It’s been one week and two days since the surgery. On my birthday, I spent the entire day in the emergency room. It’s not really fun when you turn 70 years old to have countless people remind you that  your 70! ?

for some unexplained reason, still to be determined, my blood pressure dropped quite low. I am 120/60 typically. They couldn’t verify why this was going on because the test that they needed to do were impeded by the fact that I am in a surgical sling and I’m not supposed to get out of it right now. So that was a fun day

Right now, I am home and resting. I just went out for the first time and fed my outside kitties. The gal who took this over before the surgery has just done a tremendous job. She was dressed the part two because every time I saw her, she was wearing rubber boots! I was grateful because my lawn hasn’t been mowed in quite some time. So Michelle, my hat is off to you for coming forward and helping me when I needed it so desperately.

The most amazing thing about this whole thing so far is the amount of people who are now in my village. People, I barely knew before this, along with the people that I have known for quite some time have stepped up and given me such a support team like I have never experienced before. My heart is just overfilled with gratitude. The women who are suffering with illnesses diseases, ailments much worse than what I’m dealing with now taking me to doctor visits and hospitals, and you name it. I tried to compensate and give them gas money when I can, but right now I am between paychecks and I might have $10 in my bank. But I have cat food and cat litter and that was the majority of my concern was running out of those. I have run out of kitty food, canned food, so the babies are on adult food now. They are thriving. My friend Gaye calls them her three stooges. She gets such a kick out of how much mischief they get into and how quickly they get into it.

my insurance has refused home healthcare as well as home therapy. Don’t ask me why but they have. I am doing everything I can to keep my house straight. My litter boxes scooped. Again thank you Michelle for showing up at such a great time yesterday morning when I was doing that for the first time. Before anybody gets upset with me and thinks I was out there picking up litter boxes and throwing the litter into the waist pan that’s not what was happening. I was cleaning the litter boxes, but it was taking me a very long time to do it. I was actually scooping the litter out with a plastic container

I was miss reading the signs in my arm after the surgery. To me it felt like the Novacaine was wearing off in my arm and that tingly feeling that you get after you’ve had a root canal or something like that when your gums come back alive was all I was feeling in my arm. I thought it was still the nerve block. We won’t talk about the nerve block that was an ordeal all in itself. But turns out that after Novacaine is entered into your body and it dissipates it turns into bile. In a normal person who has a gallbladder which I do not mind left in 1970, that bile gets into the gallbladder and never reaches the liver. So now my liver and my stomach are having a war every night, and I get to listen to them grumble at each other and try to decide what to do with this. Tremendous amount of bile that is now in my system.

The kittens are sequestered from me. They have the run of their new little patio which attaches to the screen door to the cat room. They have my office and the cat room and the patio during the day. At night, they are put back in the cat room and if it’s going to be a nice night, I’ll leave the door open so they can get into the patio as well

we have a mama raccoon with seven babies. We have a mama possum. She has 10. The other night I was awakened by a very strange noise outside so by the time I got to the door and opened it, I got to see four little balls of quills disappearing into the darkness! We have four porky babies! I did not see mom, but she had to be close because these are just tiny babies and they were so cute.

I have made individual goals for myself for example. My goal by the end of next week is to be able to hold a fork. Not use a fork just hold one so that I can wash it. I don’t know if many of you have ever tried to wash dishes, one-handed, but it is a challenge and I’m still trying to master it.

I took myself off the oxycodone over four days ago. It was adding to the nausea and I really am not in pain. I’m sure once this sling gets unattached from my body that will change. That will be on the 20th when I go for my first appointment to see the surgeon. For now I’m just in discomfort. Which I’m handling with ibuprofen and Tylenol.

Kota, bless his heart. He is so confused. He has to stay away from me and if he approaches me, he has to do it from my left side. And there are currently no good morning rubs and hugs or time in my lap that we used to share. If I start to pet him, he gets so overwhelmed. He just starts to press against me and I have to move him away with my voice. But he’s getting lots of love from the ladies who deliver Meals On Wheels, the mail lady. Anybody who visits me. He’s not lacking for that. He’s just lacking for his mom time. I miss it as wellStop it

I miss Mr. Bentley every day. I know that where he is he is no longer in pain. My biggest pain was that I couldn’t even bury him on my property. My friend Gabe, he came over with his waders on and took him across my Creek. Laid him down in the forest and gave him back to nature.

this morning, while I was outside feeding, I saw the strays that are coming in and my heart just broke. I know I am breaking every Rescue rule that I’ve ever made when it comes to stray cats. I have told people repeatedly over and over and over during those years that you don’t feed the strays because more will come. However, I do know that once I am back to where I can actually function on a semi-normal basis, I will be asking for my last donation of money for the spay and neuters. There is this beautiful she’s just or he’s just a kitten Maine coon and you can tell just by looking at this baby that he has had a hard life. If I was 100% myself, I would have all these cats already trapped and waiting for their spa dates that’s what I tell every cat that goes to be clipped on or spayed they’re having a spa day! In the meantime, I’m hoping that Emerson Lake and Palmer the marble mackerel, tabby kittens are all boys, the little Maine coon who I’m calling Clover because that’s where he likes to lie down or she likes to lie down in my pasture in the clover and the other new ones are all boys. I know of no intact female in my group at least. So if these guys are all boys, yay because first of all the money is going to be less, and there will not be any new kittens in this vicinity. There might be a lot of lively fights, but there won’t be any new kittens. Everybody cross your fingers for me.

I need to go, even doing the very little that I did this morning has left me out of breath. So I’m just going to sit in my chair and continue to try to make a fist with my right hand. Onward and upward.