December 28, 2011: Oreo’s Vet Appointment

Medifast Status: Day 239, Down ~72lbs

I started reading Amy Stewart’s “Wicked Plants” on Audible.  I am really working my way through my Audible library this holiday season!

I worked from home today so that I could spend the day with Oreo and take him to the vet’s office this afternoon.  His left eye has been really bad for days.  It appears that his eye is bleeding.  He has been having severe eye problems for a long time with that one so we are really concerned.  He is completely blind so that is not the concern.  We are just worried about pain and infections.  We want him happy.  Being blind is very hard for him as it is.

Work remains insanely slow so today I managed to start playing BioWare’s classic Mass Effect for the XBOX 360 which originally released in 2008.  This is one of those video game classics that I have owned for a long time and have just never managed to get around to playing.  I have heard people rave about it but I do not get a lot of time to play video games so it has sat on the shelf waiting for me to have free time.

Oreo’s vet appointment ended up going pretty well.  His vet was very glad that we rushed him in as he is indeed bleeding into his eye but she thinks that she can help him.  So he had a long visit and a substantial change to his medicine regimen.  Overall, though, just being home rather than in Houston appears to have him feeling better.  Dominica was commenting on his odd behaviour while he was down there and thought that he was in a lot of pain but I am pretty confident, and his vet agreed, that the issues came from him being uncomfortable with the situation and not from physical pain.  Now that he is at home with me and all is quiet is appears to be incredible happy and relaxed.

I did a lot of carpet cleaning today.  I’ve started a new process where I put a large pot on the stove and boil the water and oxygenating bleach mixture so that it can really attack the dirt and whatever in the carpets.  I’m not sure how much of a different the boiling makes, outside of dissolving the bleach better and keeping me from leaving dry bits of bleach grit behind, but hitting the carpet with so much water and bleach at once allows me to move from spot cleaning to seriously attacking large swaths of the floor all at once.

I cleaned the carpets at the same time as playing my video game.  The water takes a good ten minutes to prepare and has to soak in the floor for about ten minutes.  So there is a lot of time in between treatments.  So I start the water on the stove, play for a bit, dump the water on the floor, play for a bit, clean up the water and repeat.  Each pot of water fills a minimum of two water tanks on the hand floor cleaner that I am using to suck the water back out.  I am getting tons of dirt out of the carpet and as I am cleaning “clean” carpet and not a spot that has had an accident or specific dirt problem it really highlights just how dirty carpets are.  I am very glad that I am bleaching them.

I had an hour and a half conference call this afternoon but other than that nearly no work all day.  I fed myself at home today, just steam in bag veggies and veggie patties from the freezer.  I’m working hard to use the food that is in the house and to keep eating as healthily as possible.  Today is my diet recovery day to help to get my body back on track.

I managed to play nearly twelve hours of Mass Effect today and am really in to it now.  That game is awesome.  It is no wonder that people are so passionate about it.  The storyline is really excellent and the game in general is a real departure both from most games available as well as from the games that I normally play.  It is a science fiction game, and normally I play fantasy, and it is an action adventure rather than more traditional RPG.  It is often listed as RPG but it really is only minimally that, at best, but the social interactions in the game are very much RPG so it is a bit of a genre buster.

The real strengths in Mass Effect come from its story telling and unique plot.  I have been drawn in and am enjoying the game immensely.  I am quite glad that I saved it until I was in a position to really get into it and enjoy it.  The sequel is actually supposed to be quite a bit better.  It is Mass Effect 2, not Mass Effect, with so many industry accolades.

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