Sucks to be YOU, veterinary science.
So, yeah, those extortionist sons a bitches made me bring Pan in for a full battery of tests last week, saying they wouldn't refill her prescriptions otherwise, and so I did it, and they cleaned me out, and that's kind of a drag, you know, I haven't been this broke in a while now, and I haven't missed it at all.
But they didn't find anything.
I mean, they did, they have a new vet and he didn't read Pan's file before we came in and so he found her tumor and her wheezing and he was like OH SHIT MAN, I AM GOING TO RUIN THIS WOMAN'S LIFE, but as you know, it wasn't news to me, this finding.
But yeah, her heart sounds good, her blood looks good, her pee looks good, he violated her person and didn't find anything with his hands. Basically what I am saying is that despite being a senior now and having the enlarged heart and the big-ass tumor and the diverted airways and the air pockets in her belly--and yeah, also being kind of a chubbo--Pan is crazy, remarkably healthy.
It reminds me of that episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia where Dennis falls in love with the junkyard cat. "He was born in a pool of gasoline on a piece of rusty scrap metal. I've seen that cat jump through barbed wire into a vat of hot tar. That cat? Is indestructible."
I haven't been writing about her much because it's been kind of "no news is good news" for a bit. Everyone from her last crop of nemeses has moved away, and we haven't got a new one yet. My favourite new thing is when she hauls me out of bed at 4am on a Saturday to provide her breakfast, then buries it, forgets it, and wakes me again at 6am, accusing me of never having fed her at all.
You move the rug to reveal her lost bowl and she doesn't even say YOU ARE AS A GOD!
She just eats.
Probably the most important thing that's happened for us recently was a friend of mine who works in an old folk's home offering me some reading on caregiver stress--not because I felt like I needed it, but because it made me see that all this time, I've been thinking of Pan as dying even though she's not, as it turns out, any more than most of us are, you know, she's just been afflicted, and now she's getting older. No actual expiration date = not dying.
It's opened me up a little bit.
Anyway. I know that photo is not of very good quality. I took it with my laptop camera. We don't really have opportunities for anyone to take photos of us together, as you may know, and Pan's not the type to sit around waiting for me to compose something, you know, you gots to strike while the iron is hot.