Oliver Sails South: December 2013

This is the nickname for Vero Beach. They claim once you are here you do not want to leave and therefore do not. We are velcroed (is that a word?) here due to Oliver's health. Do not get me wrong, it is a lovely city, we have met some wonderful people and the marina is great for dog walking. However, we would like to travel, but Oliver is more important right now.

To update, we went for his health certificate and had his blood work updated. The tests revealed that his creatinine levels for his kidney disease had gone up from 3-4.2. It is exponential, so it is more than one point, but they did not say what is the exponent. Remember math where 2 squared is 4, well it is along those lines. Anyway, we went back to Ft. Lauderdale to his specialist, Dr. Cannon. We increased his enalapril which could cause more failure or help. She also added a sodium bicarbonate prescription. other meds stayed the same. Then we waited for 2 weeks trying to coax him to eat, take his pills and walk. We went the 10th to update his blood work and his creatinine is now up to 4.6. We were waiting for the specialist to call and recommend what to do. She was on vacation a week for the first time in ages, so we continued to wait and see. She has since returned and called to keep doing what we are doing. She wants monthly blood tests to see where we stand and if we need to change his meds. He has perked up mostly. The vet said he has "reset" to his new normal. He is eating more, sometimes takes a good walk and seems happy to meet and greet anyone or anything that goes by on land or sea. Here he is hanging out on the boat.

Every morning I wake up to birds chirping and cawing. They love sailboats so they can roost. Now, think of what comes out of birds. We have found they enjoy eating blueberries. Blueberries stain white boats. So every morning when I hear them I jump out of bed and shake the stays and get them off as quickly as possible. What an alarm clock!

There are some cool birds here too. These are "White" pelicans Oliver and I saw on one of our walks.

Meanwhile, we decorated a little for Christmas. Remember I only have a shoebox sized plastic container for all my holiday decorations. Also, when you sail, you heel over. I use putty to stick things on walls and counters for that purpose. It is like being a teacher again. So each holiday item I chose to bring are small, mostly unbreakable and somewhat flat. For Christmas, I brought nautical ornaments, Michigan State candy canes, some bows and 2 lights strings. This year we bought some solar lights, since we expected to be at anchor. We also added a evergreen swag for the bow since we are here longer than expected. The neighborhood around the Marina is adding lights each night we go for our evening walk. It is weird without snow, but pretty none the less.