Six months.

It’s been six months since the fire (as of yesterday). Six months to try to heal, to try to ease the pain of losing my kitties, to try to get over the anger about so many things – not being able to save anything other than my dogs, not having the opportunity to look for little things that might have survived the fire (they found part of my jewelry box, maybe I could have found my fire proof box that they never found), feeling like the apartment complex was at least partly responsible, but not being able to do anything about it because any proof was destroyed in the fire.

Someone said yesterday that it felt like it had been longer than six months to her. I told her that it feels like it hasn’t been that long to me. Hard to believe that it’s been six whole months since I last loved on my Pip, as I did that night before going to bed. Six months since I held a purring Felix.

Time goes on, I suppose, not that I have much choice about it. Will I ever get over it? I don’t know. To some degree, I guess, and I suppose the pain will at least ease a little, but I think that parts of the fire will forever cause me heartache.

Living somewhere new now, new furniture, new clothes, new dishes and electronics. New cat, who can’t replace the ones I lost but who eases the pain a little as he’s a fantastically wonderful cat and I love him so much. Same dogs, thank goodness, and they are doing okay, even getting used to the cat.

I’m hanging in. It’s all I can do.

Six months. Wow.

Up all night, sleep all day (I wish)

When I saw the doc on Monday, she gave me a script for some of the “good” cough medicine – Tussionex. It’s the thick yellowish sweet syrup with codeine and an antihistamine. Anyway, the stuff used to knock me out big time. When I was really sick and had a bad cough, it was the only way I got sleep.

So, I’ve taken it two nights in a row now and have had the same experience. Took it the second night just to see if the first night was a fluke. Alas, it was not. Tussionex now officially wires me. I got maybe 1.5 hours of sleep last night.

It’s hard to feel safe when…

there are FIVE police vehicles on your street as you walk to the bus stop in the morning.

Seriously – FIVE. Four regular and one unmarked. They went into an apartment in the building just before mine. I suspect it’s domestic violence related if anything, but still…FIVE???

Which reminds me that I need to get the Carrboro Police to do a run through on my place to see if there’s anything more I can do to make it more secure. I’ve alarmed the windows already, which at least helps me sleep better at night.

I guess I’ve led a pretty sheltered existence until now. Or maybe I’m just more sensitive to bad things that can happen? I dunno.

Hooligans no more.

One of my favorite bloggers is Maya’s Granny. Recently Maya’s Granny (also known as Joycelyn) went through a major health scare that ended up involving bypass surgery.

Fortunately, it looks like she’s going to be okay.

Unfortunately, this health problem means that she won’t be returning to her home in Juneau, Alaska, and will instead be going to live with family in California.

Without her cats, the Hooligans (Merry and Pippin).

Joycelyn has recently been moved to an extended care facility to continue recovering from her surgery before moving to California. Her son and daughter-in-law are taking care of getting her things from Alaska to California and have found new home(s?) for her beloved Hooligans.

MG blogged today about losing her Pippin and Merry. I so wish I could do something. As someone who has experienced losing her cats suddenly and unexpectedly, though in a very different way, I know that, for Joycelyn, losing her babies will be one of the most difficult parts of this journey she’s having to undertake.

I’m sure that the decision about rehoming MG’s Hooligans was made because it had to be so. I know MG’s family loves her and that they made the decision in her best interest. But I can’t help but feel that not having her cats with her, and knowing they won’t be there when she gets out of the extended care facility, will make her recovery that much longer and harder. I know it would for me.

Another brilliant study

Brought to you by our good friends at the UNC School of Public Health. Bless ‘em.

Obesity may keep some women from getting screened for breast, cervical cancer

Seriously, do these folks ever talk to fat people? Or do they just study us??? ARGH.

So.

One chest X-ray and doctor’s appointment later, and I (a) don’t have pneumonia (not that I thought I did, (b) do have an inhaler, in case it helps, (c) have some cough medicine to help me sleep tonight, (d) still feel like crap. I’m hot and cold at the same time. Freezing and sweaty. Clammy. Doc said I was clearly still fighting this illness, but she thinks I’m past the worst. Still, she said, call if things don’t improve and she’ll treat me for bronchitis.

Naturally, by the time I saw the doctor this afternoon, I was feeling a bit better. Not coughing as much, though I hadn’t been lying down either. Breathing a bit easier.

I should make an appointment at the first sign of illness – it seems that my symptoms start clearing up as soon as I have a doctor’s appointment. Now if I could get past this ultra-run-down feeling. Sigh.

Oh for crying out loud

Why is it that (a) I get sick nearly every time there’s a holiday and (b) I seem to be getting worse rather than better?

I almost drove myself to the ER last night because I couldn’t breathe. I don’t think I’ve had that much trouble breathing since I was a kid and had asthma. I did a little research online and decided that I’d try pseudoephedrine and guaifenesin to see if it would help. My rationale was that the guaifenesin would loosen things up if that’s why I couldn’t breathe, or the pseudoephedrine would act as a stimulant and make it easier for me to breathe. I read somewhere that 2 cups of strong black regular coffee had as much benefit as a cortico-steroid given to someone with asthma symptoms. Not having any coffee to try out this theory, I thought of what I had on hand that might qualify as a stimulant, and the pseudoephedrine was the only thing I could come up with.

I don’t know that it helped, or that it even qualifies as a stimulant, but I was finally able to get some sleep last night, interrupted quite frequently by bouts of coughing.

Needless to say, I don’t feel very on top of things today, and this is officially day three of missed work. I have done some things at home, which I also did last week, but I feel weak and tired, but I can’t lay down because I can’t breathe if I do.

I’m waiting on the doc’s office to call me back about an appointment. I’ve spoken to the nurse this morning and she said she’d get back with me after she spoke to the doctor, but that’s the last I heard. Sigh.

What I wouldn’t have given for an inhaler last night. I don’t know if it would have worked, but I sure wish I’d had one on hand to find out.

Getting ready to watch the ‘Heels play ball

And coughing my head off. Actually, I don’t think I’m coughing all that much/often, but whenever I cough, it hurts. I’m suspecting I’ve developed bronchitis.

Have been sick since Wednesday (today is Sunday), and I seem to now be getting worse rather than better. Guess if I’m not significantly better by the morning, I’ll bite the bullet and call the doctor.

I hate going to the doctor when I’ve got something like this – likely a virus. There’s not much they can do – I don’t need cough medicine, probably don’t need an inhaler, and most likely don’t need an antibiotic. I’m very hesitant to take antibiotics unless I *know* I have a bacterial infection.

Well – the game’s starting. Off to hopefully forget about feeling bad for a bit by watching the Carolina boys play ball.

Early to bed, early to rise?

Ha. The damn “Daylight Saving Time” is screwing with my head. I’m off to bed now, as tomorrow morning is going to come way too early.

I do wish they’d just adjust the whole thing a half hour back and leave it that way for the entire year…

Loss.

I suppose violence shouldn’t surprise me anymore. And Lord knows I’m aware “it” can happen to anyone.

But sometimes I’m reminded of just how fragile our time on this earth can be. It hits me the most when it hits close to home, like this week, with the death of the UNC Student Body President.

Not that it would have been any less tragic if it had been someone I’d never heard of, but I suppose I would have felt more removed, sort of like when you hear on the news about someone dying in a car crash, which happens all the time, but on the occasion that you know the person, it suddenly becomes much more, well, real. Tangible, in a way.

I didn’t know Eve. To my knowledge, I’d never seen her in person. I knew her name, knew something about her reputation on campus. She was, from what I’ve read, a fantastic person, full of potential. I’ve known others like that, whose lives ended all too soon, though usually less violently.

How often do I ignore the tragedy of other lives lost in violent crimes? How often do we all turn the other way, because the victim is someone who wasn’t necessarily a super-achiever? Because she wasn’t an all-American girl, the face of Carolina? Why does it have to involve such a well-known figure for folks to stand up and take notice when something bad happens?

It’s tragic. Absolutely tragic for the potential that was Eve, for her family and friends and the student body at Carolina.

It’s tragic as well when it’s the girl no one knows. This kind of tragedy doesn’t always play favorites.