An update on my life in the eye of a tornado …

This series of blogs began when I reported that my mother had an accident and went to the hospital, was released to rehab, sent to the ICU back at the hospital, sent to another rehab (we thought was better from the ratings) and was neglected and diminishing daily. She was sent home at my request; rehab wasn’t rehabbing, she was just too weak. She was released to Vitas Hospice care. I thought it was the end. She seems to be rebounding.

She currently has someone living-in with her. I don’t feel she should be alone especially at night. She was seventy pounds when she was taken home, today she is eighty one pounds.

“I’m getting stronger,” she said, and I don’t need someone to be with me all the time. (I am starting to get a sick feeling in my stomach). She wavers back and forth between wanting to leave the assisted living (that looks good but…) where she has had rats and maintenance is poor and the food and service are lousy, to going to a one bedroom somewhere, to not going anywhere.

She is as confused about what to do as I am. I haven’t heard her voice as strong as it was today in a long time. She was tough, demanding and got a few temporal facts wrong. She started to talk to me in Yiddish and asked me if I understood. My reply was: “you used Yiddish when you didn’t want me to understand!” “Nonsense! you could have learned if you wanted to!”

O.K. taking a deep breath. She is 98% related and on target, but she is getting shorter, curter, and sucked into the past where memories can be distorted. But she is right-on when she says: put them on notice and don’t pay the rent until they fix everything!

“Remember,” she said as we were ending the conversation, “call me once in a while. And if you have something to say, say it! I’m here for you, I’m your friend!”

How do I tell my mother that I am exhausted from the last six months of fighting for her? That I barely sleep, have spent twelve hour days on the phone and need a break, that I want some quiet, that I am tired of thinking and calling. That I have been worried about her funds and how long they will hold out and that I have been terrified that she will outlive her money and end up in a nursing home.

“I want Cindy to go home at night, I don’t need her.” I am envisioning her eighty-one pounds sliding off the bed and melting to the floor in her quest to get to the bathroom in the dark. “Excuse me, Ma, you can’t be alone.” She declared she is getting stronger and when she is she’ll only need a one bedroom somewhere, why should she rent a two bedroom and spend more money? Century Village. Not Century Village–too big! “Boca is too fancy! Maybe where I used to live but it has to be on the ground floor.”

Serenity now!

Tuesday …

Meanwhile back here on the animal farm, Play, my orange buddy spent a week at the vet getting his insulin regulated and was in a state of terror when the vet tech brought him in to explain procedures to me: just as he left his cage a bunch of dogs started carrying on and he peed all over Gil, the tech.  He went back into the carrier. Gil opened the front grill and he didn’t budge, just sat in there cowering. I stuck my hand in and began to stroke his head and his much thinner body. My once seventeen pound leonine boy was now a diminished twelve-pounder, his bones showing through his hanging fur. I was mortified. This is what diabetes does: it causes the muscles to self-destruct because the body can’t use glucose properly for energy and so the body itself becomes the energy source.

He reminded me of my mother, a shadow of his former self. Still him but different.

I was instructed in insulin, hypodermics, timing. I was overwhelmed. All the youtube videos on feline diabetes were drowning me. I was so daunted, that this contributed even more to my sleepless nights. I was in terror: the what-if’s I can’t do this got me.

And then I had to pay the discharge bill: it was over $1300. I looked and gasped.

An old photo. Play’s face was much wider years ago; now he looks like a tiny thin guy

Once home, Play ran upstairs and then came down finally realizing where he was. He hadn’t been given insulin before he left the animal hospital because his blood sugar was low at that point and I assumed he shouldn’t be fed, that he had been eating prior to my arrival. It wasn’t clear what to do and I couldn’t get the vet on the phone and it was getting close to 8:00 pm. I decided not to feed him-what if his blood sugar would shoot up?

In the middle of the night he came up to my room, something he hasn’t done for a very long time, and jumped onto the bed. He was happy and likely starving, rubbing against me, purring. Jumping on and off, then poised in the crook of my leg. He ended up on a nearby chair from about 6:00 am on. It was Wednesday, the day of the needle.

By 8:30 am I was downstairs preparing kitty breakfast; the tension was building–I had to feed the three cats and give orange guy his first insulin shot. Probably the first of many. Maybe the first of his lifetime unless he is one of the lucky ones who can “get off the juice,” as they say and go into remission and possibly never have to look at insulin again. This is what kept me up most of the night. I planned my attack. The hypodermic was poised and ready having been prepared the night before by Gil. Play was ravenous and began to eat. I pinched some skin between the shoulder blades and lifted it forming a tent and inserted the needle and pushed. It couldn’t have been that easy, so I actually inserted the needle again and yes, I had done it right the first time. A tiny needle shooting a tiny amount of insulin into a subcutaneous area; he didn’t feel a thing and couldn’t have cared. My trepidation lessened by the evening as I repeated the injection.

Yesterday I had to  buy a bottle of insulin and syringes. A prescription is needed and it specifically says CAT with my last name, no, insurance doesn’t pick it up. There are a million different insulins, Play was prescribed Lantus. I did some research and a little bottle or vial as they are called can run anywhere from $150’s from Target and Walgreen’s to $170 at my local pharmacy. In addition, I had to buy syringes. And to add insult to injury there is TAX on all of this. I ask you: HOW is the average person supposed to pay for all of this? There should be financial aid for people taking care of sick pets.

The vials are supposed to be tossed after 28 days of use! I spoke to several people and the vet tech who maintain they use the bottle for 2-3 months which makes me feel a bit better but then I wonder how potent the stuff would be after time. I am only injecting 2cc’s twice a day from a 100 cc bottle.  Last night I practiced preparing syringes for today. The bottle cannot be shaken just rolled to warm and disperse the contents. Insert needle, inject air, tip up, extract the insulin beyond what is needed, shoot the unneeded stuff back in. Refrigerate.

Then there was another turn of events. All day yesterday the cat was sneezing. All day today the cat was sneezing. Or sleeping. He ate very little, appeared to be lethargic. Curled up in a little bed and went back to sleep. I bet he caught something while at the vet, and if it is a respiratory infection I have to bring him back in for a long acting shot. Mind you we all know that this animal won’t go into a carrier and I will need a long term shot of something to calm my nerves so I could attempt to get him back to the vet. Oh please, get well!! I was assured by the vet tech that this has nothing to do with the insulin or the diabetes and that he didn’t “crash” on 2 cc’s. Maybe he is just plain exhausted from all the excitement of coming home and getting re-acclimated to not having food out all the time and to his health issue. But he sleeps, wakes and sneezes. This ain’t no allergy.

Princess Blue has since had a hysterectomy, a mastectomy for cancer and is languishing at the vet

I spent an hour or so going down the list of my resources to see if I could find someone who might know someone, some kind soul who might take in Princess Blue who remains curled up in a huge cage at the vet’s. I left message after message and got a call back from my friend Debbie who knows someone who has a cat sanctuary all the way out on Long Island who would be willing to take an FIV+ kitty. Of course there is a donation (to the public it is $1,000 (!) but as I am a friend of a friend it would be $400.) Sounds like a bargain. Rolling eyes … Help me! This fellow an incredible set-up. It looks like he has hundreds of animals and they can go our or stay in, there are closed in spaces and all sorts of places to hang out, play, rest. What do you think? My friend who paid the medical bills told me to go out and look at it first. You can see it here. http://www.happycatsanctuary.org/ There is a link to a video tour. I think if this works out Princess Blue will have a safe haven and not have to survive the elements.

Remember I told you about the wacky dishwasher that the technician who was here on Friday couldn’t find anything wrong with? I ran it once and it was fine. I ran it again yesterday and it went berserk! Everything seemed fine, I thought it had completed a cycle and then it began to make a loud sucking noise, all the indicator progress lights were off. If I opened the machine it continued to make the same loud noise as when the door was closed: I couldn’t shut it off! I closed the door and the intake/drain light was flashing and a bunch of lights formed a white bar. The machine had defaulted to sani-wash from economy. I couldn’t change the program, the on/off button didn’t work. I think my dishwasher was abducted by aliens. Then just as the settings went wonky they straightened themselves out and the thing went silent. I had been ready to hit a circuit breaker so I could go to sleep–it must have read my mind. If I closed the door and hit the on/off switch it lit appropriately but there was that sani-wash default as if it went back to the last program used–which I didn’t use. I switched it back to the economy setting, played a bit with it again. On/off. Sani-wash. What the hell? And the weirdest thing was that this morning my kitchen faucet wasn’t working–the valves had been turned and I didn’t turn them. Curiouser and curiouser.

I called the repair company right away and have an appointment tomorrow morning. The genius better return early because I also have a doctor’s appointment and have to leave. And lord help me, I might have to go back to the vet with a sneezing diabetic cat.

This series is linked: see “continued here.” Also, below the line there will be links for the previous post and the next.

The series starts here

 continued here