Starting on Memorial Day, I became sick. It was a cold that eventually turned into a sinus infection, and a horrible cough. I was sick until around June 19th. The first week of June was a really busy week with a lot of on location shoots, and I don't know how I made it through. It was hot and miserable, and I probably overdid it making myself worse.
After I got better, we upgraded our plumbing in the house, and I thought we could relax. I was wrong. Very wrong. First, I found out a longtime friend passed away, and his memorial was going to be on my birthday. Second, our cat Pepper got very sick.
Pepper was nowhere to be found a couple of Mondays ago. I found her under the bed, which wasn't unusual. What was unusual is that she screamed if she was touched. She didn't look, feel, or smell right, so I rushed her to the vet. The vet said that it was probably arthritis because Pepper was 14. The next day, I had to take a half day off work to have some work done on my car, and I went by the house first. Pepper was lying in the floor, almost in a coma. I scooped her up, put her in the crate, and took her back to the vet.
She spent the next three nights in the hospital.
She did not make it. She passed on Friday, June 29th. She either had what's called a thyroid storm, or her pancreas went haywire. The vet wasn't sure exactly what killed her so fast, even after lots of blood tests. She was bouncy and happy the day before she went to the vet.
You can learn more about her from her facebook page if you like.
During her second night in the hospital, Chester had severe vomiting and diarrhea. I took him to the vet, and he had x-rays and scans. The vet was torn if it was a parasite, or something he ate. Chester likes to chew on all things plastic, and he is an indoor cat, so parasites would have been a surprise. I got some stomach medication, and we went home. Only to find the next night, things were not any better, and he was not eating. So, back to the vet again.
This time, Chester had to spend an evening at the hospital with an IV for fluids, and medication. He also had to have more scans and x-rays. It looks like it was something he ate, and it was moving very slowly out of his system, messing things up as it went along. He is home and after all the medication, he appears to be in good shape.
We took the other three cats in to have them checked out, and Telly needed dental work. We had her dental work done last week.
We discovered Lucy is proud of her weight.
We were at the vet's office seven times in a week and a half. Those were expensive visits.
We decided to open our home to a tiny little soul, a rescue kitten already named Nicki.
Nicki is about three months old. She won't replace Pepper by any means. She brings some bounce to the house. She also adores Telly, the 18 year old cat. She isn't so sure about Dobby. She likes to wrestle with the other cats, much to their irritation. I often find her curled up next to me when I wake up in the morning, or wedged between my husband and me.