Tricia — Page 76 — You are in My World Now

When will this Crohn’s flare end?

November 10, 2008 by Tricia

My Crohn’s disease will just not settle down. My abdomen never feels good – at least not in the last three years or so, but I generally don’t have a really really bad spell that lasts two or three weeks continuously, which is exactly what’s happening to me now.

I’ve got more fevers each day than usual – high fevers too, plus abdominal cramps, pain in my right side and well lets just say that there’s little chance that I’d need to use a colon cleanse now or likely any time in the near future thanks to one of this terrible diseases nasty symptoms.

I wonder if the change in the weather has anything to do with my Crohn’s symptoms worsening? I always seem to have worse Crohn’s flares in the Autumn and Spring, but they can occur any time of year, it’s just the fall and spring flares seem to be worse.

Does anyone else with Crohn’s or another Autoimmune disease feel worse at a particular time of year, every year?

Beautiful Autumn Asters and Roses

November 9, 2008 by Tricia

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My garden is still having trouble recognizing that winter is on it’s way.

There are still a few roses and Asters happily blooming away, but most of my plants are finally starting to go dormant for the winter. A few other late bloomers like the Monkshood and Toadlilies only stopped blooming sometime last week.

I guess, after looking out my kitchen window, I could say that the New York Asters are mostly gone now too, but there are still a few blooms on the plant. Maybe a quarter of the plant is covered in flowers now (which means there are still about 100 blooms!).

The picture above was taken during the last week of October when the Asters were just starting to die down a little bit. They still looked gorgeous and vibrant from a distance, but as you got closer you could see a few dead or dying blooms beginning to show here and there.

I grow some roses near the New York Asters (correction- I grow roses near all my plants! I have 60+ rose plants!). Here’s a photo of a fading Scent-Sation Hybrid Tea rose blooming near the Asters.

Scent-Sations pink, rose and creamy white petals look lovely beside the pale mauve asters, don’t they?

Has your garden finally become dormant in preparation for winter or do you still have a few plants blooming away?

I can finally start walking my dog again!

November 9, 2008 by Tricia

I’ve been starting wonder if I’m still a blogger. It sure doesn’t seem like it lately. I have a number of blogs and so far this month I’ve written very few posts in each of the blogs. Well … I can blame it on my Crohn’s disease this time. I’ve been very sick for most of this month, and I just haven’t really felt up to writing.

Hopefully I’ll get back in gear soon and start posting at my usual rate.

I’ve had one positive area this month. I can finally walk my dog. Well … I’m not feeling that great, so the walks from me are hit and miss, but it’s progress.

Midnight is only a year old, but she’s so strong! She’s a Lab and she’s really hyper outside, especially if we encounter other people or people walking dogs. Tug, tug, pull pull … I don’t know how many times she’s almost pulled Chris or I off are feet and there’s been a few times when she has actually made us fall.

We finally gave in last Monday. We went to PetSmart to look for a new harness for her. We’d been using the Comfort Wrap harness since June and it helped, but obviously she was still pulling much too hard on our walks. She’d also started to outgrow her current harness so we were trying to get her a larger one.

When we didn’t find a larger harness (she was already wearing a large) we decided to talk with one of the PetSmart clerks. The person who helped us was a very small woman, maybe 5 feet tall if that. She told us that the only way she could walk her big dog (species unknown sorry) was with a prong collar. She said it made a huge difference.

Neither Chris nor I were all that big on trying a prong collar, but we decided to try one out while we were in the store so she found one that would fit Midnight- even taking out two prongs so it would fit better and we proceeded to walk around the store with Midnight.

It was like Night and Day! What a huge difference. Suddenly we were in control. Midnight wasn’t pulling. We walked around and she tried to pull towards some people and other dogs and she wasn’t able to drag us where she wanted to go. She also didn’t jump at people as much either. There was absolutely no sign that the prong collar hurt her so we decided to buy the collar and try it out at home.

That evening Chris and I both took her for a walk and marveled out how nice it was to walk without constantly telling Midnight to walk nice, and not saying “no pull” all the time. In fact, we must have said “good girl” and “good walk” twenty or thirty times on that first walk with the new collar. No more coming home frustrated and sometimes in pain from being dragged along on a walk, and Midnight must have liked being told she was good so many times instead of hearing the frustration and sometimes anger in our voices that usually occurred on walks prior to getting the prong collar.

The next day I took Midnight out for two walks! That was the first time I’d walked her on my own in ages. She was just too strong for me, especially when I’m not feeling well. Don’t worry Chris has been walking her all along so she was getting two or three walks a day with him, but now she gets at least one and sometimes two with me.

The only time I noticed the prong collar hurting her was the other day when she tried to run up to another dog to greet it. She was super excited and just charged at the dog in glee. Unfortunately as she pulled on the leash the collar must have tightened and pinched her skin because she did make a few sounds like she was in pain, but that’s the only sign that the collar hurt her, so if we can try to control her better when she gets really excited around other dogs that shouldn’t happen again.

Have you ever tried a prong collar on your dog? Did it work? Did it ever end up hurting your dog?

It’s November and my garden is still puttering away

November 2, 2008 by Tricia

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I wrote a post on my gardening blog earlier today about how my roses and other plants are still blooming even though it’s becoming quite cold here in Toronto. Can you believe that some of my Cleomes are still blooming?

This is a purple Cleome:

It’s actually growing in my garden, but it’s poked through the fence and the flower is blooming on my neighbors side of the fence.

This is one of my White Cleomes.

I like the dark moody sky behind the flower, don’t you?

How is your gardening doing right now?

My neighbors Halloween yard decorations

October 31, 2008 by Tricia

A few years ago I noticed that one of my neighbors had really gone all out and decorated their whole front yard for Halloween.

Faster than you can blink I had my camera out and I took a series of Halloween pictures.

These are a few of the decorations in my neighbors yard, and yes, they did their property up again this year, with a few changes of course.

and then there’s the Mummy?

I hope that you’re having a great Halloween! What are your plans?