Ebb and Flow

I thought I owed an update to anyone who is still paying attention as to B'Goshie's* health.

Brought him to the vet tonight - he was NOT pleased to go in the car. He was yowling and yowling and yowling in his little carrier. But when I put on some Killers and starting singing along, he quit it (he actually loves a little Dustland Fairytale).

They put us in the exam room to wait for the vet and Osha was allowed to roam freely. He got on his Goshy Big Eyes and was really into checking everything out. I was a little worried because he was barely sniffling at all, so I thought the vet wouldn't get a real sense of his symptoms.

SB arrived for some moral support, then the vet came in shortly after. She commented on how soft Osha is (duh!), how young he seems compared to how old we were told he is (16-19, we aren't really exactly sure), how great his teeth look for any kitty age (we epically fail at taking care of dog teeth, but kitties seem to be no problem for us), how hard it was to hear his heart because of all the purring. We chatted about his symptoms while she felt him over, all the while he's purring and staring at her adoringly. Then she pulled out the thermometer.

Simon is NOT a fan of the thermometer - the last time he was at the vet (which was an obscenely long time ago, and we'll bring him for a checkup in the New Year, I think, since he's ten now and we should start paying attention so we can keep him around FOREVER) I thought he was going to rip the vet's arm off when she poked him with that thing. So, when the vet pulled the thermometer out tonight, I was preparing myself to grab Osha, who bites me when I brush him.

This is not what happened. Not at all. He started purring EVEN LOUDER. It was ridiculous. He is a ridiculous cat. I will not be surprised if someone tries to steal him from us at some point because he is just toooooo much.

Anyway, so she does all of this, and we tell her his symptoms, and we decide to try an antibiotic. She isn't sure it's an infection, but from what we describe it sounds like it could be. We're wrapping up the visit, and she puts Osha on the floor so she can see the raccoon walk he does because he has some arthritis. I could hear the rattle in his nose/throat as soon as his feet hit the floor. He had for sure been holding it all in trying to impress the vet. Within about two seconds he sneezed out two giant loogies (seriously, they were the size of quarters, and his nostrils are NOT that big). He sneezed a bit more on his face which he promptly licked up (gross) and the vet determined that, yes, indeed, this must be an infection and the antibiotics should be fine.

Now comes the fun part: pilling him twice a day for two weeks. Ugh.

I have not been completely forthcoming this month - I have a lot of stuff going on right now, but not the time nor the energy to get into it. Some big things, some little things. Not the least of which is the health of our wee one, Osha, who periodically becomes congested and gets kitty boogers but who tonight was feeling so rotten that he wouldn't even partake in Cookie Time, which has me quite quite concerned. Luckily he has a vet appointment tomorrow evening, so I'm just hoping he can not die until then. Ok, thanks, bye.

Obviously there is more on my mind then that, but sometimes we hold onto the little things to make the big things seem not quite so bad.

NaBloPoMo has been a nice diversion - trying to think of some kind of tidbit to share each day, and putting at least a little thought and effort into trying to make it even a little funny or witty. Some days are easier than others, but thus is life, I guess.

This week I am covering for one of our vacationing employees - I thought it would be a fun week, but after the first day I'm already exhausted. I remember when we first took over this business I had a conversation with the owner of another, similar company to ours. At one point she said to me "do you ever feel if you ever saw another dog you might just kick it?". I remember being a little shocked, and thinking that I couldn't imagine ever feeling that way. And even though I don't feel like kicking anything, I now think I know what she meant by it.

1. The last day of NaBloPoMo is TOMORROW!!! Gaaack - I know you'll miss me!

2. doing a lot of walking this week since one of our girls is on vacation. I had been kinda looking forward to it, and then Friday was my first day of it and it did NOT go well. It wasn't a disaster or anything, but it was just really exhausting and I'm over it.

3. taking Osha to the vet on Tuesday - he periodically gets congested and sneezy, and we usually give him some baby Benedryl and it clears up in a couple of days, but this time there appears to be no end in sight. Not to gross you out, but tonight he sneezed out a booger/snot mass bigger than I've ever seen come out of a human. So, we'll head to the vet and see what she can do for us.

4. Countdown to vacation is at 50 days!

5. Tonight is Amazing Race and Dexter. When did Sunday become my favorite TV night? I'm not sure, but it is! Dexter was so friggin' good last week I can't wait to see what happens tonight.

I'm glad NaBloPoMo is done tomorrow - not because I haven't enjoyed writing. It's actually been much easier and more enjoyable than the last time I did it. But this week is going to busy and exhausting and I know odds are I would have forgotten to post at some point. That would suck, so I'm glad tomorrow is my last official posting day. But I think I will be around a lot more than I used to be.

This is itself would not be unusual. I have been known to run a few times a week pretty regularly. Sure for the last month or so I have been concentrating less on running and more on not throwing myself off the Champlain bridge, but before that I was getting out there pretty regularly.

SB wanted to go for a run, and I didn't really want to, but I did want to spend time with him, so thought it would be a good thing that we should do. Then he said "let's go run on the mountain". Which made me even less excited because when I run, I'm pretty particular about The Conditions, and The Conditions do not include severe inclines. Nope. The Conditions also don't include 5 degree temperature, but this is something I've been wanting to conquer, so that was less of an issue.

So, he corrals me into the car and we drive to the mountain. Stretching is required as part of The Conditions and I'm really glad that I stuck to my guns on that one. So, we got going.

The incline was not fun. Not as bad as I had imagined, but not fun.

The Conditions also mandate that I run between 20-30 minutes, depending on my pace. Running slower, I'll stretch it out to 30. Running at "race pace" (who am I kidding, I have never been in a race, but I know what pace I would like to run if I were in one) then I stick to less time, especially since I haven't been running at all lately. We were running well below race pace, so at around the 15 minute mark I started asking when SB expected we would turn this boat around and hightail it back to the bottom.

SB seemed to be in denial of The Conditions. He said "we'll just go to the top". Then when we got to the top, he wanted to keep going, probably to frolic around the lake that's up there. I had to put my foot down. I said "No, I'm turning around." "Oh, are you tired?" "I was ready to turn around ten minutes ago when I clearly said 'let's turn around.'"

So, we turned around.

We ran 6km in 45 minutes - not a great pace, but good for a long slow run. My hips are killing me. My lungs did not fail me at all, which I'm pretty pleased about. And even better, SB did not succeed in killing me off.

This time.

SB helped brighten my day by bringing home beer and Frites Alors, so we're tucking in to watch Benjamin Button. I'm not excited that next week one of our employees is on vacation, so I will be walking all day every day. I will be spending my weekend mentally preparing for that, so tonight I need to just rest up.

"I would like an appointment today for my dog"

"sorry we don't have any openings today, is it an emergency?"

"He has a sebaceous cyst that I'm pretty sure is fixing to explode.."

"oh dear, hold on one second"

So they fit us in, and when the vet initially felt the lump, he was sure it wasn't a cyst, but a mass, because a cyst is liquidy, not hard. But he poked it with a needle to check what was in there exactly and all I have to say is ew. Ew ew ew ew ew. Ew a million times. It was a cyst, but just really really really full.

Woodgie was a VERY good boy, barely noticed the guy poking FIVE needles into him to drain out all the fluid. We had the vet check out a bunch of other stuff, obviously, since we were there and Woodgie isn't exactly what you would call a late model. He has a heart murmur, and also a cyst in his eye that partially covers his pupil - this was, in fact, so interesting that the vet had to pull out a textbook to compare it to, and had another vet come in and take a look just for kicks.

Since Woodgie is about 800 years old, there isn't much we can do about all these problems. Or, rather, there aren't many things we are willing to do. Surgeries and weird medications and weird therapies, that's not us, especially not at this age. But we'll keep an eye on him for some of the symptoms the vet has mentioned to us. He's calling it a palliative approach. Knowing Woodgie he'll be fine for another 6 years.

A FIRE!!! In our very own little neighborhood!

It was crazy! As soon as I saw this I threw on my coat and went out too to check out the action. There were a whole bunch of fire trucks, and also police cars "controlling traffic" (major fail there, for some reason they would park their cars to block the road, but people would still drive right up to them thinking they could get around, and for some other reason they wouldn't get out of the cop cars to direct the traffic so it was getting a bit nuts).

The fire was the equivalent of 3-4 blocks away, and in a building that is the newest part of the development, and which isn't finished being built yet (fishy!).

My timeline of thought:

1) that sucks for the people who have bought units in that building! Now they will have to wait for them to start almost all over when they were almost done building!

2) Maybe they didn't sell enough units so the building "accidentally" caught on fire.

3) Holy heck we have a client that lives in the building that backs onto this one - I hope she was home and got her cat out.

So as we walk along to see if we can check out what's going on (couldn't get a good view since obviously you couldn't get too close and the location of the building didn't allow good viewing angles) I am calling our client to see if she was home (she had been!) if she got her cat out (she had him with her!) and if she needed a cat carrier to bring him wherever she had to go for the night (she had one!). Their building wasn't damaged at all though, but they were evacuated as a precaution.

No one was hurt in the fire, but apparently someone heard an explosion and then the fire flared up. SKETCHY!!! I'm glad that everyone was safe, and I can't wait to hear the whole story about what happened. It was a very exciting pre-bedtime!