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ShinyHappy - Thoughts for February 16th - 28th
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It's going to be a very rough week around here. Andrew and I have decided that it's best to have Halo put to sleep on Wednesday. We can tell that it's the kindest thing we can do for him now. He's not getting any better at all, just getting quickly and markedly worse day by day. He started going downhill pretty much as soon as he got out of the animal hospital. He won't eat, and as of today the only time he left the bedroom was once to use his litterbox since he is still drinking a bit of water if we bring him some.
He spends all of his time sleeping on the bed right now, preferably on one of our pillows. Actually, mostly Andrew's pillow. He doesn't seem like he's in any pain at all. Just exhausted and obviously sick feeling. And yet he still purrs when we lie down on the bed and pet him for a while. He's such a good cat.
So ... yeah. It's probably not going to be an uplifting weblog week for me.
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02/27/05 Eggs, bacon and compliments on the side!
This morning Andrew and I got up pretty early for a Sunday morning and went for brunch with his grandparents at a little place called Gina's just a few blocks down the street from us. When we got there they were already seated and looking at the menu. It was supposed to be a surprise for Andrew's granny and it seemed like she was definitely very surprised. And happy, thankfully. We hadn't seen them since Christmas so it was very nice to be able to visit with them before they leave for Florida this week. Plus, Andrew's grandma told me that I was as lovely as the Mona Lisa and should be a model, so that was nice. And worth getting up early for!
After our brunch we came home and passed a pleasant afternoon hanging out with Halo and relaxing. Halo's health is not good at all, unfortunately. He just won't eat, despite the appetite stimulants, so things don't look good. He is still very content to snuggle up to us and purr as much as ever, thankfully.
We watched Mean Girls tonight and it was all right. Not as good as I'd hoped, but still enjoyable. I'm very glad that my high school was nothing like that one. Yeah, there were cliques, but for the most part it was pretty live-and-let-live. I remember most people in high school hanging out in groups and there being a certain amount of teasing taking place, but not absolute hatefulness. John, am I just remembering it through some weird rose-coloured filter of denial and supression? Because if I am, maybe I don't want to know. I remember high school as being much less nasty than elementary school.
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02/26/05 Use only young beaver.
Tonight Andrew and I went for a lovely walk along the Rideau Canal. I'd been hoping that we'd get the chance to while things are still frozen solid, and it was a beautiful night for it. We went south until we reached the Lansdowne Park area and bought Beavertails (not this kind). I was fully intending to get a Killaloe Sunrise this time but saw that they had Maple Beavertails. I happen to be very fond of maple-flavoured things so had to try it. It turns out that they literally spackle those things with maple icing. It was the sweetest and messiest thing I've eaten in my entire life. Next time I'm going for the Killaloe Sunrise, no question. Hopefully that'll be this year. Maybe even this week. Tee hee.
After we ate our Beavertails we headed off the canal and walked through Lansdowne Park to Bank street. By this time my legs were getting mighty cold, mostly in the thigh area. I seriously couldn't feel them, although my calves and feet were O.K.. It was kind of odd. Hmmm. We decided to rent some movies and pick up something to make for supper, and ended up renting Muriel's Wedding and Mean Girls. We chose to watch Muriel's Wedding tonight and will watch the other tomorrow.
Muriel's Wedding was even better than I remembered. After we watched it Andrew expressed some surprise at how different it was than he'd expected going in. It's suprisingly dark and intelligent, when it sounds like it's going to be (as Andrew put it) My Big Fat Australian Wedding. What it did have in common with My Big Fat Greek Wedding is that it took a simply beautiful actress and made her look as dowdy and unpleasant as possible before she 'blossoms'. I think it took a lot of guts for both Nia Vardalos and Toni Collette to play parts that made them look heavy and plain.
In the morning Andrew and I are going for breakfast with his grandparents. Andrew's grandpa called this afternoon and told me that it's a surprise for his grandma, which I think is nice. Hopefully when we're in our seventies and up Andrew and I will still be trying to do nice little things for each other too.
Halo is still being most difficult about his pills. Tonight my aim was off again and half of the pill flew out and stuck to my hand when he started shaking his head. I managed to get it back in his mouth, but a bit later I went in the bathroom and saw that the other half of it had stuck in my hair and dried there. Ugh. I didn't bother making him eat that half. Who wants to eat anything with hair in it?
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I was denied seeing Mouse's comments on Dooce's picture of the day today. Why? Because people use the comments section as a chat room and overloaded her server yesterday by posting more than one thousand comments. In a day. So my CHUCK FRIDAY was ALL MESSED UP. Thanks, jerks. (The ALL CAPS outrage is an homage to Dooce, without whom I may never have discovered Mouse. And I'm blowing kisses to May, without whom I may never have discovered Dooce.)
Tonight's pill-taking session with Halo didn't go so well. I have to be careful to drop it directly into the back of his mouth, otherwise he can work it out the side and spit it out. This wastes the pill since by the time he spits it on the floor it's a mushy mess. He managed this tonight, and I had to go fetch him a second time (after he ran away from me) and force another pill into him. I felt awful about that so took him into the bedroom where Andrew was doing some schoolwork and put him on the bed so we could love him up a bit. He settled right in and started purring, thankfully, but in doing so settled himself down on some sheets of paper and a book that Andrew was using. Andrew slid them out from under him and all was well.
I left to do stuff, then after a few minutes Andrew came out of the bedroom for something or other. When he went back in he found that Halo had very quickly reclaimed his spot on his schoolwork. He is the cutest cat in the world. Holy crap. In other news, he's been eating voluntarily a little bit (when I put a bowl of soupy cat food down in front of him) so I don't have to force feed him as much. That is a huge relief to me.
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02/23/05 My hair has lots of company.
Things with Halo are still rather difficult. He is refusing to eat anything at all now. The chunks and gravy that seemed to tempt him slightly the other day are now not tempting him in the least. He looks at it politely when I put it down for him, then walks away. The only thing we're seeing him ingest is toilet bowl water. He will hardly even drink out of the lovely bowl of fresh Brita water that we keep out for him. I've had to force feed him just to make sure that he's getting something in him besides his medications and potassium supplement.
That's frankly depressing. Sigh. At the very least he's not holding it against me that I've been grabbing him six or seven times a day to throw things down his throat.
Tonight Andrew and I had to go for a walk to pick up some bus tickets, so we worked out with Colin and Jen that we'd stop by their place to return the car key to them that we had from borrowing their car over the weekend to go to Kingston. They invited us in for a hot drink and some hanging out and it was a good time, of course. I'd bought a bridal magazine so Jen and I leafed through it to see what the current bridal styles are. We've decided that the best way to go about looking for dresses in actual dress shops is to go together so that the salespeople won't be focusing on just one of us. Now, that aspect of it is more for Jen's benefit than mine, since I'm not so against the idea of having a fuss made over my bride-to-be-ness, but I am very happy to have someone to go with since doing that stuff alone isn't fun at all.
Since I'm getting married for the second time I've been curious about what is socially acceptable for what is politely termed an 'encore bride', and have found that for the most part there aren't any real limitations. The only thing that seems to be taboo is the wearing of a veil, and even that isn't strictly vetoed in this article. However, the section about veils also includes this sentence: "Just having a lonely coiffure works too." Now, I'm not planning to wear a veil, so it'll be important to have a beautiful hairdo of some sort. But it won't be lonely. Andrew has promised that he will have beautiful hair on our wedding day, too.
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02/21/05 All Halo. All the time.
Our funny, happy little kitty is home. Yes, he's thrilled to be back where he belongs. He didn't even go and hide under things for a while, he was so happy to return. When we got in he went around and kind of checked that things were where they usually are. We didn't change much except that I finally took down the Christmas tree that he so enjoyed chewing on. (Yes, in late February. Deal with it.)
The vet was once again a bit more optimistic about Halo's relative health. He seems to go back and forth each time we talk to him, upbeat one time, pessimistic the next. He said that Halo improved over the weekend and ate more than he had been eating up until that point, which was good news. Halo was so thrilled to see us, although not thrilled about having to get back in his kitty carrier again. We were sent home with a few different medications to give him daily until they run out, and a potassium supplement that he'll have to have every day from now on. He hates all of his medication except the potassium supplement. The potassium smells just like yummy bacon bits and seems to go down pretty easy, even though he hates being held down and force fed with a dropper. It's the other stuff, a white, chalky goop also administered with a dropper, that offends him most. I gave him his evening dose earlier and he obviously thinks it's the grossest thing in the world. He acted like I'd forced him to eat dish detergent or something.
He's also less than impressed with the canned food they've sent along. I really don't blame him. Canned cat food is gross. It stinks and it ain't pretty. I just tried a pouch of chunks and gravy on him, though, and he actually ate some so this is a good sign. Yeah, he mostly ate the gravy but eat, little skinny cat, eat!
Here's a picture of him this evening hanging out with (and gazing lovingly at) Daddy Pompom Legs, who kept him company at the animal hospital while we couldn't be with him. He threw up on him a little bit while they were there, but he still loves him. Look at them here: Happy to be home.
For those that actually checked out Mowses Hum Pij yesterday, I have something funny to link to that goes along with it. Someone created a tool that will translate normal writing into Mouse's style of writing. So, "She sells seashells by the seashore," becomes "She sells seishels bi te siashere," and "Keltie loves Andrew," becomes "Kiltie lovis Anroo." Cool! Also, if you keep clicking on 'mows et', it will give you alternate Mouse spellings of the same phrase. I haven't played with it extensively, but it seems to get pretty heavy on the vowels after a few clicks.
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02/20/05 Back at the homestead once again.
I spent the day in Kingston today while Andrew took a trip to Hamilton for a train-related event. Mom was going to visit my Grandma in Prescott but I figured that Andrew would probably be back in town before she was so I stayed at her place and relaxed for the day, which turned out to be nice. In the end Andrew did arrive before she did, but not much before so the three of us went to Denny's for a late dinner. I'd developed a sudden craving for Belgian waffles that had to be satisfied, even if I was the only one of us who actually likes Denny's.
We had a lovely meal despite having spied a pool of grossly frozen upchuck in the Denny's parking lot (which I am sure is not a comment on the quality of food served there). Then we bid my mom farewell and drove off to Ottawa. It was a gorgeous night for driving, weather-wise. No snow, no fog, no drizzle, no sleet. It's always nice to come home to our cozy apartment and settle in to our computers. Tee hee.
Ooh, I have a crazy funny link I must share. I am a regular reader of dooce.com (not the link I am talking about). She has a 'Photo of the Day' page and every Friday is 'Chuck Friday'. Chuck is her dog and he's very cute and photogenic. Well, every friday Mouse the dog comments on Chuck's photo and it's bizarre and barely readable because Mouse is a dog and has (apparently) had to teach himself how to type and use the computer. Well, as it turns out Mouse has his own website that everyone must bookmark and love as much as I do. O.K.? So, check out Mowses Hum Pij. Do it. Try not to get a headache deciphering his doggy writings.
I also want to link to HK Fashions. Alannah's niece has her own webstore selling jewelry and her stuff is really nice. I used to make all kinds of necklaces and bracelets myself, but she went ahead and opened up her own very extensive webstore and it looks sharp. I don't know where she buys her beads, but they're gorgeous. So anyhow, kudos to Hilary for being such an entrepreneur! Beautiful work!
Here's a funny story: We were sitting at my mom's kitchen table yesterday (in Kingston) and were leafing through a magazine that was pimping Toronto like crazy. Andrew flipped through until he got to the back, then suddenly held it up for me to look at. "What do you notice about this picture?" he asked me. I looked at it. The caption read 'The City Where Jazz Never Sleeps' and below it was a picture of a jazz band. I stared at it, then realized that I was looking at a picture of none other than our dear, beloved Marcus-friend! Marcus! It was so nice to see you in Kingston playing your saxophone and looking so jazzy!
Guess who comes home tomorrow? That's right, my gorgeous little kitty.
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(This is uploaded late, but it's the weekend when hardly anyone reads anyhow.)
Today Andrew and I went over to the vet's office to visit Halo before heading off to Kingston. It was nice to see that he was off the IV. I know it doesn't hurt, but it always looks pathetic to see him hooked up to one. He was thrilled to see us and we took turns holding him and petting him, since this time he was even more determined to jump down out of the cage they had him in. He was content just to be held, which was nice, and he purred loud and hard the whole time. Leaving was even more difficult this time. He mewed very, very sadly when I started closing up his cage. He's no dummy. He knows the deal.
As we were on our way out the vet told us that since he was still vomiting and whatnot that things don't look good. We sort of knew this already, but somehow it sounded more ominous to me this time. So, we left, but as we were starting to drive away from our apartment building to go to Kingston Andrew said he wanted to go back and ask the vet about what Halo's condition means for bringing him home on Monday. So we parked by the animal hospital and he went in while I stayed in the car. When he got back he was very sad. Apparently the vet thinks that his initial estimate of Halo having 25% kidney function was too optimistic. So, we can bring Halo home on Monday and keep him as comfortable and happy as possible for as long as we can, but the next time he goes in to the vet it would likely be for one reason only; to have him put down. It could be a matter of weeks or months, apparently.
Since Halo was diagnosed with kidney failure back in 2002 I've been aware that his life wouldn't be as long as most cats. In fact, in late 2003 I thought he was really going downhill, although he perked up amazingly when we moved to Toronto and has been happy and healthy seeming until recently. Hopefully now that he's been fully rehydrated and will be getting potassium supplements daily he'll be able to live comfortably and happily for a while more with us.
It was hard to leave Ottawa with that weighing on our minds, but coming to Kingston for my mom's birthday was great. Alannah had planned a little surprise party for my mom at her place and Andrew and I were in charge of making sure that mom didn't leave early to go over there. In fact, it ended up being difficult to get her out of the door to go! Alannah had also asked me to sneak out mom's coffee maker to bring over and that meant that we had to leave after her, so I missed her being surprised by her friends there. Still, it was a great time. Andrew had bought mom's gift while he was in Montreal and had it wrapped there so I hadn't seen it yet. He had described it to me as a hand-carved wooden elephant wearing a cardigan, which made me very nervous. I envisioned something overly-cutesy and 'precious' in that Cherished Teddies sort of way. It turned out to be much better than that. It's a very funky, nice elephant wearing a polka-dotted red dress (not, as it turns out, a cardigan). Now, I realize that doesn't sound funky, but it is. Believe me. It's cool. Andrew is very, very good at picking out gifts.
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Today I woke up all happy about it being the day that Halo was to come home from the vet. I gave them a call to see what time I should pick him up and the vet tech said she'd have to ask the vet, since she didn't want to release him without permission. I said fine and she said she'd call back. I thought that was a little bit strange, since today was the day I was supposed to bring him home and all, but didn't dwell on it.
When she called back, though, it wasn't with great news. He'd been vomiting again and had had diarrhea, so they wanted to keep him for an extra day. They said they wouldn't charge us for the extra day, which is really great of them. So, instead of going to pick him up today we went to visit him again. Poor little dude. He did seem a bit less perky than yesterday, although he was very glad to see us and didn't get in his kitty bed at all the whole time we were there. He ended up laying down and doing all kinds of adorable baby bunny things for us while we petted him, purring like crazy the whole time. It sucks so bad to go and see him and love him up, then have to close the cage door in his face and walk away. He always starts giving these tiny, pathetic little meows when we do.
Since he's still feeling like crap, though, we decided that it would be a better idea to board him at the vet's office while we're away this weekend. So, we'll be picking him up Monday, making it almost a full week that he had to stay there. Sigh.
I was in the mood to do something fun tonight to take my mind off things, so we asked Colin and Jen if they wanted to go to The Works with us. They were into it so the four of us met there. It was pretty busy and we ended up waiting for a while, but that gave Colin and Jen time to go over the rather extensive menu and see what appealed to them. Well, 'extensive' in the sense that there's an extensive array of burgers to choose from, anyhow. They settled on their picks rather quickly, I thought. I went with the Lucky Sevens again. For those that forgot, it's the one with banana and Nutella. Mmmmm. It's so So SO SO good! Andrew got the Teriyaki Melt (the one that has a great name but ends up having gross mushroomy grossness). Jen got the Hamburger Mary, which I believe had a fried egg, bacon, cheese, tomato, mayo and some other stuff on it. And Colin got the Diamondhead which has pineapple, ham, and teriyaki sauce. Neither of them wimped out and went with something plain and boring, for which I salute them. The waiter approved of the fact that I got the Lucky Sevens. He gave me a little wink and nod about it. Tee hee.
After dinner we went to Colin and Jen's place and watched Undercover Brother. All our friends have been telling me what a great, funny movie this is and they were right. I loved it. I can definitely see the parallels between it and The Hebrew Hammer. Oh, and I have extended an invitation to Colin and Jen to come over every Thursday to watch Survivor with me since I'm home alone Thursday evenings and it's always more fun to watch it with other people. Jen seems into it. We may have to work on Colin. Mwa ha hah! Come to the reality television dark side, Colin! Don't worry; I won't make you watch The Apprentice. I'll tape it to watch later with Andrew.
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Thank you to everyone who wrote or sent good vibes for my Halo kittyboy! I went to see him right at noon today and he was doing so much better! As soon as he saw me he got out of his little cat bed and rubbed himself all over me, trying to get me to pet him with both hands as much as possible. It was amazing how much better he seemed. The vet came through while I was exclaiming about how great he looked and told me Halo had managed to ... uh ... work through his bowel problems overnight, so was feeling much better about life in general.
I was thrilled. He's definitely much more like his usual self. He was still scorning the dry food they'd put outside of his kitty bed, going so far as to lay down on top of it while trying to get into a good baby bunny position. They still have to force feed him because of this. So, while I was lavishing love and attention on my little kitty the vet came out with a brush and asked me if I wanted to groom Halo a bit. I said sure, even though Halo's never been a fan of being brushed. He didn't seem to mind it this time, so I got as much loose hair off of him as I could. Then a while later the vet came back in with a little handful of treats for me to give Halo. Serious spoilage going on at this animal hospital. Not that I mind.
This went over well with my bratty cat, who ate about five of the treats while I was there. The vet tech on duty said it figured he'd eat the junk food and not his healthy food. Tee hee.
There are some other cats who have been there the whole time Halo has. One is a gray tabby named Stanley and I noticed when we first visited that he was recovering from getting his front paws declawed. I am not a fan of declawing cats, to put it mildly, and was sad to see this. I didn't notice until the next time I went in that he's missing a back leg! That made me sadder, since with only one back leg it'll make it that much harder for him to get up on things like sofas and windowsills. Poor guy. He's a total charmer, though. He always rolled around in his cage and stuck his front paws out to touch me, just dying for as much attention as he could get.
Another one named Patches had his cage right below Halo's and seemed to be pretty shy. He's a big fluffy white cat with blueish-green eyes and is absolutely gorgeous. He kind of lurked in the back of his cage when I was there yesterday, but today as I was petting Halo I heard a little 'mrp' noise and looked down to see Patches at the front of his cage looking up at me, wanting a little loving too. Aw. Poor Patches. So I talked to him a bit too, but did eventually have to return my full attention to Halo who was feeling so much better that he was considering jumping down out of his cage.
I get to go and get my little man tomorrow and bring him home. Hopefully he'll have his appetite back and I won't have to force-feed him for very long. They showed me how to do it today and I'm not looking forward to it, but it's better than sticking him with an IV every day.
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02/16/05 More good vibes for Halo, please!
Well, Andrew and I went over to the animal hospital today to visit Halo. I was surprised to see him in a cute little cat bed in his cage. The vet tech informed us that she'd found him sleeping in his litter box and it had made her feel so sorry for him that she'd put the cat bed in there for him. Apparently he climbed right in it and wouldn't get out. He actually didn't get out of it while we were there, either. Poor dude.
He's not eating so they have him on a forced-feeding schedule where they basically squirt liquid food into his mouth every two hours. They had a little buffet of wet and dry foods in his cage too in case he did decide he wants to eat on his own, but he wasn't having any of it. We stayed there with him for a while and petted him, which he seemed to appreciate since he purred a lot for us, but he was obviously not thrilled with being where he was. While we were there the vet came in and gave us the results of his bloodwork. Apparently he only has 25% kidney function. He said that he could survive on this, though, as long as we give him potassium supplements every day and keep him on a diet of wet food. They also may want to keep him for an extra day to make certain he's doing better.
This was actually cheerier news than we'd been expecting so we left there feeling pretty upbeat. I decided later in the day, though, that I wanted to pop back over to visit him again and this time take Daddy Pompom Legs to put in his cage with him so he'd have something familiar there with him. I went in and the vet tech told me they'd had to move him to another cage. He'd thrown up twice since his last feeding at 4:00. He was definitely looking like he felt awful when I went back to see him. I won't go into a lot of detail, but he's in a lot of pain and it seemed like he was having bowel problems, which was odd. He cried and growled when he tried to go the bathroom. Then he just sat in his bed and stared at the wall. Cats have a way of sitting that indicates that they're sick and unhappy and that's exactly what he looked like. I told the vet that he was in distress about something and he felt his abdomen and said he didn't seem to have any blockage or anything and didn't seem to think there was anything wrong. So, I had no choice but to eventually leave. I hated to go, but he just didn't want to be touched or bothered.
I've been trying not to be too upset and stressed out tonight about it. I know that being at the animal hospital is the very best place he can be if he's sick and gets worse. It's not like being here would be good for him at all. I'm going to go back over right after lunch tomorrow when visiting hours open and see how he's doing.
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