lisaviolet's diary

Thursday, December 29, 2005

catstuff
11:38 AM - 12/29/2005

The topic: Well, we’re home from the vet
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The vet did some tests on Annie and said that Annie’s head tilt could be one of three things.

Vestibular problem

Inner ear infection

Brain tumor

He’s going with door number one. *whew*

He checked her ears and found no sign of an infection, her ears look clean. He did some sort of testing on her legs where he held her and put one of her paws on the table and dragged her to see what she did with her paw. He did this on all four paws and all four paws reacted the way they should. And she shows no other signs that would point to a tumor. *bigger whew*

Now, he was concerned with how thin she is and how rapid her heart rate is. He took her blood pressure and it was normal, but her heart rate was not. When you take this information and take into consideration how very laid back and calm she was, he said it would look like she also is hyperthyroid. They took her into the back and took blood for geriatric testing and I should know the results later this afternoon.

He did say that I’d done a good job of supportive care for her vestibular problem. That helped her a lot.

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catstuff
09:30 AM - 12/29/2005

The topic: Annie update
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Well, she’s doing much better this morning. I gave her fluids last night. She ate a little.

I had put a heating pad under her towels, but it was a sucky heating pad that went off after ninety minutes. So, early this morning, a little after three, I switched it out for one that didn’t have an automatic shut off. The auto one worked okay yesterday afternoon, I know the amitriptyline helped with her nap, but I think the heating pad helped, too. So, when I peeked in on her this morning, she didn’t look all that comfortable. I set the heating pad up and placed her on that part of her bed. When I checked at four-thirty, when I opened the doors to let the kitties out, she had moved and was still laying on the heat, so I know she liked it. And this morning, she’s doing better.

She’s actually lapping more water. Before it was like watching a dragonfly lighting on the water in a pond or pool. She’d just graze it with her nose. But this morning, she’d lap. And lap. I’ve seen her do this at least four times since I’ve been up. And she nibbled on a little catnip, too. She’s always liked catnip.

So, I think she’s going to be okay, but we’re still going to the vet’s office this morning. I don’t want a replay of the beginning of this year, where she spent all that time in the hospital.

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otherstuff
09:23 AM - 12/29/2005

The topic: Never one to learn an easy lesson
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I just had to do one last load with the old detergent. I just had to do it. I used a third as much as I’d been using.

And guess what? Yep. The machine quit again. Okay, I give up. I cried “uncle”.

I got the machine door open, unplugged it, dumped some clean, cold water into the drum.

Then I put on socks and shoes, grabbed my car keys and went down the the grocery store where I planned on buying HE detergent. Once inside the store, I got some goat’s milk (I used my last can trying to get Annie to lap, ended up dumping it down the garbage disposal as well as a bunch of partially eaten cans of cat food and jars of baby food), replenished my stock of baby food (always good in a crunch for a sick kitty), some 409 orange spray for Brian, then stopped in front of the detergents.

Hmmm…HE, HE, HE, where are the HE detergents? The guy on the phone said Tide makes some. I go to the powders. The only Tide HE they had was a little box that would do 32 loads. Well, on a good day I can get five or six loads done, multiply that by say two or three days a week and that box wouldn’t last very long (I’m always amazed at how much laundry I have; I don’t know where it comes from - I’ve got four tall trashcans that we use as laundry baskets, one for jeans and sweatpants, one for clothes, one for towels, and one for the wash towels, like for the car and my dustrags).

So, I check out the liquid detergents. I found more Tide HE and the largest one they carry does over fifty loads and it was on sale for $12.99. I picked up two of those and got some new Snuggle fabric softener, this has an “emerald” scent. I checked out of the store, came home and went directly back to the laundry room. I started the drain/spin cycle and when it was done, put in a load of laundry.

No problem. Not one. Machine ran like a dream. I did another load, this time adding some Oxyclean for a prewash cycle (socks and underwear). Once again, not a problem. Smooth as silk. I did two more loads last night and I’m on my second this morning (my God, where does all this laundry come from? there are only two of us here, how on earth do we get this much stuff dirty?).

And I like my machine again. I’m now glad that I did not attack it with a big hammer yesterday.

Sometimes, restraint can be a good thing.

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