Blerg.

Blerg is this word I use when I'm trying to shake off the sadness or discomfort of reality and steel myself to keep going.  On the one hand, life doesn't seem easy when I get up every day and do all the things that need doing, and endure all the things that need enduring.  At the same time, it seems ridiculous to say that because of how privileged I know I am, on a variety of levels.  And knowing how lucky I am is part of what helps me keep going.

At any rate, BLERG.  Things have been really up and down over the last two months, and I can't believe it's taken me that long to post.  There has been a lot of stuff going on with my father's dementia getting worse, and his care being an ever increasing pressure on my mom and I.  The house is in need of a lot of repair, and I can only do some of the work myself - the rest I have to pay for.  Except I'm not exactly rolling in money.

Speaking of which, the pets have cost a lot of money these last few months.  Not just in vet bills, but in things they have destroyed that need repairing.  Exhibit A:  Our kitchen chairs.

Notice anything missing?  Like THE SEAT??

The kittens are both to blame for this.  Despite having a million scratching posts that I regularly spray catnip on to keep the kitties interested, Butters and Ripple (aka the two tiny terrors) decided they preferred to use the *hand painted* woven chairs that mom brought from Mexico years ago along with the ornately painted kitchen table.  Well, now the chairs are completely unusable, and we have nothing to sit on at the table.  I thought about buying new chairs, but they are only about $20-30 cheaper per chair than getting these ones restored (which costs $150 + tax per chair, and there's four).  These broken chairs match the table, and more than that, my mother loves them.  It seems really unfair that because I rescued some cats she now has to put up with the extra indignity of mismatching kitchen furniture and the loss of furniture she loves.  She already puts up with the cats all over the place, litter boxes in the hall, cats under her feet while she cooks, and all the animals wanting in and out all day long.  So I really want to get these fixed for her.

Cost:  $678 + materials


There was another major destruction recently - my dad's hearing aid.  Exhibit B:

That's all that's left.  Mom took it off dad while she was taking him upstairs to get ready for bed one night while I was still at work late.  Except she left it on a shelf that Ripple managed to get up onto.  He got so excited by the dangling wire bit that he batted it off the shelf and completely destroyed it.  For days we didn't know what had happened to it.  Originally we thought it was our fault losing it, but Ripple brought us the wire half of it as a present, all proud of his hunting skills.  UGH.

Of course, it costs $1500 to replace.  Mom and I discussed just not getting a new one, but my father has very bad dementia, and we have noticed that without his hearing aid he is essentially deaf.  The problem with that is that without auditory stimulation, dad's brain shuts down even more.  Maybe there's no medical explanation for that, but from experience, what I can see is that without his hearing aid for a few days, he stops being able to walk down stairs (he can't figure out which foot to put in front of the other and ends up stumbling dangerously down!), eat food off a plate on his own, recognize where he is, or even recognize me.  While we were waiting for his hearing aid replacement to come in, he didn't know who I was.  He kept asking me if I was a "school friend", except he couldn't tell me who he thought I was a school friend OF.

The culprit for this cost and destruction is Ripple.  This is his attempt at an "Who me?  But I'm such a sweet, innocent kitty!" face.  I'm buying it not at all.

COST:  $1474 (taxes included)


Next up is Luna's meds.  I've been steadily increasing the dose of the Vanectyl-P as Luna became more and more immune to it's positive effects, while at the same time getting more sensitive to its negative ones.  She drank all the time, she started needing to pee often, and eventually began peeing in the house when left alone for even just a few hours.  All of that I could have figured a way around, except her eyes started getting growths on them again.  I called the vet to let him know they weren't working as well as they once were, and to ask to him to proactively start thinking about what we were going to do when the day came that the meds didn't work at all.

He mentioned there was a new drug that had just come out called Apoquel, from the same company that makes the Vanectyl-P.

COST:  $77 a month

Just now, I did a bunch of reading on it, and it's got some reports of AWFUL side effects, so now I'm completely freaked out.  But before a minute ago, I was really happy without how it was working.  Luna looks good and feels great.  So, fans of stationery - what do I do?  There's nothing else that has been controlling the growths on her eyes and the raw hamburger meat that her muzzle turns into without it.  EEK.  I think I'll have to keep going with this, but perhaps I can try lowering the dose, and I'll definitely add 6 month wellness tests for blood work to make sure everything is still okay.  Which are $250+ each time.  BLERG.

I've got a vet appointment for her tomorrow at 9:30 anyway (COST:  $75 for appointment and nail trim), so I guess I'll talk to him about maybe going to an allergy specialist.  But what if it turns out she's allergic to cats??  What do I do?  Get rid of all the cats?  I can't exactly get rid of a highly aggressive, supremely anxious, 3 year old dog.  If it were that easy, we would have rehomed her when we got her, like we had always intended to do before finding out she was so dangerous.  And I frankly don't want to get rid of ANYONE.  Man.  Okay, Simone.  Stop your brain from turning in tiny, frenzied, terrified circles and don't get ahead of yourself.  One step at a time.  Just breathe.

(10 minutes later)

Okay, I'm back.  I had to take a break, I got so worked up about this new drug potentially giving Luna cancer that I couldn't stand it anymore and needed to let off some anxiety.  I took a walk, ate some cookies, and now I'm vibrating at a slightly lower level.  Blerg, indeed.

In other news, my friend Jackie came to visit last month for a week.  It was so nice to have her here.  She lives in BC, and I'm grateful she comes back at least once a year to see me.  :)  We went hiking with Luna (who loves Jackie, and vice versa), and I've got cute pics to prove it.  Of course, she was a total disaster on the hikes.  Whenever anyone passed us, especially a cyclist, I had to jump off the trail into the brush and control Luna while she snarled, lunged, and barked loudly.  Gah.  Still, she was so happily exhausted when we got home she slept 5 hours until bed, went pee, and slept soundly through the night.  For a dog with agoraphobia, she was a trooper.  I'm proud of her.

In other breaking news, we now have Turkey Vultures living in the tree two houses down from our yard.  They are pretty big and kind of terrifying.  Let's just say Butters' days of being outside with minimal supervision are OVER.  He has to be within a few feet of Luna or myself at all times now.  Here's Luna, taking her duties seriously.  I like it when they are both safely on the deck.

 And here is Butters after a weekend day when I sat with him outside for 5 hours.  Poor guy's all tuckered out.

In amongst all this, and tons of other things going on that I won't bore you with (here are the highlights - I saved a baby nestling cardinal I found on our front porch, I couldn't save an adult squirrel the turkey vultures dropped from the top of a tree, I couldn't find a live chipmunk that Butters brought into the house, and the semi-paralyzed squirrel that had been frequenting our yard that I was nursing and making sure was protected and fed and watered disappeared after a few weeks and hasn't been seen since), I've managed to design some new stationery.  The downside is that Canada Post is about to strike, so I really can't take on new sales until I know for sure I can mail them out!  Here's a sneak peek.  I haven't finished all the sets yet and some require some tweaking.

                                         

 





                                          

                                          

 


I suppose that's it for now.  Have a great weekend, and I'll keep you posted about when the Canada Post strike is over!  I'm so desperate for funds to replace dad's hearing aid at least that when the strike is over, I'm thinking of having a 20% off (or more!) sale for fundraising purposes.

Happy letter writing!