Cripplefest 2012!!!!

HALLO!

CRIPPIE'S BACK EVERYBODY!!!!

Boy howdy did I have a ridiculously awesome week with all of my cripples. I got to see my buddies from all different parts of the country, and even the world (side note: I picked up a crazy Norwegian accent over the course of the week, apparently its annoying, ja?). For one week, I was normal, and it was fantastic. I stayed out late and hung out with friends, took goofy pictures, invented inside jokes, all that jazz. Not to mention the whole having discussions with doctors and fellow cripples so now I have a bunch of post ideas for future weeks... OBOI.

Apart from the obvious awesomeness of being a normal for a week, this week also kicked ass because... I DROVE ON A HIGHWAY AND A BUNCH OF OTHER PLACES THAT I'M REALLY NOT COMFORTABLE DRIVING!!! YAY ME!!! I reckon that necessity and getting to see your cripples is a fairly good motivator when it comes to getting on a highway. It'll take some more practice before I'm totally ok with driving on these scary ass roads, but it's def good to know that I am capable of driving on them!

So yeah, it's pretty safe to say that Cripplefest was the highlight of my year. I saw my peeps, discussed cripple issues, made a bunch of new cripple friends, AND I drove on a damn highway. WINNING. Oh, also people managed to take a bunch of awkward photos of me, so without further ado I give you "Crippie Being Special"

Crippie's Tippie - Throw your own Cripplefest, they're freakin' awesome!

One Day Mooooorrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Hey Y'all!

I'm apologizing in advance for what will probably be a total lack of posts over the next week or so. Cause... CRIPPLEFEST FESTIVITIES BEGIN TOMORROW! w000000000000000000000000t. While the event itself isn't until next Sunday, cripples are gonna start trickling in tomorrow... and staying at my house :D. So it's gonna be a weeklong cripple sleepover. It's like a normal sleepover except we gossip about hot doctors. Anyway, it's gonna be "cray cray" down here and I don't think I'm gonna have any opportunities to blog. I'll try to tweet about my adventures though, and I'll probs be posting some pics to instragram too (I'm @scarwars10... FOLLOW ME)

Everyone here has spent the past couple of days getting ready, it's been insane. On the bright side, my room is finally freakin' clean. It took a lot of assistance from my sister... but now it looks like a civilized person lives here :D We're almost done getting ready, tomorrow I have to put Maggie in her new home. (we had to find the spare cage... took a while). Maggie is very excited about Cripplefest too... she likes my friends.

I don't know if I've said this enough but, I'M SO EXCITED!!! I can't wait to see all my crippled friends. Alas, I don't exactly have friends that I can physically "hang out" with... so actually being with all my buddies is awesome.

And since some of you guys have been asking me "What's gonna happen with Aggie and Maggie? They can't stay in those cages" I know that keeping them in pet store cages is far from the ideal situation, but it's temporary. After all of the Cripplefest stuff over I'll have time to devote to bringing them back together. I'll do the buddy bath followed with massive amounts of salad to hopefully seal the deal. If thhhaaaaaaaaatttt fails, again, I'm gonna have to look into other options, like maybe obtaining a new friend from them, possibly a neutered boy. Honestly I have no idea, we'll just take it one day at time with those little buttheads. Maggie has been extra "special" for the past few days, instead of drinking from her water dish like a normal pig, she's been dunking her damn head in the water. Silly pigs.

Anyways, yeah... I don't think I'll be seeing you guys for about a week or so. I hope y'all have a fantastic week! Much love - Crippie

Crippie's Tippie - When hosting cripples at your house, be sure that you have something comfy to sleep on. 

Give Peace A Chance... Or Not... Whatever

Greetings

Soooooooo... Buddy Bath....... yeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I tried, I really tried. I put them in the water, they freaked out and huddled together. Brilliant, it was working. I took them out to dry off. They were freaked out and were still huddled together, AWESOME. 20 minutes later Aggie bites Maggie in the ass and they start fighting again. CRAP. I figured that they needed to sort out some dominance issues, okay, I played referee and let them work out their issues blocking them with a towel whenever they started to attack each other. After about 30 minutes of blocking some potentially nasty fights, they were still mad as all hell, ready to pounce on the other one. I took each pig out to examine them for bite wounds and discovered that Maggie had been bitten in the lip. After that I decided that it is not safe to house Maggie and Aggie together in their present condition. Maggie and Aggie will now be housed in individual pet store cages, not the ideal situation but it has to be done. Maybe I'll try the buddy bath again in a few weeks, but for now... not gonna happen.

DO NOT WANT... AT ALL 

IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT'S HOLY... SAVE ME AGGIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that I'm dry... I think I want to kill you again

In other news, something miraculous happened at work over the weekend. My office isn't exactly handicap friendly. You need to climb a few stairs in order to get to the door, there is a ramp... but it was chained off. It's been that way for as long as I've been there. I told the higher powers from the very beginning that the ramp should be open... cause... ya know... it's kinda illegal to have it blocked. Alas, my request to open the damn ramp had fallen onto deaf ears until now. I mentioned to my boss that I will be having hip surgery, and that when I return to work I'll be needing that ramp. FINALLY after working at this place for close to 11 months, THE RAMP IS USABLE!!!  I had "The Eye of the Tiger" playing in my head as I triumphantly walked up the ramp to the door. YAY! VICTORY!!!!

I cannot stand seeing modern buildings disobeying the ADA. It irks me beyond belief. You can walk in your store, restaurant, sidewalk, whatever... great... kudos to you. But just because you can that doesn't mean that everyone can. Maybe a day will come when you can no longer walk. Have fun trying to go places my friends. Good luck opening that heavy narrow door. Have fun getting your wheelchair down that crowded sidewalk. Oh, can you not fit in this aisle... oops. This bathroom isn't handicap accessible,  is that alright with you? I forgot to mention that the elevator doesn't work. People should start hiring cripples to test out their buildings, or maybe we should put the architects in wheelchairs! Let's bind their legs and let them have it out. I'm not asking for much, I just want things to be handicap accessible.

Crippie's Tippie - MAKE THINGS HANDICAP ACCESSIBLE... IT'S NOT THAT HARD

One Week!!!

Yo!

I hope all my crippled comrades had a lovely weekend. My weekend went rather well all things considered. Cripplefest begins in one week and I am soooooooooooo pumped! I can't wait to see all of my fellow crippies! Of course, events of this magnitude require lots of preparations, so I'll be very busy this week getting ready.

Today's agenda mainly focused on getting supplies and making sure that our pets look their best. We took Angel out for a hair cut. For an abused dog that occasionally hates people, she sure loves her outings to the groomer. She was smiling throughout the entire car ride, she got to smell some awesome new dogs, AND the awesome new dogs actually liked her (she has a habit of trying to befriend really scared or really angry dogs). Not to mention all of the attention she got from the actual groomer. She was very much content until the nice groomer lady tried to groom her face, then she got into her "DO NOT WANT" mode and kept trying nip the groomer. *Sigh* Lucky for us, the groomer knew how to deal with her and managed to give Angel a very stylish trim, complete with a bow in her hair.

After the groomer we made a surprise visit to one of my fellow crippies. It's funny, when I was younger I thought I was the only person in the state of New York with MHE... LOL fail... turns out there are several families throughout the state with MHE. One such family lives a mere 15 minutes away from me. I can literally drive to this house without a panic attack, thats how close they are. Anyway the girl in the family with MHE recently had her first surgery, so we stopped by to give her some pressies. Just seeing this little girl hopping around on her crutches obviously brings back memories of my early surgeries. But I know that she will have the support of hundreds of people, she will never feel as alone as I used to feel. If she ever feels that way I can drive to her damn house and make her feel better. How amazing is that!

In piggie news, Aggie is still in the playpen. Maggie seems to miss having a buddy in her cage and is constantly looking around, hoping that someone will be there. And for all of you that are wondering why I can't just put Aggie back in the cage now, I cannot underestimate how dangerous fighting guinea pigs are. Guinea pigs have very sharp teeth. They can do some serious damage. I've been bitten by the pigs before, it breaks the skin and it freakin' hurts. I'll try the buddy bath either tomorrow or Tuesday, whenever I have a good amount of time... and I'll def take pics... no worries ;)

To make up for the general sporadic-ness of this post... here's some pictures of the piggies

Um, Frida... that's not how you use a cuddle cup

I AM SO FREAKING CUTE... LOOK AT MEEEEEEE

Where the hell am I?

Crippie's Tippie - If you're obtaining a pressie for a child who just had surgery, be sure to get a little something for their siblings (if any)

It's Hard Out Here For A Pig

Greetings

The Aggie Update - The chubster saw the vet yesterday. Apart from meeting a new friend (a little girl who gave her lots of rubs) Aggie received a clean bill of health! YAY AGGIE! I'm not doing a victory dance though. Aggie appears to be a little traumatized from the past week. She was taking her emotions out on Maggie and the two had to be separated. Once we got come from the vet I let Aggie recover on her own for a few hours. I planned on putting her and Maggie together that night following a salad introduction. They ate their salad together, but then started to squabble again. I then decided to let them hang out on neutral territory, the sofa. Unfortunately they had a full on brawl. I was able to pull them apart. While I was putting each of them in "time out" I noticed that Aggie had been bitten in the face, more specifically her mouth and nose. So, for those of you keep track at home, Aggie has managed to injure her eye, nose, and mouth all within a week. I cleaned the wounds and they weren't deep thankfully, BUT Aggie and Maggie cannot be housed together with their current temperaments. So for the time being Maggie has their cage, and Aggie has a playpen on the floor. 

I'm still in a total state of disbelief. Maggie and Aggie have been paired together since Maggie was about 4 weeks old (and she'll be 3 in February). While they've never been an affectionate pair, they tolerated each other. I can't believe that they would fight like this. Ugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh. The life of a pig owner, right? 

So, what am I gonna do? Alright, I know that Maggie and Aggie are capable of being nice... they've done so for two and a half years. I just need to get them to remember that they like each other. First, I'm gonna let them both cool down for a few days. Hopefully they'll forget that they were fighting. Next I'm gonna try a "Buddy Bath". A Buddy Bath is when you put some water in a tub, and put both the pigs in the tub. The pigs freak out, forget that they're fighting, lose whatever scents they had, and they bond about the whole experience. Essentially it should act as a reset button. Both Maggie and Aggie are good candidates for Buddy Baths because they both HATE water. I'll probs do that on Tuesday... *fingers crossed*.

In non-guinea pig related news, I drove to the gas station today :). It might not seem like a newsworthy event, but the local gas station is on a road that I'm not exactly comfortable with. But, I've been memorizing the road for a few months and today I finally drove there! Granted, my mom was in the car with me for support, but still... I DID IT! YAY CRIPPIE! It's only a matter of time before I get more and more comfortable driving to new places. My next task will be to drive to a completely new place with no practice runs. I need to find a place that would be worth the panic attacks. Any local readers have any suggestions of really kick-ass places? There's a guinea pig rescue in New Jersey... maybe the thought of piggies will help me get over some fears :D

Crippie's Tippie - The occasional guinea pig squabble or nip is not a huge deal, once blood is drawn however, separate the pigs.

Piggie Post: Is Your Pig In Pain?

Ohai Everybody

The Aggie Update - Her eye is looking oodles better, but Aggie hates the world. Aggie has been acting very aggressively today. She bit Maggie in the butt around 2am and they've been fighting since. Maggie getting a nip in the butt is not uncommon, 9 times out of 10 she deserves said nip. Today I watched them for a while, Aggie was attacking Maggie for no reason. We took Aggie out for some alone time and discovered that she, like Mama was having some tummy issues as a result of her antibiotics. So I made the executive decision to stop giving them to her. I gave Aggie some pain meds, let them kick in, and then put her back in with Maggie. Alas, they were still piiiiisssssseeeeddd at each other and almost had a full on brawl. We ended up separating the two. Aggie is now in a play pen on my dining room floor. Both are enjoying their "me time" very much. Aggie's tummy has improved a great deal already.

Aggie is acting aggressively because she is in pain. This is her way of telling people that she is not a happy camper. Every pig handles pain differently. Mama Pig cried when her tummy really started hurting her, and Emma practically froze in place with her coat puffed up. That being said, there are some tell tale signs that your pig is miserable...
1 - The pig is biting things
2 - Chewing random things
3 - Screaming bloody murder
4 - Changes in behavior
5 - Puffed up coat
6 - Lethargy

Spotting a pig in pain can be very challenging. You have to know your piggies. Aggie is the recessive pig out of the two. She's always such a sweetheart, if you give her food she'll love you for forever. Aggie is acting VERY much out of character, the only explanation is that she is not well. Upon examining her tummy and the "presents" she leaves us, we realized her tummy was bothering her. Again, you have to work with the understanding that if something is out of the ordinary... something is wrong.

Aggie is going to the vet tomorrow for her follow-up appointment. Aggie requests super healing ninja vibes. I hope we can stop giving her the drops, I also hope the vet doesn't kill me for stopping her anti-biotics. Fingers crossed!

Crippie's Tippie - If your pig is having minor tummy issues... give them lettuce sprinkled with water. They love it because it's freakin' lettuce and the extra water makes it easier to go to the bathroom.

Limping In The Rain

I should do Broadway puns more often...

The Aggie Update- Aggie is pissed at us. Emotionally she's in a sad place. People keep putting drops in her eyes that burn, people keep giving her medicine that she does care for anymore and probs causes minor tummy issues, AND to top it off... she's in heat... so she's just pissy in general. Aggie's always been a very emotional little pig. On the bright side her eye looks sooooooooooooooooo much better. It's almost back to normal. She has a follow up vet appointment on Friday, let's keep our fingers crossed for good news. Here's a few pictures of the patient so y'all can see her cute lil' face...

Woe is meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 

Her eye is looking good though, it's clear and mostly black. 

Aggie sleeping in a dramatic pose

Ain't she just the cutest damn thing ever? Anyways... yesterday was a rather weird day for me. I had a long day at work, but it a productive day. I wasn't achy or anything. Nothing felt out of the ordinary. Then while I was driving home, maybe a minute or two before arriving to my house, my damn ribs catch. For those of you who have hurt your ribs in some form or another know how much rib injuries hurt. So there I am driving, with the left side of my torso BURNING. I held my side with one hand, focused on the road, and got home. Once I got home I collapsed on the couch with a heat pack. While I was there Fanny decided to be all like "YOU'RE GONNA REMOVE ME... F$#% YOU... I'M GONNA IRRITATE YOUR ENTIRE LEG!". It's pretty safe to say that I was really uncomfortable. About five minutes later it began to pour. Once it started raining I got reallllllllyyyyy achy and stiff, to the point where I was not able to get off the damn couch. So, I stayed on the couch until it stopped raining. Eventually I migrated to my room and stayed with my glorious heat pack, NPH. While the pain wasn't as bad as it was earlier... there were a few rough patches throughout the night.

The whole incident was rather odd. Usually I feel achy for a day or so before rain. This whole thing was so sudden. My pain scale went from a 2 to a 8 within 15 minutes. The rain was also weird too, it went from "very light drizzle" to "torrential downpour" within minutes. I dunno... maybe that had something to do with it.

Lucky for me, this episode was short lived. My rib stopped hurting within an hour or so, soooo much better than when my rib caught for two and a half weeks. It's day's like yesterday that remind me how much I hate Fanny. I cannot wait for September 18. I'm hoping this is disdain for her will make me less nervous when surgery time comes. I've never hated a tumor as much as I hate Fanny, and I've had some real asshole tumors. Maybe I'll get through this surgery without getting sick beforehand like I usually do. I realllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy hope that I can psych myself into not getting sick come surgery day.

Before Crippie heads to bed I have one more picture to share with you. Maggie wants you all to know that it's hard being her. Whenever Aggie gets pissy she takes out her frustrations on Maggie. Poor Maggie keeps getting nipped in the butt.

MAGGIE BUTT!!!!

Crippie's Tippie - If you're ever driving while you get really bad pain episode, pull over if it's reallllyyyyyy bad and you can't focus on the road. If you can focus, slow down a little and put all your attention on the road. Concentrate only on driving. Think about nothing else. It distracts you from the pain.

Counting Down To Cripplefest!

Howdy!

The Aggie Update - Aggie has been a very good girl and her eye is looking better and better by the day. It's starting to look black again. YAY AGGIE!!! Poor baby hates those eyedrops though. While she lets me put them in, she starts to cry after a minute or two :( Since the pain is very much temporary I found the best treatment for her sorrows is treats. She forgets about her eye when she sees a nice piece of watermelon. I'll probably have to put her on a little diet when she gets better ;)

I hope y'all had a lovely Sunday and Monday. I was a social creature over the weekend. My friend and I went to see the Katy Perry movie. It was actually pretty good, which says something because I don't particularly care for her music. My favorite part was watching a grandma and her young grandchildren's reactions to that "Peacock" song, I was LOLing on the inside. 

Apart from the social-ness Crippie has been preparing for Cripplefest!!! What is Cripplefest? Well, it's when a bunch of people with my disorder converge at my house and we all bask in our awesomeness. All of this awesomeness will be occurring in about 2.5 weeks. Oh my goodness I'm so excited. Cripplefest has to be my favorite time of the year. I get to hang out with my friends in person, meet a bunch of new people from across the world, share stories and experiences, win some scar wars, all that fun stuff. It's the one time when I feel like a normal. For once I'm not the odd person out for having tumors all over their body. I'm seriously stoked for this *high pitched squeel* IMSOEXCITED!!!!

Some of my cripple friends will be staying here for about a week, which will be so freakin' awesome. It's also kinda hilarious because we all kinda look alike in a way. We don't think it has anything to do with the disorder, it's just a coincidence that we're the same height, same hair, glasses, etc. Apparently we're all also darkly funny. For those of you who think I'm a little weird... you are correct... now picture a room fuuuuuulllllllllllllllllll of Crippies. Can't you just sense the awesome! 

So yeah, I apologize in advance if posts get a little sporadic towards the end of July, I'll be busy entertaining my peeps! 

Crippie's Tippie - Cripplefests and gatherings are a great way to prove that you are not alone

Old-Timey Cripples

Greetings!

The Aggie Update - Her eye seems to be responding to the medications. The inflammation is starting to go down and her eye is starting to look clearer. Lucky for us, Aggie is a stellar patient. She actually enjoys taking her medicine. Getting the eye drops in is the only challengingthing because it clearly bothers her. I kinda have to hold her head with one hand and put the drops in with another. For more restless pigs I recommend either wrapping the pig in a towel or having someone else hold 'em.

Did all my lovely readers have an awesome Saturday? I hope so. My day went pretty well. I went to work and then I went into town to pick up my sister from her work. Since I had some time to kill I went antiquing. I rather enjoy antiquing, I like to find examples of vintage graphic design. I also enjoy seeing what kind of "treasures" I can find, even if I can't afford to buy any of these things... I like to photograph 'em. Generally my finds involve a really cool poster, or some vintage packaging. Today's score was rather different and totally unexpected...

REALLY OLD CRUTCHES!!!

Yup, I found crutches dating back to the Civil War. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?!?! What's even more awesome is that these things are surprisingly comfy. I couldn't resist trying them out a little (they're not in great condition and I was very gentle). The arm supports were padded with what seems like upholstery fabric. I can't believe that they were still soft considering they're over 100 years old. I wonder what their story is. Based on the height of the crutches I think they were for a fella. Maybe he was injured in the war. While I'll never know... I like to think of these things.

These crutches do provide an example of how to better crutches today. If you don't find your crutches comfortable, get some batting and a durable fabric, wrap the batting around the handles and then sew the fabric around it. It probably won't be the cleanest looking thing in the world, but it should get the job done.

Crippie's Tippie - When antiquing, check every nook and cranny in the store. I found these puppies just chilling on a back wall by a china cabinet. 


P.S. Today would have been my grandpa's 83rd birthday. Miss you Pop Pop, love you lots <3

The Jitter Bugs

Ohai

The Aggie Update - Yup, Aggie is gonna have her own update for the next week or so. Aggie had her first ever vet visit this morning. She did very well and the vet confirmed my diagnoses. Aggie scratched her cornea, she might have even punctured her eye a little. We have to give her eye drops every eight hours (around the clock), antibiotics twice a day, and pain medicine one a day as needed. She doesn't appear to be in any sort of pain, but... SHE SCRATCHED HER DAMN EYE!!! That has to hurt. I dunno, I have not noticed any behavioral changes in her. Apart from the cloudy eye I can't tell anything is wrong. Even though I probably said this many times last night, I'll say it again... IF YOUR PIG IS SICK, TAKE THEM TO THE VET!!! Aggie's eye could have gotten horribly infected if left untreated.

Moving on, I have some news regarding Fanny. For those of you who might not remember, Fanny is a grapefruit sized tumor on the back of my hips. Fanny is literally a pain in my ass, mainly because she is pressing against my sciatic nerve. FANNY IS COMING OUT PEOPLES! Fanny's coming out party will take place on September 18th. This will be my 11th surgery and I'm honestly for the most part excited. Fanny hurts like a mofo and I really want her out. Also I'll be able to make soooooooooooo many "This Is Spinal Tap" jokes! It will go to 11 people!

People frequently ask me if I am nervous about having surgeries. From here to the 16th the answer is no. I've had 10 surgeries already so I'm pretty much used to it. Granted, this surgery will be a same-day procedure and it shouldn't be terribly invasive (compared to other surgeries I've had). If this was a massive "REPLACE ALL THE HIPS" surgery I'd be singing a different tune.

If you asked me this question the day before the surgery my answer will be "yeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh". Since I've had 10 surgeries already I know what to expect, both good and bad. I know what it feels like to wake up from sedation, and I realllllyyyyy don't like that feeling. I hate being in the recovery room. I hate getting an IV. I hate everything about the day of surgery. Yeah, I definitely get the pre-surgery jitters. Usually I get a case of the shakes, with the occasional bout of feeling nauseous. I am so predictable with this pattern, I usually take valium the day before to calm me down, and to help prevent some of the sickness. For my last surgery I was prescribed a patch that would alleviate most of the nausea, and it definitely helped... to a degree. I usually get sick no matter what.

Hopefully my my hatred of Fanny will overpower my hatred of surgery. I have to remember that I will be in the hospital for about 12 hours. September 18th might suck... but ultimately it will be a party. I will be celebrating that the bane of my existence for the past 5 or so years will be removed.

Also, Frida wanted me to remind you all that the Artist of her namesake would have turned 105 today. VIVA FRIDA! Yes... Crippie collects Frida Kahlos :)

Crippie's Tippie - If you are like me and freak out right before a surgery... drugs are your friend

Eye Carumba!

Salutations!

I hope all my crippled comrades had a lovely "Oh right, today's Thursday" day. Crippie's day was certainly interesting to say the least. I spent most of my day taking care of the piggies. I gave Mama Pig a quick once over and she seems to have fully recovered. Mama Pig is going to be 5 soon, and thus she'll be a "senior pig". I'm going to do everything in my power to keep her here for as long as humanly possible, but I'll do a post on senior piggies another day.

Keeping your piggies healthy is a challenge. Apart from the whole "you need an exotic vet" thing, it can be very hard to tell when your pig is sick. Why? Because they hide it like nobody's business. Piggies are animals of prey, so their instinct is to hide whatever ails them so that predators won't see them and think "LUNCHTIME"! Vigilance is key with piggies. You have to know them, what their normals are, how guinea pigs are supposed to be. If your pig is acting "weird" chances are something is wrong. If something is slightly wrong with your pigs appearance, something is wrong. If anything is out of the ordinary... something is probably wrong.

Why am I going on like this? Welllllllllllllll... earlier today all of my pigs were happy. They were in watermelon induced food comas and everything seemed fine. Tonight they got their salads... Aggie starts wheeking and everyone else follows. They all eat their salads without issues. About two hours later I take Aggie out for cuddles. She seems perfectly fine... at first. As soon as looked at her face I knew something was wrong. Her eye was cloudy. The first thing I did was checked her eye in different lights, and it was definitely cloudy. Then I gave Aggie a once over, and I check her for signs of pain. I opened and closed her eyes without any issue. She didn't seem to be in pain, but she could've been hiding it (and probably was). Next I took a really good look at her eyes. Aggie's eyes are black and their eyes are normally clear and bright. Her eye was without a doubt cloudy and the parts of her eye that were supposed to be white were red.

At this point I know what the problem is... Aggie got hay stuck in her eye. Upon closer inspection I found the piece of hay and removed it. It wasn't an easy thing to do, but I put her on her back, I let her fight me for a minute, once she realized that she couldn't win she let me remove the hay. I used a tissue and my fingernails to carefully extract the inch long piece of hay from her eye. I then cleaned her eye, gave her some pain medication, and most importantly some watermelon because Aggie likes to eat her feelings.

Hay pokes are a somewhat common problem for piggies. They eat hay all day, every day. Aggie love her hay and dives into it as soon as I bring it to her. Frankly, I'm surprised she's managed this long without getting a hay poke.

Well, now that she's been poked, here's what were are going to do... Aggie NEEDS to go to the vet ASAP. The vet will prescribe either drops or an ointment for her. We'll treat her, and she'll be better in a week or two. It is essential that you take your pig to the vet for this issue. If not your pig will develop a nasty eye infection, go blind in that eye, or possibly lose the eye.

We are going to call the vet first thing in the morning, in the meantime Aggie is stoned off her chubby little ass. She is quite content with the world and thinks everything is pretty. Here are a few pictures so that other piggie owners will know what an eye injury looks like (the photos aren't graphic or anything)

Her good eye. Black, clear, and bright. (Also slightly glassy from being stoned)

The bad eye. Grey, cloudy, weird texture on eye, slightly closed

Close up, you can see the general area effected

Crippie's Tippie - Stay informed about general pig illnesses, I knew this was a hay poke and I began treating her immediately. For more information about piggies and eye issues go to http://www.guinealynx.info/eyes.html

Happy Fourth Of July!!!

USA! USA! USA!

Ohai everybody! I hope y'all had happy and SAFE fourth of July festivities. My day (and day prior since I forgot to post) went very well. Yesterday I was off from work so I did some chores and errands. The cutest thing ever happened to me yesterday... I was walking into a building when a little four year old asked me if he could open the door for me! So cute right? What makes this story even better is that is was an automatic door! CHIVALRY IS NOT DEAD PEOPLE! It's good to know that there still are people who are willing to open doors for you ;)

As for my actual fourth of July festivities... my day started out with some major cleaning while watching a "Twilight Zone" marathon. I seriously love that show, even though I will probably be having nightmares about an evil ventriloquist dummy (that episode gives me the heebie jeebies). My room did get very clean though... maybe a little too clean. Funny, I don't remember putting all of my things into their proper positions... OH NO... I'VE ENTERED THE TWILIGHT ZONE!

Around 6 o'clock my family decided that nobody felt like cooking today so we went out to eat. I had some very tasty ribs. We also played the good ol' game of "Make Crippie taste alcoholic beverages and see what faces she makes". Yeah, apart from the whole "my meds don't mix with booze" thing, I have hypersensitive taste buds and they react very strongly to alcohol... and my face reacts accordingly with said reactions. Think of a lemon face... times 10. Tis a fun game to play, and I like to see if there is are alcoholic beverages that I can actually tolerate. Usually the answer is no... but I tolerate alcohol when it is crazy diluted. Considering how I shouldn't drink anyways, this is probably for the best.

Crippie was also able to catch some fireworks tonight! Usually I see them out my window when I neighbor decides to light some. This year my sister and I opted to walk down the road with Helen to see if we could get a better vantage point. Boy howdy did we ever. Turns out we could see a bunch of people lighting fireworks at once, quite the site. My sister and I decided that we needed to be patriotic and sing. Being the classy ladies that we are we opted for the classic theme from "Team America: World Police" and to chant "USA! USA! USA!" whenever we saw a pretty display. Apart from wanting to see fireworks, we wanted to see how Helen would react to the sounds of explosions in the sky. That might sound cruel, but ya see... Helen is weird little creature. She barks and growls at doors, certain TV shows, strangers, other animals, inanimate objects, etc. We can only assume it's because she's blind and she wants to know what's going on. It turns out that Helen is not concerned about explosions in the sky, at all. She practically slept through them. Then a car drove by and she decided that the car was a mortal enemy. Dogs are silly like that.

So that's about it. I seriously hope y'all had awesome days, and I'm sending my thoughts and prayers to everyone affected by the fires and storms throughout the country. We need to have a "Go to hell, Mother Nature" day. I'd like that...

Crippie's Tippie - Offer to open an automatic door for someone, the looks on their faces will be entertaining.

A Grand Day For Driving

Yo!

Happy July everybody!!! I hope everyone had a lovely Sunday. My day went very well. I saw a local production of "A Grand Night For Singing", which is a revue of Rogers & Hammerstein songs. The production was fantastic and I enjoyed every minute of it. I also have to mention that I DROVE TO AND FROM THE THEATRE!!! YAY CRIPPIE!!! I know it might not seem like a huge deal but I had never driven on those roads before. I managed the to drive both ways without a panic attack and with only minor swearing! Granted, they're were people in the car with me, so that helped my anxiety of not knowing where I was... although it heightened my anxiety about killing everyone in the car in a fiery blaze. Maybe after a few more trips to this location I'll be comfortable enough to drive there by myself!

While I am making strides in lessening my driving anxiety, there is still a loooooooooooot of room for improvement. I'm trying to figure out the best way lessen my anxieties. Technically I know how to drive on highways and all that jazz... so it's not like I need to take lessons. Maybe I should just go driving with a GPS one day and see where that takes me. I drove today because I was forced to do so. Perhaps necessity will drive me to suck it up and drive to new places? Do any of my awesome readers have any tippies for driving anxiety?

I asked Nellie what she thought about my driving situation, her response was this...

"Why yes I would love some watermelon! Wait... that wasn't what you asked me? Oh well, everything sounds like 'would you like watermelon' to me. Speaking of which, I really want watermelon"

All of the piggies have been in "GIVE ME SOME DAMN WATERMELON" mode for the past couple of days. We kinda have to be careful. If someone in the house opens the fridge at 2am for some late night nosh, one of the pigs *coughAGGIEcough* starts screaming bloody murder. That one pig triggers all of the pigs to start screaming. As much as it breaks their little hearts, we cannot give them watermelon whenever they want it. If we did that they'd be conditioned to scream whenever they "need" watermelon, which is always ;). 

Crippie's Tippie - Necessity is the mother of learning how to suck it up

It's Getting Hot In Here...

Howdy!

Holy moly it's really freakin' hot. Crippie hopes that all of my lovely readers are keeping cool this weekend. I usually don't mind the heat, but it's become a bit of nuisance since I've been using heat packs. It's like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place... without the heat pack I'm achy and cool, with the heat pack I'm in less pain but overheating. *Sigh* I've decided that the overheating problem was easier to treat... so I just drink cold beverages and things of that nature to compensate. 

This weather has not been agreeing with the tumors either, Fanny in particular. She's been making my hip ache like a mofo. Have you ever had something ache to a point where it becomes really painful? That's Fanny. My hip almost constantly has a dull aching feeling. I eagerly await to find out when this bastard will be removed. 

Apart from this lovely weather, Crippie's been having a good weekend thus far. I was actually a social creature today. A friend came over for a pizza and Daria marathon. Daria is one of my all time favorite TV shows, people compare me to the main character all the time :D. So Crippie had a lovely time with that. Tomorrow (today, whatever) Crippie is going to see another show! Gotta love theatre season! I'm going to see Summerstar Theatre's production of  "A Grand Night For Singing". Crippie loves living in an area with such wonderful community theatre companies. All of my local readers should totally go see this show, I hear it's wonderful. And all of my non-local readers should support their local community theatre troups! 

In sleeping news, last night I tried taking online surveys to get tired. Worked pretty well if I do say so myself. They're boring as hell and you can earn a few extra bucks. It's like being paid to fall asleep! I was going to do likewise tonight, but Crippie got distracted with pictures of cats. I should be able to fall asleep after I finish posting this.

Before I leave y'all for the night, my guinea pigs have a quick piggie tippie for beating the heat... WATERMELON. My piggies love watermelon more than life itself and devour it like it's laced with crack or something. It's also great for hot weather because it's cold and refreshing. Here's a little video to prove my point. (I don't give my pigs this much watermelon, they get tiny pieces)

Crippie's Tippie - SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL THEATRES!!!!