Not being able to open the mouth could indicate a very serious problem such as a a retro-orbital abscess or other mass, TMJ disease, a systemic neurological problem, or could be idiopathic masticatory myositis. Just off the top of my head. A neuro exam would help rule out a systemic neurological problem. Other testing is indicated based on results of full oral exam done with sedation or anesthesia. There are many sedatives available that do not require the liver for elimination. For example, neither propofol nor isoflurane require the liver for elimination and both are readily available in any small animal practice. That said, ANY and EVERY anesthetic or sedative used even in perfectly healthy animals may cause negative side effects, even death. The vet may have been doing a very poor job of communicating that sedation and anesthesia are not without risk. But it is rare that a short acting sedative or even isoflurane general anesthesia would kill a dog unless nobody was monitoring vitals, even a dog with liver disease. I would also do a pre-anesthetic blood panel if a CBC and chem have not been done within the last month to make sure there aren't any surprises. This is a serious problem that needs to be diagnosed and treated. If your vet is unwilling or unable to do that, then by all means find another vet. Good luck. I hope it is nothing that cannot be easily treated.

A few years ago, DH asked for a giant flat screen tv for Father's Day ~ so sweetly and pitifully, that I couldn't say no . . . although I wanted to! The problem was that our family room has only one (semi)unbroken wall to it and anything on that wall competes with our hand-painted kiva fireplace in the corner right next to it. AND, to complicate matters even more, that wall (pretty much the entire house, actually) is made of real adobe bricks, which look awesome but are a bear to try and hang anything even kind of heavy on. Too heavy or put a nail in at the wrong angle and you can end up with a 3" wide and deep hole, where adobe dirt and hay fell out of the brick . . . and you can forget ever hanging anything on that brick again, even once it's patched! I really wanted an EC like Goldie's that had a wood back to hang the tv on, but it would have totally overwhelmed the room :~( A great credenza, like Haley's or Bepeace's, would have been nice but I was afraid to hang the tv on the adobe wall and I couldn't find one to hold ~AND HIDE~ all of our DVDs, tapes, and components. I wasn't so concerned with hiding the tv, but thought that the components and DVDs would clutter up the area too much. And then we found a tv lift console that solved all our problems- it hides lots of stuff inside of it and the tv sits down in it, as well, when we aren't watching it. When it's down, it doesn't compete with our fireplace, which is a huge bonus in our small family room! I do have to tell you, though, that it was a huge PIA to actually get that tv hung on the console's hanging bars! But now that it's done, we love it. The motor is quiet and smooth and the remote easy to use. Another downside, for anyone contemplating buying one, is that you can't put anything on the top of the console, decoration-wise, as the back two-thirds of the top section opens up as the tv slides up. We bought a narrow tower to sit next to it and I have a lamp on that. We also have a set of three framed Indian artifacts that we've hung over the console. They were a huge PIA to center, but they work with the kiva instead of competing with it. So, that's one more solution to consider, not so much to hide your tv, as ours seems to be up more than it's down like most people, I guess, but it is a tv hanging/storage place. I do want to make it VERY clear that I'm not criticizing leaving a tv out on display all the time. I think it's a perfectly ok thing to do. I just wanted to show you another option for any flat screen tv and explain why we went with this option. Lynn Our flat screen up, before we hung our art over it: And with the tv down:

I didnt come back earlier to clarify my comments and respond, bcs I wasnÂt making myself that clear, I didn't think I could do it well enough to get you to understand me, and I honestly thought it was best just to let it die. But since this has been revived, IÂll try. IÂve come off looking like a completely different kind of snob than I am. HereÂs one thing in my own life that makes me think "who you know" influences you in ways one doesnÂt think about. I didnÂt join a sorority in collegeÂit never OCCURRED to me. Why not? Bcs I didnÂt know anyone whoÂd ever been part of one. However, kids I went to school with, didÂand in fact, assumed everyone would. Bcs in their circle, it was something the grownups around them had done. So in that way, I learned that the attitudes, jobs, leisure activites, interests, hobbies, etc., are influenced by who youÂre around as a kid. I think lots of people experience something like this, and that influences why they pick a certain neighborhoodÂthey want to influence what sort of circle their kids are surrounded by. My first point is that the people mentioned who pick their neighborhood according to the income level and perceived "type of people" who live there, are approaching neighborhoods as an* aggregate.* That fact that inside a crummy neighborhood there are great people is beside the point. They're picking a neighborhood, not individuals. When I was a kid, I lived in a town w/ 3 levels of housing: crummy, medium, and rich. It was a small townÂ1,500 peopleÂso I knew the people who lived in each type of housingÂI went to school w/ their kids, delivered their paper, heard about their activities outside their homes (clubs, work, arrests, manners or lack of, spending patterns, etc.) I was a kid, so I didnÂt know ALL the details, but I knew the broad strokes of many peoples lives. The actual people that I knew who lived in the crummy housing were often (not always, but often): - badly organized (as evidenced by their front lawns, side lawns, and garages, as well as by their work history, which I knew), - not particularly visionary in terms of where they wanted to go w/ (as evidenced by their choice of profession, attention to educationÂhigh school, training, or even collegeÂwhich was known to me, bcs the people were known to me) - not particularly reliable (as evidenced by their work history and spending patterns) - more likely to have unstable personal relationships or tempers (in fact, though I mentioned stealing, I probably shouldnÂt have--the biggest reason I wouldnÂt hire someone from the crummy housing in my hometown is that most of the ones I knew anything about were unreliable, sloppy, and inconsiderateÂtheyÂd leave the paint can on the lawn, or be more likely to spill it all over the grass, or something, bcs they donÂt think itÂs a problem. And yes, the workers from the crummy housing in my home town were the ones most likely to get arrested for pilfering or stealing or fighting or driving drunkÂwe read the arrest records and conviction records in the newspaper. The ones from the non-crummy housing didnÂt have these problems.) These things existed in the medium and rich housing as well, but not as often, and not as severe. Or not as publicly, so I didnÂt notice it. I had some really good friends in the crummy housing (who were also someof the things above, but my friends nonetheless), but there were plenty of kids from the crummy housing that I avoided. (and I avoided the rich kids, too, bcs they were mean) So while on an individual basis, I was happy to be friends w/ specific kids who lived in crummy housing, I wouldnÂt have chosen to surround myself with all the families in that income level. Which is what you do when you live in a neighborhood. So I felt early on thatÂespecially at the extreme lower endÂwhere you live can often be a reflection of what you are like. The housing is not what makes someone badly organized or not visionary about their own life; but it can be the RESULT of being badly organized, not reliable, or whatever. (not must, *can*--and if you're from a crummy neighborhood and having vision about your life, you're part of proving my point--are you going to STAY in that neighborhood?) When a person picks a neighborhood, they have to take it (at first) as a whole. ThatÂs how neighborhoods are experienced. And many of us could agree that it doesnÂt take that many unpleasant people to make a neighborhood tough to live in. In the very low end of housing, the chances of getting such people increases. It was only in the crummy housing of my hometown and my college town that I EVER heard anyone yell swear wordsÂat their own 4-year-old!!!--across the lawn (I sometimes swear in certain circles, but only once have I ever sworn in public, and IÂm still mortified by itÂscreaming the F word in front of little kids and tons of adults on a subway platform is not something I admire, and I donÂt need to apologize for it; and I donÂt want my kids to spent time in the home of an adult who would do that, I donÂt care how nice their kids are, and IÂd worry about how their kids would act, esp. since those particular kids, weÂd just met). If I know about a contractor who lives in crummy housing, and I know he does great work, IÂll hire him no matter where he livesÂthatÂs treating an individual like the specific individual. But if I DONÂT know anything about him, and he lives in crummy housing, IÂm gonna be real cautious. Because IÂll be afraid that the things that put him in crummy housing, could also make him a crummy contractor. ThatÂs treating an individual like a member of a group, trueÂbut itÂs only because I donÂt know anything about him. But if someone is buying a house and picks a neighborhood because they think a certain type of people is likely to live there, thatÂs treating a group like a group. They donÂt have time to consider all the individuals as individuals. And, theyÂre NOT EVALUATING individuals; theyÂre evaluating an aggregate experience. What happens for folks Carina talked about, who want to move into ever-richer neighborhoods, is that they take this idea and apply it at all levels. Unfort., I donÂt think it works in the middle. Once you get beyond the lower levels, it stops applying. In fact, the place IÂm REALLY a snob is at the top: you might get me to live in a poorer neighborhood than IÂd like (and IÂd be extra alert to which neighbors in that neighborhood I wanted to spend any time with). But you could NOT get me to live in Chappaqua, NY, or any other highly affluent neighborhood. I hear things that happen there that are worse than any "swearing on the lawn" or "ridiculing college graduates" or even "getting arrested for stealing your arch-enemy's battery to get even." Plus, my early prejudice is that while poor kids might be less visionary and harder to live around, rich kids are MEAN. Oh, IÂve liked *some* rich kids from my home town, now that theyÂre grown up (and IÂm grown up). As for the idea that where you live might send a message to your boss, I know this to be true at the higher levels. I have an uncle who got a job as a CFO of a national company here in NYC; when he moved here to take that job, he looked very carefully at which neighborhood he picked, because he knew his business peers would too. In the middle levels of housing, and of socio-economic standing, I donÂt think these things apply. (and so I shouldn't have expressed worry about a GC who lived in a lower-middle-class neighborhood; it's the lowest-income neighborhood that would worry me) But I can understand the logic of people who think they do. I don't agree w/ them, but I understand how they get there. THAT was what I was trying to say. That my experiences at the extreme edges leads me to understand what logic they're applying to the situation. Also, not wanting to live in a certain income level doesnÂt mean you have CONTEMPT for the folks in that neighborhoodÂit just means you want to live somewhere else. IÂve probably just dug myself in deeper and made you all think IÂm much more of a snob than I am. But I tried.

Trying not to run to the fridge: A cup of fresh strong coffee with a bit of cream. Anything chocolate, any time, any place. Sweet scallops broiled with butter. Fresh strawberries. Oven-roasted asparagus with olive oil. Grilled cheese sandwich with fresh tomatoes on top of the cheese. Sunshine Hollow Vidalia onion-tomato dressing, suggested to me by someone on this forum. My fruit salad of sliced oranges, pears, bananas, currants, toasted sunflower seeds, with some Drambuie mixed in. My Crocked Pot Roast. Perfect key lime pie. Could go on and on!