Have you ever shaved a cat?

...raise your hand if you've ever shaved a cat...

Vet techs, please, put your hands down.

The "kitten" Ginsu shat on the kitchen floor this morning, and tromped it into a thin layer covering the entire floor. Plus her feet and bloomers were covered..

so after mopping, scrubbing, and cleaning, I shaved Ginsu down to a half inch, and then bathed her.

All with a migraine. Lots of drugs combat the migraine, though...hence the posting and the cleaning.

Interlude 124

Me (looking at our cat, Max): Is he still alive?

TTK: Yeah, he's alive. The dead don't snore.

Interlude 449, plus Sam Thoughts.

Him (calling from the bedroom): This is NOT a cat.

Me: What?

Him. Sam is NOT a cat. He is a BEAR.

Me: ... ?

Him: I was making the bed and I went to move him, and he whacked me. Hard.
He hit me in the side! It HURT. It STILL hurts! This is not a cat!




heh. I weighed Sam last week--he weighs 16 pounds. Mind you, this is not a laze about obese cat--he is solid muscle, and brings home gophers the size of squirrels. I think he brought in that damn spider last week...

When we moved in here, we closed all the doors and wouldn't let the cats out so they would decide that this was now home--I had read that somewhere, and it worked every other time we moved, but this was the first time we moved with Sam, and I guess he didn't read that article. The first thing he did when we opened a SCREENED window was wait until neither of us was watching, and proceeded to CLAW his way through the screen because he wanted OUTSIDE, dammit.
5 years later and the screen is still in shreds, since it became the "cat door" and replacing it would have meant he would have something else to tear open.
Unfortunately, said cat door is actually our bedroom window, right at the head of our bed, (of course, I'm the light sleeper--notice the timestamp on this post?) which makes my side of the bed Cat Highway.
I actually bought a cheesy 3 tier plant stand from Pic 'N' Save and set it up outside our window, screwing it into the wall, so the cats wouldn't be thumping and scrabbling in their travels. Last week we bought two doormats to go on said plant stand to try to control the amount of mud that gets tracked all over my pillow and side of the bed during the rainy season (read: NOW).
It's not working, but I'm pretending it is.

Timeline.

I keep trying to remember various things, and I've realized that I mark most of my life as either BT or AT...Before Tumor and After Tumor. TTK and I keep forgetting when we married, so I've decided to write a timeline of events. Not all of them, mind you, just AT...


1995
January: Insurance kicks in: Diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis.
April 10: Diagnosed with Acoustic Neuroma (now called Unilateral Schwanoma)
April 2?: Surgery
May 20: My birthday, and back into the hospital for Steroid Psychosis
July: Record heat wave in Chicago--500 people die, and I almost joined them.
October: Moved to Santa Cruz with Evil E.

1996
January-ish; Broke up with E. Moved out.
July-ish: Moved into McMillan House.

(somewhere in here I met TTK online, then in person, and got interested in him...)
August: Flew to Chicago for a visit.
September 5: Declared celibacy.
September 12: TTK offered via /m a back massage. I postponed until the next day.
September 13: We start our relationship. Monogamous.
October: TTK moves into McMillan House.
December-ish: After months of proposing to him, he finally said yes! Heh.

1997

We plan for wedding in November. November cruises by.

1998
May: I announce, frustrated with trying to plan a wedding, that we were getting married in June, damn it.
June 27: We marry. Me, him, Sara Homan as our Officiant, my sister as my maid of honor and his best friend as his man of honor. Party of five, in the middle of a field. :-)

1999
Moved to Seattle (Burien). I hate it.

2000
October: Moved to Cotati.

2002
March 1: moved to Sebastopol (Hessel area.)

2004
December: Doctor took me off celexa, put me on Wellbutrin which sent me loony.

2005
January: Partial Hospitalization Program for insane me.
February: Flareup started (and is still going.)
May: Finally decide to see the UC specialist. Made it down for my nephew's 2nd birthday.
August: Got to witness the birth of my neice. Wow is all I can say.

2006
Somewhere in here TTK decided to contact his parents, so I got to meet my MIL and FIL (and SIL) for the first time (after 7 years of marriage.)
May: Said new in-laws gift us with some stock (none of your business how much). Woo hoo! And eeeee!
I head to L.A. for neph's b-day party, and I take frogs to show (party is frog themed!).
August: I start school.
September: Ginsu appeared on our doorstep.
December: Dr. M declares me "in remission" but says I have residual irritable bowel. (HA!!)
December 25th: We fly to Texas to meet TTK's grandmas. Weird but fun trip.

2007
January:
Cramping and blood get worse despite being "in remission." I decide to get a second opinion. Which meant another colonoscopy, whee.
March:
Almost completely homebound now. Had to drop all of my classes. Weight loss is getting noticeable. I get a blood test check and my iron levels are 34 (normal is 35). No biggie, right? Keep reading...
April:
I go on steroid enemas. These are evil and painful.
May:
I go on oral steroids (Budosenide). Evil stuff. I start having extreme dizziness when I stand, that I attribute to the steroids (but, oh, was I wrong!)
June:
1st: momma has a stroke. (okay, TIA, but it's still serious).
Dizzy and sort of breath all of the time now. Hands are shaky.
July:
More of the same. Down to 155 pounds. (was 190 at the start of the year.) Somewhere in here I decided to take up crochet hook again.
August:
8th: Needles died.
16: Woke this morning by TTK...he found Atlantis dead in the cage. Was expecting it, since he was so depressed about Fizzbinn, but it was still a shock.
16: Down to 151 pounds. Finally approved for Remicade! Decided to taper myself off of the evil steroids, since none of my doctors wanted to, and they were making me insane.
22: First Remicade transfusion. Whee.

September:
5th: Second infusion. Feeling better every day.
13 11 year anniversary today.
28 Tasha died. :-(

October
Finally off the steroids.
3: Infusion of Remicade. Up to 155 pounds. Still incredibly dizzy and shaky, though.

I make an app with my regular dr, and ask for a blood test (last one was in March!)
Hemo score is at 23, when normal is 35. Dr is freaked, puts me on megadoses (3X daily) of iron so we won't have to transfuse me. THIS explains the dizziness, weakness, short of breath-ness, and shakiness! ARRRRGH!

November 28: My 3rd infusion of Remicade. I've gained 10 pounds (now at 160), and dizziness is gone. I think we can safely say I am in remission for real.

I need another blood test, but it's kinda fallen back in my schedule of TO DO's, since there's so much other stuff I need to get caught up on.



------------------
Okay, so the later years are not filled out much, but that's because it's always hard to separate the significant events when you're still close to them. I'm sure I'll be adding more.

Brutal, unexpected, and sad.

This one is a hard one to write. I'm a mess, and so is ttk--about 2 hours ago ttk accidentally stepped on Tasha, our black cat. She bolted out the window, then he heard her yowling in the garage, and it sounded bad, so he came and woke me up, and brought her in to me. I took one look at her, panting, body cool to the touch, and said EMERGENCY HOSPITAL. Then I told him she was probably not going to make it.
She died at the vets.
She's gone. We're burying her now.
We're going to bury her in with Needles.

I go help dig. And cry some more.

TTK is going to stay home tomorrow and we are going to do our best to comfort each other and keep me from cutting. Klonopin and hiding in bed are both in the plans.

It was an accident, a total accident, where she ran out from something she was hiding under, straight under his foot. But we both feel guilty--I had stuck the crap in the hall that he couldn't see her behind, and well, you know why he feels guilty.

One of her nicknames had become "S&M Kitty" since every night ttk had to shove a pill down her throat, which she fought quite admirably, drawing blood frequently. Then, 10 minutes later, she would be all over him and purring like a mad thing.

I love you, my sweet tough dog-taunting black cat.
I go cry more.
-me

Poor Sweet BattleAxe...

Needles died last night, in ttk's arms.
She put up a good fight the last few months but it was time for her to go...she waited until ttk got home last night, and died less than an hour later.
10:18 pm.

Funny how you notice the little things like that.

He made a simple but beautiful box for her, and for now we'll bury her in an oak half-wine barrel until we have our own home. Then, she and all the other little ones will be buried in their own home. Our own home.

Sweet Battleaxe, I will miss you.

Baby cornsnakes!

Woo!
11 little spaghetti strings...several already all hissing and striking, as if they were real snakes, heh.

The Ciar Finishing School

We have a visitor for the summer.
She's tiny, and cute, and has a fuzzy black butt.

Her name is Fancy, and she's Willow's cousin...
she's here for some self-esteem and confidence lessons,
as well as leash/recall/command training.
Oh, and some exercise/fun for Willow, who has gotten lazy
in her old (4 years) age.

So far she has learned "Fancy, COME" and a variation
of "Leave it!" which is a kind of a sharp scolding noise
(she's a chicken chaser, and our sedate roosters aren't
stopping it at all!).

She'll be walking on a leash soon, I think.

Willow is having a few jealousy issues, but mostly
she's happy to have someone to chew on and romp
in the grass with.

Ick

The dog just jumped up next to me, all cute and snuggly...then proceeded to puke.

Lovely.

And I'm in the midst of doing bills and business paperwork, so it's not like I can leap up and get away, plus even if I could I would still have to return eventually. Those of you who know me know how -sensitive- I am to puke: it makes ME puke.

TTK is Puke Patrol.

If I were PP, I'd be cleaning up my own puke alongside the cat's, every time.

Now, I've had the stomach flu for about a week now...

I think my body is just done throwing up, though--I did quite well with the dog chunks just now. I simply got up, picked up the papers she conveniently puked on, carried them into the bathroom without looking down, and dumped it into the toilet. No, not papers and all--these were important Merrill Lynch papers, so I couldn't, as much as I wanted to (I DID run them under the faucet to get the last little bits off, though).

The Truth About Dust Bunnies

Just now I saw this giant dust bunny slowly emerge from my dirty laundry and drag itself painfully across the carpet...

Turns out one of my fire belly toads had escaped (they can do that climber's chimney thing up the corner of the tank) and was completely covered in cat hair and fuzz. I washed him off (with bottled water) and he's back in the tank, perched miserably on the log, half in and half out of the water. Not a happy camper at all.