Epic Fail

So the comment I just received from Navigating the Rapids just reminded me that I hadn't updated here. I have on FB, but not here.

So the whole mama and babies living here didn't work out so well. Turns out mama was a lot more wild than I knew or expected. She was ok with being petted sometimes which is what I had seen. Last week I had moved the babies and mama into my spare bathroom and was wearing gloves in whenever I went in to pet her. If I was sitting on the floor she was fine with me petting her or me petting the babies. When I was trying to leave the bathroom, change her food and water dishes etc she wasn't quite so fine and could be pretty aggressive. Monday morning when I went in to clean her litter box and give her food etc she attacked my leg while I was scooping her box. I ended up with a very nasty cat bite on my leg. That ended up causing a trip to urgent care and I'll be on antibiotics for 10 days. I'm still not convinced that I'm not going to require having this drained as it's still pretty red, swollen and hard. Also hurts like a bitch. That afternoon after discussing it with the neighbor lady who was working with me we decided mama needed to go. I called the SPCA and they came and picked up mama and babies within about 2 hours. I had considered trying to keep the babies and bottle feed them but being only a week old they would need to eat about every 3 hours. Factor in 6 babies and I think I would have been constantly feeding babies. Not to mention my 12 hour shifts with no one to take care of them. I'm just hoping that someone took the kittens to foster them who would be able to do the whole bottle feeding thing. The guy from SPCA had told me that most likely mama would be put down as she was un-vaccinated and sort of feral. I feel bad for the kittens but I had to take a step back and remember I can't save them all and that it wasn't my fault. I tried to take care of it when the people who claimed to own mama failed to do so but didn't catch it in time.

Now I'm just hoping I don't have to have this wound on my leg drained or something equally awful.

Cats, Cats, And More Cats!

So, I woke up this morning with my usual 3 cats. By shortly after 2pm I seem to have tripled that number and now currently have 10. Yes. You read that right. 10. Not that they are all mine but I suppose for the here and now they are essentially mine as they are in my garage and in my care.

I love cats. Love, love, love cats. Cats are awesome. It also bothers me when people treat cats as disposable pets. I know dogs and pretty much any other potential pet like animal gets treated this way but it sometimes seems that cats really get the bum end of the deal when it comes to being pets. Sort of a big pet peeve of mine.

There are a couple of different neighborhood cats who hang around my condo. Mostly because the little old lady across from me feeds them. A little over a week ago a friend of mine pointed out that one of them was pregnant. Oh goody. So I went to talk to neighbor who feeds them about soon to be mama kitty. Neighbor thought they were both pregnant and we decided to check around and go in together on getting the kitties fixed. Since then we have figured out that one wasn't pregnant (and possibly male?) just fat and we don't know who "owns" that one. There is a young girl around 13 who claimed to own the pregnant one but stated her mom couldn't afford to fix the cat. I can sort of understand this with the knowledge that she is a single mom but checking around town found a spay/neuter clinic that charges $45 to spay cat. Not really a huge amount. My feeling is that it's not a priority to the 13 year olds mom. The cat isn't allowed inside (their dog is) and is fed by neighbor lady (I don't know if the 13 year old feeds it too).

At any rate, my annoyance aside at how people treat animals, me and the neighbor made plans to have the pregnant kitty spayed. Appointment was made for today (Monday). Then on Friday preggo kitty disappeared. I had been worried that she would have her kittens as she looked pretty close but the weather was also pretty awful on Friday night and Saturday. Saturday afternoon I left my garage door open a few inches hoping maybe she would come in. Saturday night I left for work, closed up etc. Sunday morning I came home. Finally last night I called and left a message that we hadn't managed to catch the preggo kitty so she would not be coming in this morning. This afternoon I headed out to get my bike out of the garage to go for a ride and heard squeaky noises.

I immediately started looking for babies. Sure enough. Mama must have come into the garage on Saturday looking for a sheltered place to have her babies and decided my pet stroller that was stored in the garage was the perfect place. So I now have a mama kitty and 6 kittens in my garage. The kittens are probably about 2 days old near as I can tell and mama is very protective. I don't know how she will deal with me driving in and out of the garage but I'm fine with her staying there for the next 6 weeks or so with the babies. Likely I will at some point have to start parking elsewhere for a while. I've got some food out there, water and a litter box. Young teen girl did come over this afternoon asking to see the kittens and then came back later asking if I needed anything. I did appreciate that although noticed that I saw nothing of her mother. My goal is for them to stay in the garage until they are weaned and then to work at re-homing them all. When they are weaned we'll take mama and get her fixed. I would also love to get all the kittens fixed prior to re-homing. That way I know it will get done. I'll have to check around and see what can be done and how soon etc.

Funny I have a magnet on my locker at work that says "I'm one relationship away from owning 30 cats." I need to add a second line to that saying " and 20 cats" since I guess for now I'm the crazy "owner" of 10.

So Tired

I always tell myself after not to do this to myself again. I also always seem to forget. Last night I worked in the newborn nursery. Ok night. Busy. I started off with 7 babies being cared for by myself and another nurse. We stayed at 6-8 for the night and it was busy but ok. Day shift however was also looking busy and short staffed. I was asked to stay over an extra 4 hours so that the day nurse in the nursery (who doesn't usually work there) wouldn't be alone with 7 babies. So I worked from 7pm Thursday night until 11am Friday morning. I'm so freaking tired. Came home and had to unwind a bit from all the extra caffeine and finally went to bed at 1pm. I knew I'd be off work until 11pm and was hoping for the whole night off. No call to come in so far so I must be off. I'm also completely ready to go back to bed. I keep telling myself not to do a long shift like that but I'd probably end up doing it again. The money is nice plus I hate leaving someone else so short and busy since I know what it's like myself.

Our patient population is interesting. A lot of uninsured and under insured patients. I understand on many levels how people end up in such positions and that things like insurance and health care aren't always readily available to others. I see too though those who have some level of coverage and yet who don't utilize it. Women who have med*i*cal but don't seek or continue with prenatal care. Often it's drug related. A lack of prenatal care is usually a cue for a drug screen and it's sad how many of our laboring mom's test positive for Meth and marijuana. Other drugs will show up occasionally but those are the big ones. Some of course deny it, some are very open about it stating yes they used etc.

Recently I had a mom who tested positive and baby did too. Social work involved but all was cleared. However when baby didn't get released as planned mom gets hostile, stating she has 4 other children and she knows how to take care of the baby. I find myself trying to understand that likely she was feeling fear that her parenting skills were being questioned and in some ways they were but it was in the interest of what was best for baby. I want to say sometimes that reacting in a hostile manner towards myself or the physician doesn't really do anything to help your position although I can realize to that would likely lead to more hostility based on fear etc. What was being asked of the mom was something that should have been requested of any parent although especially one where there is a concern for will mom seek medical attention for the baby if needed. I hope for the babies sake that mom is able to get herself together and properly care for her children.

I also had good moments this morning and something that made me glad I stayed. All night we'd had a baby who's mom had been pretty sick and had been transferred to another unit in the hospital. That unit had called to ask if we could bring baby up for mom to see it as she hadn't really had a chance to hold it yet. Had the day nurse been alone she wouldn't have been able to do that. Possibly mom could have been given the ok to come down for a bit but because I was still there and things had calmed down some I was able to take baby up for a visit. It was great to get to see how happy mom was to get to see and hold her baby. For dad and grandma to get to take pictures and to give them that moment even if it was short, as a new family.

That's why I do it. To help and provide care for those in need. Now I just need another nap for my poor body to recover.

Books!

Lots of books. With no room. I LOVE books. Reading is my favorite hobby and I spend a pretty fair amount of time doing it. So far this year my count is 24 books. Last year I read almost 90. Years ago I used to keep every book I bought/read. However with as much as I've moved that was really not a lot of fun. Lots and lots of books through 30 some moves? Umm, no thank you.

So I've gotten rid of most of them and am down to keeping just some of the ones that are my absolute favorites. Which is down to about 2 shelves now on an average size book case. Not too much space until I added additional furniture to the living room and now I have no space for my book shelf. I've currently moved it to the entry way but I'm pretty sure that is not a permanent place. Since I really like my apartment and don't want to move any time soon, hence I'm not expecting to have additional space any time soon, I'm trying to figure out what to do with everything.

Which brings me to the whole e-reader thing. I've been resistant to the e-readers. I love the actual books. Really. I couldn't quite see how it would be as good as a book. I've sat on the fence, went back and forth been undecided. All of that. Towards the end of last year though I had downloaded a kindle app to my ipod. Bought a cheapie book that I'd never heard of just to see if it was doable. Seemed to work pretty well, frequent page turning but not bad. Then my favorite author put out a new book so I bought it. I had a really hard time with that book. It was hard to follow and to keep up with what was happening. I ended up thinking probably not. Then I read some reviews of the book and realized others said the same thing about the book, that it was hard to follow, too many characters etc. So I tried another. Loved it. So now I'm fairly hooked. My plan eventually is to get either a kin*dle or an i*p*a*d (would prefer the i one which is possibly more in range now that a newer version is coming out) and when I buy books in the future, mostly buy e-books. Easier. Although realistically the cost isn't much of a difference but cost doesn't usually stop me from buying books.

All this had me looking at my bookshelf this afternoon though and thinking how much more space I'd have if I eventually replaced all my favorites with e-books that were much easier to store. Then I could get rid of the falling down book case too.

Hmmm. More ideas.

Laundry Day

So today was once again laundry day. It's not really a day I look for

ward to but turns out my cats do. They love laundry day. Mostly because it involves warm places. They never cease to crack me up. Most of these pics were taken with my ipod so the quality isn't great. I only grabbed the real camera for the first one here. There were so funny though I had to share.

Annabelle enjoying the warmth of the dryer

Cassie sitting on top of the dryer. She is the only one who has figured out that it's warm there.

Sara and Annabelle in the dryer. They are enjoying the pillow cases that were still left.

Annabelle curled up and made herself comfy on the towels I had just removed from the dryer.

This one of Cassie and Sara in the window was just too sweet. Course a minute later they started squawking at each other. Temporary peace for the sake of the sun.

Last night in bed I noticed that Cassie had laid down on top of Lizzie so she could be close to me. Sort of cracks me up. I guess she's not afraid of the dog anymore. I'm pretty sure the dog is still afraid of her though. Lizzie never moved an inch in spite of the cat sleeping on top of her. Goofy animals.

Finding My Way Back

I'm trying. Really. I miss blogging but am still struggling with feeling like I don't have anything to say that would interest anyone. I'm not actively TTC nor is any future cycles even anywhere in my plan. What you said though St. Elsewhere is true. As much as I'm not consummed with TTC the whole thought process never goes away.
So what's up in my life? Not a whole lot. A lot of time spent with my fur babies. Not nearly enough time spent exercising. I know I feel better when I exercise but good gracious do I hate working out. Some time sewing, a lot of time reading and keeping my hiney home so I won't spend money unnecessarily. I'm good at that. Spending money unnecessarily. Actually I'm noticing a tendency to be a bit compulsive in several habits, none of them good. Like compulsive exercise. That would be a good one right now and one I fantasize a bit about having.
Right now I'm praying no more of my animals get sick. We've had a bit of sick around here and I still owe the vet like $400. Much of my vacation last week was spent at the vets office. They know me an my animals there really well. Everyone right now seems mostly well. Except Cassie who is trying as I type to lick more of her fur off. Seems she's having an identity crisis and thinks she's supposed to be a Sphynx. Cassie is my newest addition. She's a 9 year old Cornish Rex that I rescued from a local shelter. She's really sweet but does have a bit of an OCD thing going on in the form of compulsive grooming. So far her entire neck and most of her head are pretty much bare. She looks a bit like she's got a mohawk. I don't know what the conditions of her surrender were but this has been going on for a while as she has been on the current medication before. She also seems to share Sara's aversion to litter boxes but has thankfully picked up Sara's habit of using potty pads. Not perfect but we manage. So now I'm the owner of 3 cats. And a dog. Mostly everyone tolerates everyone else but outside of my kitten Annabelle loving the dog I can't say everyone likes everyone else. During last weeks sick episodes I discovered that Sara's heart problem is getting worse and I figure it's only a matter of time before my fantabulous vet wants her to see a kitty cardiologist. I don't even want to consider the cost of that. Lizzie is still her little neurotic loveable self as well which we mostly manage fine. I just know what her limitations are and work around them. Like if I want her to go somewhere I don't even hint that I'm leaving until I have her leash securely attached. The funniest part of all my animals lately? Their absolute fascination with my food. Sara and Luna never wanted people food. Wouldn't touch it. Annabelle and Cassie see no problem with walking up to my plate and helping themselves. I keep telling them that licking it doesn't make it automatically theirs but I don't think they believe me.
So that's me lately. Crazy cat lady in progress.