Now where was I?….

Where to begin? Hmm…work backwards or from where I last wrote to now. I can’t even make a decision on that. Bah!

It’s been a busy few weeks – sick kitties, sick gramma, dying gramma, sick me, funeral, car trouble (again!)…Time’s just flying by faster than I know what to do about it.

I can’t remember if I wrote about it or not…I’m not looking back to check. We took our youngest female cat in a few weeks ago to get fixed now that we have Billy our boy kitty. Mystic was fine – I was worried when I put her in the truck that morning that when I got to the vet and opened the door she’d bolt, but she was too scared and cuddled up in the back with our emergency blanket amongst all the crap we’ve been rolling around with in the back (storage room on wheels – mops, brooms, vacuum cleaner, oak dinner table, 2 oak chairs to match, box of office supplies and 2 centerpieces from our wedding). Everything went well with her surgery and now that it’s done I’m so sad we didn’t do it sooner. As soon as I took her from the vet, she cuddled into me like she never has before. Granted she was hopped up on kitty pain meds, but I still see a huge difference in her now 3 weeks (more?!) later. That was a Thursday and on the following Tuesday night I flipper her over and freaked! Her incision was so swollen and huge. I had these awful thoughts that they left something inside of her or an infection of some sort…oh God! what will this cost us?! I called the vet the next morning and they kindly informed me that it’s normal – her body was rejecting the stitches under the surface of the skin and once her body recognized that it was still a sterile environment the swelling would go down. With instructions to watch and make sure the area didn’t get red or hot to the touch that was it – they didn’t need to see her – hello was I relieved! The $300 we paid for her to get fixed was well worth it, but not exactly in our budget so I’m glad nothing went wrong that we would have had to take her back in. 3 weeks later, sure enough the site is healed, no other problems, she’s just to being her new, not permanently horny-looking for a poke in the phooney kitty – she’s so lovely now.

On Friday night of the same week, I was in the hallway and saw a big squidge of poop on the floor (tile thank-God!) and some little splatters of poop on the walls. We really didn’t think too much of it then – cleaned it up and went on with our evening. We were watching Friday Night Lights and Billy started acting really weird. He was running back and forth along the wall and would stop and frantically lick his belly and then run some more. Well the running turned into the runs literally – poor kitty got so sick and had the shits everywhere. I don’t know if it scared him when he had to poop or it hurt, but he would start pooping and then run across the living room, down the hall, into the bathroom – you name it, he pooped there. It was crazy. Rob cleaned up the mess and Billy fell asleep on the couch after that – we thought that would be it. WRONG! We left Billy on the couch when we went to bed because he was still sleeping there. At 3am Rob got up to pee and brought Billy back to bed with him. Billy woke me up – he was really active for the middle of the night – this kitty goes to sleep under the covers with us at night when we turn off the light and wakes up when the alarm goes off – so, for him to be running all over the bedroom, up on the windowsill, clawing at the closet doors – it was weird and I should have known better. He was at my feet under the covers for a few minutes being really still and then he lept off the bed and went to the door crying to be let out. As Rob got up to let him out, I rolled over and then I felt it…cat shit all over the foot of the bed – under the damn blankets…well now at this point on my feet and legs. Rob went out to get some paper towel and when he turned on a light (he didn’t turn it on earlier when he went to the washroom) all I could hear was “Oh.My.God” I layed there for a bit expecting him to come back with something to clean my leg off with but after about 5 minutes I thought I’d better go see what was up. I.have.never. seen anything like that in my life! I guess Billy had the runs more when we went to bed and left him on the couch. There was shit everywhere – couches, carpet, tile floor, front of cupboards, up walls. It was like someone was making brownies with a hand mixer and held the mixer full of batter in the middle of the room and turned it on. Spat, splat, splat! Rob was scrubbing like a madman yelling at me to see where Billy was so he didn’t make more of a mess. I put him in the bathroom and closed the door and only 2 minutes (maybe) later when I checked on him, he had pooped again. This is when I started getting really scared – poor kitty looked so sad and we had no idea what was wrong. I called the 24 hr AnimalHospital to see if they could give any advice over the phone – of course they couldn’t, so I thought that was that. But when Billy started throwing up while I was holding him that was it – we were off like a prom dress to the AnimalHospital. Once again the $$ thing was freaking me out – definitely not budgeted for after spaying Mystic the week before. So at the vet (it’s 4:30am now) they looked him over, gushed at how cute he is, gave him some kitty Imodium, some anti-biotics, a de-worming pill, some sub Q fluids by IV and he was a-okay. $350 later…. We finally got home at 6am. Billy was a little dopey from all the excitement and I’m sure from shitting his brains out all night, so we left him on the chair in the computer room to sleep, Rob finished scrubbing the floors while I changed all the sheets and duvet on our bed and we got back into bed at 6:45am. How the hell do people with sick kids handle life when so

mething like this happenes? I had to sleep until 4pm Saturday afternoon and even then I was still tired and back in bed by 11 that night I think. Billy’s been fine ever since – it was weird – we have no idea what made him sick. I hope it doesn’t happen again. We have to get him fixed next month – I really hope that nothing else goes wrong with our little fur babies!

Rob totally poked fun at me after we took Billy in – he says he had no idea I was such a pet lover until that night (and honestly I didn’t know either) but, I was so scared and crying when Billy started puking that apparently my reaction proved I love him. Of course I love him – he’s so flipping cute! Bad, but cute.

Later that week Rob’s mom called us to let us know hat Gramma had signed the DNR and had the doctors take her off all the medication except the stuff to keep her comfortable. We were asked to go see her and say good-bye. That was Wednesday night, so we decided to take Thursday off and go to the hospital to see her. We went to Perkins for breakfast to wait for visiting hours to start and just as pulled into the parking lot, Rob realized he had a voicemail on his cell – it was his mom – Gramma died at 4am. I’m sorry we missed her but I guess by that time she was loosing brain function and didn’t remember who anyone was or where she was…I think it’s better for Rob that the last time we saw her she was still “his gramma”. She told us how much she loved us then and we said good-bye – Rob says he knew then that might be the last time he saw her, so I think he’s taken some comfort in that.

Rob’s mom was in a dog show that weekend so the funeral was planned for the following week, so Rob & I went out to our Friend’s place in Caroline. Other Rob was out of town, but we hung out with Jayme and her kids Saturday night and most of Sunday. It was fun – no blender drinks this time, just wine and coolers…I felt kind of shitty when I got up on Sunday. I did some painting crafts with the kids and hung out – we left around 1 and by the time we got back home at 3:30pm I had a full blown chest & head cold and felt like g.a.r.b.a.g.e.

I called in sick Monday & Tuesday that week (last week actually) and spent both days in bed – no internet, barely any TV..I was really not feeling well – just knocked right on my ass. The funeral ended up being Wednesday, so even though I would have still called in sick I took it as a bereavement day. The funeral was nice – small and short. Everything was done at the funeral home which, as a Catholic, I’ve never seen before. The service was there, graveside and the reception which the funeral home catered. Everyone sure loves finger sandwiches! The funeral was early, we were home by noon. I went back to bed for the rest of the afternoon to try and sleep off the rest of the cold I had. When I got up at 5 or so, I felt quite a bit better, but had cabin fever like CRAZY! I threw a total temper tantrum, stomping my feet and everything – just like a 3 year old. I hate getting sick and being cooped up.

I was back to work Thursday – to 452 e-mails after being away only 3 days. It really didn’t take too long to get them sorted through…A week later I’m caught up and have finally found time to write in here – I’ve had intentions of writing, but the days have just flown by and when I get home from work the last thing I feel like doing is staring at a computer. I prefer to stare at the other square box – the TV!

I think we’re going back out to Caroline this weekend though in all honesty I’d like to stay home and so some spring cleaning, but that will still be there to do next weekend too.

I’m really quite sleepy right now, but I still have 2 hours and 10 minutes of work left and then taking transit down to Sante for my nail appointment. Yes, transit…Rob’s car it pooched. It’s the transmission this time apparently – what a piece. I met with someone for a loan yesterday – I don’t have my hopes up too much given the big fat R9 that’s on my bureau,  but the same company did finance me for our truck even with the same big fat R9 on there, so who knows. I didn’t ask for too much – just $3000 to be able to buy Rob something a little more reliable and less disposable. Hopefully it works out, but if it doesn’t, I guess I better get used to transit – I guess there are worse things!

That’s it for now – hope to be back sooner than later. I need to write a few things about group so far and how that’s going…that’s another entry.