Ariel Does Not = Mastitis

This week-end I went back to my home town to check on my horse. I took more pictures of her so that you all could see how much worse her mastitis looks. Only a small change, she doesn't have mastitis. The vet was wrong. I know, I know. The vet wrong?! Yes. I just got a call from the really sweet lady who owns the place I board at and she informed me that she has pigeon's fever.

In this pic its swollen all the way to the middle of her belly. Her milk vein is even more pronounced now.

Same as the last only now you can see her udder. Poor baby. She didn't feel good.

Basically, its a swelling or abscess thanks to a bacteria infection called Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis. It usually occurs in the chest region of a horse and rarely any where else. Well, considering the fact that my animals LOVE to catch the rarest things it's not surprising that she went and got it in her mammary glands. M said that this morning it swelled to the middle of her belly and burst. Yummy.

Ah well. She'll be better in a few days.

So last night my room mate and myself went to rent a horror movie. Yeah...I let her choose and the one we watched was called Asylum. It was SO morbid and scary! We were originally going to watch Sweeney Todd but she wanted to watch something else. I wish we hadn't of watched Asylum. It was gross. Whoever made that movie just wanted to so they could have a gore fest. Eh. Never. Again.

Anyways, we went to Walgreen's to get junk food for this movie and they were selling Popcorn Balls for 50 cents. It was in an orange wrapper with a spider on it so you couldn't see what it looked like. I had to get one and I did. Leading back to curiosity costs 50 cents. LOL!

Love,

~Fruit Bat~

Regarding the Cat

Regarding the cat at the top of the screen... this perhaps warrants an explaination. Fruit Bat, I really thought that you were going to be the one to explain it but... oh well.

Cats are curious creatures.

Curiousity Costs 50 cents.

Really. It does.

The Fruit Bat and I went on a excursion in town, to visit various places, see different stores... yadda yadda yadda. At one such store there was a collection of brown paper bags (grocery size, not lunch size) that were stapled shut on a table near the door. There was a sign stating that the bags were 50 cents each and requesting that people NOT OPEN the bags. Fruit Bat and I stood there, poking the bags, weighing them, shaking them (gently!) to try and discern what was inside. We wandered through the rest of the store, not quite able to get those mysterious bags out of our heads. We bought the heaviest one, and popped that sucker open as we walked out of the store.

Thus, curiousity costs 50 cents.

54, with tax.

*Evil Grin* Now you are curious to know what was inside, yes?

settling and stirring

However good it was to go home, I am a little behind now. I need to think of two topics for a speech and I don't even know where to start. Oh well, after a couple of days it'll settle back down.

Well, when I went home I met the newest member of the family, a great pyranese named Bella, she's about a year old and a real bundle of energy. She's tall, and jumps all over the place, and bites and chews. When I say "bites" you know I mean the puppy grab-this-object-in-your-teeth-and-look-proud thing right? Anyway, the family is going to have to call barkbusters, and soon. But she's a sweetie. I think this picture caught her personality really well, she's looking at us from the corner of her eye, seeing if she can sneak in a pounce!

I got a call from my older sister, Evilglare, this morning, she finally has her voice back! It's been three weeks! I would have been more excited, but she sorta woke me up.

Also, on the honors front, I went to our Alpha games, and it was kinda fun. I'm really not mad at them over the design thing anymore, there simply wasn't enough time to get the T-shirts by that sunday. Our team is doing well, we won the Freshman relay- thanks in large part to our first and last runners, who were able to get ahead of everyone else. It was more like a scavenger hunt race than a relay.

And if anyone needs a t.v. show to watch that's uplifting AND intresting? (Those of you who like signlanguage especially) Sue Thomas FB Eye. It's not on the air anymore, but all the episodes are on youtube. It's about a young woman, Sue Thomas who goes to work for the FBI. The thing is, she's deaf, and communicates by reading the lips of the people around her. She also has a service dog who lets her know when the phone rings or someone is calling for her. The show used to be on PAC, and is based solidly on Christian morals and ideals. Sue regularly mentions God and prays for his help. I really do reccomend this show.

And Break Away!!!

Here's a picture of me pulling Ariel's leg up so that Michelle could put a special type of vitamin clay on her mastitis to help draw out the pus. Seems awful I know but it had to be done either that or have her kick us in the face and thanks, but I've already experienced something close to that. I don't want a repeat.

This pic is of Ariel eating her grain full of antibiotics. The silver marks on her shoulder are an alu-spray that I used to cover up some bite marks that she received from another horse. It keeps the flies off of the wounds.

This was after milking out some of the pus successfully. I gave her a treat and then let her graze for about 10-15mins before I had to leave to head back here for college. I wish I could just stay with her.

Love,

~Fruitbat~

Ariel: Mastitis and Melanoma

I'm posting this to inform everyone who loves Ariel that she is sick right now. Not only that but her melanomas are become malignant. When I say malignant, I mean they are becoming active and she is more than likely going to become ill from cancer in a year and will have to be euthanized. I bawled all weekend because when I first went out to see her on Saturday I could tell that she wasn't feeling well and I found a new melanoma on her belly that had never been there before. Not only that but her other melanomas are bigger and softer now. They use to be small and hard as stones which meant that they were benign.

Along with her melanomas apparently becoming malignant she has Mastitis which is an infection of the mammary gland in mares. A.K.A her left teat is swollen and hurts like heck and was the cause of her not feeling well. Strangely, only mares who have had a foal recently or in the past get mastitis and Ariel has NEVER had a foal. I inquired as to why she got such an infection and the vet said that no one really knows why. I've come to the conclusion that all my pets like to get rare infections and disease just to stress me out. *sigh* My weekend failed.

In this pic you can see that her left teet is swollen. She also has a lump on her belly (note: not the melanoma) that is part of the infection.

Treating mastitis involves antibiotics that have to mixed into her feed along with milking out the pus from her teat two to three times a day. Let me tell you something, trying to squeeze pus out of a mares teat when it hurts like hell results in almost getting your face impaled with a hoof. Yeah, Ariel NEVER kicks at people and she very rarely kicks at other horses so when she tried to plant her hoof into my face I had to go get Michelle. She ended up looping a rope around Ariel's left front leg and hobbling her to keep her from being able to kick me. I sympathized with Ariel because I understand completely that it hurts.

In this picture you can see her milk vein which is usually only this obvious in prenant mares but since she has mastitis the infection is backing up causing it to show quite well.

The melanomas have not completely attacked her yet but eventually they will. I thought some of you guys should have a heads up so that when and if I have to euthanize her you'll all know why. I'm extremely depressed right now. I'm tired of all my pets dying of some sort of cancer. Its just not fair.

Love,

~Fruitbat~

Bring It On!!!

For the past few days my room mate, who I'll refer to as Anan, and myself have been having an air-conditioner battle with our suite mates who like to have it way to freakin' cold! As in 65 to 68 degrees.

Okay, I love cold. Like LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!! BUT, there is a BIG difference between artificial cold and natural cold. I like the latter. Don't get me wrong I do like to have it cool inside when its hot outside but when its cold outside at night and early in the morning I don't. Most sane people would agree.

Well this morning was the last straw. Anan and me woke up to the temperature inside 68 while the temp outside was even lower than that. We were freezing and shivering and extremely angry. I went straight into the living room and shot it up to 75 degrees in hopes that they would wake up sweating. Then Anan turned on her music with surround sound and played a heavy metal song followed by country that literally vibrated the walls and floor. Now I understand that it was pretty awful of us to do that and I have no excuse for it aside from revenge for all the times they've woken us up with their music and now freezing temperatures. I do admit that it was wrong.


The rest of the day we played the auto or manual battle with the air. I wanted it on Auto seeing in how that would keep the air from running twenty-four-seven but ON NO how dare I! My two suite mates kept putting it back on manual and turning it down to 68 so I was like, fine. Then if you want it on manual it's staying on 70. Well, that didn't work.

I ended up going and buying a heater and covering up the air vent even better with a towel. Unfortunately, it is still cold. We're both going to have to go talk to them and come up with some sort of compromise. We can't continue this silent feud *sigh* They just can't take hints.


The pics are of our dorm room. My side only. I also posted some pictures of the air vent that I covered in our dorm.


Love,


~Fruit Bat~

Livid

"Heaven holds no sorrow like love to anger turned, and Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."

Don't know who said it, but they were right on the money.

Don't suppose I mentioned it, but I'm in the Honors program at this particular university. Don't suppose I mentioned it, but I've been shoved into a cruddy little "mentor group" and we're being forced to pretend we all like each otherand we're going to have a competition with the other teams. My mentor, whom I normally have no problem with, said as a treat to us, we would have team shirts. Whoopdeefrickendoo. And, in the spirit of maybe actually trying to interact with people I took it upon myself to come up with a design.

Let me say this now, if I wanted to, I could be an art major, with very little problem.

So I DESIGNED an image, I worked at it, I researched on how our mascot, FLYING FREAKING PURPLE PEOPLE EATERS appeared in the original song, so I could know how to draw them. I struggled with making them as asthetically pleasing as possible while retaining the one-eye rule. I colored them with PRISMACOLOR. Those things are a dollar a pencil! I worried about the color scheme and making the purples noticably different from each other.

I turned in my design, my mentor liked it a lot, praised it and such. Made me feel like, 'hey, maybe this IS my group too!'

And at the meeting tonight, "my group" decided not to have t-shirts. FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC.

Oh, everyone said it was soo nice. It was a 'good picture' just a bit too 'anime-ish.'

I don't mind saying that I'm very angry right now. I don't deny that anime has had a profound influence on my art over the past seven years. But I've been working, with every picture I've drawn for FIVE YEARS to remove the influences. And I'd like to see how they make a monster look cute.

Ugh, all I want to do now, is curl up in bed and eat a cookie. I've taped my fox to the door already- I just don't care anymore if my roomate puts up hers or not.

Fear not, concerned or non-concerned readers. I shall be fine. Things will look better when I'm not so angry.

Random Quote of the day,

"We're supposed to talk about Procrastination."

"Can we do it later?"

Running in Circles

Somehow, that just seems appropriate. School is all about running in circles, after all- I have a circut of classes and a time in which to get to them, it's like track, without the uniforms.

Anyway, rumor has it that I'm going home next weekend. To say that I'm anxious to do so is a vast understatement. Being from such a big family, it royally sucks to not see them. It's good that I have fruit bat over here to hang out with though.

Anyway, Anyway.

Today I got a call from my youngest little sister- I shall refer to her as... youngest little sister. Asking my permsission for the family to get a new dog. Let me explain this. I've wanted a dog of my own since I was four- a german shepard, to be exact. The last dog we got was supposed to be a german shepard, wound up being a mutt, and is no higher than my knee- plus he got really attached to my oldest younger sister, Squirt. So he's not my pet. They wanted to make sure that it was all right with me before going and getting this dog- they saw her picture in the paper and ten minutes later decided she was coming home with them. She's a white Great Pyranese, formerly known as Snowbird, now known as Belle. Squirt sent me a picture, she's beautiful, so I sanction the name of Belle. I also know that at some point I will get my own dog, so i'm not mad. I'll get to meet Belle this weekend!

Some of you are probably wondering about the picture I included today- or not, but as this is my post, I'll tell you anyway. That would be a picture of the Battousai and Kaoru, drawn by an artist on deviant art (look up Battousai, 2nd or 3rd page) and colored by me this morning. In paint. A process which took... about four hours. The seiries is Rurouni Kenshin, and I highly recommend it. The Manga is better, of course, but the anime is fairly awesome up till the filler episodes.

Also also, in an amusing far off to the side note, my roomate came in at three last night, I woke up and looked at my clock, and thought it was THREE IN THE AFTERNOON. I was so panicked, "how can this be? I'm still sleepy!" I nearly cracked myself up and missed the chance to go back to sleep!

Messy, Messy, Messy! *tsk,tsk*

Okay, so as you all know I'm in a dorm. To be exact an apartment that's on campus and I share with three other girls. There are two rooms; two girls to a room. Well, you know how at your own homes you usually all pitch in and help keep everything clean? Yeah..that doesn't really happen here and for a neat and clean freak such as myself I can't stand it! I have been attempting to keep things clean and in order but since no one wants to help I refuse to do it now. I have basically been waiting for things to pile up enough that they realize, OH! Maybe we should clean our stuff up! What a profound idea!

Anyways, it finally worked. heh...they cleaned up most of their mess last night and did some of their dishes cuz they had none left. HAHA! So funny! My room mate cleaned up her room too! It was amazing! I can see the floor on her side of the room! They even took out the trash since I hadn't done it for them. It amuses me so very much!!! :D

I pray that they keep on top of it. But I doubt it.

On a lighter note, HALLOWEEN IS COMING SOON!!!! Well,...in about a month and a half but still, ITS COMING ITS COMING!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yesterday I went and bought a Halloween blanket that's black and has ghosts on it saying "Boo!" I also bought candy corn and a mit for the oven that's in the shape of a pumpkin! I also visted the store over here that is nothing but Halloween stuff; Spirit Halloween! It was AWESOME!!!

Love,

~Fruitbat~

Picture Problem

Since I live in a dorm, I have a roommate. It's just one of those natural things, like, since I went swimming, I got wet. It just is, you don't have to know more than that. Anyway, she's a good roomate, she doesn't make a mess anywhere, she's very nice... all that stuff. Since I felt bad because she decorated our door a little (when you walk down the hall everyone has signs or whiteboards on their doors,) I decided to contribute in that special way that I can. So I drew 2 pictures, one for her, one for me, to go on the door. Hers is a pittbull puppy, mine is a fox reading a book. Problem is, she likes her puppy so much she's scared someone will steal it, and thus, won't put it on the door. *Sigh* That means I can't put MINE on the door. I don't really want to make her another one,

1. I don't have any more paper.

2. Even if I did, I used PRISMACOLORS to color the first image. Those things are a dollar a pencil. No way am I wasting them by mass producing an (admittedly cute) puppy.

So as of right now, our door is somewhat boring. When it could be awesome.

Home It Is!!! YAY!!!

Okay, so I had not planned on going home. I mean I wanted to but decide that it would be better if I didn't. That was until my mom called and informed me that my Granny wanted to head back to Austin and wanted to know if I would like to join her. Of course I said yes. Being at college away from your family and close friends sucks! After my first, last, and only class today I am heading over to my Granny and Papa's to pick up my Granny and then we are off! Yeah!!!!!

I should start packing...

Love,

~Fruit Bat~

Toboe

I'm sitting in my room right now eating a peanut butter sandwich and thinking about my sweet Toboe. Ahh...Toboe....I feel like I've abandoned him. I found a picture of him that was posted on my other blog and I was like, "Awww...Toboe! He looks SO cute! I miss him...*sniff*" Pathetic. I know. I debated going home this weekend but decided not to since that would mean having to pay for gas and what not. I think I'll wait. No to mention I'm going to hang out with one of my friends Saturday and then go to my Granny and Papa's again.

About the middle of this week I discovered that my older brother has kidney stones. I thought it ironic because I've had them since I was eight and now he does. It must run in the family. He doesn't feel to great right now. I pray that he gets better.

So I just got out of my speech class about an hour ago and my teacher had us get up in front of the class to tell about ourselves. My speech was all planned out in my head but as soon as I got up there it was like adrenaline overload. I started trembling and my voice got shaky. I hope no one noticed. Almost everything that I had been going to say about myself I nearly forgot due to nerves. *sigh* I don't know why I get so nervous in front of a huge class but am fine when speaking to two or three new people. UGGH! I was irritated with myself afterwards. I think I did better than I thought I was though, so I suppose that's something.

Love you guys! Hope to see everyone soon! :D

~Fruit Bat~

Blood Drive and Baka Humans!

Over labor day weekend I went to my Granny and Papa's and had a blast!!! First I met them at church and while I was there I donated my blood. It was the 6th or 7th time I'd donated and I have never had problems before but this time I almost passed out. The nurses made me stay laying down for 20 minutes which was annoying but they had to. I understand that.

There are four children at my new church who have been diagnosed with leukemia and I share the same blood type with one of them; A- which is a pretty rare blood type so I'm more than likely going to be donating mine to him. I also took a test to see if my bone marrow type will match his. They're supposed to call me to let me know. I REALLY hope it does! I want to help one of these kids. I'd love to help all of them but if I can only help one, that's better than none of them. It was sad seeing him sick and not wanting to go play with the other kids. I believe he's 6 or 7. I'm not sure though but it was depressing because that's not how little kids should be.

While I was at my Granny and Papa's house I noticed a horse behind their house in a dirt pen that had never been there before. So, naturally, I went inside and grabbed three apples and gave them to her. While I fed her I noticed flies in a group right above her right eye where the halter had slipped off of her ear. I pulled it up and she had a deep cut from the halter being on her for too long right above her eye. I climbed the fence and pulled the halter over her head and tossed it on the fence. It had been on her so long that the buckle wouldn't come loose. I was really pissed about the owners having left it on her that long. I figured maybe her halter had just slipped over her right ear and been like that for a few hours but from the look of the wound it had been several days. I swear people are so baka!!!

Alas, many are.

I also helped my Papa mow a HUGE yard! It was fun until I got extremly hot and began feeling light-headed. I don't think it helped that I was still low on blood. heh..oh well! Twas fun!!!!

Love,

~Fruit Bat~