From me too.
Kyla
...
Purrs for you and all those you mentioned.

--

Joy

No amount of time can erase the memory of a good cat, and no amount of
masking tape can ever totally remove his fur from your couch. - Leo
Dworken

"tanadashoes" wrote in message
...
Sorry about not getting in touch before. Charleen sent me an I care card
and I was so bad I didn't respond to her. I'm sorry. I was off line
from Feb 17 or so until the first of March. I got my annual case of
combined flu, cold, allergies. I was one sick little kitty. We won't
discuss the worst of it, but I wouldn't wish this on anyone, including my
idiot sister.

It's cottonwood season and I wish someone would shoot them, or do
something to make them go away. If I were ever to find some part of the
USA that didn't have cottonwood, I'd move there. We haven't found it
yet.

Enough about me. Rob was doing really well, but scared us all on Sunday.
Mike's car, Emily (the '89 metallic blue Tempo) is giving up the ghost,
so we went to CarMax (I highly recommend them) and put the down payment
on a gold 2003 Buick Century. Rob was doing well, rode on the test drive
with the kids and seemed to be enjoying himself. In the middle of the
paperwork, he suddenly couldn't use his right arm and hand. He slumped
to the right and had to be propped up by Mike. I had to hold his hand so
that he could sign his name on the rest of the papers. Had we stopped,
we'd have had to come back and start the whole process again from the
beginning. I still feel like a ghoul for making him sit there while we
signed the final four to six papers. Afterwards, I drove him to the ER.
He was already doing better when I was getting him into the van. We were
at the ER for 7.5 hours most of which was spent waiting for the doctor to
get past the various other emergencies before she could get back to Rob.
His blood pressure was in the 140-170/100-118 range, in other words,
through the roof. The CT scan showed no change from the MRI done back in
January, so they couldn't say for sure what is going on. Today we saw
his regular doctor who thinks he may have had a stroke imitating action
caused by his high blood pressure. He's doubled the dose of Rob's blood
pressure medicine and we're going to talk to Rob's oncologist about
aspirin therapy. I'm still pretty shook up, though. Rob is more curious
about what happened than worried about it.

Mandy Lynn's mom went into the hospital last week for hernia surgery.
She went to the doctor for a check back and was put back into the
hospital in Seattle. Something inside is apparently leaking. They may
have to go back in and operate again. Janet (Mandy Lynn's momma) has had
a lot of medical problems and never complained about them. We're all
worried about her and are asking all the owners to purr while we send
healthy thoughts and prayers for her.

Rob's mom is having a cancerous kidney removed today at noon Pacific
daylight time. We're worried for her as well. Medical seems to be a big
part of our lives. I know it is presumptuous, but could you ask the
owners to purr for them both? Prayers and healthy and/or healing
thoughts and wishes are also welcome.

The owners are adjusting to the new addition to their ranks pretty well.
Tanada decided that she could handle another year of bitty wrangling on
"The Mouser" after she taught Hermione not to play with Tanada's tail.
Hermione has decided that Tanada is a cranky old biddy that she doesn't
want to deal with. She walks on tip toe when around the Grouchy one.
She sleeps with Rob and I, and plays and hangs out with Mandy Lynn and
Mike.

The rest of the owners are feeling Spring coming on. Trips into the
kitty gaol are more frequent and last longer. The ornamental pear,
camellia, miniature grape hyacinth, and purple lawn weeds are in bloom.
The cats are rolling on the grass as it recovers from the winter and
laughing at Speedy, the d-thing. Speedy was caught trying to pee on Pine
Cone. Piney got out of the way and let the d*g know that he can never
out smart the Pine Cone, or any other cat for that matter. Chaos is
spring around here and chaos is the order of the day.

I hope that I'll be better about posting for at least a while, but don't
count on it. I'm even more erratic than usual lately. I do want to send
purrs and well thoughts and wishes for all who want and/or need them.
Even though I haven't been on line, I have been thinking about you all.
You are my family as much as the physical family and I have been bad
about keeping you up on our news and in caring for you all.

Pam S.