Geoff13

Red So sorry to hear about Roxy. But I am happy that Bella is still doing well. You can only try to remember the good times and that you always did your best for them. Koby lost his battle on 11 Nov and I am still missing him terribly as are Julie and his best mate Heaven. Julie decided no more dogs when we had to let Koby go, but Heaven, Julie and I have been so down for the last 2 months, that we are sitting at home at the moment waiting for a rescue to come and visit. He will be here at 11ish and his current owners are coming to see how he fits in with Heaven and us. I guess they are coming to check us out more than anything else. No one will replace what you have lost but you never know there could be enough love in your heart for another (little people) as we call them in our house.

So true and so disappointing. The world would be a far better place if instead of looking down at people, we could sit down and talk with them. And I did mean talk ‘with them’ not ‘to them’ or even worse ‘at them’. We have forgotten in our modern day how to talk with people. Worse still we have either forgotten or never learned how to listen to people. Speaking is pointless without Listening. i find it very disappointing when I see supposedly enlightened and well educated people who have no concept of humility.

Spectrum 48 with cassette drive was my first computer. Even if I still had the cassettes I wouldn't have anything that could read them. We then upgrade to some sort of thumb type drive (cant remember details) it was the fore runner to the disk drive from memory. My kids at age 37 and 39 probably don't even remember disk drives. How far we have come.

I went to Uluru for the first time 5.5 years ago. Something about the place touched me in a way I had never felt before. Instead of my planned 2 days there, I spent 5 days. I walked around it, rode around it and studied it from every place that I could find. I actually went looking for local people to talk to them about it. Having grown up in an area that had a large indigenous community and having best mates who were indigenous I felt strangely connected to the local people at Uluru. I was treated so well and given so much of the local story of the area and taken to places that I had walked past but not seen that I left being even more in awe of the place. I left feeling that had I wanted to climb then I would have been welcomed to by the local elders. Having said that, I left also feeling absolutely no urge to climb it even if my body at the time would have allowed it. I have no trouble believing that in is one of many sacred sights within a days walk, and I could easily go back and spend another 5 days and still feel as though I had more to learn. Uluru was also the 2nd step on my flying journey, 50 years after my 1st step, but that is a different story.

It must be something in the air so to speak. We have 2 resident Kookaburras which the willy Wag Tails are happy to annoy the crap out of. Today as I was hand feeding 1 Kookie he was dive bombed by a Pee Wee. It is not the first time I have seen a Pee Wee get aggressive, but it certainly a rare enough occurrence to rate a mention. The Kookies sit on my back fence and from time to time I will let them have a very small piece of my dogs meat treat, much to the dogs disgust. They will let me walk up to them but will not eat from my hand whilst they are sitting. However if I stand still long enough, the larger one will come and take a piece out of my hand on the fly. It is quite a feeling.

In a country that has less than 25 million people we have almost 2.5 million public servants. 10% of the population employed by the government, and what percentage supported by the government. I do not have all the answers but neither of the above are sustainable.

I have seen the same Jeep, I took a picture and posted it on facebook some time back LOL. Shows a sense of humour.

How true OK. Thinking back now I hope my kids realise how much their mother gave up for them as I now realise how much mine gave up for me.

I lost count of the number of times that I suggested to my Mum that she mail my unwanted food to the starving kids in Africa. In hindsight I regret those comments. Many nights my Mum would cook Vegetable Soup. If my dad managed to shoot a rabbit on the way home from work it became Rabbit stew. If he shot a Duck it would become Duck stew. Many nights it stayed as vegetable soup. Only when I became a parent did I realise how that must have hurt my parents.

FFS Marty the Yanks did not have any evidence that's why they were not charged. Typical Labor Party BS.

Did the same test, after rinsing with water and spitting it out back to 0.00. Also just waiting 30 secs and swallowing everything in your mouth puts it back to 0.00 as well.

I am not sure if you have to be rich facthunter but they can certainly be expensive when it goes wrong. As I said above we have lost 3 of our last 4 to Cancer, and the 4th one had a very rare heart condition. I feel as though I own the Vet Specialist Centre at Springwood on Brisbane Southside, I have spent so much time and money there over the last 10 years.

Red PM sent.

red750 I am going to tell you a short story about incurable Lymphoma in dogs. It is widely regarded as the most aggressive form of cancer that dogs get and the prognosis is never good. We have a 10 year old Shetland Sheep Dog, his name is Koby. We love him to bits and spoil him rotten. The week before Anzac Day 2016 he was sitting on my knee watching me surf the net, in fact I quite possibly was even on this site. I felt a small lump under his neck. Now having lost 3 of our last 4 Shelties to cancer of different sort, I had him at the vet within 30 minutes 24 hours later we had a diagnosis of incurable Lymphoma. Prognosis was 2 to 3 weeks without treatment, 2 to 3 months with treatment up to and absolute max possibility of 12 months if everything went perfectly. So off we went to the oncologist with fear in our hearts and she confirmed what we had already been told but added that in her experience Shelties rarely if ever responded to Chemo like most dogs do and normally the worst outcome can be expected. Obviously we had a million questions but the one we felt was most important was is it being kind to him to treat him with chemo if the chance of helping him was negligible, would we really be doing it for him or for ourselves. The answer was Chemo for dogs is nothing like Chemo for Humans. Yes they use a similar combination of drugs and for the same reasons, but doses are much smaller. When I asked why I was told because humans understand why we are making them sick to try to cure them, but you can't explain that to a dog so we just give them enough to buy them time without making them sick. So realistically the aim with a dog is simply remission not cure. We decided to give Koby the treatments. Apart from his second treatment where he vomited for a day and had the runs (caused by them trying to find the right dose) he had no visible side effects from the Chemo at all. The effect on his symptoms were immediate and have been permanent, ie lumps are gone and have not reappeared. After 4 months of treatment with no actual reduction in his Lymphoma, we were told that they would have to stop the treatments as his platelet count had fallen so low that there was an imminent risk of his immune system shutting down completely. So we took him home and waited for his platelet to regenerate, or the Lymphoma to start to grow again. On his second weekly visit to the oncologist after stopping treatment we were told that not only had the Lymphoma start to get worse, but his platlet count was still falling. We were told to take him home spoil him and be ready for the worst, so we did. 24 hours later we had a call could you please bring Koby in we would like to talk to you. So we did. We were offered what at the time was a trial drug. One of our Oncologist's had been to a conference where she had spoken about Koby's case and there was a visiting international Vet who offered a lifeline. It was a trail Drug. I cannot remember the name and Julie is away atm so I cant ask her. It was very expensive. It could only be administered a max of 3 times. In previous trails it had forced 50% of recipients into remission with little to no side effects on the successful patients or the ones it didn't help. We decided that the 4 months we had bought Koby were all just to keep him going to this point so we opted for the Drug. So Koby had the shot in Sep 2016. The results are as follows. Koby is sitting on my lap as I type this. He has no lumps although I check him every day. He has no symptoms and no side effects. He still has Lymphoma but it is not getting any worse. His platlet count has just now increased to the point where we are game to let him venture at to places where he could meet other dogs. (until now I have had to walk him very late at night to minimise the risk of him catching something from other dogs) The count is still to low for him to have further Chemo. He goes back for blood tests monthly to keep an eye on any changes. (Visit were weekly then fortnightly). He is still spoilt rotten not only by us but everyone at the oncologist come out to meet him on his monthly visits and actually compete to be the one to carry him out back for his test. They refer to him as their wonder dog. They have now used this drug on other dogs that we are aware of some with similar results to Koby, some have gone into remission and others sadly have had no effect. I know this is a long post, but Koby has a long story to tell when it could have easily ended almost 3 years ago. What I am trying to say is even if the prognosis is as bad as it can be, and with Lymphoma it will be, there is always hope. If you have the means then buy your pet as much time as you can because you never know what might be just around the corner. If you got this far then thank you for reading Koby's story. Woof

I don't know where in Qld you live Yenn but you obviously haven't been to Carindale shops this week. Bah Bloody Humbug There are 12 Days iof Christmas and none of them are in November.