Hangin' in and hangin' out.

Taking all 3 cats to the vet at the same time is exhausting!  Norah needed some blood work and an exam, Jakie needed a glucose test and a quick exam, and Riley needed fluids (I don't do his because he's hard to hold and he bites when I brush him, much less stick him with needles!), some blood work, and an exam.  Dear God these cats are MORE than a car payment lately, and I actually have a car payment now.

So, give Jake her thyroid ointment in the hairless part of the ear twice a day, larger dose in the morning. Then give her Prednisone, 1/2 dose every other day as well as 1 1/2 units of insulin twice a day.  Riley gets his thyroid pills - 1/2 tab twice a day, and a syringe of liquid stool softener in the morning.  Norah gets her aluminum hydroxide capsules twice a day, half a tab of appetite stimulant when needed, Prednisone full dose every other day, and 200 ml of fluids every day. 

It's no wonder I forget my own meds!

At this point in time:
Norah is 10 years old and 13 lbs 6 oz.
Jake is 18 years old and 4 lbs 15 oz.
Riley is 19 years old and 8 lbs 11 oz.
Abby is a tortie. 'Nuff said.

I was speaking to Andy (my son) this evening and telling him I doubt that we will have any of the 3 very much longer.  Of course I've been saying that about the oldest 2 for a while and have been proven wrong.  But I reminded him that once they are gone - we will be left with ... ABBY.  She's the evil one who wants to eat my face.  Your face too.  Hard to imagine my house with only one - evil - cat.  Sounds kind of sad, doesn't it?  (Or would that be - scary?)

Dr. Bob, who has been the primary doc treating Norah - will be out of the office tomorrow so I will speak to him on Saturday about Norah's blood work.  Bottom line is - she has kidney failure.  Kidney failure does not get better.  So after Dr. Bob reviews the blood work results we will discuss if it looks like Norah can be sustained at this level of care and at this quality of life.  More care and I might fall over, but any less quality of life and I won't allow it.  So we will see.  If you had asked me Sunday night I would have said it was over.  But she's been pretty perky and eating well for the last couple of days.

So I guess the real bottom line is - WHO THE HECK KNOWS!?!?!?!?

I need a nap.

REALLY crazy cat lady.

Seems my days have been a blur of opening cans of cat food, pouches, and sometimes unscrewing baby food jars.  Popping pills in the kitty's mouth, offering water and food and constantly monitoring.  Norah seems to be doing well sometimes, but now she isn't eating much again, to the point I had to force feed her with a syringe yesterday.  She hides when she thinks I am going to give her fluids, and tries to get away while I'm doing it.  She's wearing me down.  But then she comes and climbs into my lap, she's never been a lap cat, and she doesn't seem in pain or on the verge of death.  But her kidneys aren't functioning properly and if the only way to keep her going is with constant IV fluids - well - that's not going to happen.  Last night I was tired and had just finished forcing some food into Norah's mouth while she looked at me with that look only a cat can give as if to say -  "what the f*&k are you doing to me???"

Staying out of reach so she doesn't have to
have her sub-cue fluids.

As tears started to sting my eyes and I sat down to give in to despair I thought "HOLY CRAP!  I'M OFF MY MEDS!!!"

With everything that's been happening lately I have gotten lax about my own medication and must have gone a few days too many without my meds.  Not that the idea of possibly losing a cat shouldn't make one cry, but being properly medicated allows me to cope better.  YIKES.  I can't take care of my cats at the expense of my own health.  No matter how much I love them.

Norah goes back to the vet Thursday morning, we will see what the prognosis is then.
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Anatomy of a cold.

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Wednesday - I noticed a slight post nasal drip thing going on, felt a little tightness in the chest.  Didn't sleep well that night, throat started to hurt when I swallowed.

Thursday - Headache, sore throat, tight cough.  Broke out the NyQuil to sleep that night.

Friday - Headache, head felt like a brick, tight cough, feverish, went to work but went home before noon.  Stopped at the store on the way home to pick up whatever I might need over the weekend so I wouldn't have to go back out.  Walking into Jewel I was met by blaring music and dancing employees approaching rapidly.  I almost turned around and left. They handed me a bag with coupons and some other stuff (I was delirious) and I told them not to come any closer I was sick.  Further into the store an employee pinned a balloon to my cart and tucked a 10 dollar gift card in my hand.  I warned him I was sick and he smiled anyway.  It was a bit surreal.

Slept a good part of the afternoon, did NyQuil again that night.

Saturday - got up early, fed the animals, watched a little TV and by 11:00 am I was back in bed where I stayed until past 4:00 in the afternoon. Felt a bit like a zombie.  With a cold.  By 10:00 I was ready for bed again.  NyQuil is my friend.

Sunday - slept till 9:30. About 2:00 I laid down again until 6:00. Starting to feel a bit better.

When my kids were little I couldn't do this.  But now - if I am sick - I let it dictate.  If it wants me to sleep - I sleep.  And I get better.  It's when you can't lay down and rest that it takes longer to get well.  At least that's my theory.  I know it's a hell of a way to spend a holiday weekend but I think I'll be well on my way to feeling better before I have to go back to work on Tuesday.  Might even feel well enough to get some things done around the house tomorrow!
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Fun/Not Fun

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I'm too stupid for my iPhone, too stupid for my iPhone ... (I'm too sexy .. okay, if I have to explain it - it's not funny).

Anyway. Yeah. Didn't start out well. Didn't start out badly either, just stupid. The apple people apparently assume that the people who buy iPhones are so familiar with iPods and iTouches, not to mention Macs, that some things about the iPhone could just go unsaid.

UH UH.

Cause you know, if I don't learn things the hard way, I don't learn them at all. AND I made the mistake of saying out loud that I hadn't had a cold in the 6 or 7 years since I quit smoking and boom! I got one. Now the whole right side of my head is filled with concrete. Can't breathe, can't hear, and I had forgotten how much I HATE breathing through my mouth. Not a mouth breather by nature. Makes me CRANKY.

So .. I didn't know if there was a sim card inside the iPhone already or not, I saw no sign of one, not the little plastic card they come attached to, nothing. And when I called to activate the phone I was disappointed to be speaking with someone overseas. Can't we keep our jobs here? But I digress. I was told that at some point I needed to turn the phone off and leave it off for 15 to 20 minutes. Fine. Except apparently I wasn't really turning it off, I was only putting it on stand-by. Whoops!

Eventually I got it all figured out, well, mostly. It will be fun to mess with but it might be worth the extra cost on my cell phone bill to get access with just 2 taps of my finger - to radio stations I can't get in at work. Awesome! Of course I haven't tried it at work yet, but I'm hopeful.

Meanwhile here at home I drugged myself into oblivion last night and today so I could sleep this cold off. Not better yet but do intend to go to work tomorrow. And next time I have a space of time like 6 or 7 years without some kind of illness touching me, mums the word! Not saying a thing cause this cold kicked my butt!
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From here to there.

Went to work Monday morning, and after punching in and getting my laptop docked and what-have-you, I took my mug of tea and went back home. Just wasn’t feeling good, had a touch of the BetteJo flu which basically involves stomach and gastrointestinal issues you don’t want to hear about. Feel MUCH better now. Ate soup today, some things are just necessary after being sick and that hit the spot.

I napped most of yesterday and part of today but I did finish (well maybe finished) the work I have been doing to change the template on my picture blog. I liked the one I had but I wanted something where the pics could be bigger. Please do me a favor, take a peek and let me know what you think. I discovered that I need to upload pictures using Windows Live Writer because of the way it allows me to enlarge pictures, whereas doing it in Blogger makes the photos blurry. I was not pleased. But finding a simple way around it made me happy. I am sure I will continue to tweak the site because the format is so foreign to me, but for the sake of bigger pictures I think it’s worth it.

And lastly (but of course not least) (leastly?) my daughter is graduating from college on Saturday. She took a long time deciding whether or not she was going to walk – and almost didn’t give me enough notice when she made up her mind. But no matter, Andy and I will be heading to Dani’s school on Saturday, possibly Friday night if we can manage a hotel somewhere nearby. She stayed an extra semester so she could graduate with a double major, one in English and one in Women’s Studies. I am very proud of her as you can imagine, especially because – as I have mentioned before, she has done all of it herself. She got no free ride from anyone and she has worked very hard. Excellent grades as well! Yay Dani!

Catnip and typhoid

Sitting here hoping I’m not coming down with some dire disease like typhoid, or cholera maybe. My office- roommate at work (offices are only for managers, we don’t have one) has typhoid, I’m sure of it. And she was sweet enough to come to work and breathe in the office room I share with her for 2 days. I’m pretty sure the half cube wall between us wasn’t enough to stop the spray from her sneezes from crossing the room. And she has a degree in microbiology! But I digress. So now of course I am getting a sore throat and I just don’t feel right. And I made the mistake of announcing today that I may get sick sometimes, but I don’t get colds. I believe I said “I haven’t had a cold in a million years!” Everyone within earshot made sure to reinforce how oh yes – NOW I will.

Yeah, so while my sickness may be in my head (I’m hoping), I have to take the doggone boy cat Riley to the vet again. Now he’s got some nasty goop in his eye and he’s kind of half closing it like the other cat did for a long time after I accidentally pinpoint sprayed water right into her eye. She would squint with one eye for a long time after that. So Riley has to go to the vet and have his goop looked at. Yay me – how I love going to the vet! But I guess Riley hates it more than me. Not sure why though, I always buy him a new catnip toy which he rolls around on and licks and gets all Michael Phelps off of, all the while purring ‘sucker’ under his breath. All I get is the bill.

I’m tired. Really tired, and I’m going to bed. I’m going to take the attitude that tomorrow I will wake up and want to go back to sleep as usual, but I will get out of bed and feel fine. I will take the cat to the the vet, he’ll get some drops for his eye and we will come home and share a can of tuna. Okay, maybe not that last part. But all will be well. Positive thinking, right?

I need to go back to the doctor.

I should have known my doctor wouldn't be mad at me when he saw my bloodwork. He doesn't care enough for that! He ordered some more tests, raised the dosage on my thyroid meds and told me to lose weight. Then in response to my complaint about aging he told me how his wife told him that he's so old now none of his female patients bother to shave their legs for him anymore. I bit my tongue because I really wanted to point out that he's losing his hair too but he looked like he was having a bad day.

Actually he's a good doctor, just a smart-ass so I give it as good as I get from him. Usually. He looked tired and I was in a good mood so I gave him a break.

Did the grocery shopping after the doctor, I know I have mentioned how I hate to do it. I went in to get a few things and $260.00 later I was done. Yikes. All I wanted was the stuff to make meat loaf. I've had a taste for it lately and I figured that I needed to start cooking more so I stopped at the store.

I cook so rarely that when I do - my son always thanks me like I've done something extra special for him. I almost have to give him permission to eat it, that's how pathetic it is. But true to form - he's working 2:00pm to God only knows when tonight, one of the reasons I stopped cooking anyway. Nobody was ever around to eat what I made. Still - I want me some meat loaf and I aim to have it.

The scary part though, is that I bought the stuff to cook on other days too. And I just popped into the kitchen and made a cucumber salad. Something is wrong with me. Seriously wrong with me. I think I'd better head back to the doctor.

I've had better days

Last week it was a kidney stone. Now it's the flu. Fever, aches, the requisite purging of bodily fluids and such.

Went to work this morning feeling like something was off - not quite in touch with anything specific though. Until I went to the bathroom and lost the tea I had before I got there. That's a first for me, something I hope never to repeat. When you are in the throes of sickness - home is where you want to be, not in a stall puking into one of those little waxy bags (clean thank God) they line the napkin container with.

So I went back home.

Ibuprophen is my friend, it has helped the aches quite a bit. Crackers are not quite yummy - but so far have stayed where they were put and 7-Up - my hero.

Still - after sleeping uncomfortably off and on all day I am tired and headache-y and my stomach is protesting that I have put things in it - and that I haven't put things in it. We have some wonderful grapes and cherries in the fridge but I don't dare.

Must lay down again. The cats like it when I am sick. I don't have the energy to tell them to go away so they pile on me, outline my body on the bed or couch. I will leave you with this video - shamelessly stolen from Peace of my Mind because it is my life. Except I'm a girl. And I have more than one cat.

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How many lives does one cat get?

Ran across this picture the other day. This is Jake, our boy-named female cat with the sweetest disposition in the world. Unfortunately she has used up a few of those famous 9 lives she's supposed to have on tap, usually by eating something she shouldn't.


This picture was from the last but not the most serious of her illnesses. She is wearing a small baby onsie with the crotch cut out and the leg hole binding fashioned into a tie to hold the thing on. Underneath it is a feeding tube coming out of her side which, without the "shirt" would have been dragging on the ground and getting caught on things.


But no matter what we did, she managed to get out of it. It wasn't unusual to walk into the kitchen, living room or wherever and see a crumpled and empty "shirt" laying on the floor with no cat in sight.


Poor Jakie. She got sick and lost her appetite which caused her to lose a bunch of weight. It was the weight loss that triggered problems with her liver and the only way to get her better at that point was to force feed her because she wasn't eating on her own. For a while we did try holding her down and forcing food down her throat with a medicine syringe but that was horribly difficult for us - and for Jake. We eventually had to opt for the feeding tube to save her life.


Once she got used to the feeding tube she would settle quietly onto my or my daughter's lap and become quite content while we slowly pushed a measured amount of food into her stomach. We gave her water and medication that way while continuing to tempt her with regular food we thought she might eat. Once we had built her weight up a bit her appetite starting to come back and she started first drinking - and then eating on her own.


I am surprised that I cannot find evidence of the hole in her side where we fed her - the skin has closed up, the fur has grown back and if I don't look at a picture I would not even know what side it was on. She's a wonderful kitty, she's a little simple because of how sick she got with her first trip to the emergency pet hospital, but she loves attention and will let anyone pet her. She is quite plump again which may not be good for her but considering the alternative when we watched her lose a third of her body weight - her being full figured suits us just fine.


She's adorable, not to mention worth a fortune by now - if you judge by all the money the veterinary community has gotten from me. She's got to stay well because she is the cat favored by all and oh my gosh I simply could not afford it if she did it again!!!

Exciting!

I'm still sick, but I got a few things done that I wanted to - not that I needed to. I mentioned to someone earlier that I am SO undisciplined - I am really bad with time management. There was silent agreement to that statement. :)

I made my first ankle bracelets today, I'm excited about that. I know this post says Sunday - but to me it's still Saturday night. Anyway, I made a few of them, as well as a necklace and a couple bracelets. I have an idea for a necklace in my head but no explanation as to why I didn't do that!

Anyway, wanted to post a couple pictures and I will be done for the day. For Saturday. I did finish getting all my earrings on cards and into baggies today, took pictures of earrings on Roberta that I needed to and updated listings with the new pictures. So I got some stuff done today, just not the stuff I was planning on, and not the stuff that needs doing around here.

Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow.