Stress, and the kitty baby…

Didn’t accomplish as much as I needed to this weekend. Partly because I was sleeping when I should have been studying. Because I was exhausted.

I still am.

My foster kitty, Essie, is still not eating enough to sustain herself, so we’re doing syringe “assisted” feeding. I did find a good web resource and Yahoo group for Feline Assisted Feeding (!?), which is certainly not something I anticipated having to do, but at least we’re getting in a groove, finally. I have to get a 5.5 oz can of Hills Prescription Diet a/d food into her each day, which isn’t easy, as she can only take about 1/3 of a can at a time. I have learned to warm the food and then fill up all the syringes I have (right now, about 7) before we start the feeding, as trying to suction cat food into a syringe one-handed isn’t the easiest thing in the world.

She is pretty cooperative, though. I sit with my legs crossed and she sits on her hind legs with her front paws on my chest and sort of leans into me. I have a towel under us and a towel close by to wipe up whatever she spits out. It is worse than feeding an infant, though perhaps not worse than feeding an infant who won’t eat voluntarily. It’s pretty messy, and in between each squirt of food I praise her and stroke her head.

And so it goes.

I am really concerned, though, that she’s not gaining, or that she’s not going to learn to eat on her own again. Right now she will only take a couple of bites or licks of several types of cat food I’ve offered her, and some she won’t touch at all. She loves boiled chicken, but can’t live on boiled chicken alone. She won’t eat the 95% chicken cat food (and I’ve tried several brands). She ate a few bites of dry Friskies when I first offered it to her, but then tried some again Friday night and threw it up. She won’t touch Science Diet dry or canned. Won’t touch Friskies canned. Does like TikiCat Ahi Tuna, but can’t have that but occasionally, as too much tuna can cause problems for cats. Oddly enough, she doesn’t seem to care for other fishy cat food, but the Ahi Tuna is, well, pretty much people food labeled for cats, with kitty nutrients added in.

I guess TikiCat does have some non-fish selections, so I might try that next. If I could find something she would eat reliably on her own, or at least enough that we could cut back on the syringe feeding…

Sigh.

It breaks my heart to see her refuse food, and look at me and purr and act like she wants to tell me what is wrong, but she can’t. I so wish she could.

End of the weekend.

Accomplished pretty much nothing at all today. Between having a headache all day and my back preventing me from doing the most basic of tasks, if such tasks require bending over even a little bit, today was just a wash out.

Which, frankly, was not what I needed.

Essie didn’t eat much of anything today. I debated taking her out of quarantine, as she still doesn’t seem sick and I’m thinking her problem is likely stress/loneliness/boredom/depression? But, as her blood work results are supposed to be in tomorrow, I figured I would hold off until I know for sure she’s not sick.

If her blood work comes back good, I’ll take her out of quarantine tomorrow. Poor baby. I did get her to eat a little bit of boiled chicken tonight, but she didn’t even touch the prescription a/d cat food the vet sent home nor did she taste the chicken baby food last night.

She also hasn’t touched the dry food AT ALL nor has she pooped even once since I’ve had her home. But her belly isn’t distended and the vet didn’t think she had an intestinal blockage. When she tried to get a fecal sample, there was nothing to sample.

I may have to get her some subcutaneous fluids tomorrow if she still doesn’t eat. I’ll give her some more boiled chicken in the morning, if she’ll take it, and try her on some more a/d cat food, which she liked at first. Sigh.

——————-

Anyway, tomorrow is day two of Research Fair for our grad students. We have a fair-sized class this year, and they seem like a good bunch for the most part. I need to get up early tomorrow and get to work, um, on time? so I’m heading to bed soon. Hopefully, despite my headache, I’ll be able to sleep.

Hopefully I won’t have to deal with the asshole neighbors again tonight. Things are, for now, fairly quiet.

Classes begin Tuesday morning and my CHEM 101 prof is, let’s just say, enthusiastic. Very enthusiastic. The class is going to be a lot of work, and sometime between now and Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. (ha!) I’ve got to find time to read Chapter 1 in my text and review the stuff he’s putting online tomorrow morning.

Of course, I’ll probably be working late tomorrow because of Research Fair. And I have to attempt to get adequate sleep so that I can focus in class Tuesday morning.

What the hell am I thinking doing this? Trying to remind myself of what my therapist said – it would be harder to not try. Harder to give up than to give it my all.

I surely hope she’s right, and that it will all be worth it in the end. Guess I’ll know sooner rather than later.

Little sleep…

I was wrong about the music being off. In fact, the music may still be on right now.

I dozed off and on in the living room for a while, then went back to bed and was, thankfully, able to finally fall asleep.

But I was woken again this morning just after 8 (I didn’t get back to sleep until nearly 6) by the stupid upstairs neighbor’s thumping bass.

Perhaps I should buy some earplugs. Except then I wouldn’t likely hear my alarm either.

Don’t know if the police ever came by last night. Oddly enough, you can’t hear the music well from outside, just from the ceiling inside. Figures.

Anyway, headache this morning even after taking something before I went back to bed at almost 6, and I’m soooo tired. And my back is killing me. Three trips to my chiropractor later, and I still can’t bend over without it being painful, and, if I move too fast, it feels like I’m going to fall down as the pain hits. Ow.

Alright, gotta go feed the furbabies and see if Miss Essie will eat this morning. She did eat a little yesterday, which is an improvement.

The property manager or the universe hates me. I’m not sure which.

New neighbors in my quad-plex this past couple of weeks. Round 1 included a pretty quiet and seemingly nice trio of folks with a dog. No complaints.

Round 2 happened today. Not sure if it’s just the two guys I saw moving in first, or if it’s them and the other couple of people who showed up later.

First thing I noticed was the elephants apparently walking around in the apartment above me. Dear god – why the apartment above me? Lots of loud moving around and banging, but I figured, eh, whatever, as they’re just moving in there’s bound to be noise over and above normal regular moving around in one’s apartment. No problem.

Then, later this evening, I hear music. Well, it’s still a reasonable hour, so, again, I can deal. But then comes stomping. Stomping to the beat of the music. Like they’re having a step competition above my head. Not cool.

I take the dogs out one last time before bed and notice a few cigarette butts and a crumpled cigarette box scattered on the ground outside my apartment.

A little background is required here. First of all, I have an issue with folks flicking cigarette butts. I survived a fire last fall that consumed my entire apartment building and three cats. If you are on the balcony and you are flicking cigarette butts on the ground one floor down, those cigarette butts are not put out. Which scares the shit out of me, even though the mulch isn’t as likely to burn as the pine straw that was around my old apartment building and this building is brick rather than wood.

Second, when I first moved to this street, there was, let’s say, a landscaping problem. As in trash just thrown on the ground because apparently folks didn’t know what trashcans are for. It didn’t look good. I would pick up trash periodically because it would annoy the hell out of me, but I wasn’t going to get out with a trash bag every day to clean up after some of my neighbors.

Then the owner of these properties decided he wanted to try to tell them as condos, and a landscaper came out and attempted to make the place look presentable. And, even though it’s not the best landscaping job I’ve ever seen, it is, at least, mulch and plants rather than, um, trash.

But, in addition to the cigarette butts tonight that were flicked from the upper balcony, there was the crumpled cigarette box laying on the ground. And a beer can. And bottle caps. And several other little pieces of trash that, when added together, make things look trashy. I picked up the trash and threw it in one of the garbage containers.

Time for bed, so I head to the bedroom and, again, it’s not a huge deal as the stomping/music is primarily over my living room. I go to sleep…

only to be awoken at three-fucking-thirty in the morning from the deep bass “music” piping down from the bedroom above mine in the apartment above mine.

Nothing pisses me off more than being woken up in the middle of the night. I have too much trouble getting a good night’s sleep to have to worry about my neighbors being inconsiderate and waking me up.

The rent in this place I am renting is reasonable for the area, but it’s not cheap by any means, and I would think that if the owner of this property wants to sell these places as condos (he’s beginning with the building next door to where I’m currently living), things should remain presentable and pleasant, as they have been for the past couple of months. I have to assume that the property manager who manages these places for the owner doesn’t know that my new neighbors are inconsiderate both by being too loud and by throwing down trash, so, after calling the police to complain because MY NEIGHBORS WOKE ME UP AND NOW I CAN’T GO BACK TO SLEEP BECAUSE THE MUSIC IS TOO FUCKING LOUD AND THE BUMP BUMP BUMP BASS OVER MY HEAD IS DRIVING ME CRAZY, I left a message at my property manager’s office about my new neighbors, asking them to say/do something. Please. Something before this gets out of control.

This is what I was most afraid of in living in a two story apartment building. My former upstairs neighbors were nice and quiet, which was great. But in my old apartment complex, I had a series of noisy upstairs neighbors, the worst of which being the two college guys who thought it was acceptable to lift weights at 1 a.m. right above my bedroom. So, I would awake to SQUEAK, SQUEAK, SQUEAK, SQUEAK, SQUEAK, BOOM! Every time the guy working out would lift the barbell, the floor would creak like he was going to come right through it, and after every rep of five, there would be the BOOM of him putting the barbell back down on its stand. After complaining, I finally got them to understand that I didn’t care if they did that in the daytime, but, for god’s sake, don’t lift weights above my head at 1 a.m.? Please?

Anyway, I’m tired and it sounds as if, perhaps, the music has ceased. Perhaps I can go back to sleep now, in my bedroom, rather than attempting to sleep in the living room where the music isn’t so noticeable.

I have a headache. Why do things like this seem to always happen to me?

Going public…

I don’t exactly hide my blog from those who know me, or my real identity from those who read my blog, but I’ve long been wary of attaching my last name to this blog. Some popular bloggers are pretty good about keeping their identities under wraps, and others don’t bother.

I try to remember to never post things that I wouldn’t be okay with anyone who knows me reading. I don’t want to hurt the feelings of others, so I do hold back at times. I don’t want to share too much in the way of work stresses here, because it’s not the place. I do talk a lot about my battle with depression, my pets, my classes and career goals, and so forth. I don’t talk as much as I’d like about current events and controversial topics, mainly because I’m not an every-day blogger and, well, much of what I have to say about those things are being said better by other people. Still, if I feel strongly about an issue, I’m not afraid to speak out about it on my blog (and, well, just about anywhere else!).

At the same time, it’s not like I’ve sent out my blog address to everyone I know, especially family members. It goes without saying, and I’m sure they wouldn’t be surprised to read it, that I disagree with much of what my family believes. Both sides of my family are pretty conservative and fairly religious. I am neither religious nor remotely conservative. And I’m okay with that, but I don’t think they are, at least when faced with the reality of my beliefs. So, I don’t broadcast my blog, not that I truly think they would read it anyway!

But, I think, perhaps, maybe, it’s time that I drop all pretense and stop trying to guard against people I know finding my blog. I’m fairly active both on Flickr and on Facebook, and I don’t have my blog linked to my profile in either place. I don’t have any good reason for linking it now, other than to increase my readership (ha!), but I have no good reason for hiding it either.

SO – if you know me in real life and can tolerate my wordiness, consider yourself warned. I may not be the person you think I am, or, for better or worse, I may be exactly the person you think I am.

What the hell is taking so long?????

In June, I had two sleep studies. The first study was to see if I had a sleep disorder (I do), and the second study was to try me on CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) therapy and find what air pressure was needed to alleviate my sleep apnea.

The second sleep study was on JUNE 28.

I still don’t have a CPAP machine.

I had an appointment a couple of weeks ago to get a machine, and, at about 10 minutes prior to my appointment, they called to let me know that they had not gotten insurance approval for the machine, as my doc had changed the prescription to BiPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure) therapy, as I was having trouble exhaling with the CPAP on, even at the low level of pressure I need.

BiPAPs are more expensive, so, naturally, the insurance company didn’t want to cover it. As I didn’t get notification that I wasn’t going to be able to get a BiPAP that day until 10 minutes before my appointment, as I was DRIVING OVER THERE after leaving work early to get there, I went to the appointment anyway and they told me what I would have to do to get insurance to approve a BiPAP instead of a CPAP. The process includes using a CPAP for a month and not benefiting from the therapy, and then having a THIRD sleep study to titrate my levels on a BiPAP.

Ridiculous.

I called my psychiatrist, who was the one that ordered the study in the first place, and we decided that we would just revert back to the CPAP and hope that I was able to get used to it. If not, then we’d push for BiPAP machine approval. He said he’d call the sleep clinic and let them know.

Apparently, that didn’t happen.

They called me about setting up another appointment to get my machine, and I asked if they had gotten approval yet.

They hadn’t. They said they’d contact my pdoc.

They called me again to let me know that they still hadn’t heard from my pdoc and they had faxed paperwork to him and called him, to no avail. They said they paged him, and no answer. I recommended that they contact my general practitioner to get the prescription, as my pdoc clearly isn’t acting as my doctor anymore (thanks for the notice, doc!). I gave them my GP’s info. Her office is RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER from theirs. It’s a fairly well-known practice. This shouldn’t be an issue.

I set up an appointment for tomorrow (8/13 – a month and a half since my second sleep study), and they said they’d contact my GP.

So, I called this afternoon to make sure they had actually gotten the insurance approval this time, before I, you know, drove all the way to their office (~25 minutes in moderate traffic) tomorrow evening.

The woman I spoke with told me that they hadn’t heard back from my psychiatrist.

Ummm…I had already discussed that issue with the person I spoke with last week. You guys were going to contact my GP.

She says, “Oh, Dr. M M?  I see that on here, but I don’t have anything that shows that we’d heard from her. I’ll have to check and make sure we were able to get in contact with her. Can I call you back tomorrow and let you know?”

So, I turned around and called my GP’s office regarding the whole damn issue. Left a message for the nurse, who promptly returned my phone call and is checking with my GP regarding whether she’s heard from the sleep clinic. I told the nurse that I was happy to make an appointment to see Dr. M if I needed to in order to get a prescription for CPAP therapy. She’s going to call me back tomorrow.

Classes begin next week. I need to be able to start CPAP therapy sooner rather than later so that I’ll know if I can tolerate it and if it’s going to help, and I was really hoping that some of my sleep issues would be at least partially resolved before classes started. I guess I was hoping for too much.

I’ve got an appointment with a new psychiatrist toward the end of August, though I have no idea if he’ll be any good, though my therapist thinks highly of him. I loved my old psychiatrist, but then he moved to Charlotte and I guess he is too wrapped up in his own stuff to deal with long distance patients. Despite telling me that it wouldn’t be an issue.

My GP doesn’t want to try to manage my depression stuff because I have quite a history of being rather treatment-resistant and my meds are somewhat complicated (no where near as bad as they have been, though!). I don’t blame her, and I would prefer a good psych-med doc for that anyway. Wish they had true psychopharmacologists here, but I don’t know of any, and lots of the docs around here want to do both therapy and med management. I don’t need another therapist, just a doc that knows the meds inside and out.

So, I’m stuck. If things work out with the new pdoc, that will be great and I’ll be less stuck. But many of my physical complaints (fatigue, headaches, etc.) have been going on for so long, with no luck at figuring them out, and, well, I’d just like to find a doc who could at least have a fresh approach to the situation and an actual interest in trying to get to the bottom of it all…

God I’m tired.

Essie

The Wink-a-dink was adopted last week, and I wasted no time in getting another foster kitty! Essie is a beautiful calico girl who was surrendered by her owner at the animal shelter in a rural area near here. The shelter there is overloaded with kitties, so they sent out a plea to area rescues in the hopes of finding foster homes for some of them. They said they are taking in 7-8 owner surrenders a day right now, which means they are euthanizing at least that many as well. When there’s no room, there’s no room.

The rescue group I volunteer with, Independent Animal Rescue, was able to pull about 8 kitties from this shelter, and I was lucky enough to get Essie. She is a real sweetie pie, and tested negative for FIV/FeLV tonight, thank goodness. She’s in quarantine right now, but will be available for adoption soon.

The shelter estimated Essie to be about 2 years old, but the rescuer/vet tech who tested her tonight said she was more likely around 5, which didn’t surprise me. She has that searching look one sees among animals and children who have been abandoned and don’t understand what the hell is going on. She’s a little insecure right now, and I’m sure she’ll be happier once she’s free to mingle with Neville and Casey and not confined to a bedroom. She comes right out to greet me the minute I go in the room, though, with her tail up, and she meows and purrs and rubs all over my legs. Pick her up, and the purring just gets louder.

It breaks my heart. But it’s also nice to know that, in finding Wink a good home with a wonderful family, I’m able to save Essie from being put down.

The most pitiful thing about Essie, though, is her poor little feet. She is declawed, and it’s just so sad. I’ve known other declawed cats, but have never had one before, and haven’t had the chance to really examine the feet of one until now. And, frankly, it makes me angry. Her feet are different. Whether that’s the norm for declawed kitties, or whether she had a bad surgery – whatever. It’s pitiful.

My poor lost babies all had claws, and while my Pip never gave me any trouble with clawing furniture for the first couple of years, the four former ferals destroyed the arms of my couch. But it never crossed my mind that I would get them declawed.

Now, with having Neville and Casey, who both have claws, and having had Wink, who had claws, I haven’t had any trouble with clawing at the furniture. I try to keep their claws trimmed and provide them with adequate scratching surfaces, and I got some double-sided tape to put on the arms of the couch when I first brought Neville home, to deter him from scratching, but it hasn’t been an issue. And, after losing everything in a fire and having to start over, I don’t relish the idea of my furniture being destroyed by cat clawing.

Still, even if I was having a problem with clawing at the furniture, I’d find a better way to deal with it than having my kitty’s toes amputated.

YES, I know that at some point, someone’s going to come across this post and tell me that declawing is perfectly fine, etc. etc. etc. That they can use lasers now. That it doesn’t affect kitty in the slightest, and possibly not as much as having kitty spayed or neutered. And I know there are situations where declawing is done for a good reason, rather than just to protect furniture, as in cases where the owner has a suppressed immune system and can’t risk getting a cat scratch.

But I also know that most rescue groups prohibit it, that it’s illegal in many other countries, and that many many vets in the US refuse to do the procedure. Given all of those things, it appears that a large number of people believe that kitty suffers at least some trauma from being declawed. So the question is – is the benefit to the owner (and to kitty) greater than the trauma kitty experiences from the procedure?

Tough question to answer in some cases. In my opinion, though, I’d have to say that if your primary reason to have kitty declawed is to protect your furniture, perhaps you should get a fish.

You can’t make this stuff up…

It’s simply too amusing. And disturbing. And, well, just plain weird.

Remember when I blogged a few days ago about the crazy lady who had her dog, Booger the pit bull, cloned?

Well, she’s apparently even crazier than I thought, according to Britain’s The Daily Mail.

A cloned dog, a Mormon in mink-lined handcuffs and a tantalising mystery

The gist of the story is that the lady, Bernann McKinney, is actually Joyce McKinney, a NORTH CAROLINA native (of course she is!) who was a pageant queen in her younger days, then went to BYU (of course she did!) and ended up kidnapping a young Mormon man (at gunpoint!!!) and keeping him as her “sex slave.”

No, I’m not joking. That really is what the story says.

Here’s another one, a little more toned down, from The Guardian:

Joyce McKinney: from Mormon manacling to dog cloning

God I love British news.

Apparently she’s registered to vote in NC as Joyce Bernann McKinney.

And apparently she was on the run from the law at one point, for jumping bail. But she couldn’t be convicted of rape because rape against a man wasn’t illegal, or even called rape, at the time (1970s).

And clearly she’s a whack-job.

I wonder if she ever finished serving her sentence for kidnapping and whatever else she was charged with?

Wow. And here I thought I was just blogging about the insanities of cloning your pet.

So funny…

I almost wet myself. Take a look at these cakes, and read captions for them, but make sure you’re not drinking anything while you do…

Cake Wrecks

I think this one is my favorite. Or maybe this one.

And I think this is one of the scariest. OMG.

The MOST ridiculous thing I’ve heard of in a long time…

And that is saying something.

Check this out:

Booger the pit bull is back! All five of him…

Tue Aug 5, 6:36 AM ET

SEOUL (Reuters) – The loss of Booger the pit bull terrier was almost more than Bernann McKinney could bear.

Now she is happy, minus $50,000 and her house, and owner of five cloned Booger puppies.

…

She sold her house in the United States to raise the $50,000 for RNL scientists to turn skin cells taken from Booger before he died two years ago into embryos carried by two surrogate dogs for two months until giving birth to the puppies last week.

“I had to make sacrifices and I dream of the day, some day when everyone can afford to clone their pet because losing a pet is a terrible, terrible loss to anyone.”

Um…seriously?

Why would everyone WANT to clone their pet? Why would ANYONE want to clone their pet?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my animals. In fact, I know a number of people who think I am too over-the-top about my pets. I’d give quite a bit to have my kitties back. Not anything, but a lot. And I make a lot of personal sacrifices for my furry “children.”

But cloning your pet isn’t bringing your pet back to life. It’s producing a genetic replica of your pet.

If you happen to have identical twin pups and one of them dies, does the other one automatically fill the place of the first? Because considering they have identical genes, the twin should be able to replace the dead one, right? According to this woman’s logic, I mean.

Let’s add a sci-fi twist to the scenario (cause cloning isn’t sci-fi-esque enough!) – say you had two identical twin pups – genetically equal – and one of them was cryopreserved until the other one died. If you could thaw the identical twin and have a living pup, one that had originally shared a womb with the first pup – would you then have a perfect enough pup to fill the place of the first?

Of course not. Because having the same genes does not make one the same being. In fact, identical twins are more “alike” than clones would be, because identical twins, particularly if they grow up in the same household, have more similar experiences. It is as much our experiences as our genes that make us who we are.

I know that pups aren’t people, so experience probably doesn’t play as big a role in the personality outcome, but I also know that the personality of a dog isn’t as complex as the personality of a person, so experience likely plays a sufficient role in the shaping of the dog’s personality. No matter how identical the genes are, that other factor cannot be duplicated.

Not to mention that we don’t know enough about cloning and the long-term health of clones to know whether this woman has, in selling her house and paying $50,000 for these cloned pups, predisposed the poor creatures to some horrible condition that she isn’t even aware of yet.

And how, pray tell, is she going to feed the dogs, take them to the vet, etc. etc. etc., when she sold her house just to pay for them to be created?

Oh – and did she have extra embryos frozen, for when these pups die? Or is she expecting them to outlive her, so she doesn’t have to clone one of the clones? (If she clones a clone, what does that make the clone in relation to the original?)

Truly – I understand the missing of a deceased pet, better than a lot of people, unfortunately. I know what it’s like to lose a pet that you’ve had for years and years, and what it’s like to lose a pet you’ve only had a short while.

But, if it were between cloning my Pip, for instance, or rescuing another cat from a certain death at the local animal shelter, I’m sure that paying tribute to the Pipster would be better served by saving another life, rather than creating more lives, even if they were genetically identical to him. The clones wouldn’t be Pip, even if they looked like him. The clones might turn out better socialized (Some of my friends and family would be okay with that part) and probably wouldn’t drool on me when I cuddled them and try to “nurse” on my shirt, the way Pip did. So, what would be the point, except to have an animal that was mostly identical in appearance?

Pets are with us for too short a time. My Puddin’ and Penny are aging too quickly, and I don’t like to think about how I will deal with losing them, because I know it’s going to be one of the hardest things I will ever go through. But, even though I know they don’t know what cloning is, or about puppy mills and irresponsible breeding, or about the large numbers of dogs on “death row” at shelters throughout the US…I know that, if they did, they would be much happier for me to find another dog to love through animal rescue than to have “Puddin’ and Penny” clones created. I wish I could keep my girls alive for the rest of my life, and that we’d all be happy and healthy until we all died (at the exact same minute, when I’m 102), but that’s not reality. So, I will cherish them while they are here, and I will miss them terribly when they are gone, just as I do my Pip, Piper, Bella, Xander & Felix, and I will, at some point, have other wonderful dogs share my life, just like I am doing with my Neville now.

Really, if they understood, I don’t think Puddin’ and Penny would have it any other way.