Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Well, my cats are well again, and I continue with the working/studying
thing. Today I went to visit my father, and one of my step-nieces was
there; she is a nice enough girl, but she reminds me how young
thirteen truly is. Sigh. I got home late-ish, and am trying to settle
down and sleep. My stepmother seemed to be in a bad mood, and perhaps
I should have cared more, but...eh. I am having a hard time focussing
on anything but my own issues right now. Nothing should be this
stressful. Pfft. I keep trying to pep-talk myself, but...it is not
working.

Crazy Cat Lady Going Crazier.

I just found a really cool site -- Crazy Cat Lady Blogging.

She has an awesome discussion of Metacam here, and a B12 talk here.

I am taking a break from work/studying for a minute; Rhett's at the close of Week One of his respiratory infection, and is doing better.  Cookie and Squoosh, however, are just now starting in with the sneezing, despite my having jumped through hoops of fire to try to keep them (and all of their things) separated from Rhett.  I have them all on Triaminic for sneezing, and Rhett is already on antibiotics, and I have to pick up Squoosh and Cookie's antibiotics.  Pfft. 

It really is always something. 

In other Sick Cat News, my mother's cat has developed a mystery illness, so Mom is phoning me constantly to ask about this and that, and just had her cat scoped at the vet (some irritation, but nothing definitive yet, and her blood work all looks good). 

I feel a little overwhelmed, to be honest.  Sick cats plus work, school, the political bullshit at work and school...everything.  It's almost too much. 

Snuffly cats.

I have a mountain of crap to wade through, and I am still battling
Rhett's URI; yesterday I took him *back* to the vet because he was not
eating and drinking, and was so stuffed up that he could not breathe
through his nose. Dr S was not available (though he did come by
because he live right behind the clinic and stopped to talk with me
about Rhett before the receptionist and I shooed him away to get to
his dentist's appointment...on time...for once in his life), so I got
one of Dr S's affiliates; he went to one of my brother's schools (the
vet part, not the human doc part, clearly) and I am pretty sure is
gay, so I like him. He said Rhett is 100% fine from the neck down --
lungs clear, feels good, etc.; it's from the head up that he is a
walking snot factory. Rhett had barfed, which is why I brought him to
the vet, so he said to take Rhett off the Clindamycin and just stick
with the Clavamox, because Rhett has a virus anyway, the Clavamox is
just to keep it from becoming pneumonia, and the Clindamycin probably
made his stomach queasy. I never knew that. And he also said that I
need to stop giving Rhett albuterol, and instead give him 0.05cc of
children's Triaminic for snuffly noses (orange flavoured, and we all
know cats are big fans of fruit; every day I'm reading about yet
another orange grove raid carried out by gangs of cats), and get a
humidifier and put Vicks' in it and put Rhett in a cat carrier, cover
the side vents with a towel, leave the back vents open, and run the
humidifier in front of the carrier. So I did this. The Triaminic
makes him sleepy, but it helps with the congestion some. I have also
been trying to suck snot out of his nose with one of those baby sucky
things for infant noses. He really does not like it when I use that,
and I cannot blame him; if I felt poorly and someone came at me with
one of those, I would kick them in the balls.

Butsoanyway.

Well, after I humidified him today with some Vicks' menthol splooge,
he seemed to be a lot better. When he started licking and swallowing a
lot, I decided to call it quits, because the vet said Rhett's left
lymph node is draining a LOT into his throat, and I wanted to help
break up the snot, but not go too far. So then Rhett ate a little
afterwards, and that made me really happy. He ate turkey slices, about
3 whole ones. I still hadn't seen him drink, so I gave him about 2 - 3
cc of water slowly twice today. His fur doesn't feel *overly*
dehydrated (a little, but not serious), so as long as he goes back to
eating and drinking tomorrow, I won't do anything like more sub-q
fluids @ the vet. If he goes back to not eating though, I'll have no
choice but to go get fluids and syringe-feed baby food.

Sigh.

Now, I still have a TON of things to do as far as the rest of my life,
so...wish me luck. As always, I am poised on the brink of disaster.
Pfft.

If anyone has any non-kooky cat URI tips, I'm open to suggestions.
Non-kooky, of course, meaning that I am not taking him for
acupuncture, getting his aura re-calibrated, having the feng shui of
his room adjusted, or giving him homeopathically organic white milk
thistle mixed with water with black lead memory. In short, if they do
it in California, Rhett and I are having none of that. ;-)

We're fine

Rhett has one hell of an URI, but he is much better, and his fever is down; I have spent the weekend grading and studying, breaking to take him to the vet, dose him, and etc...  He had atropine for the past two days and I think that drove his fever up, but today was his first day on albuterol suspension (0.05cc every *OTHER* day), and he definitely sounds a little better.  

I have spent the past three hours homesick and depressed.  I almost friended a few people from my old high school, but then I remembered that (1) I have hidden my profile because (2) they may be ok, but some of them have friended people I do not care for, for reasons from simply being a dick to having assaulted me.  So nix that.  

I have to go to sleep.  Sigh.

Rhett Butler

We're trying to keep his fever down with fluids. He's on two different
antibiotics, and I am trying to not be upset.

Kittytoes

Ok, so Rhett cracked a hind pawnail off, and he had to be declawed on
one toe last Saturday. Now he's come down with what appears to be a
respiratory infection, so I took him to the vet, where his symptoms
promptly disappeared. So when I got off work, I went to pick him up
(I'd had to drop him at the vet's en route) and he looks fine...until
I get him in the car. As we're pulling onto the main road home, Rhett
starts back in with the sneezing and wheezing. Now, mind you, this is
sneezing and wheezing that he has held in FOR OVER FIVE HOURS while I
was at work. What the hell?!?

I need an interrobang on this keyboard.

So how did he manage that? How? How can I 'prove' Rhett is sick? I
have an appointment for him on Caturday at eleven with Dr Superhero,
and we'll see how that goes. in the meantime, Rhett's been on 1cc of
Clavamox 2x/dy and 0.5 meloxicam, mobic...whatever, it's the
same...for pain 1x/dy, and I have him in this huge thing for dogs that
looks like a giant plastic cat carrier (with no handle on top) that I
bought cos I figured one day it'd be good to isolate a sick cat or use
when I move. Plus, I got it really cheap cos it was a floor model and
was missing the box, instructions (it has three pieces -- the top, the
bottom, and the door; what instructions do they think I *need*,
seriously? How about 'assemble so it works'? There: instructions.),
and was missing some assembly nuts that I literally went next door to
Home Depot with one of the surviving nuts (for an example) and
replaced the missing ones for somewhere around five dollars, if I
remember correctly. Protip: Cats don't notice when nuts don't match
exactly, but my wallet certainly noticed the fifty percent discount.

I have so gone off on a tangent from my point...grr. How can Rhett be
sniffly if he is on Clavamox? I don't get it.

In Other News, I am so fucking depressed that I could just die; big
test in mid-August, and I cannot get ahead enough to devote more than
a few hours a day to it. I am starting to freak. And I emailed some of
my old workgroup about when they are getting together to study for
this (it's like a licensing exam), and can you believe that no one has
gotten back to me? I really do not know how to take that; on the one
hand, it feels like a snub, but on the other hand, maybe the two main
people I feel snubbed by are thinking they do not have much to
contribute. I guess we will see; I intend to try one more time, and
then give up.

I swear...again...to do better about posting.