Another day

Comments

People keep on reaching out to me about Werner, which I greatly appreciate. I feel like I had gotten most of my grieving out of my system during the two months leading up to his death, though. Ever since I buried him yesterday I’ve felt, for the most part, fine. A certain clarity, a fog has lifted, and all that. I think my worry about Werner had been weighing me down greatly and now that he’s resting forever and at peace, everything is fine. Or at least better.

I’m still sad about his absence, and when I think about his final moments or look at any of the mementos I tear up a bit. But they’re mostly tears of joy, I think.

Fiona’s also gotten a lot happier too. I think she was spending a lot of time worrying about him and trying to take care of him, and it was wearing on her. Today she was extremely cuddly and affectionate with me for the first time since… well, since Werner got sick, I think. And she had a lot more energy for playing than in recent memory, too.

Today I stopped by his little grave and said some words to him, and Fiona came over too and sniffed a bit and rolled around. I think she can maybe smell him in there. Of course I’m going to visit him every day or so in order to water the hydrangeas, and I’ll probably be saying hi to him each time for a while, but as with all things that’ll probably fade. But I had put a Werner pin on the fence behind him, just a little reminder of him to see each time, at least until a raccoon steals it for being too shiny.

(Okay, thinking about visiting him makes me cry too.)

Read more…

Werner, 2021/08/06

Comments

It’s been a few days:

  • Hurt: 5; he doesn’t seem to be in pain, but his belly’s gotten extremely distended making it hard for him to find a comfortable position, and his breathing’s a bit shallow
  • Hunger: 8; still a hungry little man, still excited to steal my food in particular
  • Hydration: 6; he doesn’t seem to be drinking as much now, and his eyes are constantly watery
  • Hygiene: 3; his poop has turned reddish/coppery and smells awful, he doesn’t bother to clean himself and doesn’t let Fiona clean him either
  • Happiness: 2; he’s still interested in food, he still purrs when petted, but he’s basically checked out
  • Mobility: 3; stumbling, he’s still peeing in the box but just poops wherever
  • More good days than bad: 3; he tires out quickly and just falls over where he stands, and he’s had a couple of minor seizures
  • Total: 30; according to this, it’s time.

I’m not ready to let him go.

And more importantly, I don’t want to drive him to the vet. I don’t want to put him through that.

He still is passionate about eating and he seems to get a lot of pleasure from it. Is that worth keeping him around for though?

I’m hoping he dies peacefully in his sleep. I hope he isn’t in pain. I hope it comes quickly for him.

The in-home euthanasia services cost $400. Maybe it’s worth it.

Health updates, mine and cat’s

Comments

fluffy’s health

My new doctor has already proven himself to be way, way better than my last doctor. He’s really diving into my records and gathering insight to confirm my suspicion of hEDS. Meanwhile he’s put me on muscle relaxants “as needed” and I was taking them a couple hours before bed for a few days and started to feel a lot better. But I haven’t been taking them for the past few days, and I’m feeling worse. Go figure. So, muscle tension is definitely a factor, which I think goes along with hEDS? Like, reducing my muscle tension gives my shitty connective tissue a better chance to actually heal.

I also finally got an appointment with a new dentist. It’s towards the end of September (I really should have gotten on this sooner, as I’m due for a cleaning in, like, a week) but I’m really optimistic about the new dentist; her intake form is incredibly inclusive regarding gender stuff (with an open-ended selection for pronouns, and gender checkboxes that include non-binary!) and neurodivergent things (questions about a whole bunch of dentist-specific anxiety triggers to avoid, whether a blanket or weighted vest helps, whether it’s okay to be lectured about dental health, etc.). Also, she’s a PoC. I’ve never had a dentist who wasn’t a white dude before, and maybe that explains why it’s always felt like dentists don’t care about privilege or diversity or, y'know, taking care to make people feel comfortable.

Werner’s health

Little dude is definitely slipping away more and more each day. By the rubric he’s probably past the point where I should consider euthanasia, but he doesn’t seem to be in pain and he’s enjoying pets/skritches/sitting with me/eating (especially stealing my food) so for now I’m going to just let it ride.

If he starts expressing pain I’ll have to make a tough choice, but for now he’s basically just getting progressively drunker and sleepier all the time (except when food’s involved). I really hope he just drifts off one time and never wakes up (although every time I check up on him he ends up waking up and gets excited about the prospect of food).

He’s having trouble staying steady while standing or walking, and Fiona’s started to interpret this as him being a lost kitten. She tries to pick him up by the scruff, even though he’s nearly as big as her, and he has none of it. So Fiona gets pretty confused by this.

Read more…

A measure of Werner

Comments

It’s that time again:

  • Hurt: 4; when he’s lying down his breathing is pretty shallow. He still isn’t expressing pain but he’s definitely disliking being picked up anymore. I’ve been managing his pain with CBD oil.
  • Hunger: 6; he’s not quite so voracious right now. But that could also be because of how warm it is. Also the CBD oil.
  • Hydration: 8; he’s still an incredibly thirsty boy.
  • Hygiene: 7; he’s actuall pooping? in the box?? on his own???
  • Happiness: 3; he seems pretty down in the dumps most of the time.
  • Mobility: 3; still stumbling and seems off-balance. But he’s still able to jump up on the couch or bed when he wants skritches.
  • More good days than bad: 6; he’s still trucking along.
  • Total: 37; this is, um. Really close to the rubric’s cutoff.

Werner status for 7/27

Comments

Again with the PetMD quality of life scale:

  • Hurt: 4; breathing is still a bit shallow, and he’s getting pretty uncomfortable with just lying down on things without propping his front half up.
  • Hunger: 10; holy heck this dude is a hungry little dude.
  • Hydration: 7; still drinking plenty of water, but feeling a bit dehydrated.
  • Hygiene: 5; he’s randomized where he decides to dump his load, but otherwise unchanged.
  • Happiness: 3; he seems pretty checked-out lately, but he still wants to spend time with me and purrs when being petted.
  • Mobility: 3; he’s slowed down further and stumbles a lot more. I think he’s mostly really off-balance because of his swollen liver.
  • More good days than bad: 7; he still seems to be doing okay overall.
  • Total: 39

Guess I should start making preparations.

Werner status for 9/22

Comments

As usual, rated on the PetMD quality of life scale:

  • Hurt: 5; he seems to be breathing somewhat shallowly, and he seems to have trouble finding a comfortable position to lie in, probably due to enlarged liver.
  • Hunger: 9; He’s still eating a lot and happy to enjoy food.
  • Hydration: 8; Still drinking plenty of water throughout the day.
  • Hygiene: 5; still peeing in the box, still pooping on the floor (now in my bedroom).
  • Happiness: 4; loves to spend time with me, enjoys being pet, but has no interest in toys or catnip.
  • Mobility: 4; he’s moving slowly, and stumbles while doing it. But he has no trouble getting on or off the couch or bed. And as stated, he’s still able to get into the litter box just fine.
  • More good days than bad: 7; he’s been pretty affectionate for the last few days.
  • Total: 42

Various updates

Comments

fluffy health

So, I had a very bad experience with my doctor with this latest chronic pain flare (and the short-term disability leave situation), and with encouragement from my therapist I am switching to a different doctor. The doctor I’m switching to specializes in LGBT healthcare (and apparently 10% of his patients are trans) and also has a specific interest in treating chronic conditions, which is what I need.

I’ve also gone back to my self-determined physical therapy regimen. You know, the one that my GP and the pain doc and physical therapist she referred me to all think will cause more injury, even though it’s always helped me in the past. So far it feels like I’m actually making progress on recovery.

Said regimen:

  • Frequent powerball sessions
  • Upper-body stretching and partial chin-ups using a chin-up bar
  • Playing DDR (okay I haven’t resumed that yet but I’ll probably be starting that again soon, and I’ll be streaming it when I do)

Read more…

I am not having a great day

Comments

I got woken up at 7 AM by an onslaught of opportunistic vulture realtors trying to get my attention because my condo listing had expired, and it only went downhill from there.

There’s this hideous practice where if a housing listing expires or is pulled from the market, realtors go out of their way to try to get in touch with the owner with the hopes that they will be the person that the owner switches to. and they’re relentless and fucking entitled and have all sorts of clueless feedback for why my listing isn’t doing well and why I should dump my realtor and go with them, and they don’t care about my explanations about the actual problems and respond even more shittily if you ask them to stop or tell them why calling me at SEVEN IN THE MORNING is not appropriate (but of course they have so many reasons why it’s totally okay and even expected and why it’s justified or even my fault why they’re even contacting me?!), and at one point some of them were even calling my mom with the hopes that she’d be able to help out, somehow.

I don’t even know how they got her number, probably looking her up in the phone book by last name or something. She’s in New Mexico, and has nothing to do with my property.

So my mom’s (rightfully) freaking out to me about all the calls she’s getting too, and I tell her it’s totally fine to just tell them to fuck off, and then apparently some of them started calling my sister too? Which makes even less sense, she doesn’t even have the same last name as me anymore.

In the meantime, my realtor’s working on trying to get the listing back up and that takes way too long because the MLS is slow to respond and meanwhile I’m still having this gigantic fibro flare which the stress is NOT HELPING WITH, go figure. But she gets the listing updated and the calls stop. Whew.

After all that settled down I took a nap because this is already too much for me and I can’t even.

Then half an hour ago I woke up to find that Werner pooped in the bedroom, because he’s senile and has forgotten how the litter box works. Fine. I work on cleaning it up. Just after I’m finishing with that, he goes back into the bedroom and poops again, this time diarrhea. So I start cleaning that up. Then as I’m getting my carpet cleaner ready he goes into the living room and DIARRHEA POOPS AGAIN.

so yeah I’m not having a great day

Read more…