Archive for December, 2007
Everyone at the shelter was very nice and gave us as much time as we needed before, during, and afterwards. They had to give her a tranquilizer because she fought them for the injection, but after that she could barely hold her head up. We pet her and comforted her until she was gone, and then held each other and just sobbed.
Sid, wherever you are, we love you very much and are so grateful that you shared our lives, even if it was just for a little while.
December 31st, 2007
I’m in Rockford for a few days, spending time with the family, eating too much, and getting too little sleep. I completed one of my resolutions last night – Finish the World Beer Tour – and can now proudly say that in the last seven years, I’ve tried approximately 110 different beers. Go me. Today’s the first day in a few without regimented activities, so I’m enjoying some quiet down time before lunch with my family, a beauty school haircut, and then activities To Be Determined this afternoon. It’s been wonderful to be here, but it will be great to be home tomorrow as well.
December 27th, 2007
Let’s go over these plans once more. Previous options have included:
- Taking two weeks off and doing an extended road trip, visiting friends and family in Rockford, Chicago, Champaign, and Cleveland, while the cats are visited by a nice pet sitter OR
- Shane flies to Cleveland, I drive there to pick him up a couple of days later and continue on to Rockford, Chicago, and Champaign, ending up back home around the end, while the cats are visited by a nice pet sitter OR
- Shane flies to Cleveland, spends a couple of days, then continues on to Chicago. I fly into Chicago, and we both take the bus out to Rockford for 2-3 days. The cats are boarded so that Sid can get the attention she needs to get better.
Instead Shane just spent $120 for a one way flight from Akron to DC, putting him in town the evening of the 24th. I fly out of DC on the 24th at around the same time Shane gets back, returning on the 27th for a low low price of $309ish, offset by $178 my travel voucher from the summer. No boarding or pet sitting is necessary because it’s not available, and because in the last 12 hours airfare got outrageously expensive.
So instead of a nice trip together, we get rushed and stressful trips apart. Instead of spending Christmas together with my family, we’ll be lucky to pass each other in the airport. I’m so tired and stressed out by all of this, and I just want the effing holidays to be over and life to go back to not-extremely-expensive.
On the bright side, Sid ate a bunch of treats and some wet food this morning, and showed some interest in her brother and the basket of toys. Fingers and toes crossed!
December 18th, 2007
So here’s what we know:
- Her weight and bloodwork are exactly the same as they were on Thursday.
- She has a low fever.
- In the x-rays, her lungs were “foggy”. This is unusual in a young cat but would be seen in an asthmatic cat.
- She ate about 15 treats at the vet.
The vet is concerned that it is FIP – but we basically don’t know anything beyond that. We don’t know if it is FIP, and we don’t know if she’s going to get better or worse. We don’t know when she’s going to get better or worse. All we really know is that she’s sick, and the best we can do by her is encourage her to eat, give her medicine, and cuddle her as much as possible. Thank you for your prayers – we’re not out of the woods yet.
December 17th, 2007
This morning I thought things were looking up – she showed some interest in food, waiting and meowing like she normally does, but ate little. Every few hours we’ve been waking her up, putting her in front of a dish of bacon or salami or kibble or chicken broth, hoping that something will pique her interest enough for just a couple of bites. She seems more alert and marginally stronger – at least when she’s fighting us as we try to pill her.
We’ve already cancelled our New Years plans and most of our holiday travel. SB will be visiting his family for a couple of days, and when he gets back, I’ll be going to Illinois solo unless we can work something out between airfare and pet sitting.
I’m a big mess of sad and scared and disappointed and resentful and worried and heartbroken and a bunch of other things I can’t really articulate. This has been such a hard year, and I don’t want it to end with losing my small cat. I hope that isn’t too much to ask.
December 15th, 2007
Shane and I spent three hours at the vet last night with Sid. Her appetite has been down dramatically in the last two weeks, and the last few days she’s been lethargic and stuffy and sneezy.
She’s lost more than 1lb since March, which is a lot when you only weigh 7 lbs to begin with. The vet did blood work, and she’s dangerously anemic – almost to the point of needing a transfusion. The test for feline HIV and feline leukemia came back negative, but the latter can be a false negative, and the only way to know for sure is from a bone marrow sample.
What we’re hoping is that she responds to antibiotics, in which case it’s bacterial, and we’ll do a couple more tests to allow the vet to target her meds. They sent us home with two aggressive antibiotics and an appetite stimulant, and we’re pushing food on her at regular intervals.
If she doesn’t show improvement in a few days, it’s probably feline infectious peritonitis. There’s no cure or treatment, and once a cat starts showing symptoms, the end will come quickly. If it’s FIP, a transfusion would only buy her days.
While we were waiting for more lab results and holding our tiny sickie cat, a 40-something guy came out of one of the exam rooms, just shaking all over after having his little dog put to sleep. We heard him sobbing – not even sobbing – I don’t even know how to describe the noises coming from the room other than a howl of sadness. He kept going back into the room and looking at his little dog, so sad and small and still on the table.
Sid slept next to me all night last night, her tiny little body curled into mine. I barely slept at all, though she appeared to sleep deeply. This morning she was interested in her food, though she didn’t eat much. I’m going home at 1 and working from home on Monday so that I can be with her to help with meds – and adjust to the idea that if things don’t improve quickly, we will have tough decisions to make.
It’s been a hard year, and having a funny little cat waiting for me at home has been one of the few things that consistently has kept me happy and smiling. Please keep her in your prayers, if you’re so inclined.
December 14th, 2007
You know, I had a conversation about this in a terminal at Heathrow about 18 months ago, and I’m really interested to see it become a reality.
The guy I talked to – we were stuck waiting for a flight to Toronto that was ultimately delayed almost three hours – was working on his PhD in economics (or something like that) and was currently working with RFID. He had his mobile phone, and I joked that in a few years perhaps we’d just check in with our phones, swiping the embedded chip over an RFID reader. His response was that the technology – at least at that point – wasn’t stable enough for it to be a realistic option, and that it was much more likely that biometrics would be used. It’s interesting to see what the airlines have cooked up in the meantime.
December 13th, 2007
I think I would like to work for the Pew Internet & American Life Project. I would probably need a PhD, though, and by the time that happens, who knows what they’ll be researching.
December 3rd, 2007
