Updates–April 22, 2014

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks around here, and there’s more fun to come!

• Silver, the cat who swallowed the thread, didn’t get any better (and actually got worse), so our friend who is a vet came over the day after he treated her conservatively and euthanized her.
• Sassy, the cat who was sick and had lost so much weight, was also getting worse. The vet was going to take her in to the office the next morning, but before PWM could put her in the box that morning, Sassy got up and then fell over and died. The vet was surprised that she had passed so soon since he had seen her the night before.
• So, now we’re down to one cat, Sophie. Sophie seems to be tolerating being an only cat quite well. She’s spending more time downstairs and requesting more affection. But, there’s a downside, too. We found her on top of the refrigerator twice on the first day after the other two cats died! She’s been better behaved since then.
• I now have my hearing aids and I’m loving them. They have a setting that optimizes them for music, so the kids’ concerts sound even better! I also like that I can listen to audiobooks through my hearing aids wirelessly. I thought I would need a new ipod, but, sadly, my old one works quite well. LOL!
• Wild Man spent five days last week in New York City with the high school band and choir and had a great time. He also got licked by a horse.
• As summer approaches, both kids are looking for work. This is so different from the days when we were just looking at what kinds of summer sports and summer classes we could sign up for.
• Rosie Girl put a piece of her composition in the Composer’s Concert at UWSP last week. I missed the concert because of a migraine, but PWM was impressed with all the pieces.
• I did NOT have a migraine on Easter Sunday, so I went to church and cooked a nice dinner for the family. We even ate off of the good china. (Although the kids had said that we were going to eat off china even if we ended up having hamburgers because I had a migraine!)
• And now it’s about 6 weeks till the end of the school year – less for Rosie Girl. In that time, there are still concerts, State Solo and Ensemble for Wild Man, and finals for Rosie Girl. In the meantime, PWM and I are still working hard at The Knitting Nest. Sigh.

So, what’s up with you?

My sick kitties

Two of our three kitties are very sick. And not with the same thing. Sassy and Silver are from the same litter and are thirteen years old. They’ve had good lives and have generally been healthy. Sassy gains and loses weight based on whether or not she’s the dominant cat at the food bowl. (If it was up to her, she’d always be the dominant cat and she’d be overweight!)

When we got home from our trip, we noticed that Sassy was kind of lethargic and acting funny. She’d sit for a half hour just staring at her water bowl. Finally, after a day or two, we realized that she’s lost a fair amount of weight – her vertebrae are palpable all the way through her hip bones. She doesn’t look boney because of all her long hair. I haven’t seen her go downstairs to eat and we haven’t had to fill the foodbowl as much, either. I did coax her to eat a little canned food yesterday and today. A friend who is a vet came by today and thinks she most likely has a chronic illness, but we’d have to do blood work to see. And then we’d have to decide what to do and how much, if any, intervention we’d be willing to pursue.

Silver (my cat – kind of) was fine until she threw up some thread that she had swallowed. But, she didn’t get it all up, so we cut it off at her mouth, hoping she’d swallow it and either vomit it up or get it through the rest of her GI tract safely. Unfortunately, things weren’t looking good last night. She growled when I tried to feel her tummy. She was definitely guarding and hiding in corners. We were prepared for her to have a surgical abdomen today. But, she seems to have improved. I guess the thread either hasn’t anchored or it has undone itself from anchoring and is moving through. We couldn’t get her in to any of the local vets, so a friend who is a vet came by and gave her some meds to try to get her bowels moving. So, here’s praying that she gets this foreign body out of her system. And that we find  the source of the thread in all of our cleaning. Because we have no idea where this cat found thread.

And Sophie is doing just fine if she’d stay off the table when there’s pizza on it! She can clearly sense that something’s going on and she hasn’t been attacking Silver and Sassy

What’s crazy is that Silver and Sassy are so sick at the same time, but with completely different things. What a coincidence!

Pray for my sweet kitties. And pray that PWM and I will know what to dol

Too Much Fun!

Our plan this last week was to drive down to Mississippi, get some furniture from my parents’ shed that they’re clearing out, drive home, and be done. It was supposed to be pleasant, a little fun. It wasn’t supposed to be exciting. But it was. Too exciting for our taste. But, we’re home, safe and sound, with furniture.

We left Wisconsin Thursday morning at 7am, an hour later than expected because PWM decided to let us sleep an extra hour, figuring I’d drive be willing to drive later in the night if we decided we wanted to drive late into the night. We’re glad that we did. There was a dusting of snow on the ground when we got up, but the roads weren’t bad when we left. We found out later, though, that the roads had been icy at 6am and an acquaintance of ours had rolled his car that morning. We were glad to skip that.

We got past St. Louis and had hoped to drive further, but the weather was very stormy. The first place that we pulled off looked a bit sketchy, so PWM decided to go on to the next exit. The next place was better, which was good because the storm was so bad that he really couldn’t see to drive anymore. When we stopped under the awning of the hotel, we were told that we might want to come in the lobby even if we didn’t stay the night because the area was under a tornado warning. So, we checked in there for the night and stayed well away from the window in our room. Had we gone one more exit, we probably would have run right into the tornados in Cape Girardeau. We ended up having PopTarts for dinner. Better than running into a tornado!

We planned to get up and out early the next am. But, at 3am, the smoke alarm went off, so we were all very awake. (Apparently, someone decided to smoke in their room.) Well, we decided to get going at 4am. Yay. It turned out to be a good choice.

Around 10am (on Friday, BTW), the Trooper (our vehicle) started running poorly. We were (naively) hoping it was just some bad gas, but were afraid that it wasn’t. And things weren’t getting better, although they weren’t getting worse. We called ahead to my parents who got the name of a good mechanic from my aunt, and then PWM called to see if they could look at the Trooper when we got in to McComb. Since we had been driving since 4 in the blessed am, we would be getting in to McComb before 3pm, so it worked out to have them look at the Trooper. In fact, while I was napping at my aunt’s house late in the afternoon, the mechanic found the part he needed (the only one in Pike County) and replaced it for a reasonable price all that afternoon. Talk about a miracle!

During my Friday nap, PWM and my dad consulted on whether we could get the furniture into a trailer to pull behind the Trooper or whether we’d need a truck. They decided on a truck and found one about an hour’s drive away that they could pick up Saturday morning. Also Friday, my parents took care of some business that they thought would take several more months to wrap up. Overall, we were pleased.

Saturday was packing day. And, it was the reason for having Wild Man along! (Besides, he’s cute!) PWM and Wild Man packed up a living room’s worth of furniture that my parents used to have in their trailer that they gave me along with my aunt’s china cabinet and my grandmother’s buffet and a few other pieces. When my head wasn’t bothering me, I helped my mom sort some stuff – and give away a lot of it!

We got to visit several family members on Saturday and Sunday. That’s always fun. We went out for catfish on Saturday night and I got fried crawfish!! Yay!! I truly miss crawfish!

The only real excitement on the trip home is that Wild Man got to drive a lot. He and I were in the Trooper and I was happy to let him drive. He wasn’t crazy about driving through cities at first, but once he drove through Jackson, MS, he decided it really wasn’t so bad. We didn’t get as far as we’d like on Monday night because I was getting a headache, but we started early yesterday. We got home around 6pm last night. PWM and Wild Man got all the living room furniture out of the truck last night then got some help to empty every thing else this morning. When I got out of bed, PWM and I returned the UHaul truck.

And the trip is now over. Except for the recovery. Which may take a couple of weeks.

I’m off to do some more recovery.