I know there will never be a Cure For Cancer–thats as ridiculous as saying there’s gonna be a Cure For Jeff’s, it doesn’t make sense–but there are quite a few, thyroid included, that are common enough more research could pay huge dividends.
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My impulsive brain is overriding my hesitance to interrupt an otherwise flowing conversation on life and death matters because it desperately wants to know how the ever-loving fuck this person was allowed to practice.
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I know what part of that was like. In the days before I gave birth to my creature (if that’s the correct term for a c section, she exited my body either way) I was allowed to drink to 20ml of water a hour. No more than that. I also wasn’t allowed to get up. I had a catheter in and they were pumping magnesium sulfate into me. I wasn’t allowed to eat until they weren’t going to operate that day, so I usually only got dinners. They were checking my blood pressure every hour, night and day.
It was well over a year ago but I still remember the misery of those 3 days.
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Oh, it’d be more of a surprise to me if there wasn’t.
I don’t think that chiropractors can cure colds by doing spinal adjustments (seriously, that’s a thing, which is why I think chiropractors are “witch doctors,” a term my sister has yelled at me for using), but I have no doubt that having a sound body makes it easier to keep a sound mind, and vice versa.
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And unrelated story: In Toronto, Ontario, midwives are a common alternative to doctors for routine births, but when you go elsewhere in the province they are a lot less common and people sometimes view them as weird alternative medicine. I was talking with a midwife about that one day, and how I felt like it was weird that people from Ottawa seemed to think midwives were “witch doctors”. The midwife said, “Well, we are.”
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I’m sorry for your loss. I hope that you were able to get a photo or two to remember her by.
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Thanks. We got a few photos over the years. 
The final few photos we took of HH were:
(such a fancy stethoscope)
with the last being:
She seemed reasonably happy and comfortable in her final days, which made the loss the more shocking, though I’m very glad she wasn’t visibly suffering.
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We got the lab results back just now. She had lymphoma. Cancer is pretty common in hedgehogs as they age, alas.
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Oh, poor little lady. It is indeed fortunate that she appeared to have a minimal amount of discomfort before her little body gave out. What a hedgehog!
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I’d just heard the same thing not two days ago (I have a local friend who is currently hedgehogless but had them as her pet of choice, if not for you I’d have had no idea). She also said hers ‘lived fast, played hard, died adorably’. (exact quote)
We chatted about the princess some and now she’s got the bug again, so I might get to go hedgehogging with her.
If Madison, WI suddenly ends up becoming a hedgehog hub, you’re partially to blame!
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Ah, damn. If it were me I’d take some small comfort in knowing that it was nothing I did, and there was really nothing I could have done. Not that it’d make things any less shitty but for me it would take away some of the mystery and potential self-blame.
… well other than to blame cancer, because fuck cancer.
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My dog Danny and I are at the vet. Hopefully this is just one of his “routine” prostate infections and not something worse. (I know, I know. I got him when he was old already and sporting a heart murmur, so the vets weren’t crazy about getting him snipped.) Wish us well, will update later.
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I got news I didn’t want. Yes, he has an infection. But he also has a perineal hernia, which will require surgery. Expensive surgery. He’s 12 to 15 years old, with a heart murmur already. Got a consult scheduled for tomorrow which should give me more answers. But… the ballpark they gave me was $2400 to $3000 for the surgery. As much as I hate myself for saying it, that’s an awful lot of money to spend on a dog who’s that old. But he’s my baby… how can i not? I will know more tomorrow, after I drive an hour away for the consult. I’m… beyond words, really I am.
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I’m very sorry about this. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re crazy to spend this amount of money on your dog, and don’t feel guilty if you think you shouldn’t go through the surgery. Whatever decision you’ll make will be the best one for you and Danny.
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My middle-aged and currently heat-slowed brain prompted me to wait a bit to respond here.
Years ago, I heard this from a friend who was in the U.S. Navy, and I confess I see its appeal:
I don’t expect my own path toward becoming a healthier, saner (yes), more awakened human being to be everyone’s cup of tea, to mix metaphors. My off-the-boat-Chinese dad never once sought acupuncture from a TCM doctor, despite a lifetime of chronic pain and addiction, for all the 50 years I knew him. He was fine with taking an ever increasing pile of pills, sure, but no way was he going to get needles stuck all over him, esp. since, armed with with his PhD in Chemistry, he Just Knew Science Has All the Answers to Everything, Full Stop.
I get a lot of relief from allergies through diet, acupuncture and probiotics. My son’s asthma is nearly gone thanks to acupuncture–he stopped using his inhaler in 2013 after being on one sort or another since 2006. Go figure.
Your mileage may vary. If one modality doesn’t work for you, move on to something that does. I apologize for stating something this obvious and do not mean to insult your intelligence. No offense meant. And @japhroaig, please, no offense meant or glibness implied.
My early years were programmed by a narcissistic several-kinds-of-crazy (with a heapin’ side of heavy-corporal-punishment) dad and a suicidal Queen of Denial mom who did periodically have her good moments—I had a lot of brain code to debug and rewrite from YearMonthDay Zero onward. Once I got out of their house, I learned all I could from many positive teachers found in all kinds of unexpected places using wildly differing methods.
By the time I got to Austin, which has respectable density of… of… lovable eccentrics? Humans interested in bettering themselves through less orthodox means? Overeducated weirdos? Uniquely open-minded people with laudable goals and passions who teach by being living examples? Not sure this really encompasses what I’m attempting to quantify. Austin culture has made a lot of room for people who are unconventional and don’t fit in anywhere else in Texas. Austin is or at least has been, I daresay, fairly hospitable to happy mutants.
I believe my psychotherapist was allowed to practice for over 35 years because she was good at it. People who went to see her got the results they needed. Am I a perfect human being now, after my work with her? Nope. Do I make better choices? Yep. Do I know the difference now between the ramifications of various decisions? Yep. Do I spend a lot less time trying to spot unhealthy behavior in myself? Oh yes definitely. And sometimes I even try to do things differently. 
So… still working on myself. Debugging is, as programmers here will doubtless attest, an ongoing process. With each new piece I seek to make better in myself, a lot of cascading dependencies and pieces of script in my head conflict, crash, and invite closer inspection. I’m on V52.4 and I still have some really bad days. Sometimes bOINGbOING bbs is useful and helps me improve.
Peace.
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I’m sorry. I think he’s lucky to have you as his companion because I think you will try your hardest to do the best thing for him no matter what that is. I also agree with @subextraordinaire that you should trust your own judgment about how best to help Danny regardless of how much money it costs. I paid for a surgery for my rabbit with a credit card that increased her comfort and extended her life by a few years. It was not a “financially prudent” decision, and . . . I have never once regretted doing it.
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I have no likes to give, but am a huge fan of dry humor!
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Heartbreaking.
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