ERRANDS (a Ton of Them). Plus: Henry's Eye
Marilyn and I did get to SLEEP IN a bit today. Well, I guess she got up early, but I slept quite late. (I don't know how she does it...) She had washed her hair and done some other things before I ever got up.
Anyway, then we left the house and spent hours (!!!) running errands.
One of our errands was taking our cat Henry Tudor to the vet. His appointment was at 1:20 and it went TWO HOURS LONG. (No, I'm not kidding.) And I'm sorry to say it didn't go very well.
The Bottom Line: Henry has a very bad left eye -- and he's probably going to lose it. Yes, we're going to try very hard to save his eye. But we have to be realistic and prepared for the worse, just in case.
Today was very expensive. I don't think either Marilyn or I expected it to cost that much. Aside from his normal medication (that he takes daily), he's now going to need FOUR other medications. Two of the medications need to be administered every four hours. I'm going to do my best to do just that. I'll be staying home all next week so I can treat him.
(I'll just have to do my work from my home office.)
If we don't do this, the chances aren't good for saving the eye. Actually, even if we do this, he will probably still lose the eye, it's that bad. If he does lose the eye, the surgery to then remove the eye is ridiculously expensive. Far more money than we can possibly afford to spend. So if it comes to that, Marilyn and I have already agreed between us that we'll have to have him put down. I know it sounds terrible to say that, but the cost is well over a thousand dollars -- and he could still die (or get another eye infection).
I will pray (and already have been praying) that Henry will be okay. But I'm preparing myself for what might happen. I'd love to have a miracle, God knows. But I'm not counting on one. I feel so bad for poor Marilyn. The finances are a tough one and I know she feels bad about it. But Henry is a cat, and there need to be limits.
And the timing is awful. I know it sounds bad to mention that, in light of Henry's suffering. But we're in the middle of the festival and things are crazy right now. As it is, Marilyn has her own oral surgery set up for next Friday -- and that's very important!
I'm up right now so I can do Henry's 11:00 meds. It's more complicated than it sounds, because he can't have his drops on top of each other. You have to leave 15 minutes between each application of the various medications.
He's on Ofloxacin (eye drops), as an antibiotic (to prevent melting his corneal ulcer from bacterial infection -- which is even more awful than it sounds). He's on Tobramycin (eye drops), another antibiotic (for the same purpose). Those must be given every four hours. (I'm doing 7:00, 11:00 and 3:00 -- then around again.) He's on Buprenorphine (ingested) for pain (he gets it every 12 hours and it may cause mild sedation). Finally, he's on Atropine sulfate, which dilates the pupil (it helps with pain caused by iris spasm and also prevents a condition called synechia).
I wrap him in a big towel to medicate him and he's been WONDERFUL about it, so far. I've only treated him twice -- I'm not counting doing it in the vet's office when Dr. Henry was showing me how it was done, so I guess three times...
Henry was such a good boy at the vet. I mean, two hours was hard for US, much less him. And he's been so good today, all day long.
I admire this cat so much! He's really an example to all of us. I think of how much I complain about my own pain. What a whiner and wimp I am! A couple of times I think MAYBE Henry was crying at me about his eye -- but I'm not even sure that's the case. He just does his best to hang in there and be as NORMAL as he can. He limps down the stairs, but up and down he goes. He's in a LOT OF PAIN from this eye -- and has probably been in terrible pain for weeks now (we're not sure how long) -- and yet he goes about doing his normal activities every day.
The good news was that his weight was actually up. We used to struggle to keep weight on him. The first thing he did when he got home was go and eat. And we both saw him take a huge drink of water later in the day.
He has a re-check next Saturday (after the St. Johns Parade). Dr. Henry won't be there, but we'll see another doctor who will have her case notes to reference. Hopefully by then we'll get good news. I guess we'll just have to do our best and see what happens.
As for the rest of our day, we got to the bank, went to the post office, made a trip with the car entirely FULL to the Goodwill (glad to get all that stuff out of here), and went to sign up for the bottle return program (BottleDrop). Marilyn found out we can DONATE the money to the festival (which is a non-profit charity), so she really wants to do that (the man running the place was AMAZING -- just so kind and warm with everyone, no matter who they were). We also went to Walmart where I got more noodles (I run through them pretty fast right now) and my soy sauce (!!!) -- yes, they do carry La Choy (woo hoo).
We ran out of time for getting our manicures and pedicures, I'm afraid. So we'll need to do that tomorrow (no matter what!).
I honestly can't remember if I've forgotten to list all the errands from today. Plus Marilyn did a huge amount of laundry that needed doing (she's incredible, as always).
I forgot to mention picking up prescriptions. We'd done that before going to the vet, then had to go to Freddies (Interstate) to get two of his new prescriptions. They weren't ready, so we had to hang around for half an hour (we'd been told twenty minutes) to get these.
She kept saying, 'This is my day off.' I felt so BAD for her! Those two hours at the vet and the extra half hour at Freddies were murder. It was FREEZING at the vet office. Yikes. And really HOT outside.
Marilyn's asleep right now. I'm sure she's exhausted after her long week -- and today! It was it tough day, to say the least.
Fitbit Update: I got 5,587 steps today. I tried to find out what Marilyn got by looking at the Fitbit App on her cell phone. But it hasn't synced since around 4:00! I wonder what the heck is wrong with her Fitbit? We already had to replace the battery TWICE recently. (sigh) I didn't want to wake her trying to 'tap' her device (around her neck), so I just let it go...
In good news, our friend Merlin (Rich's wife) got a Fitbit for Mother's Day -- so she joined our friends today.
I need to head to bed so I can get up at 3:00 a.m. to doctor Henry. No big deal -- I get up like that all the time, after all.
Marilyn wants to go in to the office tomorrow...
I'm off to get some sleep. I need to set an alarm to wake me!
Anyway, then we left the house and spent hours (!!!) running errands.
One of our errands was taking our cat Henry Tudor to the vet. His appointment was at 1:20 and it went TWO HOURS LONG. (No, I'm not kidding.) And I'm sorry to say it didn't go very well.
The Bottom Line: Henry has a very bad left eye -- and he's probably going to lose it. Yes, we're going to try very hard to save his eye. But we have to be realistic and prepared for the worse, just in case.
Today was very expensive. I don't think either Marilyn or I expected it to cost that much. Aside from his normal medication (that he takes daily), he's now going to need FOUR other medications. Two of the medications need to be administered every four hours. I'm going to do my best to do just that. I'll be staying home all next week so I can treat him.
(I'll just have to do my work from my home office.)
If we don't do this, the chances aren't good for saving the eye. Actually, even if we do this, he will probably still lose the eye, it's that bad. If he does lose the eye, the surgery to then remove the eye is ridiculously expensive. Far more money than we can possibly afford to spend. So if it comes to that, Marilyn and I have already agreed between us that we'll have to have him put down. I know it sounds terrible to say that, but the cost is well over a thousand dollars -- and he could still die (or get another eye infection).
I will pray (and already have been praying) that Henry will be okay. But I'm preparing myself for what might happen. I'd love to have a miracle, God knows. But I'm not counting on one. I feel so bad for poor Marilyn. The finances are a tough one and I know she feels bad about it. But Henry is a cat, and there need to be limits.
And the timing is awful. I know it sounds bad to mention that, in light of Henry's suffering. But we're in the middle of the festival and things are crazy right now. As it is, Marilyn has her own oral surgery set up for next Friday -- and that's very important!
I'm up right now so I can do Henry's 11:00 meds. It's more complicated than it sounds, because he can't have his drops on top of each other. You have to leave 15 minutes between each application of the various medications.
He's on Ofloxacin (eye drops), as an antibiotic (to prevent melting his corneal ulcer from bacterial infection -- which is even more awful than it sounds). He's on Tobramycin (eye drops), another antibiotic (for the same purpose). Those must be given every four hours. (I'm doing 7:00, 11:00 and 3:00 -- then around again.) He's on Buprenorphine (ingested) for pain (he gets it every 12 hours and it may cause mild sedation). Finally, he's on Atropine sulfate, which dilates the pupil (it helps with pain caused by iris spasm and also prevents a condition called synechia).
I wrap him in a big towel to medicate him and he's been WONDERFUL about it, so far. I've only treated him twice -- I'm not counting doing it in the vet's office when Dr. Henry was showing me how it was done, so I guess three times...
Henry was such a good boy at the vet. I mean, two hours was hard for US, much less him. And he's been so good today, all day long.
I admire this cat so much! He's really an example to all of us. I think of how much I complain about my own pain. What a whiner and wimp I am! A couple of times I think MAYBE Henry was crying at me about his eye -- but I'm not even sure that's the case. He just does his best to hang in there and be as NORMAL as he can. He limps down the stairs, but up and down he goes. He's in a LOT OF PAIN from this eye -- and has probably been in terrible pain for weeks now (we're not sure how long) -- and yet he goes about doing his normal activities every day.
The good news was that his weight was actually up. We used to struggle to keep weight on him. The first thing he did when he got home was go and eat. And we both saw him take a huge drink of water later in the day.
He has a re-check next Saturday (after the St. Johns Parade). Dr. Henry won't be there, but we'll see another doctor who will have her case notes to reference. Hopefully by then we'll get good news. I guess we'll just have to do our best and see what happens.
As for the rest of our day, we got to the bank, went to the post office, made a trip with the car entirely FULL to the Goodwill (glad to get all that stuff out of here), and went to sign up for the bottle return program (BottleDrop). Marilyn found out we can DONATE the money to the festival (which is a non-profit charity), so she really wants to do that (the man running the place was AMAZING -- just so kind and warm with everyone, no matter who they were). We also went to Walmart where I got more noodles (I run through them pretty fast right now) and my soy sauce (!!!) -- yes, they do carry La Choy (woo hoo).
We ran out of time for getting our manicures and pedicures, I'm afraid. So we'll need to do that tomorrow (no matter what!).
I honestly can't remember if I've forgotten to list all the errands from today. Plus Marilyn did a huge amount of laundry that needed doing (she's incredible, as always).
I forgot to mention picking up prescriptions. We'd done that before going to the vet, then had to go to Freddies (Interstate) to get two of his new prescriptions. They weren't ready, so we had to hang around for half an hour (we'd been told twenty minutes) to get these.
She kept saying, 'This is my day off.' I felt so BAD for her! Those two hours at the vet and the extra half hour at Freddies were murder. It was FREEZING at the vet office. Yikes. And really HOT outside.
Marilyn's asleep right now. I'm sure she's exhausted after her long week -- and today! It was it tough day, to say the least.
Fitbit Update: I got 5,587 steps today. I tried to find out what Marilyn got by looking at the Fitbit App on her cell phone. But it hasn't synced since around 4:00! I wonder what the heck is wrong with her Fitbit? We already had to replace the battery TWICE recently. (sigh) I didn't want to wake her trying to 'tap' her device (around her neck), so I just let it go...
In good news, our friend Merlin (Rich's wife) got a Fitbit for Mother's Day -- so she joined our friends today.
I need to head to bed so I can get up at 3:00 a.m. to doctor Henry. No big deal -- I get up like that all the time, after all.
Marilyn wants to go in to the office tomorrow...
I'm off to get some sleep. I need to set an alarm to wake me!