Over Medicated

Last week we went to the vet.

This was a special trip because I was taking not one, but two of the pets in. Puck - to get his T4 levels checked, and Gunther, because his hips have really been hurting him, he has a cut on his hind leg I wanted looked at, and to top it off we discovered that he'd been peeing in the basement. For some time. And while I took care of the issue by keeping the door to the basement closed at all times, I couldn't help but think there might be, you know, something wrong with the actual DOG.

I placed Puck in the carrier, but not before putting Gunther on the leash. This is because, as soon as Gunther saw the leash, Gunther started barking and moving his body around in that overly excited way.

Halfway to the vet I detected movement at my elbow. I thought it was Gunther, suddenly curious about what was in front of us. This would be strange because he's usually very good about staying down while we're in  motion.

Puck, however, is not. Especially when he somehow gets out of his carrier mid-ride. He stood there next to my elbow, meowing pathetically while I articulated threats of what I would do to him if he even tried jumping down by my feet, the ones involved with the gas and the brake pedals.

After the vet, I was left with a multitude of small blue medicine bottles.

As you might already know, Puck gets a shot of insulin 2 times a day. He also gets a methimazole pill twice a day.

And now Gunther has been handed a number of medications as well. He takes one pill twice a day, one half of another once a day, and has a salve he's supposed to apply to his cut twice a day. The pills are for his hip pain and an anitibiotic for a possible bladder infection. He'll take those if you put them in his food. The salve, however, he's not so thrilled about. I have to distract him with his food and step behind him, and then quickly put a drop on the cut while he's looking the other way. Even then he growls and tries to nip at me - he's afraid I'll hurt him. To keep this from happening I put the cone on him, so he's focused on trying to eat his food with this cone thing on. But it's very stressful for him.

And for me. I know what's happening, but I can't keep up with all these medications. It's not sustainable. Not physically, emotionally, or financially. The vet told me she thought Gunther might have cushing's disease, and I freaked out in my head a little before she told me they didn't usually treat it in dogs because it was so expensive and not fatal.

All I know if that the pets are getting to be A LOT.

And now, here's a reward for sticking with me. This link to the Alot.

Basket Case

Problems with Pets

We have three pets. Gunther, the dog, Frank, the cat, and Puck, the diabetic cat.

Taking care of multiple pets takes some getting used to. They each have their own needs, and they each have their own habits.

We learned, for example, that we couldn't feed the cats on the floor, because GUnther would quickly stick his nose in and in three seconds the only thing left in the cat dishes would be a thin layer of dog spit.

So we adapted and started feeding the cats on the counter, a place they otherwise were not allowed.

This worked for two or three days. And then Gunther learned that, if we weren't looking, he could place his front paws on the counter and reach the bowls with his tongue.

After many months of yelling, bowls falling to the floor, and a few skipped meals for the cats, the vet told us Puck had a thyroid issue and needed medication. It was important that he get regular meals.

So I placed a baby gate to the pet hallway, moved the dog's food and the water bowl to the outside of the baby gate, and fed the cats on the inside of the "pet hallway." The "pat hallway" also happens to be where the coffee maker is, and this means that, in the morning, there was some hopping over baby gates involved, not to mention that when it was Andy's turn to feed the pets, he had to climb over one baby gate and then reach over a second - the one I had placed in front of the closet to keep Gunther or the cats from knocking the bin of food over. The gate comes up to Andy's armpits, so it means a lot more to him.

On top of the baby gates, I was giving puck pills twice a day.

And then... and then and then and THEEEENNNNN.... the vet told us Puck was diabetic. And now needed special food, special WET food, and also had to have injections.

So... the wet food meant that Frank got jealous and would try to eat Puck's food. And Puck, naturally, preferred Franks food. Again, I tried making them just get used to it, but they are cats. So after weeks of loudly yelling at Frank "THIS IS YOUR BOWL!" I finally broke. I started placing Puck's dish of food in the bathroom, far away from Frank.

But then Gunther the dog had new access to Puck's food.

So I had to shut the door.

By the way, I should note that Steve had long ago stopped trying to keep up with this whole thing. He now refers tot he downstairs bathroom as "Puck's private dining area" as though Puck were the one at fault. I tried pointing out that it's the other two pets that eat his food, but it does no good.

So now, twice a day, I place Franks food in the pet hallway as I give puck his pill, Gunther gets fed by one of the boys (it's easier, just a scoop of dry) on the outside of the baby gate, and the Puck's food gets placed inside the bathroom, with the door closed. As soon as he is finished, I give him an injection of insulin.

Except this is a busy place, and sometimes, just sometimes, things get forgotten.

The other night I forgot about Puck. Not only did he not get his injection, he was shut in the bathroom all night long. When I came down the net morning, he had turned over the trash bin and peed all over it. I mean, he had to pee somewhere, but really? Soggy cat-pee dryer lint was stuck all over the bathroom floor.

Also, he wasn't very excited about breakfast.

Finding Comfort

This is the bin I put all of our mail and bills in, until I get the chance to pay them or file them away. It eliminates clutter.  Apparently, it's also a really good place to nap.

Be It Ever So Humble

No matter how great the trip is, it's always good to be home.

Never Say Never

My friend Miranda recently had to put her cat down.

It was a very difficult decision for her, I know, and an emotional one for me also. Miranda got her kitty the same day I got Puck, from the same pet store, and for the first year we raised them together, in the same third floor apartment.

But her kitty had many many health issues. I'm not sure what they all were, but there was always something. The cat had problems with his kidney disease and his thyroid. I remembered thinking about how much Miranda was doing for her cat, the time and the expense, and I told myself I would never be able to do anything like that. I mean, who gives their cats injections? You'd have to be a little crazy. It's a cat.

Ahem.

So, recently Puck has started acting like a lunatic. I'm not sure when it started, exactly, but one day Steve commented on how Puck was always on the counter, always knocking things to the floor, always underfoot or sticking his head into used dishes. Puck has never been a very agressive cat, and even though he would do all of these things on occasion, he was now doing them ALL THE TIME, and not even trying to be sneaky about it anymore. When I was cooking I couldn't measure yogurt or milk out ahead of time. I couldn't place butter on the counter. I couldn't put the meat out and then rush to the bathroom while the pan heated. Puck would be there when I turned around, nibbling or licking or sniffing as if he was just about to. When I shooed him away, he didn't run out of the room, he'd scamper around under my feet, trying to kill me.

Death by cat.

He was also looking funny. He wasn't the fat puffy thing he used to be. His coat was scraggly. It was uneven because in August I cut clumps of matted fur off and it just never grew back. He started collecting ticks, despite the frontline I administered each month, and the sores he got from scratching around his neck never healed. He had sores on his tail covered by matted fur. His bones were sticking through his skin - something you had to pet him to feel, due to his long fur. He also had permanent pink around his ears from repeatedly sticking his head into empty jars of pasta sauce.

So I took him to the vet.

They ran tests.

I took him back to the vet.

They did some more tests.

And then the vet confirmed it.

Puck is diabetic.

Diabetes in cats is treated with insulin injections twice a day. Very very tiny amounts on insulin. Administered with a very very shard needle. By me. And you have to be careful, because if you don't give enough, then the job isn't getting done and the cat will keep getting sick and eventually die. But if you give too much the cat will go into insulin shock, he'll DIE. The vet actually told me what to do if the cat seems drunk - Karo syrup. If he's unconscious, I get to rub it on his gums.

Aside from the injections, Puck is still on thyroid meds. He also gets a new diet of perscription (expensive) cat food. The vet recommends wet food. Which smells. Frank loves the wet food. Unfortunately, the food isn't for him. I'm probably going to have to start him on wet food, too, just to even things out.

All in all, this is presently causing a lot of upheaval. I'm putting a lot of energy into caring for my pets right now. More than I want to. And I know things will get easier, and this may even become second nature, but still. Ugh.

I know I rolled my eyes when people would talk about doing these things for their pets. I still do, even though I'm one of them (the people, not the pets). It's just crazy to do these things, to take these measures, to spend this much time and effort and money and stress on a pet! It's just... better than the alternative. Right? My Lord, we must all be insane.

One Step Forward...

We've needed a new deck for so long.

But it really was just one item on a very long To Do list. Still on that list is: fix that hole in the wall in the front hall, attach doorstop so the door knob will not re-create the hole. Fix the random hole in the drywall in the pantry. Scrape off peeling wall paper in master bathroom. Paint master bathroom.

Some things you learn to live with, like small holes in the drywall behind doors or peeling walpaper in rooms no one ever sees but you. Some things you find you can not live with, like holes in the steps to your deck.

When you finally get around to doing something about it, it's SO GOOD! WHY did we WAIT SO LONG? You ask yourselves. For a moment, just a tiny moment, you let yourself enjoy the new, fixed-up project, without noticing the little things you need to do to really make the new project finished, like fixing the wood floor where the wall used to be, or painting the living room, and the hall, and the kitchen.

It's a good thing you enjoyed that little moment, too. Because in the next 48 hours your garage door will stop working. Both the cabinet door and the vanity drawer in the kids' bathroom will break. The mailman will stop by to remind you about the mailbox and to notify you that mail delivery will be suspended until it's fixed. He had to knock because your doorbell is broken. You can't deal with any of it because you are arranging to take you cat to the vet for the third time so they can confirm that he has diabetes and will need insulin shots twice a day. Also, you forgot to wash the kids karate uniforms, again, and they still have the chocolate milk stains from three weeks ago.

Now you can't even remember what the work you had done WAS, and there's still plaster dust under the wall heater.

Warmer Weather

Spring is pretty rainy. And cool. It always is, but we forget. We remember the warmer weather, the sun, the grass and flowers... Two years ago it was 90 in April, and now we always expect it to be that way. It's the way our brain works. Like if you let a kid watch TV after dinner, he thinks he should always watch TV after dinner. That kind of thing.

Tick Tock

I found a tick on me the other day, which means the pets' flea and tick medication has become a priority again. And the pets are all hiding from me.

She won't find me behind this chair...

Foiled Again

Many mornings I wake up before my alarm.

There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that I've always been a morning person, and at some point in the night I will start waking up and looking at the clock to see how much time I have left to sleep. When I find out I have less than fifteen minutes, I wonder if it's worth my while. After all, I will only get woken up by a rude alarm noise. I hate my alarm's noise. And the alarm had the capability to wake up not just Steve, but the boys.

I try to be as quiet as I can in the morning because I want my kids to stay asleep. They, like me, are light sleepers once the bulk of the night has past, and the slightest noise can awaken them. And then not only will I not be able to run, but I will be awake. And although it may not seem like it, that's where the heart of me longs to be at 5:10 am.

So I quietly pull on my leggings and my sports bra, I carry my sneakers and walk in my socks, and I slip out the bedroom door...

And then my children mess the whole thing up.

No, not THOSE children. The OTHER ones. The furry ones. My pets.

See, no matter how many times I've done this, the pets equate any adult with open eyes with getting fed. As soon as I leave the bedroom, Franks starts meowing loudly and pitifully. "Meow! Eeeeeeeyow!" he says, weaving in and around my feet. Gunther also thinks the day has officially begun. He doesn't say anything, but his nails click click click on the wood floor and the stairs. And he leads the way down, ke-THUMP ke-THUMP keTHUMP you would think we had an elephant instead of a lab-chow mix. Puck is usually much better behaved. Unfortunately, don't think it has to do with manners but with laziness and his failure to pick up on the fact that I am awake.

The pets are always surprised, and a little offended, when I ignore their bowls and a furry nose on the door to head downstairs to the basement. They sometimes try to follow. I swear, even though I close the door behind me, Frank has been able o open it half the time.

Anyway, before I wake up the house is still and silent. But moments after I get up the place is a whirlwind of pet activity. No wonder the boys are getting up before 6!

Feed Me

Puck is always ready for supper.

Cracking Me Up

I love this picture of Puck. It has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of this post.

Nicholas has be stifling laughter through most of the day. Being two, I kind of share his bi-polar-ness and go from that to a screaming banchee (Get Off The Wall! Put Down The Knife! We Do Not Drink Drain Cleaner! Why Did You Stick My Wax Strips On The Dog!?!). But Nicholas is learning quite a few things. He is learning about the world, and he is also learning the art of conversation. And he has no idea what is an appropriate thing to say.

As a result, he often claps for me when I pee in the potty and tells me I did a good job and he'll get me a marshmallow.

One day he helped me save Nate from a particularly dangerous climb up a chair. "Nate Crack his head open!" Nick said. "Yes," I agreed. "Nate would crack his head open. He could hurt himself very badly. That's why we don't stand on chairs. So we don't have to go to the hospital."
There was a pause, and then Nick looked up at me with very serious eyes.
"And we have to get a new brother."

Too Much Information About Puck

Yesterday I got off track from my to do list. I blamed it on the fact that I had learned that my Aunt Frances had taken a fall earlier in the week and was in the hospital with a broken rib. She'll be fine, but still, it's not good news.

It was afternoon, and despite the fact that the boys woke up from naps early, I was behind. I put the laundry through the dryer for the second time. I made marshmallow brownies with the boys, and then I realized I should start the pot-roast for dinner. And then I realized that it didn't matter that I had moved it from the freezer to the fridge 48 hours previously, it was still a block of solid ice. But I put it in a pot, anyway. I was cooking away, juggling the boys, the clock ticking and ticking the afternoon away...


One of the items on my to do list was to brush the pets, so I started in on Puck, who is the easiest because he usually just stays there giving you mean looks but not moving... and then I lifted his tail and saw A Massive Tangle Of Bloody Fur. Puck was just sitting there, not meowing or acting like he was in pain, but then I remembered how it took him three tries to get on the counter to his food that morning, and I had chalked it up to his getting fatter - he IS over 17 pounds. But then again... I couldn't tell where the blood was coming from. So I called the vet...

The vet was this great lady who took a look at the mess and said she couldn't tell anything, either. So they had to shave poor Puck's bum to expose these really gross wounds... and for a while we still didn't know what we were looking at, so the vet had to poke around in there and the poor cat was not having a good time... it turned out Puck had an Infected Anal Sac, and I hadn't noticed. And it ruptured. Through his skin. In several places. Leaving gaping bloody wounds. Lovely, huh? AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU'RE READING THIS?



Anyway, the kind vet cleaned it all out and said Puck was behaving like a champ and gave us antibiotics to be administered twice a day, and instructions to bath the area with a warm washcloth twice a day, then we paid our $100 and went home, where Steve had taken over the kids and the roast and m mysterious goopy marshmallow brownies.

My Aunt Frances should be fine, by the way. She might even get to come home today. For those of you that know her and love her and might want to give her a call. And For those of you that know and love Puck, he's fine, too. He's not running around - I put his food on the floor for a while. If the infection isn't cleanred up in a week he'll have to have surgery. But I'm thinking he'll be fine.