Daytime Privileges

For the last week, I have opened up the house to Webster. I sensed his frustration as he tried to engage in play with the house kitties. It seems no one wants to play with him. His recourse is to get a bit aggressive with each one of them to see what happens.

What happens is a lot of racing through the house, a lot of growling intention. Gibby is the most aggressive with him. But he’s even managed to get Aspen, who is pretty mild mannered, especially towards new kittens, to not like him either.

I suppose I could tuck him away safely in the bedroom, but I do want him to engage with other kittens. He’s three months old now; he should’ve had that socialization before now, and it’s apparent he hasn’t. He really doesn’t know what to do with other cats. If he’s ever going to be adopted, he has to learn to get along with others. I think the sweetest thing he does is that he’ll lay on the end of Kota’s couch on his side on the floor. Using his claws, he’ll slide along the edge of the couch. He reaches the other side and he’ll repeat it. He just has all this kitty energy and he can’t find anyone who wants to play with him to help him expel it so he finds his own ways. He’s cute, he’s a bit frantic, he’s a bit aggressive. He’s a kitten, after all; one that has obviously been deprived of a mother. If she were here, she would be quick to correct him. So that falls on me. So far an empty pop can filled with small pebbles, shaken at a distance, manages to pull him out of his bad behavior. Once he’s been neutered, after a period of about eight weeks, his energy will relax, and he will become a kitten, which I hopefully can adopt out.

Our weather has been quite severe lately. The field mice are making their way inside the house. I’m still trying to figure out how. Flash will catch them and play with them. She will not dispatch them. But I noticed the other night Webster was on the mouse as quick as could be, and made short work of it. I have a neighbor a few doors down that I know is looking for a mouser so I went over to talk to him and he’s interested, but not right now. I told him it wouldn’t be right now anyway because no kitten leaves here unless they’ve been tested and neutered or spayed. His wife is quite sick, but he needs a shop cat to get rid of the field mice. I am still thinking about it because it is only three doors down. Once Webster gets outside after a few months of living in the shop, will he run across the highway to look for his mother? Or will he return to me? I really don’t want to pick this kitten up off the highway. I am reasonably sure that he came from the house across from me. I really want him just to be a house-cat. He loves to be picked up and cuddled. He wants to sleep on my chest at night. He just needs the right home in the right circumstance in order to thrive.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Give everyone you love a big hug and a kiss when you see them. Enjoy the holidays, eat lots of turkey, and give some of the leftovers to your kitties!

Webster

Webster is now eating me out of house and home! He just had his second deworming. Gosh, he was so full of parasites. I had hoped that the first de-worming would have taken most of them away. He was just packed with parasites.

Now it seems he’s making up for lost time. He weighs 2 1/2 pounds, I can see that he is going to be a very large cat. I also think I found a home for him. I haven’t gone to investigate the house yet. Webster isn’t going anywhere until I get him tested and neutered. Unfortunately these days, the cost of both of those is a little bit out of range right now. Plus, he’s too little at this point to be neutered. 

Because of my lack of having a usable right hand, I still cannot drive. I’ve tried everything I can think of, including lowering the steering wheel. But right now, I am just not confident behind the wheel. I did talk to a friend of mine and asked her that when I do go on my first drive, if she will go with me. I want her to take me over to warehouse row and let me just drive where there’s not much traffic and a lot of space. My shoulder has never returned to normal. There is talk that maybe it won’t. I’ve had to take everything in my top kitchen cupboards and put them lower so that I can reach what I need without the pain that comes with reaching over my head. At my last meeting with my surgeon last week, he mentioned that I needed to get on his list for the second surgery on my left side. I’m simply not ready for that. If he does not understand it then perhaps I need to find another surgeon. A second opinion is always good.

By using my treadmill daily, I am no longer walker-dependent. I believe that was one of the reasons I was able to capture Flash the other night. Thank God for those two miracles.

A True Celebration

The Rooftop Kitties turned a year old on November 2. While I was peacefully sleeping, they were up to no good. True mischiefmakers these three are. They discovered a closet where I had stashed some shredded papers. They dragged the bag out into the cat room and decided to party their little hearts out! In the morning when I woke up, I was met with such a mess. They did their best, not to look guilty, but it was pretty obvious who did it. Even when Addie showed up to investigate, it was clear to me that she had no knowledge of what they had done.

Not to be out done by her sisters, a few days later Flash pushed open the screen door and got outside! I was out in the front yard, throwing away some trash. I turned around, and I saw her and my heart just stuck in my throat. It was becoming dark. I knew if she darted underneath my truck, or headed for the highway. There was nothing I could do. I am not moving very fast these days. However, I am no longer bound to the walker.

I called her very gently, but she was scared to death. So much traffic on the highway that night. Thank the good Lord, she kept hugging the house and running from the back gate up to the front door. She never deviated from the route. I could tell she was terrified. I knew I couldn’t chase her. That would just make her stop her path and find a safer one. I set myself up by the stairs in the front by the door. When she passed me and ran up the stairs, I leaned over and scooped her up. I hugged her very tightly and I talked to her. I had her scruffed while supporting her rear. I just kept hugging her and talking to her waiting for the traffic to stop so that I could get up the steps safely and get her into the house.

I have no idea why she didn’t scratch or bite me. I could feel her tighten every time a truck or car roared past. She was trembling as was I. I finally got her into the house and apologize to her for not shutting the front door properly. That will never happen again. Now she won’t even go near the front door. Not that I blame her. It was a weekend when this happened and the traffic was definitely not light.  That situation took three years of my life. Not sure how many lives she lost during that time out of her nine.

Never a dull moment.

On a good note, I have been discharged from both physical therapy and occupational therapy. I wish I could report that I have full use of my right hand. However, that’s not the case. They told me at my last visit that it will probably take an additional six months to a year before my right hand will be hopefully restored. It was mentioned that when I signed all the paperwork before the surgery, I assumed all the risks and complications that might happen. This sort of tells me that they realize they did something wrong, but they aren’t owning up to it. But, all I want is just to keep working on my hand by myself. Trying to get to the point where I can actually write cursive legibly. I can print now. However, if I start to write something that is over a page long. My hand starts burning so badly. I have to drop the pen and just walk away. I also have trouble reading what I’ve written because it still looks very elementary. Not at all like my beautiful handwriting I had before the surgery.

A New Refugee

This morning, when I opened the door to let the dog out, this little guy scampered in. I think the wind might’ve blown him in to be honest we’ve had some mighty strong gusts coming through lately. It took me a few minutes to get him close to me. But finally, with a can of Fancy Feast, he decided to trust me.

He has been bathed, de-flead. He has been tucked away safely into the bedroom. I certainly wasn’t going to let him stay outside and get hurt or killed on the highway. If I had to guess where he came from, I would say he came from across the road. I know the gentleman who lives there he showed up on my doorstep a few months ago asking me how much it would be to get his mama-cat spayed; she’d just had kittens.Once I told him how much it was, he grumbled about it and said it would cut into his beer money. 

So I suspect that’s where this little guy came from. He weighs a little over two pounds. I don’t have any kitten food for him yet. I need to make an order with Chewy today, but I have to wait for the bank to open. For some reason, since they’ve upgraded their system; I can’t get in sync with their new program and my computer.

He’s definitely very vocal. He is afraid of Kota, but that will change over time I am sure. There’re already two kittens across in the road that didn’t make it across the highway safely so at least this little guy won’t have to play Road Roulette anymore.

His name is going to be Falstaff...

A Little Bit Defeated

Waking up this morning, and seeing sweet Cricket curled up on my blanket did not diminish the feeling of defeat that washed over me yesterday after my appointment with my orthopedic surgeon. He has not seen me since my falls. He did commend me on not hurting my right shoulder and thus causing the apparatus that’s living in my arm right now to have to be repaired or replaced.

They took another set of x-rays, even though the emergency room had done a very thorough job of it. When he saw my left side, my shoulder and my arm, he very gently told me that now I need a left shoulder replacement. Apparently that snap I heard when I hit the floor turned out to be the complete tearing of two rotator cuffs.

We had a long conversation after that. I’m sure I put him over his limit of only 15 minutes with his patients. However, he was quite thorough in telling me that I have a two-year window to decide whether or not I want to have this surgery again. It was decided that he would order an MRI on both shoulders.

As far as my knee-pain and leg-pain, he is referring me to a general orthopedic doctor so he can assess what’s going on, but he said based on the x-rays that he’s looking at from October 2 and October 4, he would surmise that I did something pretty bad to my patella. He did tell me on a brighter note that for a 70 year old woman, my knees look in pretty good shape; however, my shoulder is a whole other story.

I am still not whole after the last surgery they did. They messed up, they are not owning that. They are telling me that the reason I can’t use my right hand properly is due to arthritis. I stood up to their claim by telling them that before that surgery, I had I could use my right hand completely without issues. To think about going through all of that again now and maybe coming out the same way with a useless left hand, would make me wonder about my own quality of life.

So, once again, I’m in a waiting pattern for the upcoming MRI results. Right now, I feel fairly defeated. I have no one to blame but myself; no one pushed me down the stairs or tripped me. Well, actually, the kittens kind of tripped me unintentionally. That, however, does not diminish the love I feel for them. I got really irritated with my physical therapist the other day when she told me to “get rid” of all my cats. I told her what I’ve told countless people in the past when they contact me and say they want to get rid of their cats and would I take them in. My standard reply to those two words: I only “get rid” of garbage. Cats are not garbage.

My plan going forward is to shake off this feeling of defeat and fight this as hard as I can to keep from having this surgery again. I will continue to use my treadmill to help strengthen my leg in my knee. I can’t do hours on this machine. I have gone from doing 10 minutes of walking a day to 30 minutes. It has to be helping because last night I wanted so desperately to climb into bed. So I did. I felt no pain in my legs and I was able to sleep for the first time in quite a few months in my bed. 

The other day, a friend of mine came over and helped me down my stairs. I went back into the main cat enclosure. I wanted to see my babies so bad. I found Magoo hiding under the blanket on the couch, but the minute I started talking to him and lifting the blanket, he backed away from me like he didn’t even know me. I couldn’t find Pigeon. I did finally locate Ash. I was able to pet her, but it broke my heart because her ears were back the entire time. PITA who was still in her cage. I was able to pet her and she was all over me. I was saddened to see that the litter boxes in her bottom of her cage were completely overflowing. I had asked people when they went in there to feed my kitties to please make sure that those that are boxes were dumped and refilled or cleaned. That’s not happening.

My goal from here on in is to keep trying to get down those two steps safely without assistance. I can get back up those two steps without assistance. It’s going down them that is troublesome.

All of this is happening during a time in my life where I still feel the loss of Michael deeply. I miss him still.

Gibby has just jumped on my lap to remind me that it is late in the morning. I haven’t fed them because I overslept. I’d best get up and get out of my doldrums; face the day of new challenges with a smile instead of a frown. Talk to God and ask for His guidance. Quite simply continue to take this journey, one step at a time.

A Prisoner

I love these girls so much. Not seen in this photo is Flash - she was wrapped around my neck, providing me a lot of comfort while purring in my ear.

A few days ago, I woke up in the morning and tried to get out of my chair and couldn’t move. My left leg felt like it was on fire. I looked down and I was swollen from my mid-calf to my toes. My leg was red, and it was hurting so bad. Every time I try to get out of my chair, I fell back on my chair. 

Not knowing what else to do I dialed 911. One paramedic was afraid of Kota, and wanted him to be put in another room. I called Kota back from the door. He obeyed. I told him “Kota get on the couch.” He obeyed. Then I told him to “Stay!” He stayed there until the paramedics left.

I am aching to get back to my main enclosure. I talk to my cats every morning out the kitchen window. They all come running, except for PITA - since she’s in the cage. But I talk to them and I just want to go out there, pick them up, love on them, surround myself with their kitty love. Yet I can’t. I am prisoner in my own house.

But these three girls, even Aspen and Addie are sticking to me like Velcro. A lot of people are telling me to get rid of my cats and my kittens. The only thing I “get RID of” in my house is garbage! I do not consider cats garbage.

Well, I need to go. I’m going to sit here, finish my tea, then go and start my exercises. Such a beautiful day outside after the ugly weather that we’ve had. I can’t even go outside and enjoy the sun.

Ms Addie Relents

After almost a full year of spitting, hissing and posturing, Ms Addie as decided that perhaps the girls aren’t as bad as she thinks they are. This is the first time where she has allowed Gibby to snuggle up to her back without starting a war.

I am encouraged and hope that this behavior on her part continues. I had another incident at home recently. I ended up being transported to the hospital via ambulance. It looks highly likely that tomorrow after I see my provider, I probably will be going back to the hospital this time for a short stay. The accident has left me with the inability to walk on my left leg.