my darling cat - update

My darling cat's ear infection has cleared up, for which I am grateful.

However:
She has a slight heart murmur
She is losing weight although her appetite is fine
That and elevated blood and urine glucose levels are leading the vet to think that she is on the road to feline diabetes
She has a slight upper respiratory tract infection for which I have to give her antibiotics.

My poor little darling cat :-(

CD36

The fridge is stockpiled with chocolate and rose wine.
The big comfy knickers are laundered and ready.
A new box of painkillers has been bought.
Everything is ready - but what has become of Aunt Flo?

st@tus upd@tes

Ah, F@ceb00k. Once just a way to play Scr@bble, to check to see if that witch from school who made your life a misery in the 5th Form failed her degree and ended up working in a fast-food outlet, and to keep up with friends without actually talking to them more than once a year. Good times...

Now of course, as every IF gal knows, it's called In Your F@ceb00k. In the time that Significant Other and I have been TTC / losing babies, friends have variously changed their profile photos to scans of their girlfriend's uterus, updated their status on a daily basis to "Smug is...only 10/9/8 days away from being a mummy", sent friends a gift list for a baby shower (we don't even do those in England, your life is not an episode of "Fr1ends", woman, get a grip) and sent weekly round-robin emails detailing weight gain, feeding regimen, sleeping patterns and stool texture. Okay, I lied about the stool texture, but it wouldn't have surprised me.

Today I was given 2 scoops of Other People's Good News: 1 lovely (and she is lovely, I'm envious but not a total b1tch - yet) baby girl born around the same time ours should have been and 1 photo of a pregnant-for-the-second-time belly, with the always welcome "time you had one of these" email message. To be fair, she knows nothing of our struggles but - how do you respond to that??

I'm happy for all my pregnant / new parent friends, I am really. No, I AM happy for them, like I said, envious but not yet a b1tch (note the use of the word "yet" for the 2nd time, I fear that b1tch-hood is not far away). But still - I'm seriously considering a F@ceb00k boycott until I too can change my profile photo to a grainy picture of my own innards.

love of my life

I told Significant Other last night that he isn't the love of my life. He was okay with that.

I met the love of my life 15 years ago and fell head over heels at first sight. We have seen each other every day since then, apart from when I have been on holiday.

The love of my life has always been there for me, unjudgemental and loving. Has stayed with me while I cried on the worst days of my life, has looked on tolerantly as I made dreadful wardrobe decisions, offered company when I was alone, made every one of my guests feel welcome and loved, has cheered my every single day since the first afternoon we met.

I don't know what I would do without her.

respite please

Apparently the last 18 months haven't been quite hard enough: losing two babies, relationship crises (yes, plural), car getting written-off before Christmas, having to spend £4k on new windows, work-related problems (me, not Significant Other), failed IUIs / timed interc.our.se, watching friends getting married, pregnant and having babies. That's a fairly full schedule for less than 2 years.

But not full enough it seems as last night, just before dinner, I got a call from the vet to say that my darling cat's blood tests showed "cause for concern" with grossly elevated liver enzymes and elevated creatinin. We have to take her in on Monday for another blood test, and a urine test the results of which should "give a better indication of prognosis". Not "diagnosis" but "prognosis". Maybe I have worked in the health service too long, or maybe it's because that was what they said about our second baby before her heart stopped, but I have such a feeling of impending devastation.

I've had just about as much as I think I can manage for a while so please - god /Gaia / universe / overlords from outer space - no more. Just for a little while? We need to re-group and we need my darling cat who is, after all, our one surviving child.

nope...

...not knocked up yet.

Frack.

treating a cat

How to give your cat her treatment for an ear infection:

1. Hunt all over the flat, find cat curled under your bed, dead centre
2. Try and sweet-talk cat out, she ignores you
3. Significant Other goes round other side of the bed and starts moving shoes and backpacks
4. Cat runs into the hall through your legs, you give chase, cat runs back to bedroom to be scooped up by Significant Other
5. Significant Other sits on the sofa, cat held firmly but gently in his arms
6. You approach them sideways, bottle of gunk-clearing liquid in your hands
7. Cat looks at you reproachfully - she never thought you would be the bad guy
8. Your heart breaks a little as you squirt liquid into her ear and "massage" in for 10 seconds
9. Cat shakes her head, liquid lands on Significant Other's lips.
10. Cat and Significant Other both look at you reproachfully
11. You put a bunched-up wad of cotton wool in your cat's ear, gently swirl, withdraw it covered in ear gunk
12. You repeat with the other ear, this time you cat shakes her head and expels the wad of cotton wool with which you were cleaning her.
13. Ear gunk lands on your cream-coloured dress, but still you and Significant Other think she's been very funny and cute
14. Significant Other puts cat down, she stares at you both in outrage and stalks off to the kitchen to await your apologetic offering of a snack
    
15. It's an hour later and time for the second stage - ear drops
16. You search for the cat, she's not under the bed or behind any curtains. She is finally found under the spare room bed, squashed up against the wall behind all those boxes you haven't quite got round to unpacking since you moved in 11 years ago
    
17. Significant Other makes to scoop her out, she cries, Significant Other gets upset, cat senses her advantage and makes a run for it
18. This time you catch her, she struggles, you get a long scratch on one arm
19. Significant Other takes her, she snuggles into his body, you feel both betrayed and betrayer
20. You put in the ear drops and "massage" her ears, and she is free to go
21. She belly-crawls under the bed, you feel dreadful, five minutes later you hear crunching from the kitchen where she is wolfing down the remains of her earlier snack
22. You go to the bathroom to apply S@vlon to your bleeding arm and then -
    
23. What you have been distracted from most of the evening stares at you
24. An HPT all ready and waiting for the morning...
25. And, after 2 weeks of waiting, you suddenly don't want to take it because then you'll know - and you won't be able to pretend to yourself any longer...