and they have him set for emergency extraction after the weekend. Why are teeth not included in health insurance when your teeth can fucking KILL you? Thanks, Corporate America.
I bet you're way more interested in my dog. Well, my standard poodle is a dipshit... No seriously, that boy be cray-cray. You don't understand. Imagine the most hyper, ball obsessed dog you've ever known, and times it by 10 and you probably still haven't gotten there. So I noticed one of his back claws growing weird. It's been that way for a few years now. He has broken his claws, his toes, ripped out his dewclaw to the point it grows in spirals but now I don't think it's going to grow back after the 8th time.... So I figured this was normal. Until it wasn't. It started growing really fast. He was pulling his foot up so I went to cut it, and he screamed. He NEVER screams. That dog doesn't express pain, and you'll understand that as I go on. So that scared me half to death. I'm looking at the claw and pus is oozing through the middle. It's a dead, hollow claw. The first vet I go to takes out the claw (to the tune of a used car) and tells me the toe was filled with pus. He comes home, and everything is going fine. He doesn't mess with it, he's acting fine... until I take the corgi for a walk and not him. Normally, he sits at the door and howls until we get back. You can hear his weird ass ugly howl a block away. It's so weird. It's warbly and growly and broken and just weird. But this time... he decided to race through the house and leave blood and pus EVERYWHERE! Up and down the stairs, out the yard, the living room, the den, the balcony. Like someone had been murdered. It was crazy. So, he went back to the vet and they wanted to charge me a bigger, nicer used car's worth to remove the toe. It had turned black and grown 4 times the normal size. While I saved literally $2,000 by shopping around, I did have to wait a while for them to have the time, during which he was stuck in a cage without sedation. That was a deep level of hell for us both. I hate doing that. I've never caged any of my dogs unless it was absolutely necessary... and it is. I just hate feeling like a bad guy.
Anyways, the toe was removed and that vet told me she opened it up and found what she strongly believed to be a cancerous mass. At least it was just his toe! Well, instructions are two weeks strict cage rest... only my house is two story and the living space is upstairs. So we started like that so that he could be around the family and not lonely. But that only riled him up despite THREE sedatives. Also, while taking him down the stairs to my back yard (which is quite literally only the size of big bedroom), he decided in his loopy self to go trotting away and I told him "Hey, no!" So he slid to a stop on the tile and... murder scene! Blood fucking everywhere. Soaked a towel! He doesn't even notice, just trotting along. So, back to get restitched, and TWO MORE sedatives. They have thrown every kind at him. Never a pill in his 7 years and now I have a pharmacy. And he is STILL prancing and dancing and trotting around as soon as he gets out of the cage. If he's in the middle of them all, he will plod and he's almost calm. I freaking love it. It takes 4 different sedatives to make him the kind of dog I wanted. I am beginning to think that maybe he is half giraffe, since they only sleep 20 minutes a day. His neck is certainly long enough. In order to keep the cone up, I have TWO inflatable collars and a scarf, and his nose still makes it around the cone... and that's as deep as they go. Did the cone makers forget Borzoi are a thing? This boy's nose is so long, the wolfhounds be ashamed.
We are currently ending the first week of the strict cage rest (after the restitch, which restarted the clock). This whole ordeal, from the time I noticed the weird claw to here, has been almost 2 months. I can't believe I'm saying this but... I miss throwing The Ball. Life is Ball; Ball is life. Have you heard of our Lord and Savior, Ball? The corgi will chase the ball... and veer off to sniff something. Her game is the roughest tug o war you can make for her. Make her spin, shake, leave the ground, just as aggressive as possible, she will hold that bucking bronco like the cowgirl dog she wants to be. Meanwhile, doofus doesn't understand the tug game. You don't hold the thing, otherwise mom can't throw the thing! Must fetch. Always fetch. I can't throw anything or he will return it to me.
Among many other little things, that's been most of my time these last few months. On top of it all, we're in the process of buying a house! Very exciting! Our offer was accepted on the house we want the most. So there's been that (good) stress on top of everything else.
Okay, for some story news. I have heard the laments of my friends and fans. I got it, I hear you. Chapter 11 in The Rat and the Dragon does not fit. Roan is "too rapey." The scene is "too creepy." He "goes too quickly into caring for Cylthan after messing with her. It doesn't fit." Very well. I'm taking some pointers from the previous version (still available on my other account, Woofajuana) and I'm bringing the "romance" back. He still "forces" her, but it's harder to tell. I spent months and months deciding where I would even start to change the scene. Where to go back, how far? Then the answer hit me. When she eats. So I went back to when Cylthan eats and removed that. It sets up the scene for Roan to come out of the cage to eat with her, taunting her as a bad warden. Then he offers to heal the split in her lip and kisses her. The rest, I'll let you guys read when I'm done.
But wait, Cly! Some of the readers actually like that scene! I've had a few people support it, say that life is weird and crazy and things aren't always so straight forward. Yes, you folks are correct. My point of that scene was to make it feel scarier than it actually was. It was coming from Cylthan's point of view in my head, so of course it felt so scary and rapey. But, that doesn't seem to come through so well. Whether that is a fault of my own for not being able to write that well or a majority of readers just not picking up on it, I just don't know, so the scene is changing for the larger audience. For you folks who really like that scene, I am not deleting it. It will simply move. I'm going to post all of chapters 9, 10, and 11 over to Woofajuana as a stand alone stroke story. It will live there for those of you who enjoy it. Don't worry, I will post when I've made the changes.
I will also be posting chapter 25 of Rat and Dragon tomorrow. I haven't been writing much, even Roscrow is like "I'mma give you a minute," so don't expect anything else for a little while. I just used up most of my free time today to write all this to update you guys. Time to let the poodle out again, and another round of sedatives.