infrequency

You may have noticed the infrequency of my posts lately. For the most part this has been due to this summer kicking my butt! Remember all those things I said I'd be doing this summer? Well, turns out the 6-week summer course is actually 10, and putting that on top of everything else has kept me busy. The class is not the most interesting to me either, as I find it concentrates on the effects of/on life on the Earth, which I am not interested in (academically) and do not teach, and it is at a low level of science which I do not find challenging or stimulating. Oh well, the credits will give me more pay.

Then on top of it all, Peeper went into kidney failure on Sunday night. Peeper is my cockatiel whom I've had since I was 12. The expected lifespan of cockatiels is 15-20 years, and seeing as she's 16 I thought it was the end. It was really devastating, I cried all Monday - humans with kidney failure will be given dialysis until a transplant can be found. Not much can be done for birds but hope - and it seems to have worked. She's going to be coming home this evening, though she still has gout (buildup of uric acid crystals in the joints, usually of the feet, often caused by kidney problems) so bad that she cannot perch. I'm not sure if it is expected to improve on its own, but there's no medicine to treat it directly, so either she'll improve or she won't, we can't do anything else. The vet says she's eating well, which is a sign she's not in excruciating pain, but the not gripping with her feet shows there is some amount of pain. Unfortunately, any pain medicine we could give her would only damage her kidney more. But she's coming home, so I'm glad.