Thursday, February 21, 2013

Thursday-3am: Ruby

The only way I can even talk right now is to just tell you chronologically.
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Miss Karma has been gradually getting better again.  Still not herself, but better.
I never made it to go look at recliners with Dagan on Friday because I wasn't physically up to it that day, but I made it on Saturday with both Dagan and Leah.  They bought me a little recliner and are letting me pay them back after I finish paying off the vet clinic bill.  (Their idea--and my back is doing the happy dance!)
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I donated the love seat to New Life--a place in town that helps people who are starting over to get back on their feet--like the homeless and battered women, etc.  Two gentlemen came and picked up the love seat on Monday afternoon.
 Looked pretty bare in here. 
I brought in the padded chair and ottoman from the porch... 
...and pulled over a chair from the craft table for Karma.  But she wanted her favorite blue bed to be up on the chair...
...so I arranged my folding stool next to the chair so she could climb up and get in from the side.  
She's still sleeping a lot. 
That meant I had a couple of days without a really comfortable chair that I can sit in for any length of time.  Been restless, taking pain pills, and waiting for Wednesday night when Dagan and Leah's friend Big John was helping Dagan pick up the new recliner. 
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About a half an hour before Dagan and John arrived...I got a phone call that my dearest friend Ruby had died suddenly during the night...from her husband Gust.
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I was stunned.
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Still am.
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I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that she's actually gone.
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It's her birthday today.
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I am SOOOO very, very glad she came to visit and we got to actually see each other again after so many years.  I got to look her in the eye, gaze upon that sweet face, hug her many times, spend days just hanging out gabbing our fool heads off and roaring over episodes of Big Bang Theory.
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I sat here as the darkness and my tears fell...until I heard Dagan and John coming up the hallway...flicked on some lights...and let them in.
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I told Dagan (who has known Ruby since he was about 12) as they unboxed the chair and pieced the two parts together.  John even carried the box to the dumpster for me on his way out.  Such a nice guy!
Leah arrived a little while later and had picked up dinner at Subway.  Naturally we talked over dinner.  Leah lost her dad suddenly when she was in high school and, as you know, she just lost her mom a couple years ago to cancer.  Life is too short and unpredictable to not appreciate every single day you have.  
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Leah went to take apart the laptop table and discovered that it had, quite literally, just plain fallen apart.  Over the years almost every single screw had worked loose...until it had finally fallen to pieces in my lap.     
Leah tightened every single screw from top to bottom...put it back together...and I am comfortably sitting right now in my new baby recliner with my laptop on the rolling table.  This recliner is noticeably smaller than my old one.  I told Ruby that I knew I must look like a muffin top in a muffin tin in this tiny chair--and we had laughed and laughed about my soon-to-arrive baby recliner.  She understood because she was shorter than I am--only 5' 10".  (I just wrote "is" and had to change it.) 
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I had to stop for a while.
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 Ruby and I were soul sisters...champions and cheerleaders for each other...always had each other's backs.  Ruby never made me feel small...never judged...always supported.  She always saw me as better than I was, you know?  Loved me unconditionally, as I did her.  She adored Dagan...and then Leah, too.  We totally "got" each other right off the bat.  Recognized each other's souls.  Ruby could be spouting--"People are just no damn good, I tell you!"--and I could laugh--and get her laughing...because she knew I knew what a huge, generous heart she was protecting behind that sometimes spiky shell.  I knew how she took several forgotten people under her wing and cared for them faithfully until they died...and how it broke her heart to lose them.  Her house always had cats and dogs...usually ones nobody wanted, of course.  She was a regular donor to the humane society.  (Ruby was the one who sent me some money toward the vet bill for Karma.)  Dagan and I met her when we answered an ad for a free kitten...
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  Ruby loved fiercely...with great kindness and patience.  
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I loved that woman so much.
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There is a hole in my heart. 
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"Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep."
Carl Sandburg


Friday, February 15, 2013

Friday-7:30am: Karma's home

Here I wasn't going to be posting this week--LOL!
What an ordeal! 
Karma didn't finally relax to be able to sleep until evening...
...but she's home.
Now we just have to get her well.
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I called in the morning and was really upset to find out that Karma never needed to stay overnight in the first place!  Those pee beads that the vet tech was talking about would not have worked for the culture--not sterile enough.  So Karma went through all that for nothing.  In the morning they had tried to take her out again, but she would stiffen up, become "fractious", and pee as soon as she laid eyes on them. So there was never enough left in her bladder to get a sample.  The girl said they were going to try again in the afternoon.  I told her that was pointless and wanted to talk to the vet.
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When the vet called me back I made it very clear that I was angry with her (keep in mind that I am a Minnesotan so this means I alternated raising my voice to being unable to even speak to her), with the complete breakdown of communication, the misinformation, her leaving me with someone who didn't even know Karma's case, her calling so late that we were already on our way over to pick Karma up, and that I never, ever would have left Karma there for what turns out was no reason at all.  She apologized several times and must have talked to me for 20-30 minutes until I was calmed down and politely conversational again.  
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We will not be able to get a clean sample.  Even if they tried to sedate her and use a catheter--she'd pee herself empty before they could get her on the table.  The "in-house" sample they did get showed that she did have less crystals in her urine than she had before so, because there was some improvement, the vet wanted to try keeping Karma on the same antibiotics for a month to see if that will work.  She is already having side effects from these and the other's are harsher.  She has probiotics to take every day to help with the diarrhea and some muscle relaxer to help with the spasms that make her feel like she has to pee all the time (which is causing her to suddenly squat and dribble in the carpet or the rugs and why she is hanging out a lot in the hallway close to her cat box).  
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It is quite possible that it was just a very bad day for everybody concerned.  You know, one of those days where everything that can go wrong does.  They did not charge me for keeping Karma overnight.  The vet sounded genuinely sorry.  
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At the end of the conversation the vet told me--you did warn us about her, but she was so good the first time and then when you were in the room with her...  
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I could tell it had been kind of a baffling shock...Karma going feral on them.
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Well, it had been a shock to us that Karma had been so very good the first two times.  Especially the second time--LOL!
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Dagan had already said we could pick Karma up over his lunch break, so I texted him.  Then a little while later he texted me that Leah had tried to go to work and he was going to go pick her up and bring her home, so we could go get Karma early.  (Poor Leah was feeling miserable--having trouble sleeping now that the coughing has started.)  We picked Leah up and dropped her off at home and headed for the vet clinic.
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We could hear Karma hissin' and spittin' and growlin' back there as soon as they went to pick her carrier up (which they'd placed open inside a larger cage so she felt safer).  They had given her a butt bath (Thank God!) and she was a damp ball of fury...until she realized I was there.  Then she went stressfully quiet...all the way home. 
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And she was SOOOO happy to be back home!!  
She even rubbed Dagan's leg.  ;)
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Karma's been quite lovey-dovey...but staring at the door a lot...and jumpy at sounds outside and in the hallway.  She seems a good deal calmer this morning.  In fact, she's lying right next to my laptop here on the desk--purring--and using the hard laptop as a pillow, like she does.  I'll be keeping a close eye on her.  Have pages to read from the vet. 
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I think of the boney, fearful but hopeful 3 month old kitten who came to me with parasites, terrible diarrhea, and a great fear of feet and hands (I'm sure she was kicked and beaten) who ate like she had never had enough food (but that could have been the parasites, too).  She trusted me, though.  As much as she could trust people.  She's always has had a fear of being stepped on and she still, at eight years old, has an automatic slight flinch of ears and eyes every time she sees my hand coming toward her to pet her head.  
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Karma immediately forgave me for abandoning her.
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I have (mostly) forgiven the clinic...and myself.  ;)
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This afternoon Dagan is coming back--but to pick me up.  [Karma will see he doesn't always come to get her--LOL!  Although she didn't seem to hold it against him.]  Dagan and I are going to go peek at cheap recliners for a couple hours.  So, I need to take a pain pill and go jump in the shower...but I wanted to let you know that Karma is back home, they never got the sample for the culture, but at least she's back on antibiotics and I hope and pray she'll be well in a month.  :)
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Thanks for every single prayer or kind thought.  You all have been so kind and caring.  Like having our very own angels scattered over this earth.  It means more to me than I can tell you.  :):)  
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I am still out of the cyber loop and not sure when I'll be posting again.  Depends on my back/body mostly.  Sooner than later, I hope.  Bless you!!
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"Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach."
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Thursday-2:45am: Karma's still at the vet's

Obviously I woke up and can't get back to sleep again.  

I'm sitting here praying--"drink-pee, drink-pee".

Nobody called me all day yesterday.  I assumed wrongly that no news was good news.  The appointment was at 5:30pm to pick her up--the roads were terrible--snowing again--ice underneath it all.  We carefully crept our way there.

Honestly, it was all very chaotic and very upsetting.  Both the vets were already gone (they are supposed to be open till 7pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays--mine had a parent-teacher conference).  The vet-tech girl left to deal with me admitted she didn't know anything about Karma (must have been the tech for the other vet) and the receptionist lady also seemed clueless.

They never got a urine sample.

Karma was so upset that she was holding it, but every time they went to take her out of the cage she freaked out and peed on them, and then there wasn't enough left to get a sample the needle and ultra-sound way.  [Peed on them!  She has to be scared witless!!]

They were expecting me to take her home and bring her back in the morning--AGAIN!  Said the vet had called and left me a message, but I had no call on my land line or my cell all day from her.  They were talking about me trying to get her to pee at home in these little balls that absorb the urine so they could get a sample, but I told them she was hardly peeing at all at home because she's not drinking or eating much of anything and when she was straining to go...she was sneaking on to the bathroom rug or right outside the cat box.  I probably wouldn't be able to get a sample that way at home, either.  They already had her confined--might be better luck if she was left quietly alone all night there to pee in the little balls.  

I knew she would totally freak out coming home and having to go back AGAIN in the morning.  And Dagan has to get up super early to have her there by 7am before he goes to work...

Karma needed to have this over with ASAP.

And they had the old antibiotics (for in the meantime before the culture came back) ready and a muscle relaxer to help her with the spasming (feeling she has to pee all the time)...but knew nothing about the probiotics the vet had mentioned for the diarrhea (and she really needs that).

Anyways, it turned out they kept Karma overnight to try to see if she would pee in the alien cat box with the tiny balls.  And then they wouldn't have to do anything further and I can just pick her up today. 

I was hoping she couldn't hear me talking in the lobby.  I was very upset by the way this whole thing was handled.  If she peed out of fear every time they went to take her out how would they think bringing her back in the morning to spend another terrifying day would work any differently?

I get home to find my land line blinking.  The vet had called at 5:16pm on her way out the door!  Our pick up time was 5:30pm!  The roads were horrible.  What was she thinking?!  

Apparently she assumed I wouldn't be coming with to pick up Karma last night because she mentioned my son picking her up.  She was talking about sedating Karma and using a catheter today!  How would that work if Karma's peeing it all out before they can get her to the table to work on her in the first place? 

And calling me 14 minutes before the scheduled pick up time is NOT "keeping in touch with me during the day".  I am not happy with that, either.  The communication ball was dropped all around.

The vet said she'd call me in the morning.  The vet-tech and receptionist at the clinic both said I would be called in the morning to let me know if they got the sample.  Dagan said we could do the pick up over his lunch time today if they got a sample--or after work.

I feel so badly for Karma.  She has to be absolutely terrified to be peeing like that as soon as they go to pick her up.  Terrified!  And when she's scared she hisses and growls and wants to run and hide...but she has no where to hide...no claws...only her teeth for defense.

I feel like Karma has been through enough.  I think if they haven't gotten a sample during the night--leave my Karma alone.  Cover the front of the cage.  (I should have asked if they had done that.)  We could pick her up after Dagan gets off work--give it as long as possible for her to just pee in those little balls. 

Unless the vet-tech is wrong and the sample from the little balls is not "sterile" enough for the culturing in the first place.  ???

Oh!  And they made me pay for another urine sample to tell me she still has a UTI.  ???  Duh!  She has bloody urine!  And if they got some kind of sample to run that test--and if that wasn't sterile enough for the culturing (why didn't they use it for the culture???)--how are those little balls going to be sterile enough?  

Use what you can get.

If Karma doesn't pee in the little balls--well, take an educated guess on a stronger antibiotic, right?  Let's get her on a stronger antibiotic right now if there's no sample to culture.  You're a vet.  Take an educated guess.  We haven't been able to get her back on any antibiotics because it would interfere with the culture.  *sigh*  I can't see putting Karma through any more trauma over this pee sample.  My own doctors have had to take educated guesses on antibiotics for me...and for Dagan, too.  

How has this spun so out of control?  

So I am awake...and praying--"drink--pee, drink--pee".

And if the vet tells me this morning that the little ball sample wouldn't be sterile enough...I think I am going to lose it myself.  Because then the vet-tech should have known that in the first place, not suggested it, and I shouldn't have to pay for unnecessarily keeping her overnight, either, you know?  I don't think I should have had to pay for another UTI test, either.  And if they managed to get that, I want to know why they couldn't have used that for the culture?  Or saved it in case they didn't get anything else, you know?  AWKKK!

See why I can't sleep...

I can hardly wait till Karma is home again...

Drink-pee.  Drink-pee.... 

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Wednesday-3:45am: vet update

Well, Karma finished her antibiotics Friday night, right?  By Sunday night she had diarrhea and on Monday there was the leaking, bloody urine again.  She's been off her food all along and hasn't been drinking much, either.  I figured the antibiotics were upsetting her tummy.  She's been sleeping a lot again.
Last night Dagan came and we went off to the vet for her checkup.  Obviously wasn't going to be good.  
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Karma's lost a pound and didn't have enough urine to even get a sample.  Since the antibiotics she was taking aren't doing the trick, they need a sterile urine sample they can send to the lab to be cultured.  They not only culture the bacteria, they test to see what particular antibiotics will kill it, too.  This will take about three days.  BUT she hasn't been drinking and her bladder was empty.  Therefore, they couldn't even get a sample to send to the lab and we couldn't start her on anything because it would interfere with the sample results.  Rather than have her stay overnight (for her sake and my financial sake) they suggested we could drop her off in the morning and they'd keep her during the day today and get the sample.  They use ultra-sound and a needle right straight through the belly into the bladder--much easier than a catheter--though I doubt Karma will appreciate that kindness much.
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Dagan is going to be here to pick Karma up around 6:45am and drop her off before work.  I woke up at 2:30am and couldn't get back to sleep, so here I am. 
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We will go pick her up after Dagan gets off work tonight.  She will come home with a few days of the old antibiotics while we wait for the results of the culture.  Then she will be put on something stronger (usually more side effects, they said), but we will know it will work.  There didn't appear to be any other obvious underlying health issues and it was actually a good thing her bladder was empty because then we knew it wasn't a blockage of some kind--since she hasn't been peeing much.  Just that she's not drinking...or eating much at all...which isn't good...but better than a blockage.
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So...Karma is still very sick.  Then poor Leah went home sick and miserable from work yesterday (so there will be no crafts or laptop table repair tonight as planned).  Caroline comes this afternoon, too.  
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When Dagan came by last week he used the SpotBot for me.  What a sweetheart!  It's a good thing he left it here.  The mess has returned.  (Not that it ever totally quit.)  And it does sound like things may be worse before they get better with eventually getting the stronger antibiotics with more side effects next week.  Poor Karma. 
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Dagan did figure out how I wrenched my lower back, though...the "cat bathtub wrestling"!!  DUH!!  Of course!  An egregious error in judgment on my part.  Just ask Karma...who licked herself incessantly for hours and hours afterwards...and then barfed all over the apartment gagging up her first ever hairballs.  The indignity of it all.
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My back has been slowly improving.  We'll see how it does when we go back to the pill-fighting again, eh?  But, for now, I guess I am doing better than Karma.
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As for cleaning up after the blizzard...   
...I have never seen them use a plow with such a huge front attachment for our parking lot here.
But there was so much snow that they couldn't pile it anywhere in the parking lot anymore... 
...so they pushed it out into that side road.  I know you can't tell but the back tires on the plow were spinning and sliding around on the ice.   
It would come back with its arms raised high... 
...reminding me of a scorpion for some reason. 
You could see other smaller plows moving the snow out of the road and into the empty field behind the garages. 
The details of the snow removal always takes a few days.  First is getting the roads cleared, of course.  The snowbanks can get so high that it gets hard to see cars coming at the intersections.  Then they have to go around town and remove that corner snow--at least at the main intersections--(we wish it were all of them)--scoop it into dump trucks and haul it out of town.  They have to do the same thing in all the various parking lots when they run out of piling room.  Quite organized.  I bet the plow companies are thrilled to have the work.  Been pretty sparse the last couple winters.  We're supposed to accumulate another 2-3 inches by tomorrow, I guess, but yesterday was gorgeous!  Sunny and warm--in the 30s.  Beautiful day!  Almost felt like spring!
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  Anyways, not sure when I'll be back.  I'm still not good for very much computer time, but I am fitting in a little here and there so that I am catching up with emails and comments, at least.  I've missed you guys!!!
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Thank you for the prayers and well wishes for Miss Karma.  Hopefully doing this culture and getting her on different antibiotics will do the trick.  I hope Leah will feel better soon, too...and that all of you are doing well, also.  
Until then...

How many of you remember Roy & Trigger and Dale & Buttermilk?
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"I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable...but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing."
Agatha Christie

Monday, February 11, 2013

Monday-9am: blizzard

Turns out I am posting today after all.  
I guess I should watch the news once in a while--LOL!
Our "little bit of snow" turned into a blizzard by the afternoon.  I couldn't have taken another video if I wanted to because the entire screen was plastered white with snow and you couldn't see through it, but this was the video I took in the morning...pre-blizzard.
A couple hours later it was a white out blizzard and you couldn't see past the garages.
The 40mph winds helped drift the snow.

The calvary arrived at midnight to at least plow through the central area of the parking lot and the snow blower was going on the sidewalks this morning.
Overnight we now have a snow pile almost to the peak of the garage roofs over there.  Looks like winter all of a sudden, doesn't it.  Most snow we've had in two years, they said.  (We've been having so much less snow than normal.)  Came down so fast, we broke a 60 year old record.
Going to take a while to finish plowing out the parking lot...
...and for people to dig out their cars and shovel out in front of their garages.
I heard we got over 9 inches of snow here, but some places got over a foot.  Still nothing compared to what they recently had out east.  The wind blew hard enough to wipe most of the snow off the garages roofs and the cars.  Yup.  Definitely turned into a right proper blizzard.  Just thought I'd pop in and say hi.  :) :)

Friday, February 08, 2013

Friday-10am

Every Monday and every Friday I think things will improve and I will be able to read blogs and catch up with all my emails...but that hasn't been the case.  
At least Karma is feeling better and acting more like her old self.  :) :) 
But it seems the Universe has been conspiring against my being online the last few weeks.  On Monday my trusty old laptop table made a loud crack and partially fell into my lap!  I have used this table while in my recliner and then on the loveseat this last year after the old recliner finally broke beyond repair. 
It's around ten or twelve years old.  Looks like the glue that held the wood pieces together just dried up and let go.  Also the giant screws came right out and are dangling in the air.  The only thing keeping the top on at all appears to be the tilting mechanism--which froze up and quit working years ago. 
I know you all don't know about all the various props I have to use around here to function more easily, but this is one of them.  A big one.  It quite possible that Dagan and Leah will be able to patch this table back together so that it will work again for me, but until then I have to sit at a table or my desk again to do anything online.  
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No, I can't set the laptop on my lap.  Too painful.  Karma can't even step on me or sit in my lap--even when she was a scrawny little thing.  When she does come up for a cuddle on my chest she moves very carefully to get in position and there has to be a pillow between me and her back end.  She seems to always have known to be careful with me.  :)
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  I am having the worst spell/flare up that I have had in years in my lower back, shoulders, and neck.  This past week I can't sit much more than 15-30 minutes at a time--for online, for writing letters, for art...for anything.  Can't even manage my one hour at a time right now.
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Oh, and then I found out that I can't even print off the zendalas, either--LOL!  Discovered that with this new printer it won't even print "black only" if one of the color cartridges is empty.  *sigh*  Not that I could sit and do a zendala right now anyways--but the Universe is definitely trying to tell me something, you think?  Time to take a step back.  Whether I like it or not. ;)
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I have been slowly--very slowly--making my way through emails.  I am like a week and a half behind responding even on those!  I have not been able to read blogs--still--but I am reading emails--so I greatly appreciate the personal emails!  And every single comment on my blog, too!  Even if it is taking me a while to actually reply, know that your words have reached me and touched me and made me smile. 
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Dagan is stopping after work today to look at the laptop table.  I think I am going to have to fess up and admit that there's no way I can handle running the SpotBot right now and that I actually need help with that.  (They don't read my blog and I haven't let them know what truly bad shape I've been in the past couple weeks.) 
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Now Karma, though...she's doing better and acting more like herself all the time.  Even begging to play with her string toy and to go outside on the porch.  We will be done with pills tonight--whew!  Dagan is bringing us back for her checkup on Tuesday after work.  I probably won't post again until after her vet visit to let you know.  I think I am going to be on hiatus from any kind of regular posting schedule.  (Maybe because I announced that Murphy's Law will kick in and I'll get better, eh? LOL!) 
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Meanwhile--in the past couple months I have watched: Justified-Season 3, Call The Midwife-Series 1, Men Of A Certain Age-Season 2 (cancelled, but I really enjoyed it), Beasts of the Southern Wild, Dexter-Season 6, Shameless-Season 2, Boardwalk Empire-Season 2, Ted (dumb!), Everybody's Fine, Troubled Water, Borgia-Season 1, The Company Men, The Poker House, Bernie, Craigslist Joe, House of Cards-Season 1, and I'm now watching World Without End (the last two are Netflix originals).  Always something good to watch.  Nothing like getting lost in a good movie or series to forget your troubles.  ;)
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My body may not be doing well, but I am doing just fine and am in good spirits.  I did get quite frustrated for a while over not being able to even read blogs or use the SpotBot.  (It's hard to admit you can't function as well as you think you should.)  But when you accept it and quit fighting the facts--life is good again.  At least that is how it is for me.  ;)  So don't worry about me, okay?
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Sorry if this is a choppy post.  Can only type a few minutes at a time.  Thanks everybody!  I'll be back whenever I can--and I promise I'll let you know how Karma's checkup goes.
Bless you!!  

Monday, February 04, 2013

Monday-8:30am

Another morning where you need the lights on inside.  Three degrees and another couple inches of snow expected to fall by tomorrow.  We've been having a bit of snow every day and it is actually beginning to look like a proper winter out there this year. 
There's even a snowpile between the garages over there--small as it is.  You may remember in past years the snow being piled to the peak of the garage roofs.  But last year and this year have been pretty sparse.  We have certainly been cold enough, but it seems the paths of the snow storms have been missing us up here.  No walled pathway up the front sidewalk I could barely see over for years.
Well, Karma and I are hanging in there.  She's actually doing better than I am right now--LOL!  Actually started asking for her string toy on Saturday, so you know she's feeling better.  :)  Her bottom is cleaner, she's starting to eat her dry food better, and she's definitely perkier than I am.  So happy!
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I discovered that if I use this TV tray (that Karma sits on out on the porch in the summer to spy over the railing) for pills instead of trying to find her wherever she is at pill time, Karma does better with the whole ordeal.  I thought she'd be worse, but for some reason knowing what's coming and that there's a pattern seems to work better for her.  She doesn't run away to hid under the bed as I thought she might.  I announce it's time for her pill, move the tray over next to the craft table to I have a place to set the margarine and pill, and then pick her up and place her on the TV tray.  
She starts to complain before I even get near her, but she doesn't run away.  She still protests and fights me and twists her head and tries to spit the pill out--but there's been three times now I could see that she absolutely could have spit it out but she swallowed it--on purpose!  It's like she knows it's good for her...or, more likely, that it's just inevitable.  ;)
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The chaotic mess here had really gotten on my last nerve so that I really overdid it last Wednesday with the cleaning--but I didn't care.  Even if it set off a bad fibro flare and even if I haven't been able to use the SpotBot yet, it is still so much cleaner around here that it is not driving me bonkers anymore.  :)
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I am still sore as hell and have been basically offline, but this weekend I have started to sleep at night pretty decently--without pain pills--tada!  So I know this is gradually going to be a better body week.  I'm done guessing when this flare will subside, but I do know I am feeling better today than I was on Friday.  :)
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My body may be in a foul mood, but my heart and mind are doing just fine.  Much better, actually, than before Wednesday--LOL!  Karma's better.  Groceries arrived.  I placed an Amazon order and have holders for my new Kindle coming, foods for Karma, and some goodies to play with (as promised).  ;)  And I even had enough left over to finally use my gift certificates from Goulet Pens (Christmas gift and my prize money) to actually order three pens and a squeeze bulb for cleaning.  This was only possible thanks to you three angels!! 
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I am especially excited for the variety packs of canned foods I ordered for Karma.  She's been totally off her canned food since she got sick (walks away most days) and the vet wants her to eat more canned and she's eating way less.  My fault.  She's had constant variety her entire life until I bought that case a couple months ago.  I think eating the same exact canned food...well, she's bored to death...because I got her a little can of Fancy feast salmon with the grocery order and she gobbled her tablespoon right up this morning.  Karma will have lots of variety for the next few months!  :):) 
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Funny that she prefers the one dry food (Felidae) over all the rest, though.  But she still wants that choice of something else in her pantry bowl...and that dry food changes.  ;)
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Karma will be eight years old tomorrow.  I've never had a cat with me that has lived this long.  Back in my younger days when I used to think cats needed to run free outside--some disappeared, several were run over, and a few caught diseases from eating wild things or being around other cats.  I have moved and had to find new homes for several.  Some died in my arms at home or at the vets...but I have never had a cat die of old age.  Miss Karma will be eight years old tomorrow.  :):):)  I pray she will live to be at least 20! 
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OMGosh!  As I wrote that the sun burst forth!  Shone bright as day for a minute or so...before the clouds covered it away again.  Maybe we will see some sunshine for a while this February morning?  Nice!
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That's it.  I am spent.  Happy, but spent.  Thanks to those of you who still come by to visit.  I hope to return the favor soon.  Karma says hi, too!  Have a fabulous week.  :)
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"He who hopes fares better than he who wishes, and he who wishes fares better than he who despairs."
Moroccan Saying 

Friday, February 01, 2013

Friday-7:45am

It's 22 below this morning.
Caught this beautiful sunrise. 
Since Karma and I have been doing so poorly I thought I'd show you who actually is thriving around here--LOL!  Happy happy fish who are loving the jungle of dense plants.  There are still snails, but the population has dropped considerably.  The ones who are still alive--happy happy snails.
We finally got more than just a dusting of snow.   
 It was early in the week but I can't remember when.  
The butt-cleaning, pill-shoving, hobbling days have kind of blended together--LOL!   
Karma made it up to sit and watch the CatTV Snow Removal Show.
Which included the sudden occasional topping of hard freezing rain that Karma heard hitting the air conditioner.
This is what the people are still dealing with this morning.  Kind of a lumpy mess...and, as you can see, there are people who haven't moved their cars all week.
The only thing I did all week on a better day was to play briefly at the art table.  I had the tail end of these Radiant Rain bottles (so old that it was back in the days when Luminarte sold Radiant Rain in bottles with empty misters so you could mix your own desired strength) that had been sitting upside-down on the table to get to the last bits--so I grabbed my little green art journal and just dumped all over a page spread.  What a mess!  It's the smaller one with yellower-looking pages sitting open on top of the left side of the bigger journal.  See--feeling too crummy to even get decent pictures. 
Anyways, it ran all over and around the edges of pages I had worked on and ones I hadn't.  All over my hands and the top I was wearing, too.  Bleh!  Luckily my "art journals" are all just places for me to experiment and practice and play, so no big deal.  But I should probably wait until I am in better form before I do these things--LOL!
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I also wanted to go through the caulking supply because when I cleaned and organized I thought some of the tubes had hardened.  I spent an afternoon messing with caulking tubes.  Apparently, even unopened they can dry up over time.  Those two small mason jars you see on the right front side of the art table--supposed to be a brilliant white and a clear.
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It took me a long time to squeeze out the thickened up "clear" caulking into that front jar.  I had to cut the entire nozzle off the tube, too.  It sure looked white to me.  Hummm?
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So I smeared some brown and yellow acrylic paint on a page in a Visual Journal... 
...and then slapped a bit of the "clear" caulking on with stencils and a palette knife.  Still looks just like this days later.  White.
So, either the tube was mismarked at the factory or something happens to clear caulking when it gets a few years old.  Strange, huh? 
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Wednesday was a rough day.  Caroline was coming to clean (she just lost her dad).  I decided it was about time I washed clothes...and then all the towels I have on all the chairs (to protect them from Karma's dirty be-hind)...and the rugs...and, while I was at it, I did morning battle with Karma in the bathtub for a good butt-bath.
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The butt-bath did not go over well.  
At all.  
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Karma spent all day licking and rearranging her legs, belly, and tail after the indignity of being expected to stand in water in the first place, let alone endure having her bottom soaped up.  She went from shock to spitting screaming fury.  It was exhausting for both of us.
Caroline came to the extra mess.  
Vacuumed really well.  
Shook rugs for me so I could wash them.  
I felt badly that after all she's been through recently that she had to come to extra mess over here.  She's a sweetheart.
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  Not too long after Caroline left Karma started gagging and upchucking!  She has so seldom ever thrown up--and then only once or twice and she was done--that I wasn't expecting her to walk-stop-gag & puke almost a dozen times all over the apartment.  *sigh*   She's never had a hairball, but I think that's what it may have been--from all her crazy licking all morning long.  (You can see one of the many spots on the carpeting right above her ear.)  Karma had a terrible day.
Dagan and Leah were already making a quick stop to drop off the SpotBot that evening.  So that little machine is here...
...but between the nearly immovable caulking, all the washing, and fighting with Karma in the bathtub I have been in too much pain yet to start the spot cleaning.  Maybe today...or tomorrow...but soon.  :)
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Still--basically offline.
(Miss reading blogs and feel a little cut off from the world.)  
Still--trouble sleeping due to pain.
BUT--Karma is gradually acting more like herself and getting better.  TaDa!  Which means it's becoming an olympic sport to get a pill down her throat--LOL!  That's a very good thing, though.  :) 
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I never knew exactly how much I would miss my death-defying, leg-tangling mornings with this purring, pushing, rubbing, chatty Karma-cat until she just laid watching me from the hallway or didn't even leave her cat bed.  The last two mornings she is trying to kill me in my own kitchen again.  Ahhhh!  ;)
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I miss you guys!  Means so much to me that you still stop by and comment even when I can't get around to visit you all.  And I so appreciate the personal emails!  I even had a couple people help Karma and I out this month (they wish to remain anonymous, bless them).  One specifically so that I would have money to buy a few goodies at Amazon to play with this month!  And the other donated toward Karma's vet bill!  Don't worry--you shall both remain anonymous.  But when people do things that make your heart swell up and leak right out your eyes--well, you have to testify, you know?  I don't feel deserving of such kindness and generosity...but it brings me such core-level joy and fills me with wonder and gratitude...
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How can anyone doubt there is pure goodness in this world! 
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Bless you all!  :)
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"All beauty of this world is wet with the dew of tears."
Theodor Haecker