Oscar's at the emergency clinic overnight

On 2006-07-05, Winnie penned:

I hope you are not planning to give essential oil to Oscar via her
food or water. I checked my aromatherapy book. It says to use
essential oil in a vaporiser or diffuser for pets. It mentioned
using lavender oil for dogs and puppies. No mention of what to use
for cats.It did say that cat have very thin skin, so it is not
advisable to apple essential oil directly to their skin. It
suggested sprinkling 2-3 drops in a pet's bedding. Again it didn't
say whether it is OK to do that for a cat. So be very careful with
using essential oil on Oscar.

Okay, okay! You've convinced me. It's not worth the risk, and
besides which I doubt I could get to a store at this point, anyway.
They're probably all closed, and it's raining cats, dogs, and hamsters
outside. A beautiful, slow-moving, drenching storm. I love it.

If Oscar doesn't like the cage, you may consider making a room in
your house 'her room'.

I'm sure she won't like it, but then she doesn't like closed doors or
being separated from the humans. So she wouldn't like being locked in
a room either, and if I did that I couldn't keep an eye on her easily.

We would have to do some major rearranging to give Oscar a room that
would be appropriate for monitoring and such. The downstairs bedroom
is the guest room; she can crawl under the futon and then it's almost
impossible to get at her unless you have two people. The upstairs
bedroom is kind of used as a storage area, so there's a lot of crap in
it, which could be fixed, but also there's a wide closet with doors
that probably should have rollers at the bottom but don't, so she can
push on them and get in, and it's again almost impossible to get at
her. Honestly, the master bedroom is the best suited to this task.

--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca

On 2006-07-04 18:47:33 -0500, "Monique Y. Mudama" said:

On 2006-07-04, Karen penned:
On 2006-07-04 18:27:30 -0500, "Monique Y. Mudama"
said:

On 2006-07-04, Winnie penned:

Its OK Monique. Hugs. It is good for you to cry and let the
tension out. Your DH probably just doesn't want you to blame
yourself. You said in an earlier post he offered to come home. So
he is concerned and wants to come home and help out.

Yes, he is concerned. And dammit, he does deserve a break from all
his stress. But why can't I get a break?

I ask myself that every day anymore. Sugar appears to be sick now
(actually, we've had a recurring problem for a while and there just
seems no physical reason, but she is going back tomorrow for more
xrays and bloodwork). I'm sick and depressed, which I've never
really been before. Pearl seems to be the best of us all. I have to
figure out how to take care of them while I go home to see my mom at
the beginning of August. I'm just starting to feel so constantly
overwhelmed. Life sucks. I just want to feel happy again.

*hug* Karen. You do sound like you may be a little depressed. Have
you considered seeing a therapist?

I really want to ride a horse. I never feel so able to forget worries
and troubles as on a horse, but the bills say I can't! But for the
first time, really, in my life, yeah, I think I am depressed and may
need to check into that. Ironically, riding would be cheaper but not
covered by insurance and probably as effective.

It may be covered by your
insurance, or maybe you have an EAP that allows a certain number of
visits? I know I'm teetering on the edge of depression right now,
just walking that fine line, as is DH. I feel like the therapy
sessions I'm having are keeping me sane, and even helping me deal with
what comes a little better.

Do you have to visit your mother? Will it improve or worsen your
emotional state?

I really want to see her. I haven't been home in so long. But I am
worried about leaving Pearl for the first time since diabetes and
asthma rx and actually MORE worried about leaving picky eater, shy
Sugar. But it will be so expensive to get someone in here frequently
enough that the trip will have to be short.


The website we talked about earlier specifically mentions emotional
disorders being common, because gastric issues are so confusing,
difficult to diagnose, and their symptoms can be so alienating. It's
not like you can talk to just anyone about symptoms like painful gas,
constipation and diarrhea. I guess I'm lucky in that my therapist has
dealt with IBS for a long time, so she shares my frustration and can
help me deal with it.

yeah, definitely this was generated by frustration over that. I tested
myself today by having a pretty high fat (but damn tasty) lunch. Well,
definitely set me off a bit. I think he is so right that is what I
have. I think I am just frustrated that I still have to probably get a
bajillion more tests before we can say OK, this is it. And run up bills
and meanwhile Sugar is going to have to go to the vet. I just wish I
could FIX her and I'm very scared there is no fix She eats, she
plays if I get out a feather, but in between she huddles (and doesn't
seem to sleep well )

Arrrgh.


Actually, I'm planning to "vacation in Boulder" some time this
summer. That is to say, stay home, but take a week off to go
hiking and otherwise enjoy my surroundings. Today I officially
asked Dad to check his schedule and see if he might be able to come
out and join me. I think that would be fun. But regardless, I'm
taking a week off, and I'm doing it soon.

I hope you get to. I would kill for a real vacation. I hope your Dad
can go. That would be fun.

I'll certainly be allowed to. My company is good about letting people
take vacations. I just need to take the time to do it, and I think if
I have a partner in crime I'll be more likely to use the vacation to
explore, rather than just sitting at home as I might be tempted to on
my own.

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

Short answer: my news client "threads" messages so that I see a
followup post indented under the post to which it was responding.
It's occasionally wrong, but mostly it's very clearly right. So when
I saw Sam's post indented under Tak's, it was a good bet that Sam had
followed up to Tak's message.

I guess my news reader could thread messages, but I find threading
very annoying and kind of confusing - I prefer to read all the messages
sequentially, without regard to who is responding to whom. I do sort
posts by subject so I can read all the messages in the same subject
together before moving on to the next subject.

If you can find a way to look at the complete headers for a message,
you will see a References: header. It lists the genealogy, I guess,
of the message

Yes, I can see that, but it's just a bunch of numbers in angle
brackets. It's not clear to me which references go with which posts.

Joyce

On 2006-07-05, penned:
Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

Short answer: my news client "threads" messages so that I see a
followup post indented under the post to which it was responding.
It's occasionally wrong, but mostly it's very clearly right. So
when I saw Sam's post indented under Tak's, it was a good bet that
Sam had followed up to Tak's message.

I guess my news reader could thread messages, but I find threading
very annoying and kind of confusing - I prefer to read all the
messages sequentially, without regard to who is responding to whom.
I do sort posts by subject so I can read all the messages in the
same subject together before moving on to the next subject.

I guess that's why newsreaders typically support a lot of sorting
options =) I find that threading allows me to follow conversations
more easily, but also (equally important) it allows me to easily
delete subthreads that I don't need (like flamewars). And it's a
lifeline when you can't figure out what someone's talking about.

If you can find a way to look at the complete headers for a
message, you will see a References: header. It lists the
genealogy, I guess, of the message

Yes, I can see that, but it's just a bunch of numbers in angle
brackets. It's not clear to me which references go with which posts.

Yeah, the things inside the angle brackets are message IDs. They're
not in any way human readable, but a program can use them to do the
threading thing.

It occurs to me that my newsreader would allow me to view sorted by
whatever, and if I wanted to see the parent post, I could just hit
"esc p" and it would jump there. I wonder if your client has
something similar, but of course you may not really care.

--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca

On Tue, 4 Jul 2006 08:30:25 -0600, "Monique Y. Mudama"
wrote:

I talked to the vet this morning. Apparently he decided last night,
when he finally got enough time to look at it properly, that it was
*not* an abscess. So he did clean the wound, but no
surgery/anesthesia required. That drastically reduced the cost, which
means that I can use the extra from my deposit to pay for ... leaving
her at the clinic today.

I'll probably need to pick her up tomorrow morning. I can't afford to
leave her there at $200 a day, but at least I know she'll be in an
enclosed area.

The vet's best lead is that there's some fiberglass that caused enough
irritation that Oscar started licking. The licking appears to be most
of the damage right now. The treatment for that is to leave the paw
exposed and wait for the irritant to work its way out, which means ...
e collar for Oscar. There's no way to get around it.

He looked at the irritant under the microscope and couldn't swear it
was fiberglass, but apparently that's the right size and there *is*
exposed insulation in the basement. I knew I should really do
something about that, but ... I never did.

Certainly I can't let her be in the basement anymore, not until I find
a way to block off the crawlspace or something. I need to figure out
if I can make the bedroom safe for a terrified cat with an e collar,
or if I need to put her in a bathroom.

I'm glad it's not so bad as they first thought, but I don't envy you
trying to deal with the e-collar. Purrs that all will go easy and
Oscar will heal swiftly.

Ginger-lyn

Home Pages:
http://www.moonsummer.com
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/glsummer (homepage & cats)
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....mmer/index.htm (genealogy)
http://www.movieanimals.bravehost.com/ (The Violence Against
Animals in Movies Website)

On 2006-07-05, penned:

I'm glad it's not so bad as they first thought, but I don't envy you
trying to deal with the e-collar. Purrs that all will go easy and
Oscar will heal swiftly.

Thank you. I'm concerned that because of the e collar, she's not
drinking. *sigh* I did put some food right up under her nose on the
counter, and she did eat that, but I don't know about water.

Hrmm I don't have a fountain, but I wonder if I could rig something
up.

--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

Thank you. I'm concerned that because of the e collar, she's not
drinking. *sigh* I did put some food right up under her nose on the
counter, and she did eat that, but I don't know about water.


If Oscar will eat them, offer her wet food. . You can even add water to
the wet food before offering it to her. This way she will get some
fluid in. Another alternative is to put water in her mout with an eye
dropper, same way as giving liquid medicine. This was suggested to my
mother by a vet as Scruffy didn't drink enough water. Scruffy liked
this thinking it was a game.

Winnie

Hrmm I don't have a fountain, but I wonder if I could rig something
up.

--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
snip


I fully anticipated some kind of help getting the paw wrapped and
getting out of there, so I kind of went into shock when the vet tech,
Katie, came out to let me know that there was an abscess (however
that's spelled) and Oscar would need to get surgery to have it
drained.

Anytime an emergency vet tells you an abscess needs immediate surgery
in a cat that has already been seen by a vet, take you cat and run.
Take your cat back to your normal vet the next day and talk to him or
her about it. A cat that already has been seen by a vet and is on
antibiotics will not die from an abscess. In fact I have never seen
any cat die from an abscess.

-L.

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

It occurs to me that my newsreader would allow me to view sorted by
whatever, and if I wanted to see the parent post, I could just hit
"esc p" and it would jump there. I wonder if your client has
something similar, but of course you may not really care.

What do you use for reading and posting to Usenet? Your posts say
"Posted via Supernews" - is that what it's called?

Joyce

On 2006-07-05, penned:
Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

It occurs to me that my newsreader would allow me to view sorted
by whatever, and if I wanted to see the parent post, I could just
hit "esc p" and it would jump there. I wonder if your client has
something similar, but of course you may not really care.

What do you use for reading and posting to Usenet? Your posts say
"Posted via Supernews" - is that what it's called?

Er, I didn't realize that -- I guess that's the newsgroup provider my
ISP uses.

I don't think it used to do that, but unless it's a problem for
anyone, I guess that's okay.

Anyway, no, I use slrn, which I run off of a linux box. It's
console-based, so I can read news from anywhere I can log into that
machine from, keeping my preference and history, etc. You can see
that I run slrn in my User-Agent header, although I suppose someone
could spoof that pretty easily (can't think why they would, though).

Aww. I took Oscar's e collar off for a short while (they said I sHould
do that if she wasn't eating or drinking; we'll see what happens when
I try to put it back on). She hasn't been interested in food or
water, and for a while I had to fight her not to groom her paw, but
now she's sacked out, all four paws splayed, belly up. I love her so
much. I'd better remember this moment for when I do have to put the
collar back on.

--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca