Ready for the Weekend

Proving once again that cats have nine lives, Ernie has bounced back. It looks like her antibiotic shot kicked in.  She's eating like a little piggy.  She's developed a limp, but it hasn't slowed her down.  I don't know what happened to her leg.  If I had to guess, I'd say she probably tried to hop onto the sofa but didn't make it.  It's better today than it was yesterday.  Hopefully it'll be gone by the end of the weekend.

Now that this crisis has passed, at least for the moment, it's back to business as usual.  Walker's mom is moving into a new condo, so the warmer weather we're having (50's!  In January!)  has been a real blessing.  Walker works at his mom's for several hours each day, after he finishes at his job.  We make a point of having dinner together every night but other than that, we haven't seen each other.  I'm hoping they finish this weekend.  I miss my sweetie.

I've been spending time each day at the SparkPeople website.  I've been tracking my food, my water, and my walking.  Yesterday I added a goal of doing 15 minutes of cardio, four times a week.  I know that isn't enough, but I have to start somewhere. I'm just so out of shape, any exercise is a good thing.  At the bottom of the nutrition page there's a box that evaluates your food intake.  So far, I've stayed in my calorie goal four out of the five days, but the day I went over I went wayyyy over.  I know what happened:  I waited too long to eat, then I was famished so I ate too quickly; I didn't feel satisfied and kept eating.  I do that sometimes when I get home from work.  It's at the top of my list of things to work on.  I think if I can fix that bad habit, it will go a long way toward helping me reach my goal.

Walker and I have a date Sunday morning for breakfast at the VFW.  They only do this every so often, so we always try to make it.  We like to support the VFW and most of their fundraisers are held in the evening.  Walker thought we should skip this one, since I'm doing this diet thing, but I told him. "This isn't a diet, it's a lifestyle change.  I'm not skipping anything that I'm not prepared to give up permanently."  Sounds like a good plan, LOL, but only time will tell if it will work.

Downhill

I called Ernie's vet yesterday morning, even though Walker and I had agreed to let nature run it's course.  She still isn't eating much, and I couldn't believe she isn't suffering.  I decided that I've had Ernie for almost 23 years but I've only had Walker for eight.  Ernie has seniority.  Besides, my mom taught me at a young age that it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind.  So I did.

The vet agreed that bringing Ernie into the clinic would cause her too much stress, so she made up a syringe full of antibiotics and left it for us at the front desk.  Walker picked it up and I administered it as soon as he got home.  It's basically a last ditch effort to keep Ernie comfortable while we wait for her time to go.  The vet said it will take a day or two to work.  If she isn't perked up and eating by then, she won't ever be.  I'll be sticking close to home again this weekend, taking care of my girl.

The good news is, apparently at this stage it's likely Ernie isn't feeling much pain.  The kidney failure causes her thinking to get fuzzy, so she doesn't likely realize she's sick.  Mostly she sleeps.  It's not much, but it's comforting.

Some Kind of Amazing

Since I spent the long weekend taking care of Ernie I had to make a grocery run during my dinner break at the office. I just got enough to get us through the rest of the week, since I have to watch the clock pretty close.  Anyway, it's cold enough here that I just left everything in the car until I finished work.  Turns out I got pretty lucky, because while I was standing in the driveway unloading the car I saw a shooting star zip across the sky.  Then another.  And while I stood there in awe, staring at the sky, shooter number three streaked past.

I zipped in the house to check on Ernie, then I grabbed the phone and called my mom as I headed back outside.  There aren't many people I would call at 4a.m., but my mom is always up late and I knew she'd want to check out the sky.  She told me there was a meteor shower going on, but she didn't think we'd be able to see it so she hadn't been outside.  I was happy to tell her to give it a try. 

A while later, I was just thinking I should probably head inside.  I was getting cold, and I could see motion lights going off house by house by house as the paper boy made his rounds.  I figured he'd be at my house shortly, and the extra light would make the meteors harder to see.  About that time the biggest, brightest shooter yet streaked over my head, leaving a trail of light that lasted several seconds.  I'm such a dork - I was bouncing around squealing like a little kid.  I don't care - it was amazing.

Once, when I was little, I think maybe around seven, my sister, who was an avid star gazer, took me outside late at night to watch a meteor shower.  She made popcorn and spread blankets in the grass and I got to stay out really, really late watching shooting stars zip across the sky.  I remember being mesmerized by it, and have tried many times to view another.  One night Walker and I drove out into the farmlands around town trying to see a meteor shower, but the clouds rolled in just as it got dark.  The clouds have spoiled my viewing more than once. How lucky that I had groceries to unload, so I didn't miss this one, too.

Just to Recap......

I realized that I have some new followers who probably don't know what's up with Ernie, so I wanted to say, first of all, welcome to my new friends. Second, about my kitty, Ernie:  she's nearly 23 years old, and she has kidney failure and cancer.  We opted not to treat the cancer, since there is no cure for the kidney failure and honestly?  At 22 years and ten months old, Ernie is the oldest feline patient at our vet clinic. Why ruin whatever time she has left with chemotherapy?  She already endures daily injections of subcutaneous fluid and twice daily eye drops, along with meds for chronic constipation. I thought that adding additional medical treatment would reduce the quality of her life more than it would help her.  She does not appear to be in any pain, but a couple weeks ago she developed a cancer related eye condition that the vet said indicates the beginning of the end for my baby girl.

Since that night I've turned into one of those helicopter moms, hovering over her trying to determine how she's feeling at any given time.  We keep a spreadsheet of her meds and her litter box activities, and I try to keep track of what she's eating. It's hard, sometimes, as she helps herself when she has the opportunity.  She become a food thief if you leave a plate unattended.  Or, you know, take dinner off the stove and set it on the kitchen table and turn your back.  We once caught her with her head in a pot of hot taco soup, slurping away.   Lucky for us, McDonald's is close. She also once batted a Krispie Kreme out of my hand and chomped it down.  Who ever heard of a cat eating donuts?  Anyway, Ernie has always had a bit of a prickly disposition, so it wouldn't surprise me one bit to learn that her hunger strike this weekend was designed to get me to back off. 

Except I know it's not.  I know that our time together is growing short, and I'm trying to be strong so I can do whatever I need to do to help Ernie.  I truly appreciate the support and kindness of my blogger pals.  This has been really, really hard and I'm very grateful to all of you.

Monday

Either Ernie has been reading Taryterre's comments, or she's messin' with me.  After two days of sleeping and not eating, she hopped off the sofa, waltzed up to my desk, and demanded some of my turkey sandwich.  Of course I gave her a bit of breast meat, still warm from the oven.  She snarfed it down and I gave her a bit more. In the end she ate at least an ounce of turkey breast and some of the broth I scooped from the pan.  I always roast turkey in an inch of water so there's lots more of that, plus as much of the meat as she wants.  I can always make more.  I'm glad she seems to be feeling better, cause I have to go back to work tomorrow and I was stressing leaving her alone for that long.

Since I haven't really left the house since I got home from work on Saturday morning, I've been working on some projects that are long overdue, like laundering curtains and cleaning light fixtures.  I also signed up for Spark People, so I can get a jump on my weight loss and fitness goals.  I tried Spark People a long time ago and didn't get much out of it.  Can't remember much about the experience except I know I was frustrated trying to find info on the website.  Haven't had that at all this time around.  I love that I can put in my goals for the week and it comes up with a meal plan, which I can tweak for our personal tastes.  Then I change it to two servings, cause Walker needs to eat, too, and it gives me a grocery list.  How awesome is that?  I still have many areas of the site to explore, but right now I'm very encouraged.  Spark People is free, so if losing weight or getting fit is one of your goals, give them a look and see if they have tools to help you, too.

More of the Same

Ernie's hanging in there, and so are we.  Walker and I stayed up with her all night, which we realized in hindsight was pretty dumb, because we both crashed around the same time.  Today we're going to sleep in shifts.  I don't want her to be alone, in case she wants comfort at some point. Right now she seems to want to be left alone.  Still not eating, still not talking. 

The Vigil

Ernie isn't eating.  I made her a plate of freshly roasted chicken, shredded up into tiny pieces, just like she likes it. I put it right in front of her, and she didn't even give it a sniff.  She ate a little bit yesterday, but so far, today, not a bite. She hasn't made a peep, either.  Normally she's pretty vocal, letting us know when she wants her rice bag heated up or when she wants to be picked up and petted.  She's spent most of the day curled on her blankie, sleeping.  She gets up to visit her box, then she gets a drink of water, and back to sleep.  We are trying to keep an eye on her without bothering her.  Sometimes it's hard to tell if she's still breathing.  If this is her time to go, I hope she just goes, gently, in the middle of her nap.  My daddy died that way, and so did both of his parents.  I'm praying that we don't have to take her in to the vet again.  She hates every single second of that, right from the minute we bring her crate out.  She knows what that crate means and she gets agitated as soon as she sees it.  I hope we don't have to do that to her again.