vaccine associated cancer

...what?

Oh, dear, now I'm scared of the vaccine boosters Leo is supposed to get next week. How often does this happen? (I am more of a hypochondriac when it comes to my cats than I am in regards to myself!)

In other news of animaux, it is Darb's monthiversary!

I celebrated by being a cruel, sadistic person and dragging her to the vet. She already had most of her shots but got a couple of new ones, was completely tramuatized by being lifted onto the exam table, and was discovered to have not one but two kinds of worms, so is now taking some wildly expensive de-worming pills and will have to go back for boosters in a couple of weeks.She also needs a teeth cleaning. Lordy. Somehow I'd forgotten how costly these little critters can be.

But all is well otherwise, so yay. And we start dog classes next week so that should be fun.

Zen, it's rare (1 in 1000, I think), but most common with the feline leukemia booster. Since our cats are indoors, I stopped getting that one for the others as well. I feel that the rest of the vaccinations are worth the risk. Here's a page that says a bit more: [link]

As with any medical issue, I do not recommend googling vaccine-associated sarcoma like I did. I read a whole lot of horrible, scary stuff that didn't help me at all.

ETA: Yay Darby and her human!

Never look up medical stuff online.

I have to! It's part of my job! Oh, hand-foot skin reaction, so not pleasant to look at.

Never look up medical stuff online.

Yesterday I googled "cat dehydration" and determined my kitty was not dehydrated. So on occasion good can come from looking up medical stuff online.

Thanks, Pix. Both of mine are indoor-only, so maybe we can skip a vaccine or two.

He hasn't been able to get vaccination boosters

For what it is or isn't worth, many vets believe that vaccinations are stronger than they need to be. Which means that Byron may have been protected for some time after he stopped receiving boosters.

(We went through some of this after Teddy's kidney failure and transplant. We asked whether we should give him vaccines when his immune system was suppressed. We were told not to vaccinate, and there was probably plenty of vaccine still in his system.)

I hope Byron is okay. New puppies can be stressful to old soldiers like him.

DJ, I am so sorry. That is just horrific. I had that happen once and it was really awful.

It turns out that our stay in Siena managed to coincide somewhat with their Palio celebration -- a yearly city-wide festival that culminates on 2 July with a crazy, barebacked horse race around the main campo. This race is a competition between neighborhoods of Siena, and in the week leading up to it (NOW!) they have trial runs and tests to reduce a field of 400 horses down to 10. We won't be here on the 2nd - my dad will be with my step-mom in London, and I will be on my way back to Los Angeles. But we've managed to catch some of the trials.

What I should be getting from this story is ZOMG adorable Italian pretty lady story but, since it's after the fact and Sean is already home while I catch up, what I am really thinking is ZOMG you saw part of the Palio (amazing horsie races that look crazy dangerous but intrigue me mightily)!

As one does.

On my Atlanta to LA leg, I was told I was being aggressive and threatened with arrest by TSA agents at the gate for asking for a pillow last night (short version).

When I flew home last week from San Diego, I had to complain about a TSA employee. I had my laptop out of the bag for the scanner but my Kindle and another tech thing were still in.

Now the Kindle has never come out of my bag for separate scanning but new tech was new and I didn't think about whether it might need to come out until the guy says they need to rescan. Sure, no problem. Scan it three times, search it in front of me, whatever. I got no complaints.

Except he goes to take stuff out and insists that the Kindle is a device that it's not and then WALKS AWAY with my bag and digs more things out. While I was asking him to just pull the stuff out in my line of sight and run it through. There was a lot of high dollar stuff in that bag, I want to keep an eye on it. Nope, walked off with me Very Politely asking him to only take things out of my bag where I could see. Not touch, see.

Once I'd collected my things, I walked to the next guy and asked if I could ask a question. Oh, yes, they are NOT supposed to do that. At all. So I made a complaint.

I don't like complaining. That one felt good. Dude could have pocketed anything. Or another passenger could have. I don't even walk through the detector until my laptop stuff has started through.

Then I had a bloody mary waiting for my plane.

Thanks, everyone. I decided taking a nap was my best option, and now I feel fine. Onlu I could start having an anxiety attack after taking anxiety meds.