suceress

I have to mention that on March 26, 2008 my beloved cat Miko passed away from cancer. Over a year and a half before she began pissing on things she shouldn't have. Couches, chairs, the hallway, my bed... (at one point she bundled up all of the blankets and sheets on my bed and pissed all over them and then crapped on my pillow). She was desperately trying to let us know that something was wrong. We kept taking her to the vet and he either did nothing or prescribed a special diet for sensitive stomach. She also started vomiting. For awhile some of the food seemed to stop the vomiting, but she was still pissing. She was also very jumpy when touched sometimes and seemed to have a hard time getting comfortable. The poor thing had already been addled from a bad reaction to Hartz Flea and Tick drops (a version which after years of actually killing cats was finally recalled in 2007) and had become very ill. She'd also gotten bitten by something on her back and had an infection that I'd taken care of. One of the things I'd noticed over a year before she died was that she had lumps in her lower abdomen. I pointed it out to the vet but he ignored it. Many other things happened that sidetracked us from being more vehement in our pursual of treatment for her (for which I feel guilty). We took her to another vet for a second opinion but all he did was sell us some pills that I had to grind up and mix with her food and some special canned food. Toward the end she hardly ate and was rapidly losing weight. By the time the vet finally acknowledged that something was seriously wrong, it was far too late. The cancer had spread in her body too far and she could not be saved.

The day Miko died, her sister Sara climbed on my bed and pissed on my arm and all over my blankets. One of my other cats sat on the spot where she was buried. I still can't relate the story without crying..

Anyways, last week we noticed a large lump on Sara's leg and took her in to the vet. The vet was not happy at all. He said that it was probably cancer caused by a vaccine. He said they inject vaccines in the leg in case it developed cancer because it was less dangerous than somewhere on the main body. He performed surgery to remove the tumor and sent it for biopsy. Needless to say I was rather annoyed that they knew a vaccine was causing cancer yet didn't warn pet owners. I spoke to the other vet at his office and she told me that it was the rabies vaccine. It apparently causes a very dangerous malignant sarcoma in cats. The tumor in Sara's leg had sent out fingers, but we seemed to have gotten it in time.

Yesterday we got a call from the vet and he told us the biopsy was back. It is malignant, and furthermore, it's bad enough that we have to remove her entire leg from the hip down. I did some research online and found out that they've known the rabies vaccine has been causing cancer since 1991, yet the states still require the vaccine to be given. What really pisses me off is that it is a 3 year vaccine but Louisiana law requires it to be given every year, which basically triples the chance of cancer. Sara will never have to get another rabies shot, but it's not likely that she will understand why she's lost her leg. She's already uncomfortable enough with the stitches on her leg. I really hate to see her go through this. Not to mention the risk of infection or something going wrong during surgery.

The money is another issue. It's going to easily cost over $1,000 before this is all done, and I will have to spend a great deal of time giving her meds and making sure her wound stays clean. Sometimes I wish I could sue the vaccine company for my vet bills. It just pisses me off so much that they continue to push a product that is known to cause cancer like that and the pet owners don't even know. I think at the very least all vet clinics should be required to let owners know about the risks of vaccines. I feel bad for all the pets who suffer because of this.

Monday is D-day for poor Sara's leg. I can't look at her without crying because I feel so bad for her. I'm hoping everything goes ok. I've had a few pets die under this vet's watch. I miss my old vet but he died of cancer years ago.

This is just so frustrating.

EDIT: A good website for cat owners is http://www.vas-awareness.org/NeedT… It has information about vaccines and such.

I haven't mentioned on here yet that for many years I've had problems with arrhythmia and have had some unpleasant symptoms when my heartrate goes up. I finally found out from my cardiologist that one of the valves in my heart leaks. I got to watch the scan and see the colored scan that showed the flow of blood and could clearly see that my blood kept flowing back into the chamber the wrong way. The valve itself seemed to move in an odd manner. That was when I was relaxed. When my heartrate goes up, the leaking gets worse and oxygenated blood does not distribute properly. So I get dizzy, have trouble breathing, and generally feel crappy.

The bad news is that I pretty much have to live with it unless it gets bad enough that they think they need to do surgery. The good news is, I don't need surgery yet.

This also means that I have to warn any dentist I see about my condition. The leaking valve apparently makes me more vulnerable to infection if I get dental work done.

I'm now trying to figure out a way to try to get back into better shape without stressing my heart. I plumped up after I dislocated my ankle over a year ago. It still gives me trouble from time to time. I would've gone to a doctor and gotten an x-ray on it, but at the time it happened my mother refused to drive me to the hospital because she was busy playing World of Warcraft. At least I can walk without a cane now. I can't quite run or jog, but I can walk somewhat quickly. When I remember, I take some vitamins with glucosomine, msm, and condroiten for joint pain. It seems to help.

I am such a geek! I forgot to mention in my first blog that my introduction to the comic book world came when my sister gave me the brand new Robin #1 for my birthday. Don't ask me to remember how long ago that was. The years have just blended together into a big haze. I was so hooked on the character that I ended up getting backissues of Detective Comics, Legends of the Dark Knight, Batman, and other things to see Tim's appearances. I came across Nightwing in one of the issues and found his story very interesting and ended up getting a ton of backissues of Titans, Teen Titans, Tales of the Teen Titans, The New Teen Titans, etc. Basically anything I could find with Robin and Nightwing I grabbed. I don't even want to quantify how much money I spent on my comics. I started reading Superboy, Impulse, Damage, Flash, Legion of Super-Heroes, Legionnaires... Some of the comics were restarted, some were canceled, some I lost interest in. Young Justice brought some of my favorites together and I enjoyed it, although I didn't always agree with Peter David's characterizations, he was at least funny enough to get away with it. Plus I had read some of Peter David's Star Trek: TNG novels and had a soft spot for him.
Did I mention I was a big Star Trek geek before I got into comics?

So I don't rant on for too long, I'll get to the point. Even though I stopped reading the comics when they killed Spoiler, I still maintained an interest in fanfics and other comic related stuff. One of the odd things I did was look up stuff that I thought would be useful for super-heroes. I took note of different types of weapons, technology, interesting facts about crime scene investigation, combat styles, cool moves, etc. Rewind back to high school, I even did weightlifting and taekwondo (I made it to green belt).

Anyways, today I was watching a TV program on BBC America and they talked about this cool product called D3O. Basically chemists figured out a way to make a synthetic material that is soft and pliable when handled, but hardens on impact. After the impact it returns to it's softer state. It is lightweight so it isn't as bulky and restricting as some of the protective gear around.

The following link shows some of the applications for the product http://www.d3o.com/applications.ph… (If you change the 3 to a 4 (or click Products on the menu) you can see some of the already existing products). I was watching that and thinking "wow, that would be really cool for Batman, Robin, Spoiler, and Nightwing to use in their costumes."

Seeing this reminded me of another product I saw awhile back called Stealth Rubber (http://www.stealthrubber.com/story…). It allows for a grip on slippery surfaces, even when those surfaces are wet. Most of the companies that produce wading shoes now have stealth rubber to prevent people from slipping.

I had always thought that (even though it wouldn't look as cool) the non-powered heroes should wear more protective gear. As cool as it looks to see the hair on the heads of Robin and Nightwing, it would be more practical for them to cover up (for protection, warmth, and to avoid crime scene contamination from their hair/blood). One of the reasons I like Spoiler's costume is that it disguises her face quite well.

Have I mentioned that at the very least I think the masks on Nightwing and Robin should cover the noses partially and have a slightly different shape than their real noses (at last on the outside) to give their faces a different profile and make them harder to identify?

There is also some GPS thing (I think it's called Kinetic GPS) that can pick up on weaker signals and is very fast. That would be cool for communications.

If I could draw worth a damn I would draw ideas of costumes and have something akin to schematics on how the costumes are designed to protect the body and such.

I got distracted and didn't finish this so I forgot what I was going to say next. So I'll leave it at this.

Let's see if I can get this right.

I like sci-fi stuff and comic books and crime solving junk. For over 10 years I read comic books. My favorite characters were Robin, Nightwing, Spoiler, Impulse, Superboy, and Connor Hawke.

Then the DC editors started getting sloppy, paper quality declined but prices went up, the art got kind of crappy in some of the books, and they started making changes I didn't like.

The first signs of trouble (at least from my perspective) came when crossover events began interrupting the stories. Otherwise good stories were cut short to make room for the events. I didn't mind Final Night. No Man's Land was somewhat interesting but a lot of the things that happened really pissed me off. To be honest I didn't care much for Greg Rucka's writing. Some of it was OK, but some of it really pissed me off.

I was especially annoyed by the introduction of Batgirl. The origin of the character--- well, I'll save that rant for another day. I ended up liking her better, but at first I felt highly annoyed that they brought in a new character which seemed to push Spoiler out of the Bat family. She was filling what I felt should've been Steph's place.

When Chuck Dixon (who is a very sweet man - he sent me some comic books that I could not get when I was overseas) left it was the beginning of the end.

They could've hired Scott Beatty to write Robin, but nooooo, they hired some guy I'd never heard of (Jon Lewis sp?). They also hired Devin Grayson (I think she was sleeping with one of the editors). I have to admit that Grayson had potential. She had some very funny ideas and some things that made for humorous scenes. Unfortunately she suspended plot, common sense, and characterization just to get to those scenes.

After Chuck's departure it seemed like there was a vendetta against him. Almost all of his characters were either ruined or killed. They even destroyed all of Bludhaven! Don't even get me started on the Tarantula crap.

I'm going to digress and mention that one of the things I liked about Tim Drake was that he still had at least one parent. He broke the mold of the orphan superhero. Then they went and killed his dad...

Anyways, I thought that Lewis's run on Robin was pretty bad. People didn't talk or act like real people to me. He turned Dana into a total wuss. The whole thing about Dana being bothered that Steph had a child out of wedlock was complete BS (especially since she was sleeping with Jack long before they were married). Then he forgot that Tim's mother's name was Janet and had the wrong name. Oh, he also turned Jack into a mopey, whiney moron. The characterization was just wrong. Tim leaving a diary in his closet... UGH...Batman punking Tim on his birthday...

My feelings on Lewis changed quite drastically when Bill Willingham took over. I can't for the life of me figure out why the hell they hired him. For one thing, he came in saying that he thought the whole teenage sidekick thing was wrong. For another he said that he didn't care about the loyal longtime fans. Worst of all, he didn't seem to have bothered to have read any of the comics with Robin (or if he did he didn't retain much). He make Robin act like a little punk kid (this was exacerbated by the fact that the art started making him look smaller and younger). Willingham had no sense of the characters or even how teenagers thought and talked. To twist a phrase, Bill Willingham wouldn't know good characterization if it lubed his prolapsed rectum with high-quality printer ink and introduced itself to his anal cavity with great fervor.

I don't think I even read the issue where Stephanie "died". I had read about it and was so pissed. I had said on the boards that if they killed her I would be done. With the death of Jack Drake, the death of Spoiler, and the rape of Nightwing, I'd had enough. Oh, and the character assassination of Leslie Thompkins didn't help. After over a decade of loyal fanship, I gave up.

I did read some things from time-to-time to see what was up in the comics. They made me glad that I stopped reading.

Remember the list of characters I mentioned at the beginning of this?
Well, let's see what happened to them: Robin, turned into an orphan and seemed to forget that his girlfriend died; Nightwing, changed costume, location, and I've heard his personality changed as well; Spoiler, allegedly killed; Impluse, killed; Superboy, killed; Connor Hawke, put in persistent vegetative state (might as well be dead). I'll add that Batgirl (whom I had grown fond of) was turned into a murderer.

Basically they destroyed the things I enjoyed about the comics. Deaths happened so often that I just got pissed off rather than feeling moved. Yes, that sort of stuff happens in real life, but I read these things for fun. They were an escape from the real world.

So, imagine my surprise when a longtime friend of mine told me that Chuck Dixon came back to DC and wrote Robin again and that Spoiler was brought back; Dr. Thompkins was redeemed; and Batman-- ok, he's STILL a d-bag... I started searching the 'net for information and came across the spehaniebrown wiki. woohoo!

I wanted to connect to other Spoiler fans so I started this thing here.
I'll shut up now.