Sometime’s life slaps you in the face
I’ve gotten some e-mails from a few people who say they can’t see my whole posts and I don’t know why, but I’m working on it. Sorry if you can’t see it all.
What’s with us and pets these day? In late March we lost our (read: MY) beloved Buddy to what we thought then was old age. He was 13 years old and had gone into kidney failure. Renal disease is a hard row to how. It’s painful and there isn’t a whole lot that can be done; actually, I don’t know that anything can be done for it when it’s advanced in a cat like that. One day he was sleeping peacefully like and old house cat does, the next he had trouble walking and standing on his back end with stability and the next he had trouble peeing. I knew what was going to have to be done and I had a hard time bringing myself to it. But we did, he needed me to let go. He hurt and I couldn’t do anything to make it better. So I said goodbye and cried myself to sleep that night.
A few weeks later our big beautiful cat, Topper, hurt his hip in a very bazaar accident. He jumped straight up in the air, the way cats do, because he got spooked and when he landed he broke his left hip at the femoral head. We bit the bullet and paid for the surgery - an FHO. Basically, it’s the removal of the femoral head to allow for healing (there are no hip replacements for cats).
The following week sweet Skipper, Buddy’s litter mate, began showing signs that he was fading fast. I told SmockDaddy years ago that if Buddy were to go before Skipper that Skipper would die from loneliness and heartache. It’s the personality of Skipper. I knew that if Skipper went first that Buddy would do fine. As I suspected Skipper began going downhill within a week. Crying all the time, looking for Buddy, acting very strange and doing really weird things. Then one night he wouldn’t eat or drink and his face looked think and scrawny. I picked him up to give him some extra love and there was blood coming out of his mouth. I started shaking and crying. What in the heck is going on with the cats in our house. We took him in for an emergency visit to the vet. I knew he was going to die that night and I didn’t want him suffering anymore through it all. I wanted it to end for him. We decided to keep him comfortable through the night and if he made it until morning I’d go back up and be with him and then bring him home to bury him.
We didn’t want the children waking up and finding him dead either. We didn’t want them going off to school sad about Skipper - they would get anything done. We didn’t even tell them how bad it was, just that after they went to sleep we had to take Skipper to the vet the night before. I told them when they got home from school that day that Skipper had died and we buried buried him that afternoon.
This past weekend Topper was gone all day Saturday and didn’t come home until Sunday when he heard my car pull up after church. He was walking very slowly. He came in and mosied about a bit then settled in to a nice cool spot on the bathroom floor, not wanting to move much. I babied him as he hasn’t been walking and running much anyway since his hip had surgery. Can you blame him? Anyway, Monday morning as CowBoy was loving on him as usual (and I was watching) Topper scratched him really hard and then bit him. Truly, it wasn’t that bad, but it sure hurt CowBoy’s feelings. He loves Topper and Topper is often CowBoy’s pillow. I knew Topper must be hurting so I called the vet to see if we could make another appointment to make sure that something wasn’t wrong with the hip again. I couldn’t get him in until yesterday so I just kept Topper away from everyone and dropped him off for x-rays yesterday afternoon. I just got the call with the diagnosis: His other hip is broken, identically to the left one. What the hell is going on?
Now we are looking at putting him to sleep too. This is really making me angry! I can put an animal to sleep when it’s necessary. I understand that need. But this! Just because I can’t afford the second surgery? It just seems so unfair. My children, I ache for them. We don’t have another $500.00 and I just want to throw up.
My children have seen so much crap and pain in their short lives, more than most people do in their entire lives. I know they are resilient, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to protect them from any more pain. This just stinks! We’ve got so many loose ends with money right now I keep dreaming of money and it’s hold on us. We are doing everything we can to be faithful to what we have and manage it in a Godly way, to give, to be responsible and to pay off debt. Things like this happen and I get so angry, because if we weren’t in this situation, in this place, we could do what we needed to do to get Topper fixed and better. I’m going to give it a day and pray that a few thousand dollars just lands in my lap so all these loose ends to be taken care of so I can help Topper and the hearts of my children. Will it happen? No, but at least I’ll know I gave it a day.
Off to cry some more.
Update: the children have been told and they want to have a lemonade stand to raise money to save their Topper. I swear this hurts.
I’m SO SORRY! I’ll keep your family in my prayers!
I only get partial posts in IE6 (what we use at work). At home, w/ a NORMAL browser, your posts show up just fine.
Thanks, it’s definitely and IE6 thing then. Both of the e-mails I got commented on using IE and that they were older. I’m not sure how to fix it, but I’ll keep trying. As much as I hate IE, it’s too widely used to ignore the problem.
Okay, what is a “normal” browser?
I’m sorry for all your pet woes. We lost our beloved family dog last year, gosh, about a year and a half ago now, but it seems like yesterday and we are so not over it. I don’t ever want to have a dog again because I don’t want to deal with the heartache of loosing it.
Also, re: money, have you watched the Secret yet? Thinking (prayer) really does make a difference, and if you focus on the lack it is the same as praying for the lack. Our financial lives made a huge turn around after watching the Secret. Then we stopped the thinking for a bit and noticed that the money was exactly the same but somehow we didn’t have as much, so we are back to thinking about abundance.
Sending good wishes your way.
Kerry
Sorry about your cats. It doesn’t take long to get attached to an animal.
I repeat, what is a “normal” browser?
Kerry, a normal browser is just about any browser other than IE. IE intentionally goes against the norm. It will not read code properly and MS has no intentions of changing that. They think everyone else should follow them. I have news for them - it ain’t gonna happen. Web standards are too important than to let them decide how it’s going to be. So follow this link and read more.