It started off auspiciously. (First time I've ever used that word!)
Woke up a little before six, came back to the office, booted up the PC, went to the kitchen, got my BP meds and my morning omeprazole (only thing that works for my stomach acid), came back to the office and sat down. Checked my email.
A woot-off you say? I logged in to wootstalker.com, headed over to woot, signed in there and at that point, a popup popped up alerting me to a Bag of Crap. Clicked on that (it automatically took me there) but I was put in the waiting room, so I went to woot directly and scored a bag. Great start to the day, right?
I'm in the process of consolidating the data on six external hard drives onto one huge external hard drive (seven terabyte!). And I will store the old drives someplace safe. I was down to one hard drive and it had the most data to be transferred. I kept starting over with it, which just made it take longer. It started to get frustrating. I finally just started copying one directory at a time. All of these hard drives were essentially backup drives. Duplicate backups. I don't know exactly how many C drive backups I have, or music backups or photo backups, but it's a lot. And it takes time. Even though the last one is USB 3.0, it's taking a long time. I had to leave it running overnight to finish what I started early yesterday. And now, it's copying the last directory of the last hard drive, so this will be finished today. And I have more room on my shelf. But it should have been completed yesterday.
And then there's the cats. My last entry was about Sagwa not doing so well. Last weekend, Lorelei came down with a cold, she was congested pretty badly. I gave her doxycycline pill form on Saturday, she puked it up. I gave her liquid doxy on Sunday, she puked it up. She's not eating. Probably because she can't smell. But that's not the major thing.
The major thing is when she's feeling good, she can eat and eat and eat. It's like a bottomless pit. And she screams at you whenever she thinks you have food. I'm serious, she has a problem.
And she's skinny as a rail. That's the concerning part. For as much as she consumes, she hasn't put on any weight. This has bothered us for a while, and Monday, I made an appointment for both her and Sagwa. My gut feeling is she's hyperthyroid. It was yesterday at 4:15.
So, life is moving along and I notice Rocky is all hunched over. He's not happy, he doesn't feel well. I was able to feel his lower abdomen, did a little squeeze of it and it distressed him. I called the vet, "can I bring in another cat? He either has a bladder infection or he's constipated". Yeah, sure, bring him in. I told Brian and he's like "how are we going to get three cats in?" since I have a hard time just walking. We'll figure it out.
Meanwhile, I'm still trying to get cats to eat. I had at least five different types of food out at one time (the well cats are loving this). Monday evening, I discovered that Lorelei will eat treats. So, I wrap a doxy pill in a pill pocket. Nope.
I get some Temptations treats. Yeah, I'll eat those. I got more Temptations treats and added the pill pocket to the little pile. She ate it all. Okay, now I know how to get her to take a pill. At the point we get to the vet, she's had two. Monday night, Tuesday morning.
The ride over was noisy. Lots of crying from the backseat. Luckily they took us right in. Sagwa and Lorelei were both taken back (in carriers) for the blood draw. Then we were taken back to an examining room where a tech took weights and wrote down why we had the cats there.
Long story short, the vet felt a hard stool in Rocky's bowels. He's on Miralax twice a day. One eighth of a teaspoon. Okay, we all know Rocky will not be medicated. This will be fun. I think I've come up with a way to get this into him. Mix the Miralax with Nutrical and smear it on his paw. (Please, no advice on what to do, we've tried everything with his crypto meds for over a year at a cost of hundreds of dollars of wasted medicine, ripped up hands and arms and a cat who's afraid to be around us, runs when he sees us; I won't respond to this advice as nothing works.)
Sagwa has actually gained a few ounces and his thyroid values were perfect. And we are to give him fluids every other day since it helps him stay hydrated. He's just getting old.
Lorelei has bacteria in her ears, which the vet found when Brian mentioned how hot her ears were. The vet noticed how dirty her ears were, took swabs from each ear and tested them, found bacteria, so, we're to give her ear drops twice a day for a week (why is it always the most difficult cats?). She got both ears cleaned out (I asked the tech if she liked it and his short answer was "no"). She's to stay on the doxy for eight more days. She's supposed to get fluids. And meds for her hyperthyroidism. Her values were pretty high. She gets a different dose than Sagwa, less, so hers is liquid.
So, three cats, a case of A/D, Vectra for fleas (the Revolution we got didn't work very well; Vectra is for dogs, but the version we got works for cats as well, so don't go buying dog Vectra to use on your cats unless discussing it with your vet first), two bags of lactated ringers, a box of 20 gauge needles, refill med for Sagwa, meds for Lorelei for just about $450.00.
Lorelei in the corner - she didn't want to stay in a carrierAnd there's no update on a surgery date for moi.
I found a message last Wednesday on my cell that the scheduler had called, please call back. I called for over a week and never got an answer, the call always went to a voicemail message. So, I figure they only call when they have an opening. And I missed the first one. I figured out how to forward calls from the cell to my landline, just for when we're home so I won't miss the next one.
But I'm getting things ready, keeping on top of paperwork, getting those cats to the vet, cleaning up really pissy areas of the house. Brian already has his hands full and if I can do things to make it easier, I will do it.