Tonight on the way home from work (midnight) I came very close to running over a tuxedo kitty. He darted out into the middle of main street and I saw him in my headlights, screamed and hit the brakes. As I slid to a stop, he did a giant leap over the meridian in the center of the road and then did another large hop as well, so I don’t think I did hit him. I had traffic behind me as I was close to the local bar, so I couldn’t stop and be sure he made it all the way across the road.

I would never forgive myself for running over any animal and it is my worst fear at night driving through the narrows. Even feeding the other tuxedo feral cat, I marvel at how she can cross busy streets and parking lots and not get hit. She is yet to trust me enough to let me near her, but tonight she was waiting outside the video store for me to get off shift and feed her. Although she ran away and hid in the bushes, I did see her cross the parking lot later for her nightly feed.

I suspect the kitten I almost hit might have been hers as they looked an awful lot alike. Thank you God for not letting me run over that baby, and I hope he made it across the road without someone else taking his life.

I came home and hugged all my cats. They were all in the living room waiting for me and it was glorious to see them all.

Mike is so sick- I don’t know what is going to happen to him next, but he had six cats on him this morning, all snuggled around him keeping him warm. Tomorrow they are supposed to come and install the heater for us. I hope they keep their labor cost down- money is so tight right now.

Mike came out into the front room early this morning and fell out in the hospital bed here in the front room. Oliver takes up his vigil watching over Mike tucked between Mike’s leg ever watchful. The other cats leave him alone, perhaps they know that something has gone haywire inside of MIke’s system and Pop isn’t “Pop” any longer. Life as they know it has come screeching suddenly to a stop and they now have to deal with the onslaught of healthcare professionals who invade the house daily. They even seem to sense that my time is crowded and I don’t have a moment to myself anymore. I am either packing and tending to Mike’s wound, seeing to his needs, cleaning the house, working or volunteering down the street with a program assisting the homeless.

I find myself so tired wishing we had more money, more food, less stress, less bills. I have managed to save the house from foreclosure, but I wonder how long that will last? I envision myself as a homeless woman pushing a shopping cart full of cats down the street. When, I wonder did it ever come to this?

Mike’s blood sugar is so out of whack. It is either way to high, or to low and when it dips down he gets terribly cold and shakes so hard the bed trembles- so of course our heater flamed out the other day. I found another one, at a reasonable cost- a stand alone gas heater that resembles a wood-burning stove but no one will install it for less than a thousand dollars! My dishwasher quit, but that is no big deal. I have washed dishes by hand before. But now my car is making noises like the fanbelt is loose and I have to have that fixed.

Through all this chaos, all this sadness there comes solace in the form of felines. My cats understand that I am stressed and they gather around me in the morning as if they are saying ? Touch me, pet me…I will bring you peace.” Charlie, my little orange boy is most intuitive and he wraps himself around my legs as I am stealing this little bit of time to myself to blog. Sinclair begs to be picked up- his adoptive home fell through when he started showing signs of ringworm. Patty the lady who wanted him, only wants him if he is “perfect” which he is, even with a fungus. So they didn’t neuter him as planned because of the high infection rate of ringworm and he didn’t get to go to a home where he would be the center of attention. But that’s okay, because he is deeply loved here and I don’t care that I have to put on ointment four times a day on his head, neck and chin. Thankfully, after a thorough check of all the other cats yesterday, no one else is showing signs of being infected with ringworm.

I went to the doctor the other day as my headache was stretching into months- and lo and behold, I am stressed! Who would have thought? I am not depressed though (he says i am on the precipice of depression). He put me on antidepressants, headache pills and something to sleep. I find I am sleeping one extra hour in the morning now, getting up at 7:00 a.m. instead of six.

I take Mike in to see the specialist today and I am wondering what this new doctor will be like? Will he be able to tell us why Mike’s blood sugars don’t remain stable, why do mike’s pupils of his eyes constrict so in the afternoon and dart madly around his eye sockets? Why is he so nauseated, nasty and angry and when will life go back to normal? Hmm normal, what does that mean?

I talked to Ben yesterday when I took Sinclair and Kodie to the vets and told him I needed to find a good, loving home for my two horses. It breaks my heart to give them up, but if Ben tells me it is a good home for them, that is enough for me. I know that if I keep them through the winter, they will suffer for it because I have very little hay to feed them and not any extra money to buy more once the 3 tons run out.

So Life doesn’t suck, although it might sound like in this posting that it does. I have much to be grateful for; my husband is still alive, we now know who our true friends are and we have each other for however long we have left. My cats are my comfort and I have my health with the exception of this headache which still hasn’t gone away. And, I am still working and I found a wonderful group of volunteeers who help the homeless and the down-trodden. I go in twice a week and repack food, and I am learning to run the front desk so that I can spell the girl who does it now. I came close to losing everything including my husband- if I can help others who have lost everything, then that is my mission for now….

Oliver has taken over the job of offering comfort to Mike. He either is sleeping tucked between Mike’s leg during the day, or when it comes time to elevate his leg, Oliver perches on the top of the back rest (that I use to get Mike’s foot higher than his heart) right next to his foot.

Ollie takes great offense in being shooed away during wound cleaning and packing time, but that is all I need, more cat germs inside my hubby.

As mentioned before NK (new kitty) is rib skinny. Even her tail when you stroke it, you can feel the bones. It is quite sad.

She has been here for 24 hours and I generally just leave the newcomers alone for that long so they can settle in. I just peek in on them, make sure they have all they need and unless they are kicking up a fuss I leave them be.

This morning at 3:00 she woke me up just screaming. I shake off the sleep and go bolting upstairs thinking I am going to find her with a half-born kitten sticking out into the world. Nope, she is pacing back and forth in front of her food bowls (which are empty now) and screaming like a woman in labor.

I pour a small amount of kibble into her bowl, and give her some cooked and shredded chicken I made just for her with broth, and she immediately shuts down the noise and starts eating. I have to feed her a bit at a time, so when that bit vanishes her meows of protest fill the room. I pour more kibble, she looks at the food in her bowl then goes over to her pillow lays down and goes to sleep! I thank her very much for the early-morning alarm system and then Thank God she hadn’t been in trouble with a difficult delivery and crawled back to bed.

This is new behavior for her as she was quiet as a churchmouse yesterday. I know this isn’t a spoiled cat- they left her outside, she was a mouser and a provider of other kittens for their barn and that was all. I doubt she got regular bowls of kibble which she should have been provided (especially in the winter time) and they never allowed her inside.

It’s going to be interesting with her I think. 🙂

She is a beautiful, young soft mackeral gray tabby who is pregnant for the second time. Her diet was inadequate provided by her previous owner. She was being fed raw cows milk and raw beef pureed in water in a blender. She quit eating a few days ago and I was told about her and went to pick her up.

She is pregnant, due probably best guess in two weeks but she is rib-skinny and she shouldn’t be. Dr. Vicki said that with adequate nutrition given in small amounts and some TLC she should be bringing kittens into the world soon.

That was before the incident….

I picked her up yesterday and didn’t even get a chance to properly meet with her first. I was just handed the carrier (a small, cramped container duct taped together.) I took her to the feline specialist for a checkup along with Sinclair who has a sudden skin eruption on his head and in his ears.

When we got home, I set her in the carrier in the bedroom, knowing that the one occupant of our bedroom Guinevere would pose no threat to her, and I went upstairs to ready the cat room.

When I took her out of the carrier upstairs, she was wringing wet. It didn’t look or smell like urine, and she was wet from the tail to her front legs. My first action was to look for a mucous plug, but there was none. I toweled her dry and called Dr. Vicki.

Since then she has shown no signs of early labor, no distress, no pacing, tearing up the strips of cloth in the nesting box but she has taken up residence in my canning cupboard as there is access to this cupboard from the cat room.

When introduced to wet food, dry food, baby food and KMR (not all at once of course) she didn’t know what to do. She has a good appetite and she ate way to fast and urped it up a few minutes later after she gobbled down some dry kitten food.

She appears to like a new brand of canned food from Merrick. Grandma’s Stew is her favorite.

She hasn’t produced any signs of visible labor, so a good friend of mine introduced me to a breeder in Texas who is extremely kind and knowledgeable in this area. After hearing the story, she believes the fluid was a stress reaction and not the actual breaking of the water, but she also thinks this girl will give birth sooner than predicted but won’t have milk…so good thing I do bottle babies.

So I guess we will see what happens during all of this-

I spent the night in the ER last night due to not taking care of myself. I got extremely dehydrated and was running a high fever. My friend drove me to the ER and they immediately hooked me up to IV’s and gave me a shot to bring down my temperature. I have been inhaling coffee and the doctor wants me to go down to 4 cups a month! Holy smokes! I had all the early signs of dehydration but didn’t recognize it. My legs had major cramps in them which I thought was from sleeping on the couch (the bed is lonely). I was irritable, and even got nasty with a good cyber-friend, so Carla, if you are reading this, I am SO very sorry. That was not me that sent that email- it was the sickness talking.

I have been home all day sleeping most of it and drinking lots of water. Mike doesn’t know and I don’t want him to- he has enough to worry about. My cats have been clustered around me all day and they know I was ill, and knew before I did that I wasn’t myself. I don’t go back to work till tomorrow night, and will go and see Mike tomorrow morning with hopefully news of his MRI results. I will be drinking water all day as I don’t want this to happen to me again- and again Carla, I do hope you will forgive me-

In a few days we will hopefully know the outcome of Mike’s extensive hospitalization and his fight with his leg. I take him on Thursday first to see his surgeon then to the hospital for an MRI and a bone scan. He is going stir crazy in the nursing home and my heart breaks for the forgotten folks that roam the hallways in wheelchairs trapped within their minds by altzheimers or the ravages of disease breaking down their bodies. If they were cats, they would be gently laid to rest in peace by the insertion of a needle that stopped their hearts. But, because they are people with medical insurance, the medical profession is bound and determined to soak every last dime out of their policies and even seize personal property to pay for the outlandish cost of “living.” Do I sound jaded? I guess I do- I see misery there and people who once had dignity and life reduced down to being put into a posey belt and restrained in a wheelchair on a daily basis.

I took Kodie in with me for another visit. The people just light up when they see her. She loves all the attention, and surprisingly, she doesn’t jump up in their laps or put her paw up on their arm. It is as if she instinctively knows that the light touch is needed with these fraile folk. She loves to go and I am seriously considering training her for a therapy dog after all this is resolved. There isn’t an aggressive bone in her body and she is very appealing for many.

There is one wizard of an old man who believes that Kody is his own dog and I have to fight him every time for possession of her leash. He turned out to be quite strong yesterday and rather than wrestle him for her, I just let them be. She ended up trotting along the corridor, pulling him in his wheelchair while he giggled with delight. I need to buy her a gentle leader harness now so she doesn’t injure her throat if she is going to turn into a sled dog for him. I finally got her back from him and when we walked away, I turned around and noticed tears in his eyes. It broke my heart.

Solo has only been living here for just under a month. Rescued from a local mill, after feeding him for a few months, he jumped into my car and I ended up not having to trap him but just took him home.

While I was feeding him, he gave me every indication that he was a feral cat. Sitting deep inside the culvert he called home, he would growl and hiss every time I made an appearance. Instead, he turned out to be a loving kitty who had undoubtedly been mistreated in the past.

He will be euthanized tomorrow morning. He started vomitting bright green and bright yellow bile and the bottom line is he has been poisoned.

I am sad to say goodbye to this scrawny boy, and I just wish I could end his misery tonight, but he will have to wait until the vet appointment tomorrow morning. By the time I found out what the problem was it was to late in the day to go and fetch him and give him some peace.

I will miss you Solo Meow- you were the master of headbumps- some so fierce you would knock me off my feet at times. At night while I was reading you would come up behind me on the couch and bump my head so my glasses would tumble off into my lap. I wish someone in your past had been more tolerant of kitties and hadn’t decided to poison you. I am sorry I can’t set you free quicker- but I promise you soon, your torment will end.

Thank you for blessing my life even if it just was for only 23 days.

Recently, I found out that Google has “paused” my account. Why? I can’t fathom. Interestly enough, the adsense part of their program comes with no customer support- however, the adwords allows you full access to a living breathing person after you get past the automated voice that initially answers the phone.

Being a writer who excells in research, I have done some of my own checking only to realize that I am not alone in this type of situation and many small-time publishers have also had their accounts “paused.” No one has been successful in reaching the right parties to get their accounts restarted and the majority of these people have just given up trying.

To add to that if you google the words google sucks you will find that any website along those lines are being pulled off the web- so hmmmm….

I don’t have time to chase this nonsense any longer. Mike has been transfered to a nursing home for some long-term care and he also lost another job because he hasn’t been in his shop in so long to work on knives. I am in the process of looking for another job that will offer better pay and benefits but at my age, it doesn’t look likely that I will find anything.

But at any rate, onward and upward and if God leads you too it, He will lead you through it. Meanwhile, the google fiasco will have to go on without me- I have bigger problems to solve right now.

I am constantly amazed at the impact that the Internet has on people. On another website, I was confiding my fears about Mike and my frustration about the whole situation we are facing. A fellow rescuer from back East has lovingly decided to contribute her craft to my cause. You can read about her heart-warming offer here Amy’s Website

Mike has been re-hospitalized. His foot wasn’t getting better at home and so they have him back on a PIK line and an antibiotic drip. I don’t know when he will be home again and things here remain a bit in chaos. I am just trying to maintain everything and today was clean all the litter boxes day- a monumental task! I have dumped, scrubbed, sprayed and filled all the litter pans both in the house and out in the cat enclosure. I started this endeavor at 7:00 a.m. and it is almost 3:00 p.m. now! I had lots of help though- Charlie wants to be sure the level of the litter is correct so he has to jump in and inspect the depth. Sinclair just loves clean litter and in true kitty fashion, he jumped into each newly cleaned box and had a good roll.

Now, I am going to relax a bit and watch a movie until I have to go to work. I close tonight. My cats center me and I don’t know what I would do if they weren’t in my life right now-