Month: December 2015

Genealogy

RIP Family Tree Maker

Shelly

Ancestry.com announced today that they are going to discontinue their stand-alone genealogy program, Family Tree Maker. Their theory is that most people want to use the web-only version. Well I don’t. I hate the web version with the heat of a thousand suns. Plus, I’ve put a huge amount of time and energy into researching this stuff. I want my research to be in my hands and under my control, not floating around up in the cloud.

So, I’ve been playing around with Legacy Family Tree. It’s not the answer to all my prayers. Not even close.

1. It stripped out the individual URLs from all of my source citations. Not cool!

2. It can’t seem to display ID numbers on the individual screen. You can see them on the family group screen, which is okay, but it’s not ideal. (It may actually have this capability, and I’m just not able to find it. It also may have that capability in the pay version. I don’t know if I want to take that chance, though, considering that I’m not in love with the program.)

3. The scroll wheel does not seem to work on the individual page. If you want to look at hidden items in a long list of events, you have to click on the slider bar. Clunky!

4. I can’t find an option to set a home person (usually yourself). I don’t mind if the program opens to the last person viewed, but I’d like a shortcut key to quickly navigate to my chosen home person. (Oh! Wait! It looks like there is an option to set a “startup family.” That might work.)

None of these are deal breakers. I just to find some time to sit down and really explore the program before I decide whether or not it will work for me. You’d think, with all the time off work I’ve taken to sit and stare at the damn dog, I could have been at least a little bit productive, but YOU WOULD BE WRONG. Staring at the dog is hard work, yo’.

Pets, Photography

Six Days Post-op

Shelly

Six Days Post-op

Her stitches (the lower section) had me worried Sunday night.  They looked red and swollen.  I think I must have been hallucinating, though, because the next morning they looked fine. And today, they look great.

She still has two pockets of fluid, but they’re steadily shrinking. And if you look closely, you can see that the little green tattoo from her spay surgery is still visible between her staples.

The incision from the second surgery has been a lot grosser looking, so I haven’t been posting photos of it. Today, though, it finally looks good enough to share.

Art, Pets

The Shop’s Still Open

Shelly

Frances had her second surgery to remove the remaining mammary tumors two days ago. As I mentioned, her pre-op exam turned up an unrelated tumor on her vulva. A fine needle aspirate showed mast cells, and the vet removed it during her scheduled surgery, since she was already going to be anesthetized. He also wanted to get it off her ASAP, because mast cell tumors are malignant.

We’ll know more about that and the remaining mammary tumors when the histopathology report comes back next week. In the meantime, this surgery ended up costing about $500 more than anticipated. That’s a huge chunk of money for me, especially given that I’d already used up all my padding with the previous surgery.

But guess what? You can help by buying stuff! Everything shipped to US addresses will be sent Priority Mail with tracking, usually the next day (same day when possible), and if you order soon USPS swears it will be delivered before December 25th.

Pets, Photography

Home Again

Shelly

Ice Pack Time
Ice Pack Time

Ear is up! #dogs #pitbulls #pitbullterriers #postop #earofjudgment
Ear up!

Franny's Medication Schedule
Meds Schedule

Frances is home again. She had a rough day. I expected the second surgery to be more difficult for her, because there was so little recovery time after the first one. She’s doing great, considering. 

Unfortunately the vet found a totally unrelated tumor on her vulva, when they were prepping her for surgery. They did a FNA, which contained mast cells. We won’t know for sure what it is until the histopathology report comes back, but it’s likely a mast cell tumor. Hopefully we caught it early and the vet got good margins, because mast cell tumors are malignant. 

Because of that, she’s on two extra meds this time:  Pepcid and Benadryl. Mast cell tumors cause increased histamine and stomach acid production.

In retrospect, I should have suspected there was something else wrong, because Frances has been itchy. She’s also done a lot of nighttime lip smacking the last week or so, which I ought to have realized meant her stomach was upset. Hindsight is 20/20, right?