Sooner or Later

Steroids – Ugh

You gotta love steroids…..sigh. They do have a job to do but they also come with side effects – in particular moon face. You know that puffy marshmallow face and neck look? And swollen feet and ankles. Even swollen fingers. I mean none of that is painful – just a bit awkward I suppose and since I’m still wearing a mask most of the time, the moon face isn’t all that obvious. There’s also increasing fatigue (lots of naps during the day) and weakening of muscle which I am struggling with a bit.

That all said, the steroid was working to reduce the liver enzymes – until it wasn’t LOL. So they upped the dose over the Easter weekend (I took that over being re-admitted to hospital!) and added another medication to “boost” the steroid. The last blood lab work showed the enzymes coming down again so I guess all that puffiness is worth it. And anyone who has been on steroids knows you can’t just quit them cold turkey so they are now working to wean me off them. That will probably still take several weeks and then we can think about restarting some immunotherapy treatments again 🙂

Easter and Birthday Dinner

I was determined not to let that all get in the way of the plans we’d made. Saturday of the Easter weekend my sisters and I all went to Brighton for Easter dinner with my parents (and a spice cake for my birthday on Monday.) Luckily they chose to just put 1 and not 65 candles on the cake!!

High Tea

Sunday was much more formal as I treated my sisters to High Tea at Casa Loma as a thank you for all their help and support.  It was certainly the classiest meal I’ve had in a long time!!

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Honoured to be Honoured

The following Sunday (which had the best weather we’d seen in 2022 so far), the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario arrived at the front step of my apartment building to present me with the Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers on behalf of the Governor-General of Canada.

“For nearly a decade, John Stephens has been the Curator responsible for the oversight of The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada Regimental Museum and Archive. His years of dedication have promoted veteran outreach by assisting members in researching their relatives who have served and enabled the regiment to share their stories with the public.”

The nomination was made by members of my museum team (in 2019 no less) and of course this recognition needs to be shared with our whole museum volunteer team, the Museum Board, the QOR Trust Fund, the Regimental Senate, and the senior leadership teams of the regiment over the past 10 years. I was pleased that many of these members were able to attend the ceremony along with friends, family and some former work colleagues.

Saying Goodbye

As I’ve mentioned before my 12-year-old Schnauzer Jazz had been staying with her brother Apollo with my sister’s family in Pickering since I first went into the hospital on Christmas Eve. She was diagnosed with diabetes a couple of years ago which I’ve been treating with twice-daily insulin shots. She eventually developed cataracts which severely limited her sight but she seem to adapt well.

Recently however she wasn’t eating well or sometimes not at all, which made it difficult to control her glucose levels. We decided she needed to see the vet which is near my place. After two days and nights at the clinic on IV hydration and some special feeding, she seemed to be doing much better. She came back to my place for the weekend and was clearly doing better on Saturday. On the Sunday of the medal ceremony though she was eating little and throwing up what she did which continued on Monday. When we arrived at our next vet appointment on Tuesday, they had the results of blood tests taken the previous week which confirmed she now had pancreatitis and extremely high levels of liver and kidney enzymes (to which I could relate!) And because of the difficulties in controlling her insulin levels, she was also in or at least approaching diabetic ketoacidosis.

Unfortunately, the veterinarian had nothing to offer as treatment, and only another pet owner can really appreciate the decision with which I was left.  And while there really wasn’t any decision, it was still one of the hardest to make. We had some cuddle time (above) while the vet finished some other surgery, and I very much appreciated the efforts of the Wychwood Animal clinic to make this difficult time as comfortable as possible.

I first met Jazz when she was two days old. She was born on December 30 in a litter from my friend Phil’s dogs Lucky and Lilo, and I was there for a New Year’s eve party. They were all black and barely had their eyes open and fit nicely into one hand.

Five months later I’d been convinced that I should get a dog so went over to Phil’s to check out the puppies that hadn’t been adopted yet. As I sat on the couch, Jazz jumped up, and circled around a few times as dogs do, before curling up and going to sleep on my lap. Another decision that was far easier to make as Jazz had obviously chosen me!

She was the sweetest dog and we had 12 great years together.