A Good Day and a Bad One.

So last night, in accordance with the laws of summer we had a thunderstorm. And in accordance with the laws of our house, that meant that Jack, our sweet doggy boy was launched out from under the bed by the first loud rumble of thunder and sent pacing throughout the house.

Also out was Emoticon our outdoor kitty we have desperately been treating with about a bazillion eye drops in a crazy attempt to stop her from going blind. So because I am clearly the superior pet parent everyone was in my office. Emoticon was being a pest, playing with my curtains and trying to see how durable that internet router was, really.

So finally I had to give up doing anything productive and play with her. Her favorite game being chase the string. Despite having really fucked up eyes she was nailing that string. Like she had some personal mafia like vendetta against that motherfucker.

That was until I realized that she was able to catch it because she could hear it. I was hoping that when I took her to vet in the morning I would be able to tell him that we were totally seeing improvements and maybe we should you know, stop having these weekly appointments because I am totally running out of fucking money.

Watching my poor cat flail blindly at the air while I swung the string back and forth right in front of her eyes, I reflected on the fact that it did not appear we were making any progress here. Also, her frustration with the indoor life was beginning to show. She was sleeping more, eating more and finding more ways to attempt to dive her kitty self through screened windows like some sort of kitty shaped rocket.

I felt bad for her and strangely, even worse for me. Since Emoticon was not going to have to start making quality of life choices here. Finally it got to be too much to let her win all the time, because that shit was totally getting depressing so I put her back in Jack's dog crate and then I spent some time staring at the wall thinking that poverty was a whole less The Noble Simple Good Folk and more like watching the things you love suffer and knowing that the price to heal them might be too damn high.

Wow. I am sorry. This shit is getting dark.

So then I noticed that the dog was really digging at his rump and then I came over to look and found a horrible open weeping sore there. Then I called the husband in and he was all like, we have to take him to the vet. And I was all like, ha ha why not? It's not like work has been almost nothing and we have been eating spaghetti every meal or anything.

After a while the storm quit and we all went to bed. This is also one of the times that I wish my mind would draw a veil over, but it didn't and I couldn't and I kept hoping that I wasn't crying because I still had hope and not that I was emotionally dead inside because I was going to have to sign the death warrant on my own cat because treating two animals was so out of the budget I might as well have been trying to book a cruise through the antarctic.

And then of course shit just got worse. Because at 1:24am I woke up covered in sweat and spent the next half hour throwing up uncontrollably in the toilet. I remember thinking, very clearly at the time, that stress really, really fucking sucks.

Like a whole lot.

So the next morning we loaded up the car and made our queasy way down the mountain to the vet. I did not throw up, but Jack did so only a 50-50 on that win there. So we get to the vet and Jack freaks out and hides under the chair and Emoticon is curled in a ball shaking and won't look at me and I am wondering if I have a complete breakdown in the waiting room who in there is going to judge the shit out of me for it.

So then they call us back and everyone with four legs freaks the shit out and I really want to freak the shit out but someone has to lead this parade and they ask us if we need any more meds and I blurt out the one's we are low on and Scott gives me that look that says I-don't-want-to-influence-your-decision-here-but-we-can't-keep-taking-this-cat-to-the-vet-week-after-week-but-I-don't-want-to-get-blamed-later-when-the- grief-names-start-flying-because-I-don't-want-to-be-called-king-cat-murderer-or-cat-slaying-monster-at-some-point-in-the-future.

Married people can say a whole lot with a look, is what I am trying to get at here.

Anyway the vet asks who we want to look at first and Scott says the cat and then I dump her on the table and the vet does his magic eye light wand thing again and asks vet questions and then he tells me that while her eyes might still look gunky, that he is seeing a lot of new healing vessels and they are a lot clearer and then he does some test where he moves his fingers towards her eyes to see if she reacts and she does and then he tells me that I don't need to come in any more and we can cut it down to two meds twice a day and that I can just come back and pick up meds for her and just treat her until her eyes were clear because both of them look like they will heal.

And then I saw angels. And golden rays of sunshine. In the exam room.

And then I shot Scott a look that said ha-didn't-I-tell-you-that-this-would-work-out-and-that-I-wasn't-going-to-give-up-on-this-cat-and-you-can-suck-it.

Then he looked at the dog and gave us some meds to reduce the itchiness and some antibiotics for his weird skin thing and then we were on our way. I was pleased to find out that the visit didn't cost more then the last time even though we had to take a look at the dog this round.

Then we got home and pilled the dog which I was thinking was going to look just like that scene from Jaws were what's-his-face shoots the oxygen tank and the sharks head explodes, only replace 'shark' with 'dog' and 'oxygen tank' with 'pills.'

And also localized to my kitchen.

Oh and the tiny hard antibiotics were 43$ and the giant motherfucking capsules were 11$ so guess which ones we had to shove down his throat? Luckily Scott just opened his mouth and shoved it in and Jack didn't know what to do and then before he could really think things through in his tiny dog mind Scott offered him a treat with the half dose in it and then he took it but bit right down on the pill. The he spit the whole damn thing out, looked at it on the ground for a second, shrugged and ate it. Then I got him to drink some water to prove he wasn't going to hork them up again.

Which I think makes Jack the best dog ever in the history of ever.

Pretty sure.

My Cat has Only One Functional Eyeball Now.

So todays vet visit went poorly. Both from the news that her left eye has shown no improvement and may have possibly already burst and I really don't want to think about that right now. So, long story short, they have may to take out that eye.

Those sounds you are hearing? That's me dry heaving.

I'm going to try not to think about that either. I am also not going to think about the fact that I have to repeat the treatment for another week.

Mostly because putting in the eye drops was a goddamned adventure. Trying to do it by myself was like trying to wrestle a small bear that had really powerful squinting muscles. Finally Scott came over and helped me. I would like to think this was altruism on his part, but likely he got tired of listening to me yelling about how this medication had cost me, like a hundred dollars.

Luckily we have developed a system where he holds her head and I administer the eye drops and Emoticon closes her third eyelid just to fuck with us.

Also it turns out that at the clinic they had only one vet working who was in surgery, so I spent a lot of time staring at the posters in the waiting room and trying not to think about how much this time was going to cost me. During all this, while I was trying not to look at the Hookworm poster because it was saying something like 'you and your pet could have this RIGHT NOW OMFG' when the vet tech popped in to grab Emoticon to do some blood work. She left the door ajar, and before I knew it one of the resident vet kitties slipped in. Walking around like she owned the place this new kitty investigated Emoticon's carrier and then set herself into a corner for a wash.

Which was when I noticed that this new kitty only had one eyeball.

Ha, ha, life you are a bitch sometimes.

Getting down to pet new kitty I saw she was wearing a name tag. Helen Keller.

Ha ha life, you are a super bitch sometimes.

About that point the vet returned carrying a terrified Emoticon in her arms and I was all like, “this cat just came in and-”

And she just smiled a little smile and said “looks like someone has a visitor” before she slipped out the door.

So then it was just me in a room with two half blind cats. So I covered Emoticon with a towel and petted her and watched Hellen Keller and another mystery cat play that paw under the door game and listened to a dog yowling that sounded just like Gollum.

Finally the vet came in, looking like he had been through the ringer and we had that conversation that Holly did not want to have. That there was really no improvement in the left eye at all and that it was possible that the cyst had already broken and at this point we needed to see how much discomfort she was in before deciding whether we should just take it out but hey lets give it another week and we'll see what happens.

Then we were just two tired adults staring at each other across a metal table who were having really shitty days, just for different reasons.

So then I put Emoticon in her crate and we went to go buy auto parts and I tried not to think about it very much. Except now I have to think about it because she has just crawled into my lap and won't stop purring and shifting around AND CAN'T YOU JUST STAY STILL FOR TWO SECONDS?

Ahem.

Anyway. So now I don't know if I should feel like a failure because I/we/the medical establishment failed to save her eye, or whether I should be happy we saved the other one, or whether this is all too soon and I need to give it more time and hopefully it will improve.

Emotions are like, fucking hard, man.

Also hard?

Typing with one hand because the other one is under a cat.

Of Sick Cats and Cars.

Let me start off this entry by saying that Emoticon, my sick kitty is driving me nuts. She is used to being outside. All the time. Wild. Free. Unencumbered by the trappings of society. So lets just say that trying to keep her in the dog crate so I can treat her every six hours is slowly degrading her tiny kitty mind.

And taking mine with it.

The two days or so was fine. She seemed to accept being in her crate, used her litter tray neatly, and spent most of her time looking out the window and sleeping. Which was a good thing, because we were playing Drive to All the Used Car Lots Game. This was also combined with the Try Not to Freak Out Because Everything Ever is at Least Two Grand Over Your Price Range Game.

These are not fun games.

However at some point she realized we weren't going to let her go back outside. And that we weren't going to stop giving her eye drops. So that when I got home from work last night, Emoticon was entering some sort of full blown kitty tantrum.

When the loud pitiful/angry meowing failed to produce a cage opening epiphany in her human caretakers she moved on to phase two. Phase Two involved grabbing everything she could reach through the metal bars of the crate and attempting to drag it in there with her. While I could steadily ignore phase one, phase two did succeed in drawing my attention. Because in the span of about, oh ten minutes she had managed to drag the following things into her crate: a rain coat, a curtain, a hunk of trash bag, the top and strap of a backpack, half of my cloth tool bag, and two towels.

Of course I moved everything out from her nefarious clutches that she could possibly hook her claws into, which prompted her to bang out a drum solo on the plastic tub that her litter comes in, and also a magnificent double drum solo on the jugs I used to water the animals in the morning.

While I was trying to watch a movie.

So there I was, head phones on, trying to be oblivious to to the wailing, drumming and scratching, determinedly watching my film while possibly praying for the sweet release of death. Or deafness. It gets pretty bad when you can't tell the Epic Movie Battle Sounds, from the Pissed Off Cat Sounds.

Finally I let her out. The problem with letting her out, is that she is an outdoor only cat. She has no concept that the things in my house are both valuable and breakable. So far she has drooled on my laptop key board, sharpened her claws on the window sill, knocked over everything on the coffee table, tried to bust through a window screen, toppled a trash can, tried to get in a fight with Tom Tom Tiger through the glass sliding door, fell into a back pack, knocked over Scott's hat, eaten a fuck ton of the dogs food, and forced her body between my desk and the window, knocked over the router, and thrown kitty litter in at least one pair of shoes.

I had always had indoor cats prior to moving to the country, so it came as a surprise to me how much of a tornado of destruction an outdoor cat in the house can be. Also, another thing, outdoor cats are strong. Like indoor cats? Butterballs. Mostly fat. Don't move a whole lot. Outdoor cats? Solid muscle.

So all in all I try to keep her contained as much as possible.

Although it was all worth it when she finally settled down and jumped up into my lap and curled up and then we watched the end to the movie together and she purred like a little motorboat and then the movie was over and we just sat there and I petted her and she closed her eyes and I thought that maybe things were going to be okay after all.

Until I had to put her back so I could get some sleep and she wailed for like, a motherfucking hour.

But that's okay because in the end I am sure it will be worth it and we can save her eyeballs and then she will stop misjudging jumps and taking everything down with her.

Hopefully.

My Cat is Sick and the Car is Dead.

Today, my friends, my most beloved readers, was a terrible, horrible, awful, no good, super fucked up day. So hold on to your butts, because this is going to suck on a level that may not even by scientifically possible. (See Holly's Law of Negativity.)

First off I awoke with the intention of working more on that hay storage shed that I needed only to discover that it was pouring down rain. Which I probably would have known in advance, except my Internet has been cutting in and out because ha ha why not? So anyway I get up and feed all the ungrateful hungry mouths, and then I am petting my cat Emoticon and she looks up and me and then I get one of those chills where it feels like giant spiders are crawling all up and down your spine cause not one but both of her eyes are fucked the shit up.

To explain further, she had always had problems with her right eye being cloudy, but now the whatever the fuck it was had spread to both eyes. So I grabbed the phone and called the vet and told them I was freaked out.

They gave me an appointment at 2:30.

So when I walk back inside to tell Scott, I find him in the middle of freaking out because last night he discovered that the drivers side front tire hub was hot and that probably meant that the wheel bearing was about to blow and KILL US ALL. Which meant that we had to pull the tire off and look at it.

In the rain.

When we had to be at the vets in four hours.

Luckily I had purchased one of those gazebo tent things at a discount store, with the intention of using it to shade me when I did jobs in direct sun because I am part vampire somehow. Except now we were huddled under it while rain dripped off the side onto our legs and butts. So we pulled the tire off, found out the caliper was super tight, beat it off with a sledge hammer, discussed the money this was going to cost, and then tried to remove the piece holding on the wheel bearing thingamajig. Which of course didn't come off. So we tried everything. Then we found that it was being held in place with some sort of clip thing inside of it. So we got some hammers and some pointy things and tried to remove it. Of course nothing seemed to be quite right, so we crammed a screw driver in there and proceed to break the tip off INSIDE the fucking thing.

Then we went inside to discover that it was a Dealer Only Serviceable Part.

Which was pretty much never going to happen. Which meant that we were going to have to go look for another car. In the truck, with the cat, in the rain. You know, the truck where the headlights may or may not work? The truck that we had to unload because it was filled with all the lumber for my hay storage shed?

That truck.

So we unloaded the truck, in the rain and take the cat on down to the vet. So we get to the vets and I bring Emoticon on in and then the vet has a look at her and then puts dye in her eyeballs so she looks like a motherfucking were-cat and then tells me that it looks like she has a somethingorother and if we don't stop the whateverhejustsaid that they could rupture and then in those cases they usually remove the eye.

Cue that record scratching noise.

I need to explain something here. I need to explain that eyeball stuff freaks me out. Like a lot. Like remember that scene from Minority Report where Tom Cruise had to chase his own eyes down the hallway? I can't watch that. I don't want to ever think about that ever. I almost died when my friend talked about his laser eye surgery. I feel like barfing right now. It. Freaks. Me. The. Fuck. Out.

So when I came back to planet earth I managed to say calmly that I wasn't very skilled at giving eye drops. Mr. Vet Man said he would take some blood and be back in a minute.

It was the longest minute ever.

I held Emoticon and I kept telling her everything was gonna be okay. I don't think she bought it though because I am fairly sure that I was saying it in the way most people would if they could see the nuclear bomb going off on the horizon.

So the vet came back in and the first words out of his mouth were “you are not going to like this.” Now let me tell you something straight up, when vets say that, they mean it. Because he then proceeded to tell me that I was going to have to give Emoticon three separate eye drops. Two every morning and evening and then one more every six hours.

EVERY. SIX. HOURS.

Ha ha ha every six hours. Haaaa haaaa haaaaaa. Every six hours. Ha haa haaaa haaaaahhh. Six hours. Hah hah. Which means that Emoticon was going to be living in Jack's dog crate for the next week. Which meant that I am going to get a crash course in staring into my cats diseased eyeballs and filling them with various liquids.

Ohsweetjesusgodtakemenow.

Ahem. Anyway. If this isn't love I don't know what is.

So after that we drove around to various used car lots where each one was shadier then the last before giving up and going home where I made a nest for Emoticon in the dog crate. Then of course I had to do home things like getting the eggs and resetting mouse traps, and then we planted tomatoes and raspberry's and weeded the garden a little and at some point we had dinner and I did the dishes and locked up the chickens and then we wrestled all three nightly medications into her eyeballs while she purred and it broke my heart because why does she have to love me so much when I am doing unpleasant things to her?

Sometimes, it's the little things that will break your heart.

Or your car