Cinder's Surgery

Cinder was diagnosed with Insulinoma and adrenal disease. It happens to almost every ferret. And if they don't have surgery to remove their adrenal glands, then they could die. This has happened to another one of Stu's ferrets in the past and having the surgery added a good three years onto his life so we decided to go through with it. Stu and I don't have kids, so our ferrets are really part of our family and it was really hard to leave Cinder at the vet, knowing that she was going to have to go through the surgery all alone. We picked her up after work and she was all drugged up but happy to see us. Our vet, Dr. Ron said that Cinder had the biggest Insulinoma tumor he had ever seen but that she should be fine. (By the way, we recommend Dr. Ron to anyone who has a pet, although none of our friends currently have any. He is the most awesome vet ever and he even remembers his clients very well. We trust him completely with our animals).

Cinder's post op picture. I know that it looks really yucky but the brown stuff is just sterilizing liquid and we can't wash it off until her tummy becomes less sensitive. She has a little cute cast on her arm where they took the IV out. That HUGE bruise on her other arm happened because she freaked out and chewed out the first catheter that they put in. Crazy weasel.

Oliver has been really confused by the recent events. He has had to stay all by himself in the cage for the first time ever and doesn't like it. He seems really concerned about Cinder and it is really sweet to see him sniff her and try and give her kisses to cheer her up. Cinder herself is doing really well. She has been eating and drinking water and taking it easy. Can't wait until she can move a little more.

Memorial Day Camping

Usually, Memorial Day weekend rolls around and Stu and I are just so excited to have a few days off of school/work that we totally just relax at home. But this year, the weekend followed a long week off of work so we were pretty up for anything. Jesse and Carolyn invited us to go on a camping trip up the McKenzie river. We went up on Sunday pretty much expecting to have to turn around and go camp in someone's backyard. We were sure that with the nice weather and extended weekend, all the sites would be gone but amazingly enough, we found this awesome spot! It was actually at Paradise Campground which apparently is the place Carolyn's mom loves to camp. We were so lucky! It was right on the river and we didn't feel like we had people right on top of us. We ended up going hiking on this really cool trial that ended in this awesome pool, going to hot springs, and making hot dogs and smores over a camp fire. It was really a cool trip and we had a great time. Thanks for inviting us Carolyn and Jesse!

Scoping out a beer/soda hiding area in the icy water. It was awesome to come back from a hike and sit by the river and drink some cold beer!

"Once upon a time, this group of people went camping on the McKenzie river. Their cook roasted wieners and marsh mellows and then died. And then they ate some berries and died. Twenty years later they came back and haunted the campers at the site. With hooks. Wooooooooooooooooo..."

Wow, it has been a very busy month. At least, I feel like it has been very busy, although, I am not sure what all I have gotten done ;-) I realized that I needed to update the blog so here goes: a generic update on what has been going on.

-Stu and I had our 4th anniversary on the 30th of April. It was really great! We went to dinner at the Oregon Electric Station YUM and afterwards to the Hult Center to see Spamalot. Amazing. It was really a great show. John O’Hurley was pretty awesome (J Peterman from Seinfeld).

-Stu bought me a sewing machine for our anniversary! I am so excited to get started on projects! Can’t wait to go to the funky little fabric store down the road and pick something out. I have been trying to save up some money for other things lately, but soon!

-Baby Cedar was born! We went to the hospital to see Cedar, Katrina, and Kenton. He is so cute! Katrina is the first friend I have that I’ve been around since the beginning of the pregnancy and it has been so exciting! I can’t wait until our lives simplify a little bit so that we can spend more time at the Henry house!

-We know, we know…we haven’t been on a hike in like three weeks. The week after the last hike, it was horrible weather and the last couple of weekends, we have been so busy with other things that it hasn’t been a priority. I don’t know when we will get back into the swing of things. I hope soon. I miss it.

I am very excited for next weekend because I work Monday and I am going to help out in Stu's class on Tuesday (he really wants me to meet his kids since he has met all the ones in my classroom). But after that, I get the rest of the week off! Hopefully Stu and I will get some stuff done and have time to hang out with friends! Maybe get a hike or two in. Hopefully we will do something interesting so that when I do a blog update, I don't have to realize that we are boring... ;-)

The kids in Stu's class are all well aware that we have weird animals living with us at home. He brought the rats in one time to show them and now all of his students apparently talk about them all the time. A few kids think that it is fun to pick a bunch of daisies for the rats so every couple of days, Stu comes home with a pocket full of flowers. The rats really like the flowers. It is very cute.