One of the guys who lives in the park here in Texas had to go out of town for a week, and we took care of his dog for him while he was away. Lucinda (myrrhluz) was here last weekend, so she got to hang out with this cutie with us for a few days. The dog is two-and-a-half years old, appears to be a Poodle/Lhasa Apso cross, and has the nicest disposition! She went home today, but we had a lovely time with her this week. Other friends took care of her the two days we weren't here while I was in the hospital. And speaking of me being in the hospital ... Thank you to everyone who sent me emails, site mails, cards, letters, notes, telephone calls, dedications, and general good wishes. (Oh ... and a link to old Captain Kangaroo reruns. Thanks, Lucinda! LOL!) This is such a wonderful community, and you're the reason I stick around year after year! I couldn't ask for better friends. I'll be answering your emails and commenting on dedications tonight, but in case I don't get to finish doing everything I want to do, I just wanted you all to know how VERY much I appreciate you! Extra-special thanks to Robert (wolfenshire) for taking the initiative and passing along my news to this community! It's good to have a Wolf in your corner. :) So for those of you who like to know WHY people were in the hospital, I'll give you the short version. Those of you who don't care about such information ... just move along and enjoy the cute doggie and I won't mind a bit. :P I've been taking the same blood pressure medication for about 20 years, and this week it seemed to just stop working. My blood pressure was up in the 160/85 range about half the time on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Friday morning my chest, neck and upper arms felt tight and tired, with a small amount of pressure. One of my friends here at the park is a retired nurse, and she said, "Get thee to the emergency clinic right now," so Bill took me in. My blood pressure was 198/90 (ish) and I was pretty uncomfortable! After three EKGs, a chest x-ray and two blood tests, they decided I had NOT had a heart attack, and that it was blood pressure related. They gave me all sorts of BP drugs in the hospital to bring it down, and we've got an interim plan in place until I can get to the doctor this week. So between adding more medication and spacing it out properly, my blood pressure has been between about 118/65 and 135/75 all day today. Quite a satisfactory result, especially considering how complex this issue can be. It seems I have deep veins, and it took them nine tries to get an IV in, and then it was the ER doc who got it started with the help of an ultrasound machine. Then two more pokes to get blood drawn after the IV stopped producing, so my arms and hands look like somebody's been beating on me with a pipe. The nursing staff at the hospital has me on a list of "Oh no, I'M not gonna try to draw her blood!" list, because it hurts me so much to get poked that I can't help but yelp and cry. It's not pretty, and they feel bad about hurting me. I've got little bits of tape residue and glue all over my body from the heart monitor and the EKG tabs and rolls of medical tape, and it seems like I'm spending most of my free time checking my blood pressure. Other than that, everything seems to be fine! :P It seems like there's always something these days that gets in the way of me getting to the computer, and I'll bet I've got more than one doctor appointment coming up this week, so if you don't see me for a few days, don't worry. I'll keep you posted, or will at least send messages through someone on this site to let you know how I'm doing if I can't be here. Thanks again, everybody! You ROCK!!