Saturday, March 29, 2003 Well, it hasn’t been the best of weeks. Nothing really bad, just some scares and some bonehead moves on my part. And I’ve had the saddam of headaches for over a day.
Okay, let’s see how far back I can remember anything. Ah, yes, Wednesday. Wednesday night. Oliver wasn’t putting any weight on his cast. Now, this didn’t reassure me that he was getting better. And after the doctor had brought up all the possibilities last week, my imagination ran wild. The worst being ‘there may be an infection’. Now, Bobby lost his leg because of an infection. This was the scariest thing to me. What if Oliver had an infection? He seems awfully warm when I touch his ears. What if he does? I point out the limping to Brian. I guess I did it more than once because he said, irritatedly “I see, I see”. So, when I woke up Thursday morning and he was still limping, I decided I’d try my hand at removing the cast. After all, Becky suggested removing it the Monday after it had been put on. I started cutting it off around eight Thursday morning. I’d cut a little and then unwrap. Cut more, unwrap some more. I was being very gentle. It probably took me a total of ten minutes because I didn’t want to hurt Oliver. He did scratch me at one point, but it wasn’t too bad. I got all of the gauze and packing off. I cut the white surgical tape at the bottom of his paw and let him get that off. No way was I going to pull it from his fur. And he did a good job. He spent the next few hours cleaning that leg and that paw. But he put no weight on it, whatsoever. What had I done?
I called the vet and Elena asked why I’d taken it off? I don’t know, I couldn’t explain it, but at the time, I felt he’d be better off with the cast off than on. She said that I should bring him down and have it redone. I called Becky at home, Thursday’s are her day off, but there was no answer, that’s why I called the vet’s office. I gave Ollie a torbutrol and he slept. Then I put him in the carrier and took him down. Becky was there. One of the techs just got married and is taking time off, so Becky was filling in. She told me to not worry about it, just take him home without having anything done. That he’d most likely start to put weight on it when the muscles got more used to working. That I could bring him down Monday and just drop him off when the real (well, I know the temp is real, but he’s not MY doctor, yanno?) doctor was back at work. Give him some torbutrol to help with the pain. Anyway, the good news is he has started to walk on it again, better than when I originally brought him in.
He does like the catcam chair, I’ve found him in there at night after all has been shut down. Poor Lisa has had her throne usurped. But, as many of the camera watchers can attest, she’s still on stage. She’s just moved to the office camera.
What else, oh, yes. Annie started peeing clots again, so she’s back on amitriptyline. And Lucky was also showing discomfort while urinating. Some times it just doesn’t seem to stop. Then, this morning before I got up, we heard a cat pooping. You know that explosive sound when it’s gassy diarrhea. I told Brian “I hope whoever it is is in a litterbox”. Well, he was. It was Sammy, but his butt was hanging over the edge. So, I still have a mess to clean up. I’ve got so very much housecleaning to do today, but this daggumed headache is coming back. I hate it. My sinuses are packed. I know the Claritin says once every twelve hours, but I can’t handle this.
I would have done the cleaning yesterday but I stupidly tried to add a counter to one of my bulletin boards and really messed it up. It wouldn’t work at all. It took me all day to get it to work (thankfully Melanie had set up a test forum which I hadn’t messed with, so I had some working code to use) and my headache got worse as the day progressed. She helped me out last night by fixing the code so that the multi page would have the same appearance as the single page code. Now, if I decide to pull some other similar bonehead stunt in the future, I’ll have to remember to download, into seperate file, the working code, that I’ll leave untouched, just in case I screw things up again. Honestly, it took me from eight yesterday morning until after four yesterday afternoon to have it working again. What a waste of a day.
Oh, I finally started doing the final straightening up of the exercise room. There were still some remnants of things and bags pulled from the bedroom closet lying around. I shoved them into the closet in the exercise room. If anyone were to open that door, they’d best duck. I vacuumed up all the cat food I’d dropped in the mornings putting it on the plate for the cats. And I put away some of the CDs that are stacked on one of the tables. I’ve got a few more to do, then that’s done. But now, I’m ready for the orders to come rolling in. Heh. Oh, yeah, and I can use the exercise equipment in there again. Took some of the stuff that’s been in there for close to a year back to the shop. It’s for the remodel, no reason to have it in the house until we’re ready to put it up. Unfortunately Richie ran into the shop when I opened the door to go in. I didn’t see him in there and he spent close to six hours in there. I heard him crying after the sun went down and I was walking the yard. Poor kid.
Last night, I bought some Claritin when we went to CostCo. Got the “redi tabs” the ones that dissolve and you don’t need water. I took one when we left the store and then we went to Del Taco for dinner. Don’t get the macho burritos. Don’t do it. If you do it, don’t finish them. I had one, wasn’t really impressed, I like the classic chicken burrito much better. Anyway, I just had to finish it. And I paid for it last night. I was really sick. And the stupid headache didn’t go away like I thought it would. I ended up taking three excedrin. And because I couldn’t lay flat, I slept on the sofa, propped up on the arm with a pillow under my neck and back. I woke up around twelve thirty and went to bed. I slept pretty good, I think. I was awake shortly before five (that’s when I heard the pooping). I got up at five and fed the cats and let the ones out that wanted out. I went into the garage and took the barrier away from the catdoor (remember, Benny and Opie can open the cat door when it’s set to “in only”). Then I fed the outfronts. Brian was planning on going up to Ranchita today to help his brother do some stuff, so we were going out to breakfast early. He was in bed and asked if I’d bring him one of the Claritins that we’d gotten last night. I went into the family room and popped one out of the blister pack, letting it land on my open hand. I carried it into the bedroom, walking carefully down the dark hallway, because Oliver was walking close to my feet and I didn’t want to step on him. Once in the bedroom, Brian held his hand out and I turned my hand over, dropping the tablet onto his palm. He said “there’s no pill here”. What? Damn. I walk down the hallway looking for it. It’s gone!
Well, since Oliver is under my feet, the first thing I think is “Oliver must have licked it off of his coat!” The computers are up and online. I do a search on Google for the poison control center. I find a toll free number, I call it. “How many cats do you have?” Twenty-four, I answer. “Twenty-four?” Yes. “Are they healthy?” Yes. “Well, it’s really hard to get a cat to throw up. Watch and if there’s going to be a problem, the cat will become lethargic and sleepy within an hour. Take the cat to the veterinarian when that happens.” I thank her, hang up and tell Brian, who is in the shower, that I won’t be going to breakfast. There’s no possible way I’d leave the cats here when something bad might happen. I’ll stay here and watch. I get to thinking about the tablet. I call back the poison control center. “It was a non-drowsy formula, will the cat still get sleepy?” “Yes”, was the answer I got. And watch I do. Poor Oliver. He was in the catcam chair and I’d seem him sleeping. I’d look in on him and say “OLIVER!” He would look up at me. When I’d done that about ten times, he started to look a little irritated when I’d say his name. An hour passed. All cats were acting normal.
Two hours later, all cats are acting like cats do. Nobody is sleeping more than they normally do. Either the pill didn’t work or no cat swallowed it. Hmmm….. I call the poison control center again. (Putting my tax dollars to use.) This time, the man I spoke with told me that the amount of antihistamine in the tablets is very small, that they’ve not even had problems with children taking them. Chances are, we’re not going to have a problem. Well, that made me feel a whole lot better. And thinking about it more, it’s entirely possible that no cat did eat it, but that it fell on the floor and I stepped on it. These pills are very light and I can’t imagine it would make much of an impression should you step on it. Granted, I was barefoot, but I’m sure I wouldn’t have noticed it. I did find a little bit of something on the floor in the family room that smeared when I rubbed lightly with my finger. So, I’m starting to consider, seriously, that the cats are not in danger at this point.
So, I’m off to finish the windows, then maybe watch a movie and just relax.
