about my cat

My darling little cat has been pretty sick recently.  I mentioned in a previous post that she had been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism last month and was put on tablets twice a day.  Well, just over a week into that regimen, she started to have fits.  Mild fits (apparently) but they freaked me the hell out anyway.  A blood test showed that her thyroid meds had worked rather too well and she now had hypothyroidism (the lower limit of a normal thyroid level is 19, hers was 11).

So, thyroid meds were stopped and instead I had to watch her pretty much 24 hours a day for about a week, giving her diazapam (rectally, lovely) every time she had a fit and also twice daily doses of phenobarbital.  The pheno stopped the fits after 5 traumatic days and now she is almost back to normal.  The vet and I still have to discuss how (if at all) to manage her thyroid condition but that is something to be dealt with at the end of this week.

My poor darling little cat!

memory lapse

I stay away from social media on Mother's Day for reasons of self preservation. We all know that it is coming, thanks to commercial tv and advertising in shops, so it's pretty easy to remain unplugged on the fourth Sunday in Lent.
This year, however, I forgot that this Sunday was mother's day in the USA (and New Zealand, sorry ex-MIL) and blithely logged in to In Yer Face Book. I learnt a lot, largely that I will never know real love and that whatever I may do in life is irrelevant. Oh, and also that I buy a new pair of designer heels every month and go to the hairdresser every week. Basically, if I aggregated every post and meme, the result would be that I am a selfish, loveless (but well-shod) woman.
Lesson learned: remember to leave the interwebs alone for two days a year.

April

April 17th: two-year anniversary of A and me splitting up
April 23rd: my darling little cat got sick
April 24th: after expensive tests, my darling little cat was diagnosed with hyperthyroid.  It could have been a lot worse, but she now has to have 2 tablets a day for the rest of her life.  There are other, more invasive, treatment options but she's going to be 19 (!) in June and I don't want to put her through anything like that
April 25th: my mother is told that she needs to have an operation on her foot which will mean 6 weeks without being able to walk and a further five months of physio before she recovers mobility.
April 28th: five-year anniversary of losing Starchild.  I don't know if A remembered, he didn't remember when we were together so I can't imagine he remembers now.  But his mother did and she sent me a lovely text message.
April 30th: vet calls to tell me that my darling little cat also has a urinary tract infection which will need 4 weeks of antibiotics

Gentle reader, April has sucked arse.

sometimes...

...I wish I had my cat's life:

readers

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small stuff

Some day I am going to stop sweating the small stuff.  However, that day is not today:

1) It was Mother's Day in the UK two Sundays ago.  I stayed away from In Yer F@cebook and TV but then my dad picked the place we took my mother to.  And it was the place we went to five years ago, when A and I told my parents that I was pregnant with Starchild.

2) Earlier that same weekend I got sick.  Nothing big, just a virus which I am pretty much over apart from the lingering hacking cough which keeps me awake at night.

3) My boss and I are short-listing for new part-time post, whoever gets the job will be working very closely with me.  They are also meant to take some of the pressure off me by being available to take half of the extra-long days (once a month I work a 7.30am-9.30pm day, while my usual hours are 8-5.30 three days a week and 7.30-5 the other two). However, the candidate my boss favours has already said that she won't be able to work later than 3.30 because of childcare issues.

4) Grumble, grumble, whine, moan :-)

There have been a couple of great blog posts this week about comments that those of us going through infertility, and those of us who are living without children, face.  You can read them here on Mali's blog and here on Life Without Baby.

It does get easier to bear, with the passage of time, although I still aspire to point three on Mali's list, and I now am able to bat the "why don't/didn't you just adopt" with "why didn't/don't you?"  As these comments are always made by people I know well enough, I know I'm not committing my own thoughtless blunder.

However, last week I was completely blindsided by this comment, from someone I had just met that evening (a stay-at-home mother of two): "so what are you going to do to contribute to society, then?"

I was too taken aback by this to answer and stepped away from the conversation saying that was sorry but I just had to go and talk to so-and-so before they left.

What I wish I had had the presence of mind to say was that I contribute fine to society, thank you.  I have a job in medical research which enables me to pay tax - which in turn enabled her to have two lots of year-long maternity leave and now gives her children child benefit, free schooling, free library services, free travel on London Transport until age 14 and a host of other taxpayer funded services. And I'm doing this without any quid pro quo as I will never claim any of the above list for my own children.   (I also pay National Insurance which gives her and her children free health care, but of course this I also use myself!).

What would you have said?