Thursday

Phlyd and his Squishable friend, Sadat.

I have had quite a time with Phlyd these past couple of days. For those of you who haven't been following along, he has congestive heart disease and failing kidneys, and is on many medications that cancel each other out. He is on a diuretic to combat the liquid around his heart, but his kidneys need all the fluids they can get to continue to be of any help at all. I am supposed to be sprinkling this anti-nausea powder on his food so he will stop losing weight at an alarming speed, but he's nauseated so he's not eating.

I'm a dismal failure at administering his sub-cu fluids, and during the week most of my interactions with him are to shove pills down his throat or poke him with an enormous needle. Wednesday night he began leaking a foul diarrhea all over everything, so all the surfaces in our house have been covered with newspaper and old towels. The other night it got so bad we had to lock all the cats out of our room just so we could get some sleep.

So Wednesday night I had a break down. I was angry at myself for fucking up the fluid administration and being frustrated with him because I'd run out of both clean bedlinens and patience. All he wanted to do was sleep in between us (although he hadn't been sleeping either-- more like sitting listlessly and looking scarily like he was waiting for death), but we had to get up every hour and try to find more things for him to leak on that we wouldn't accidently roll in while we slept.

Thursday it looked really bad. He barely moved, he wasn't interested in food or scritches and I couldn't even think about my options without sobbing. He wasn't himself, and that was one thing I told myself might be a sign that he was on his way out. So now, not only was I a terrible nurse and a bad mother, I had to take into consideration things like "can we afford another vet bill" and "can I get the time off work" when trying to decide if now was the time to put him down.

The husband took the bus to work so I could have the car and I cried the whole drive across town to the vet. I didn't have an appointment, but I knew he was too popular at the vet for them to turn us away. If I had to put him to sleep, I figured they would all want to say goodbye.

I carried him up to the front desk and before the receptionist could say anything, I burst out in tears and told her my cat was dying. [My god, I can't even type this without tearing up again.] The manager of the office, Merry, saw me and ushered us both into an exam room. I spent 10 minutes sobbing into her shoulder.

I hate crying. I don't even cry in front of the husband. I suppress my crying emotions so much I don't think I've ever really had a cathartic crying experience. I will always hold back. I don't know why. Thusday morning was absolutely the worst emotional experience I've had in twenty-five years.

I left the vet's office with encouraging words from the vet, who said at the very least they could get him hydrated to see if that might get him to eat. I still cried all the way back home. I went to work assuming I would get a call that afternoon telling me to come in and say goodbye. When the vet called with an upbeat update, I was relieved but pessimistic. I would need to be administering more fluids more frequently and add another syringe full of nasty medicine to his already full pre-meal schedule.

He was OK that night and seemed to be OK on Friday, but after another sleepless night of leakage and no sleep, I fell back into the same horrible I'm-killing-my-cat feeling. I started crying again as soon as the vet returned my call, so they kept the office open late just so I could bring him back.

They gave him an injection of something for his nausea and administered more fluids.

And I'm pretty sure they did some sort of voodoo, because he's not just eating, he's demanding to eat. He's not just sleeping between us, he's snuggling up and purring nonstop and batting us on our noses with his paw if he thinks he's not getting enough attention. He's back!

I see your bootstraps and raise you an amputated leg

So there's this letter that appeared in this week's Willamette Week:

I am self-employed, and I pay about $140 a month for health insurance. When I hear people say they “can’t afford” health insurance when they have a cigarette habit, a latte habit, and an expensive cellphone, I shake my head in amazement. People, your health is your responsibility; it’s not the job of the rest of society to ante up for your medical costs because you were too cheap to insure yourself. --“Barbara”

Well, allow me to congratulate "Barbara" for thinking ahead and choosing her genes carefully so she could be responsible about her health. If only I had such forward-thinking! If only I hadn't been so careless with my pancreas at nine years old. All my wild parties and late nights back then stuck me with a disease that I will die from if not treated. And if I can't afford to pay for my own mistakes, I have only myself to blame.

But I think "Barbara" may be missing a key part in this whole "everybody deserves health insurance" bug that's sticking in her craw. It's just a little thing, but it's important. She has no fucking idea what she's talking about.

Let's say I lose my job, and am unable to find another job before my COBRA runs out, I will lose my insurance. And given the "pre-existing condition" I recklessly saddled myself with, buying my own insurance could cost as much as $400/month.

And it's very possible that I won't be able to afford that. And that's where things get a little tricky. It's costly to maintain my expensive "must have this medicine or I will die" habit. Allow me to demonstrate (All dollar amounts based on the going rate at my nearby pharmacy in 2007 and the charges incurred at the local medical clinic):

Monthly drug costs: 2 types of insulin, 2 types of syringes: $318.

In order to be a responsible diabetic, I need to be keeping an eye on my blood sugars. I can't expect "Barbara" to ante up for all those complications. This means I will need to buy a glucose monitor ($75) and monthly test strips ($219).

And you can't just walk in and buy some of this stuff. You need a prescription, and prescriptions mean Drs. appointments. If I go just once a year and get all the tests "responsible" citizens should get-- lab works and a pap smear (unless she expects me to bear that burden as well-- after all, I'm the one with the cervix. Half the people on this planet don't need pap smears, what makes me so special?)-- that will cost a little less than $500.

So, let's do some math!

Dr visit + glucose monitor + [(prescriptions + test strips) x 12]

equals

$7019.00 per year. Minimum.

(Note: This of course does not take into consideration anything else that is considered "responsible" health maintenence: Eye care, dental appointments, drugs for other conditions that come with diabetes like glaucoma, neuropathy, gastroparesis, thyroid disease, depression, anxiety. And let us not speak of emergency medical care; anything I would do that would require such extravagance would surely be my fault. C'mon, dressed like that? I would be asking for it.)

Honestly, how could I possibly expect my government to allocate "Barbara's" precious tax dollars to fund my corporeal inadequacies? How reckless and selfish! Jesus, here I've made this whole entry about me, me, me. I mean, what about "Barbara"?

Well, here's what about "Barbara": I think she needs to try that old "walk in someone else's moccasins" for a while. I think any diabetic would be happy to hand over the shoes they can't wear anymore, what with those pesky feet they just had amputated.

It's taken me 35 years

But I've finally realized that shoes really do make the outfit.

I continue to fail in new and ingenious ways

Seriously, it shouldn't be this difficult.

The alternatives include taking him on the bus to a vet appointment every other day, or hiring a tech to come over administer the fluids. Or putting him down, which my mother a bit too enthusiastically recommended.

But I can't get the fucking fluids into the dying cat. What. The Fuck. Is. My. Problem.

Things you may have read were I liveblogging the Olympic Opening Ceremonies but without the timestamps

Why does the prevailing costume design for the female athletes on parade seem to be 'legal secretary' or 'air hostess'?

The best job in the whole of the Olympics? The guy who gets to do the flag flinging during the raising of the Chinese flag:

This is what can happen when I don't have my iPod

I've had "Camptown Races" stuck in my head since about 3 yesterday afternoon.

The Eugene Levy version.

ETA: On the ride home from the bus today, it was "Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel: variations on a theme". You can get a pretty groovin' bass line if you try. Pret-ty, pret-ty groovin'.

Remember how I said the cat thing wasn't so bad?

Now every time I insert the needle and start the fluids, it comes out of other holes like Bugs Bunny full of buckshot.

I want to kick the table across the room and rip that fucking plastic bag apart with my teeth. I'm so frustrated I want to break every inanimate object I come across.

I'm going to call around to see if there are any vet techs I can hire to come do it for me, because I am obviously completely useless at most things.