The whole valley has been running on too few cylinders since the Supermoon started to form into its giant and bright self, but the end result has been everyone turning in endless circles rather than simply puttering to a stop. The hospital census has been busting at the seams, and with many psychosocially complex cases. I entered work on Monday to find eight evals to complete within four hours. They take an average of one hour per eval when considering all the steps. (Chart review, check with nurse, check with social work, find equipment needed, perform eval, find extra equipment like chair alarms, find and tell nurse updates, find and tell social work discharge plan/needs, ...and then finally document). I had to call in backup and get three covered by other therapists when they had time in the afternoon, and luckily a couple ended up not needing PT.
This morning got off to an odd start from the get-go. Nathan had a work meeting in Colorado Springs all day and decided to wake up early to drive to/from the same day in lieu of staying at a hotel the night before. To be at the meeting at 8 a.m. he had to wake up at 3:30. To his credit, he did so without needing to be punched awake by me. And he even ran the clothes drier an extra time. I got up at my customary 4:20 a.m. and managed a brief and groggy exchange before he left at 4:35. He is only up that early a few times a year for races, but seemed rather alert. I was impressed. If only he'd join me as an early riser more often.
And so at 5:15 I was in the bathroom prepping for my run. Heard scratches from behind the washer/drier, muttered to myself about another mouse. Last time Sadie actually ate the ENTIRE mouse while we were away for the day, only to then come home two days later to a bowel explosion of mouse body parts across the kitchen floor when it finally forced its way through the other end. I didn't want to go through that again. She is not a big cat to be pulling such shenanigans.
The scratching then seemed louder, and not necessarily from the back corner of the room. I glanced over again.
Merus was inside the drier. Door closed. Pawing at the window.
See below.
Apparently when Nathan grabbed whatever he needed after the dry cycle Merus then jumped inside. She was mostly happy to be in a pile of still-warm fresh laundry, but after being in there an hour she wanted to be pet. Because what else would you want as a feline.
At least he didn't re-start the drier. And good thing I found her before leaving for an hour-plus run and then to work.
(And of course I had to take a photo while laughing uncontrollably before letting her out.)
I started work this week. It took some fine tuning and a couple of frustrating days to figure out how to integrate running into my work week. I'm used to full time meaning that therapists are at work for 8 hours total, with a half hour for lunch resulting in 7.5 hours on the clock per day. Here therapists are scheduled 8-5 with a full hour for lunch, so that means getting 8 hours of pay but being at work for 9 hours total. That, plus the 45 minute commute each way... makes for much longer than expected. Its actually less time for the commute (and more consistent) than when I was in grad school either cycling or taking the subway. Just means I have to get up between 4:15 and 4:30 - which, for those of you who don't already know, is okay by me. Were I to try and run after work, I'd be a very unhappy trudge of a sloth with no motivation.
Thankfully my coworkers are great, the facility is informal but professional, and I actually enjoy being at work. The patients are all nice people too. I worried that they'd be nervous or upset by the change in therapist, but they are all good people.
So within this first week of trying out the new schedule I had a handful of other fun occurrences.
Monday morning, orientation day, I awoke to Merus meowing and jumping around in the bathroom by the washer and drier. She never ignores when food is being prepped. I turned the corner, threw on the light, and there she was sitting proudly with a mouse dangling from her mouth. She looked up and meowed without letting go. In my two and a half years with these worms Merus has only watched Sadie with interest as she hunts, never participated. Apparently she was just waiting for the big game.
I flipped into mama mode and worried about her chewing on it and hurting her poor gums (her wet food is always mashed with water into more of a liquid) and grabbed a bucket nearby. She didn't want to let it go, but when she did it scurried under the drier and likely back to whence it came. I wasn't fast enough to throw the bucket over the top like I had hoped. No idea what Merus would have done with it had I not been around. It has not returned since.
Speaking of hunters, Sadie has entertained herself royally by hunting and eating countless flies each day. We seriously do not know where the flies spontaneously come from, but I am getting very good with my fly swatter technique. Merus just jumps and swats at them, enjoying the hunt now that she is a huntress. Sadie probably eats at least a half dozen a day, sometimes three times that much. On Tuesday I arrived home to Sadie sheepishly tucked up behind a chair, a nervous look on her face. Looked across the room and found a puddle of puke. Fluid was all clear, but there were probably two dozen fly bodies and innumerable separated wings all mushed together. Doesn't slow her down from eating more. She does not puke often (this was probably her seventh puke in two and a half years), but she always hits an easily cleanable floor away from any and all objects. Figure that - the Bad Cat is neat when it comes to bodily functions. Like the time she peed in the trash can after I stupidly removed one of their litter boxes.
After two days of wanting to run but being denied by improperly judging my schedule, Wednesday I was bound and determined. Tuesday evening I was so pissed off that I was yelling at the cats "Who cares about these big cats, anyways? And when are they even actually in the area? F*** it, I'm gonna do the loop in the morning with a headlamp and that's how its going to be." A couple hours later I cooled off to some sense of reason and decided to look up info on mountain lions. *Sigh* Okay, cautiousness is good. So I instead did repeats up and down the stretch of our road north of the Rio Grande bridge. It's just about a mile long one way, so I did 3/4 mile intervals with the last 1/4 mile as recovery jog before turning around.
It is incredibly dark all around when there is absolutely no competing light. I could have run easily using just the moonlight, but used my headlamp so I could sweep for glowing eyes. The cattle drives are increasingly bringing the 500 cows and couple hundred yearlings back to lots on/next to the ranch, so the road is flanked by cows the entire stretch behind barbed wire fences. Only a few spots are there trees, otherwise it is basically open. Still, I swept. That first mile I probably looked like I was headbanging sideways (but without hair for effect). Cow eyes are wide set, and they stay stock still and barely blink, curiously eying you yet not moving. A skitter - I stopped to assess, though it was only a raccoon climbing a tree. Those eyes bobble like a baby learning to keep its head up straight while sitting. As the eyes became more of a pattern I swept more slowly, less frequently. In my last mile I was a quarter mile from the bridge when I heard lots of splashing and saw eight pairs of eyes moving fast. I froze. So did the sloshing. Then six of them leaped over the barbed wire fence and continued bounding across the road to the next grass lot. The other two stayed still in the water. Deer. I turned back to give them time to cross and be with their herd. No other trick eyes after that.
This morning I decided one pretend daredevil run per week was enough for now, so I drove into town early to use the hospital's wellness center. I figure that during January and February there will be plenty of opportunity for treadmill time when bad weather hits, so why not go ahead and see if treadmill running was as foul as I remembered. I decided to use it for hill training, since that's what I miss most about mid-week runs are my hill repeats. I dropped the speed to something that seemed logical compared to previous runs and considering the altitude, upped the incline to 12%. Whoa, Nelly! Dropped the speed some more. A little more. Toughed it out for half the time I expected, then dropped the incline to 7%. Kept it a little more reasonable from then on out. I decidedly miss downhill running, though. Especially when I made such an effort to learn how to run downhill to avoid pain back in the days when my knees were cranky. I take pride in that. And I miss it. If only treadmills could handle that (affordably). But at least I got some energy out before the day started.
January was, as always, an iffy month. Fluctuating winter doldrums from missing my Sunday mornings on the trails and waking up to continued darkness each morning. Slacking mental capacities thanks to years of scholastic winter breaks conditioning me to be a meat head for a month. Heavy caseloads at work, where each time I sit to write notes during lunch or at the end of the day I end up staring at the screen for ten minutes while my body's alternator tries to jump start my brain. (Insert co-workers: "Staring at it won't make it come easier." Also, orthopedic and other scheduled surgeries come to a lull depending on time of year and various holidays. Oncology units, on the other hand, never take breaks, especially non-surgical and thus more medically acute patients. And with their fluctuating mental status and needs for assistance x2 people for basic mobility, your days become filled with lots of and lots of squats. When you lay in bed and try to get comfortable - that is when you find out if you had good body mechanics or not.)
Between those moments were, thankfully, plenty of anti-January things.
Getting the ever present kitteh things out of the way, Merus's last visit to the vet that yielded more extractions has been an absolute dream ever since. I pushed for an x-ray, and we finally found the root of the problem (pun not intended). She is now just over 3 weeks post-op, meaning the long acting pain shot has worn off and we are now left with the evidence of whether it worked or not - and it has. She yawns with her mouth wide open instead of stifled half way, she has no qualms over food textures, she and her sister get along as siblings should (snuggling at times and an even distribution of who initiates play fights).
The teeth:
Nathan now calls her Snaggle Tooth.
And at some point this happened:
Sadie has taken to jumping to the tops of doors:
Bad Cat is in bad need of a cat jungle gym, but we're not going to pay for something like that, especially when it would take up half of our measly living room. We've had the fortune of watching her miss a few times. At this point I no longer help her down in hopes that she realizes the predicament she creates. (I am pretending that cats have object permanence and that Sadie actually has a conscience. Highly unlikely, but whatever.)
Moving along, I got a haircut. The only picture I have at this point is from my phone, hence the blur:
The first three episodes of Northern Exposure came through Nathan's store, so he snatched them up. Always nice to have non-cat entertainment in the evenings to make us feel more like normal people and less like crazy cat people.
We've discovered Rummikub thanks to Molly and Brian, who joined us for Christmas Eve dinner and have had us over a few times now for game nights mixed with football nights. Brian is also a Patriots fan, so we're going to play more Rummikub while watching the Superbowl since all our teams and our backup teams are done.
While I've been stuck on the roads for a while on my Sunday runs, the cold temperatures (especially this last week) mean the few others I encounter along the way are out there for similar reasons. It's so nice to exchange genuine smiles and greetings with others in the community. That's part of what makes the Palisades so dear to my heart.
Nathan also came across a slew of cds at work. The most notable has been Tom Lehrer. I didn't know what to make of him at first, but then I learned he taught mathematics and we heard his more nerdy and/or politically sly songs. Here are two nerdy gems that are also re-posted by others on YouTube:
Lastly, we took the opportunity yesterday to go on a winter day hike. A forecast of mixed precipitation meant downgrading from the Catskills to the Hudson Highlands, though we still had a wonderful time. Even with a double slide out. That story, though, will be for another post coming shortly.
That's all Merus could do last night after a visit to the vet for
recurrence of symptoms yielded five more extractions, this time for the
back two mandibular molars on each side and one canine. During the
month off from the vet I was able to increase her weight from 6.8 pounds
up to 7.3 pounds, so she tolerated the surgery well. Dr. P called her
"a strong little kitty."
This time I not so subtly
reminded Dr. P that no one had taken x-rays to look into things further,
because looking in her mouth reveled infections but we always ended up
back at the vet a month later. If you have every seen a human dental
xray of an abscessed tooth, where the white tooth has a dark and hazy
splotch where the roots fit in, this was very similar. Once pulled
apparently there was quite a foul smell, as is wont for infections.
And, she very likely has stomatitis in the gums behind the original,
rear-most tooth bed.
In hindsight, our original vet who
performed June's maxillary extractions had noted an "itty bitty" dot of gum
involvement on one of the mandibular back teeth that would
likely clear up with the antibiotics so she left it alone. Thinking
back, I want to believe that it was simply missed or that it was subtle
enough in the mandibular teeth that its significance was
misinterpreted. But I also wonder if they capped the surgery at those
seven maxillary teeth because they had already surpassed the payment
estimate of "as many as six" teeth. But I'm not going to worry about
that now.
Instead, I'm going to worry about the wobbly legged, operetta chirping, voracious mini monster that comes with newfound pain relief. Last night when we got home she had no use of her legs since the anesthesia was still wearing off. But that did not stop her from trying. This is all she had:
Nathan and I were in absolute stitches for the first few minutes from her little dainty-paw air wafts. Then it became a little sad when she just wouldn't stop. Five minutes later and she'd make it a couple feet farther from somehow righting herself enough to plop over onto her other side but make it forward a smidge. I kept trying to make a soft, welcoming spot on the floor so she wouldn't, say, fall off the bed when we weren't looking. Kitty bed by the radiator, kitty bed tucked under a chair, towels folded up, towels spread out since ten minutes later she kept righting and falling, righting and falling.
Once assured that she was on the ground but away from unstable objects I turned my attention to putting away a few groceries, then turned around to find her fore legs on the lip of the litter box, hind legs frog splayed and wafting away on the floor. So I gave a little hind leg lift, helped her climb inside. Luckily this was the clean litter box since with whole pine chunks, for those who don't know, they always leave one
unused while absolutely destroying the other, and I was worried of
her face planting into and aspirating used
litter. She landed frog splayed again, unsuccessfully tried a few times to change position and got perfectly still. Heard only one tinkle, which means the pee did not have far to fall. Sure enough, thirty seconds later she was calm when picked up and had pee all over her frog splayed parts.
As I clean her off with the washcloth I realize
just how similar this is to working with patients in acute care, be it
medication fog or difficulty with getting to the bathroom physically or
something like dementia with fluctuating incontinence. Pump them full with IV fluids and you've got a mismatched continence challenge. Except this time
I facilitated the continence of my cat. And through all that she
managed to not go anywhere else except the litter box. Attaboy, girl.
This morning she can jump onto the counter and make it a majority of the time after a momentary foreleg mantle. And she is voracious. She even took a lick of my coffee in desperation while I prepared her food as fast as I could. Not a suitable option, in her opinion. Chirping and wagging and giving her sister hell. Nice to have that back.
Merus has been eating like a fiend lately. She is served oversized meals, and yet that doesn't seem enough. She scavenges around the kitchen for about an hour after eating in hopes of finding something. *Sigh*
Last night she decided that the dry food bags on top of the fridge, which have lived there since the cats and I moved in with Nathan, were suddenly fair game:
The bag now has a new home inside a drawer. Not much later I heard metal scraping. Turned around to see, and couldn't grab my camera fast enough:
Now, the kittens are nothing if not competitive. This morning I found the rubber basting brush on the kitchen floor. I left it in the sink after using it to spread olive oil on bread last night. Sadie's rubber fetish struck again:
No evidence of any chewed off ends, no pile of orange dotted puke either. *Sigh*
Merus's gingivitis came back with a fury. The previous vet (Dr. O), who did her extractions in June, was either unable or unwilling to figure out why the screams and food sensitivity and weight loss secondary to not eating were occurring again. So she's seeing a new vet (Dr. P).
The difference is significant.
Instead of limiting the evaluation to a 2 second glimpse in her mouth that sends her screaming off into the corner in pain, Dr. P sedated her to get an actual and thorough look at the entirety of her mouth. Findings: continued raging gingivitis and some ulcer-like lesions on her gums secondary to infection, weight had dropped to 6.8 pounds (she was 9 pounds when first adopted in June 2011, 7.5 pounds after her extractions in June 2012), and significant dehydration (skin tenting! gah!). She got an IV while she was out to rehydrate. Instead of a pain med via oral liquid 2 to 3 times per day (buprenex, which makes her live in an opioid fog, not to mention is time sensitive and thus lapses with pain breakthrough because of being gone at work and/or from her hiding where I couldn't find her - can you tell I wasn't a fan?) on top of an oral antibiotic, we now have a long lasting pain shot performed in office and a once daily oral antibiotic.
I never knew a 30-day lasting pain shot existed. I would have laughed in your face if you had claimed such before this. But it works. Magnificently. It's not meant to be a human convenience. Rather, it makes SO much more sense in terms of maintaining good pain control for an animal. They don't understand the idea of a medication schedule, or the importance of consuming the entire therapeutic dose. Now instead of 4 or 5 oral affronts per day to allow her to eat, Merus has only one antibiotic dosage per day. BIG difference when their mouths are the source of pain and the method of medication administration.
The other difference is Dr. P's office recommended using baby food so that it is super smooth. I'd been mashing wet food to smithereens with water added to try to make it easy to lap up, but with mixed results. Baby food is ridiculously smooth. And our cheap-and-crusty-but-nearby grocery stores carry a few meat in meat gravy purees varieties.
The combination of everything has worked so well, in fact, that it has created a monster. Sadie will start meowing for food within an hour or so of feeding time. Now Merus will meow all day long. Walk by the kitchen area? Mrrrowww. Stand up from the bed (the farthest away you can be in this apartment from the kitchen)? Mrrrowww. Change out laundry loads from the washer? Mrrrowww.
Look up from your computer? Mrrrowww.
Phone rings? Mrrrowww.
Pick up your soup spoon while eating lunch at work 1.2 miles away? Mrrrowww.
Turn over in your sleep? Mrrrowww.
Her meals are ~150 calories per meal since she is underweight. For reference, an 8 lbs cat needs ~115 per meal to maintain weight. And yet no matter the calories or the volume consumed she is friggin' insatiable. The litter box is all kinds of extra stinky these days.
After dinner last night I heard glass clinking while in the bedroom. Investigation found this:
Nathan has pulled her out of the bin not five minutes later. Cute that he thought placing a towel over the top would deter her.
We are just starting the second week of the two-week antibiotic course. We go in for a check up on Monday so see how things have progressed and to decide what the next course should be. My guess is significant interventions will be needed, because while she was sedated at the first visit Dr. P did the blood work necessary prior to surgery. But that will be determined in time.
For now I just have to deal with having two Bad Cats....
With the boards exam completed and in the bag, but work not starting until later this month (possibly early August, tbd), I have ample time to... well... I'm trying to figure that one out. It has become a rather simple life of twiddling my thumbs. I guess I've gotten used to having something to do with all my time.
I'd clean one little area, feel like I have momentum for the whole room, then suddenly wake up at my computer following race updates from the Hardrock 100 in the San Juan Mountains of CO. (Side note: The winner finished in just under 25 hours. Yes, 100 miles with 30,000 feet of cumulative elevation gain and thus 25 hours makes an elite -- elites race at an average 4mph. As I write this, more than half the entrants are still on course and working hard to beat the 48 hour finish cutoff.)
Yesterday I baked some muffins (2 parts whole wheat, 1 part coconut flour, 1 part flax meal). I eat them two at a time.
I also did a true core workout for the first time since January. Couldn't think of an errand that could be used to get in my walk for the day, so walked Nathan down to Columbus Circle, sent him on a train the rest of the way to work, and walked back to our local grocery store.
I pulled a thigh high stack of textbooks off my shelf with the intention of selling them, maybe using Amazon's "trade in" program. I also pulled a knee high stack of notes to recycle. My filing cabinet just found an entire drawer's worth of space.
I want to see Moonrise Kingdom, the latest Wes Anderson movie, but have to strategize for a day when I feel like seeing a movie before 10am, since that is apparently what now qualifies as a matinee in NYC. (Insert muttering.)
I've also had more time to hang with the worms. Merus is showing her goofiness all over the place these days, as evidenced by her cyclic relationship with Nathan's travel bag spanning yesterday and today. In order of occurrence:
Some day, when I am with paycheck and with access, I will have more pictures of lush greenery and blue sky and muddy feet/legs. For now, the worms will have to do. Urban outings just don't look appealing when the air quality haze is practically visible over the miserable city. Don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to September....
I normally don't drink iced coffee unless in something close to a heat wave. We've had a lot of those lately. Nathan's four little ice cube trays have seen more use in the last month than they ever have before. In that time I have found an average of one ice spike per week. It's such a random phenomenon that I get really excited about it. I saw the first ice spike in summer of 2006, perhaps one or two since then. So to have this many popping up in a row is totally awesome. I had another one this morning:
Conversely, in winter I get super excited to show off the ice on my literally frozen ponytail after coming in from a run. Nathan has learned respond to each situation with "That's cool" and a pat on the head. He used to respond with "Okay...?" only to get my wide-eyed-speed-talk "Butit'ssoCOOLit'slikeanEXPLOSIONinyourfreezerbutcontainedtoanICECUBE!"
Nerd. Yes. Proudly so. Don't even need to carry a card because its so evident. Put me in a social situation like a party and I clam up like you wouldn't believe. Give me ice spikes in my freezer and I'm bouncing off the walls in excitement.
I always hopied it was a more ballistic occurrence, where the still-liquid but expanding inner portion of the ice breaks through the frozen surface like a rocket. Turns out its a much calmer process. The surface ice forms from the perimeter towards the center. The inner, still-liquid portion gets forced through a small remaining hole, though slowly. Instead of running down the sides of the ice cube it freezes on the perimeter of the hole and produces a tube. It continues to grow until the tube freezes over.
Apparently this mostly works with distilled water, since usually the particulate present in tap water is enough to sustain the surface shape and disallow the expansion of a tube. But lo! For whatever reason, our tap water and freezer temperature and ice cube tray size is perfect to grow a little stalagmite once a week. Hazzah!
For those of you who are not blatant nerds but do like silly cats, here are the worms as they tolerate the heat:
Merus, whose nickname has recently progressed to Ru Bear. (This is always followed with a ba-dum-dum in my head, as a pun for rubor (latin for redness, used as a descriptor for inflammation. Yes, I am easily entertained.)
Sadie.
For the record, the drawer was pushed back about 4 inches and Merus went in on her own.
On a side note, this is how Nathan usually sleeps. "Why does my neck hurt?" Hmmm...
Merus could teach Olympic divers a thing or two about their tuck.
After Monday's exam (of which my mind has almost wholly erased from memory thanks to directly related post traumatic stress -- don't ask...) I was grateful to have a bus ticket out of town for 7:30 a.m. the next morning.
Hello, Auburn, NY!
My visit was filled with lush green country views, home-picked and homemade wild blackberry pie, a dozen (or possibly more) cats who each have a distinct personality and a variety of indoor/outdoor habits, a giant fruit salad that lasted days (at times with ice cream), reading for fun (!!) and, most importantly, meeting and getting to know the lovely and hilarious May, Nathan's mama. Her dry, sarcastic sense of humor had me in stitches the entire trip.
Her cats also had me in stitches. Like Binky, who has a version of the feline virus that Sadie and Merus have. But instead of eye drainage, Binky has full-on sinus congestion complete with wheezing, massive sneezes in 10+ quick consecutive reps (head tipped back with nose pointing up the entire time), and frequent goobers hanging off his nose and/or chin. He also has incredible comedic timing and is a total goofball. Call his name and he'd stop and stare at you with his mouth slightly open. I wish this video could at least have caught the wheezing...
We ran the Cazenovia July 4th Foot Races, specifically the 10 mile race around Cazenovia lake. The entire event was incredibly well organized, the perfect blend of a relaxed vibe but seriously respecting the parameters of the race. I wish more races were like this one.
I saw two triathlete looking women at the start whose pace I liked. If I kept them in sight throughout the race then I'd be happy with my results. One had trouble breathing in the heat. I managed to stay within 30 seconds of the other woman, who was continually cheered by name by all the spectators as we looped around the lake. What was raucous cheering for her turned into a few pity claps for me. Actually, to be fair, I got a handful of claps and high fives along the way (especially from a few women cheering a fellow woman -- hazzah!), but once we neared the last mile I was able to close the distance. I credit lots of task-specific downhill training. Turn the tables into arm wrestling or a pushup contest -- not to mention a swim or a time trial bike -- and I'd get beat to a pulp.
Anyways, Marybeth was obviously a beloved hometown hero. The locals didn't know what to make out of me. I chatted as I passed, giving her major props for her history of Iron Man races. As I neared the finish I found it odd that very few people were cheering us on. Maybe the leaders were so long ago that everyone is already over it? Just before turning the last corner I heard a guy yell "First woman!" Say WHAAAAT?!? Turns out Marybeth had been lead woman until I passed her. I had absolutely no idea. I hadn't even intended to go for the kill -- I just figured that getting a negative split (second half faster than the first half) would feel satisfying on a day with such heat and sun. Got my name in a local paper and everything. Full results here. Nathan also managed to go sub-8-minute mile without any training... as usual....
Also found out that Marybeth, at 42 years old, is good enough at Iron Man triathlons to qualify for Kona. Meaning, she's good. She is now on my list of personal heros. Like I said, my win was probably more circumstantial luck than anything else. But it does make it feel like more of an actual win, considering who I had to track down and pass.
What really excited me on the way home was that the race was a great excuse to have more pie for lunch. For dinner we made mashed kale and avocado salad to go with May's bbq pork chops, followed by the fruit salad of perfection and ice cream. I was in bed pretty early that night.
The next day Nathan and I toured the home and museum of William Seward, former senator and governor of New York as well as the Lincoln's secretary of state. We walked around the small downtown area and had lunch from Wegmans, the wannabe Whole Foods of local renown. That evening we saw the Auburn Doubledays' (single A short season) demoralize the Lowell Spinners by 10-1. They were super close to getting a no-hitter too. But then in the 8th inning the drunk guy sitting next to Nathan blurted out loud that the Spinners had no hits. Nathan was pissed, saying baseball superstition over something like that is legit enough that you just don't say it out loud. Ever. I shrugged it off. Not even one minute later and the Spinners had their first actual hit of the game. Nathan: "SEE??" Lesson learned, y'all.
A random tree outside of the Doubledays stadium:
My last day was a sweaty easy run in the morning followed by taping up dozens of small window panes in prep for painting. One of May's many volunteer efforts is to help renovate the Kase Mansion, former home of the man who invented the talking movie that is now owned by the neighboring church, into a home for veterans. Her portion is one of the many bedrooms. The bay window looked like stained glass a la newspaper.
Then it was a drive to Syracuse, lunch at a local diner, and the bus ride back to NYC. I was very sad to leave. The only thing that kept me from getting angry at everyone while negotiating Port Authority and the subways home was the thought of my two kittehs eagerly awaiting my arrival. I was welcomed home with meowing that continued for hours after feeding and triple-digit heat. Sad to be back in the city, but grateful for the mental relief of time away.
NYC got up to 98 today. Not as bad as I expected. Changing clothes and showering two to three times as much, but do-able. Especially when you look at what the rest of the country has had the last few days.
This morning when I left for another day fraught with banging my head against various study materials I found Merus tucked inside a litter box. Luckily this was the clean, unused box.
11:30 a.m. 'Sup, human.
Later, after four hours of swearing, flailing arms, growling and head thumping (read: studying) amongst the babies and crazies at Whole Foods, I came home to find her still content within the pine nubbins.
First a quick reminder: Help support Nathan's ride from Boston to NYC as a fundraiser for homeless people with AIDS. Donating is speedy and secure via online here. He's up to 10% of his fundraising goal. Remember, every small donation (even $5 or $10) helps more than you think.
*****
Thursday was a big day for Miss Merus. She finally undergwent
extractions for pronounced gingivitis that was unresponsive to numerous
conservative treatments attempted since January. The only thing that did show promise was
prednisolone, though she cannot tolerate the treatment as it caused a
nasty flare up of her left eye. (She and Sadie have benign feline virus
that is usually benign with minimal symptoms, but when kitteh is
immunocompromised it wreaks utter havoc. In Merus's case an otherwise
minimal eye discharge turned into copious drainage, dark red
sclera/conjunctiva, and swollen shut.)
The last few
weeks of waiting for surgery have been just shy of torcher for poor
Merus, with Buprenex pain killer to get her through. Eating was an
ordeal. She no longer came to food since the visual or sound of the
food bowl was enough to trigger pain by association and send her diving
for cover. It took a minimum of 10 minutes for the whole process of
finding her, minimizing distractions, and tricking her to eat before her
brain figured it out. Probably the only benefit of being in the
post-school pre-job limbo land is ample time for taking care of my
ailing kitteh. Well, that and studying for the licensure exam, but you
know what I mean.
The extraction estimate included 4-6 maxillary (upper) molars.
When they called with an update as she started to recover from surgery, I
was not surprised at all to hear that they actually pulled seven
teeth. The gingivitis was nasty and warranted removal of all six
aforementioned molars, three on each side, though those teeth were themselves in okay shape, considering.
The seventh tooth was the rear mandibular (lower) molar on the left. It
had a major cavity that nearly went all the way through. Neither the vet nor I had seen any evidence of it because Merus never let us get an actual good look into her mouth. Likely the reason why pain meds had such a limited effect the week leading up to surgery.
Now that the teeth are out she is like a whole new cat. Some discomfort, some loopiness induced by continued pain meds, but she actually seeks out food voluntarily and is amazingly more social. Giving her the pain meds is much less of a process. It seems the pain of recovery is less than the pain of her gum/tooth disease.
Thank. Good. Ness.
The evening following surgery - already a whole new kitteh. You can kinda make out the little square shaved off her right arm for the IV.
I have a feeling that a second goofy troublemaker is soon to be unleashed. Already Merus is knocking stuff over (living up to her full Brontomerus name) and is sidewinding like Sadie is wont.
The original troublemaker, exhibit A, while trying to give Merus her pain meds.
Exhibit B. Followed soon by more chewing on non-edibles. *Sigh*
The list of foods edible according to Sadie continues to grow. Currently she eagerly eats avocado, whole beans/legumes, refried beans, arugula, spinach, kale, alfalfa sprouts, watermelon, carrot, brussel sprouts, cheese, and meat. Most veggies she will eat if dressed (salad stuff) or cooked (carrots, brussel sprouts). Raw veggies are not her thing. What a foodie.
We also already know that her tastes are far less civilized than what the aforementioned list implies. Anything that has rubber, foam, or adhesive draws her like a moth to a flame. Rubber bands, packaging tape, yoga blocks, shoes, ear plugs... you know, yummy stuff.
The other night we returned home to find two tiny puddles of frothy liquid just inside the apartment door. In my year of caring for these worms I have only witnessed or found evidence of Sadie puking. In all cases was a precipitating cause -- avocado rind, purple foam pellets (formerly from my yoga block), sea foam green cylinders (former ear plug bit in half), that kind of thing. So when I saw the two empty puddles of puke I new the hunt was on for the real pile.
Nathan found it on the bathroom floor. It was a whole cockroach. Bleh. (For those grossed out by the idea of cockroaches in NYC apartments, this is only the second roach I've found in the 10 months I have lived here and the previous year and a half of visiting here on a regular basis.)
To top that off it was basically the shell, including the head. It was also about two inches long, exoskeleton as straight as ever, most legs and antennae still attached. How the hell did that thing fit down (and back up) the throat of a tiny 7-lbs kitteh?? And how were the innards so nicely separated and missing? Maybe let's not think about that last one. Bleh. She could probably compete with the most bizarre of Anthony Bourdain's food escapades.
Then I realized that I gave her a kiss on the nose before the puke piles were found. Gross gross gross gross gross....
In the first many upcoming logical segues, here's a shameless reminder:
Joint Commissions is gone. We can now breath again at work.
I received an email from my mom (love you!) today who, as one might expect, gives me much more credit than I deserve:
"So the big Bear Mountain looms next week. You've done this before so I'd think it would be a calm anticipation. But, you've done this before and know exactly what you're getting into, so I guess it's an antsy anticipation!"
I read this just after getting home from my long run in which my mind was in full ohmyohmyohmy what-have-I-got-myself-into?!?! mode. It is SOOOOOO not a calm ancitipation. Hah! It is the hurry up and wait version of Joint Commissions, only this time all I have is myself to exorcise the demons.
I remember from my first ultra (Bear Mtn last year) being consciously aware of the invisible line that, when crossed, meant I was then heading into mileage territory never before experienced. At that point it meant I had crossed 26 miles and had another five or so to go. Five is a relatively calm number. What is five more when you have already done five times as much?
This year, I will cross that invisible line at mile 31. Remaining, for my *ahem* pleasure, will be another 20 miles. Twenty. TWENTY MORE! The statement is no longer calming -- what is 20 more miles when you have already done 1.5 as much?
If you just shook your head in amazement at the executive functioning "skills" that got me into this situation then, well, I second your sentiments. If you nearly wet yourself out of fear for me, I third your sentiments.
Today I was testing what carrying my hydration bag sans-bladder for
the purpose of gear (Clif Mojo bars, extra socks, Aquafore, head lamp,
etc) since the aid stations are just close enough to use a bottle. I
ran in slightly more clothes than I normally would have so as to better
prep for what may be 60 degrees or may be 75 degrees. (Weather.com:
figure it out!) I was breaking in a new pair of shoes (same as two
previous pairs) so they'd be good to go. All the while my mind had a
fully schizophrenic time with itself. The calm, planning, rational part
of me said: This feels okay, no problems with anything, this could work for another 8 hours. The cynical part of me said: What,
are you crazy?! Of COURSE it'll blow up by mile 40. EVERYTHING will
chafe during a 10+ hour day. Of COURSE the bag will get uncomfortable
despite carrying less of a load. Of COURSE you won't want the extra
pair of shoes from your drop bag until you are already beyond that aid
station.
I had to stop the mental clamor often. The mediator: Just remember: eat, drink, pick up your feet, just keep moving. I'm not so sure that either voice was convinced.
Thankfully, this year I have kittehs to distract me throughout the week. Merus is being followed by the vet for long-standing gingivitis she acquired before I adopted them, and Sadie was due for a check up. After the initial rundown with the tech, this is what ensued while waiting for the Dr. O:
Sadie went up and down of her own accord, happy to explore and happy to return for more attention. She made everyone swoon in her usual Little Princess of Wormness ways. Merus went up to follow Sadie, remained hunkered in a tightly tucked ball throughout Sadie's examination, gave an occasional meow to remind us she was there and not happy about knowing what was to come. Merus came down via the vet tech, claws and arms splayed. I swear her tail sprouted its own paw to hang on for dear life. They both survived, including the rides on the subway.
Now what to do -- start my next book? Clean? Ideate an itinerary for the week my family visits NYC for graduation? Attempt to plan and coordinate my gear and plan A/B/C/D... for a race bigger than my know-how (see above)? Study another section of my licensure review book (what I probably should be doing)? Research intervention ideas or background info on a few patients that are more difficult (another more acceptable choice)? Eat some Nutella? Nap with the kittehs?
Last week I came home from a run only to find this:
From what I can best put together, the blame goes to Sadie and her sprinting drills. The tear is a 90 degree angle, each arm about two inches long. My small needle and thread sewing kit was nearby but I needed a patch of some sort, plus I hadn't the energy and I needed to head back out soon for something else. So I patched it with the quickest way accessible: scotch tape.
I pointed out the patch to Nathan so his just about 6 foot long self wouldn't tear the patch off while rearranging in his sleep. He laughed at me for a good ten minutes straight. I swear I could hear Red Green joining in with the laughter from far away. Nathan: "Seriously??" Another minutes of solid laughter. "That's so ghetto. You have to document that." *Sigh* Don't worry, I already did.
With the race last weekend and my hobbling recovery while working nine to ten hours a day, the patch has not yet been replaced. But! It has also held for a week now. Hazzah! Today I have off since I will be working this Saturday and so will play a little Suzie Homemaker for a handful of things.
I got the bright idea that maybe my two cats didn't need two litter
boxes, considering that for the last 10 months they have only used one
box while completely ignoring the other. Only once that litter was
changed (after one week) and the box no longer smelled like their
territory would they change to the second box, and even then they'd used
the second box exclusively until it was cleaned out, and... rinse and
repeat. Seemed logical that their preference for shared commode space
needs not a second box, right?
Two mornings after
downsizing to one box I awoke to the usual meow-fest of breakfast
expectations. Sadie, in her supposed food-deprived
inner-brat-unleashing mood, went sniffing at the trash can. I pulled
her away. Three minutes later she hops into the trash. I lift her up
from under her armpits and find her peeing. Yes, peeing. And the fact
that she is dangling from my hands above the trash can makes no
difference in the outflow. She even looked up at me with a mmrrrrp.
So I lowered her back down into the trash to finish her business. And sighed.
Once
she hopped out of the trash I swept her up and deposited her in front
of the litter box. It is of note that the location of this box was
unchanged from prior. Sadie gave it one eighth of a passing glance and
skipped away. A peek inside the box indicates that it had not been
touched in the last couple days. I grab Merus, and we went through the
same routine of deposit, semi-glance, and depart. *Sigh* Okay, you win.
I grab the second box, fill 'er up, leave it in the middle room and place both cats directly in front of it. Here you go, ya' little worms. Ignore it at your leisure. Mutter mutter mutter.
Sadie uses the opportunity to attack Merus from behind -- a regular
occurrence separate from the litter box issue. So Sadie got to cool off
in the next room with the door shut. Merus uses the newly restored
litter box, rearranging the fill to her little heart's content. A few
meows from Sadie were audible through the door, then the sound of her
pawing at the open bag of litter which is stored in there. Aw, crap. [Pun unintended.]
I'm
a little fearful that Sadie needs/wants to go again. I pull her out of
the room and away from the extra litter, lickety split. Merus is still
finishing up her time in the sandbox. So I place Sadie next to the old
box, and again she ignores it. Merus finally takes leave, and I throw
Sadie in front of the new box. It smells like cat piss, so Sadie's
interested. She heads on in and voids something -- I don't care what it
is so long as it is deposited where it needs to go. Sadie spends a
good five minutes making her own rearrangements. Sadie exits the box.
Merus returns again to the new box, goes inside and voids the
opposite of whatever she left just a moment ago. (The only reason I
know this is their rearrangement/scratching patterns are audibly
different when it comes to pee and poop. Aren't I lucky gal to know
such things?) Merus exits. Sadie enters AGAIN. I'm thinking, You only weigh 6 or 7 pounds! How could you hold so much?? Regardless, apparently she does.
The
kittehs finally relax, and all seems restored to normal. Another five
minutes later and Merus starts sniffing at the trash can, probably
wondering why it smells like Sadie's rear end. And so a layer of
balsamic vinegar is spread across the top of the trash to mask any
remaining feline scent. At least I buy the $3.99 vinegar instead of the
$10.99 vinegar. And at least Sadie was polite enough to go into a
contained space for waste instead of, say, on a piece of clothing on the
floor. Yet I will never forget that image of Sadie dangling in space,
looking up with a chirp while a solid stream flowed strong.
In exactly two months from today I will have graduated. That's 8.7 weeks. Sixty-one days.
I'll spare you the minutes and seconds....
Now
instead of rolling my eyes when asked how school is going I get to yell
"ALMOST DONE" and slap the table for emphasis. I'm smelling the barn,
people!
To celebrate, a much overdue kitteh video:
The first week of my last (last!) affiliation went well. The
whole outpatient TBI (traumatic brain injury) thing turned out to be
acute inpatient rehab for stroke and TBI. Fine by me. I did not get an
actual rehab experience, so this will really round out my abilities.
For those unfamiliar, acute rehab means patients are just medically
stabilized, needing lots of therapy, and able to tolerate three hours of
therapy every day.
What is also means is that my first day consisted of aphasias
(inability to interpret and/or say words), emotional lability
(spontaneous crying or anger that was inappropriate to the context),
missed therapy due to code brown (i.e. poop), suctioning (cleaning
mucous out of a tracheotomy), craniectomies (a portion of the skull
removed due to excessive brain swelling so patients must wear a helmet
at all times when out of bed), and pushers syndrome (a patient with
stroke whose brain, for unknown reasons, very strongly pushes with the non-affected arm and leg, causing the patient to constantly lean toward their affected and often flaccid arm and leg).
And I couldn't be happier.
Well, maybe if I were already graduated, but let's not dwell on those details.
[Note: I have been without internet access at home since 12/17, hence the delayed topics for posts thereafter. Tomorrow we should have renewed access, at which point I will steadily continue to catch up to all the posts I've been meaning to share.]
Every four months or so I develop a substantial itch to change something, be it a purge-cleaning of the apartment, rearranging a room, or sometimes simply getting a haircut. But the itch isn't as benign as it seems -- for every day I continue to ponder the itch but delay satiation it grows in factorial intensity. It is especially intense if it goes unrecognized for six months instead of four, as was the case this time around.
Since the latest itch struck at the start of our two weeks of finals, it emitted its own aura of anger that had Nathan quite worried about me. Needless, to say, Nathan has shown great patience with the whole thing. I mentioned my need to fix the situation to my mother over the phone. At a certain point she asked, "How are things with Nathan? Are they okay?" I replied "Yea, they're fine. Why do you ask?" After the fact I realized she misinterpreted my manic wrath of the piles as displeasure with our relationship. Oops. I am just glad that the itch helps my failing-due-to-grad-school housekeeping.
I like to limit my belongings to a small assortment of functional items. Clothes I haven't worn in a year get donated (aside from a select few nostalgic pieces), I'm not into filling my space with chotchkies, and I like having visible wall space. Nathan has much the same set of preferences, though his heterosexual male self is belied by his method of "organization." Piles exist, floor space is exposed, nothing is rotting in corners or underneath crawl spaces, but the walls are lined end to end with said piles without much heed as to how and where.
I've been there with working in retail, where after a long day or sorting through dirty items and constantly cleaning up after inconsiderate shoppers who disassemble an organization you moments ago achieved through three hours of tedious work. And the holiday season?? Forget about it. When you get home after work, particularly since work shifts never end on time, the last thing you want to do is pick up your own living space. You take solace in knowing that is all your items that are all over the place, so you don't mind living in the clutter for a few more days that turn into weeks. Since Nathan is the store manager, he tends to put in as many as three extra hours per shift on any given day. I don't expect him to come home and scrub or clean.
The other caveat: there is only one closet available to Nathan and I, a 36-inch wide closet in the bedroom that we must share. No utility closets, no storage in the basement, nothing. So piles exist because you have to acquire a structure on which to store them.
Voila, an itch boiling over for two weeks encapsulating the entire friggin' apartment.
Last post I mentioned sleeping for nine and a half hours after going to bed at 8:30 p.m. the Saturday following my last exam. I awoke Sunday on a mission that mostly maintained its momentum for the next 48 hours. By then we had two 72"-high metal wire shelving units standing in parallel with a little room between for a few extra, larger items. Boxes from all across the apartment finally have a home. The damn guitar case that flops everywhere and tripped me every three days for the last who-knows-how-long is now stored. The shipping material from the various Ebay things Nathan has intentions of selling (in what I hope is the near future... *ahem*...) is now out of sight. I even moved my four-drawer file cabinet out of the bedroom to be included in this makeshift closet. Now I just need cheap, wall colored sheets to cover the outside and it'll be done.
It is fair to say the manic two weeks of the semester became a manic two days of desperate cleaning. Even now, over a week after completion, I find myself standing in front of the configuration with hands on hips exclaiming "Hah! I win!" at inanimate objects. Yet another quality that makes me prime debutante material.
Miss Sadie, on the other hand, immediately took to the challenge. The units have a three-inch ground clearance. I barely had all the boxes stored and brushed the dust off my hands before Sadie wormed her little self beneath one of them. Took her twenty seconds of squirming to get under. I don't think she accomplished much aside from laying on her belly scratching at the floor like a walrus to turn directions. Then it took her a full minute of squirming to get out. I just stood there, glaring, saying "I told you not to go under there. I won't say 'I told you so,' but don't expect me to help you get out, either." She didn't mind. Miss Mischief needs no assistance.
That guitar case I mentioned is stored on top due to its irregular shape. Sadie loooves to lay on canvas of any sort. One sheet covers the unit's kitchen-side temporarily, perfect for scaling her way to the top. The first few attempts had her turning horizontal and crawling in an uncoordinated zig zag until she finally got to the top. Sadie's feline name has acquired a new addition of spider, upping her ante to spiderabbitdolphinsealworm. Seriously....
