Great Good Fortune

I’ve been gone for a while. Originally subdued by the holidays and the sheer bliss and enormity of hosting Christmas for the first time with our families in our own home. Subsequently felled on Jan. 1 by a not-so-fun case of walking pneumonia. Just when I think I’m getting better, I seem to slip back a little. I just have to accept that it will take a while to recover.

So, cough and all, I’m back. Trying to get back into the swing of things. My favorite memory: Charming Boy running to me with wonder in his voice “Mommy!!! Santa came! To MY HOUSE!!!”

I love that the magic finally came alive in our house! Fourteen years of traveling to be family in their homes, and this was our turn. It was wonderful!

I hope 2009 for all of us is filled with the same wonderment and love as our 2008 ended with.

You know you're a couple in the Silicon Valley's New Economy when….

You email your husband a day-by-day "family's coming to visit" holiday prep to-do list, because he's off for two weeks but you can't take any time off (even unpaid) for fear of losing your job. You also just incurred a large vet bill, so you need the money.

You then print the list so you have a copy for the five errands you will run after work on your way home.

And once you get home, you will synch your phone with your email so you will then have the rest of the list electronically.

No, I'm not stressed a bit. Can you tell?

I LOVE Christmas. I feel stressed out because it never seems like there is enough prep time leading up to the actual time spent with family. I want to get more done before people start arriving!

I am grateful every day that our Moosecat is healing very well, and mostly able to run away from the bitchy hissing and growling our kitten is doing due to his reintroduction into the family.

You are right, dear commenters. Our decision was a moral dilemma. I do not want to see anyone suffer in needless pain. I never want to try to hurt or kill any living thing. When these two values intersect, one must override. There is no one clear right answer, and it is the worst kind of situation to be in with power to sway another living creature’s future so totally.

It was especially hard to consider a surgery I would normally think of as a brutal mutilation when forced so drastically upon another’s body. Removing one’s penis to save one’s life should be left to an individual to decide; but this was our pet. In a way, he is most definitely a child to us, and one who relies on us to provide for every aspect of his life.

PUs are not as commonly performed in felines as they once were. There are myriad pharmaceutical approaches to help get a cat to urinate now. Unfortunately, none of these medical interventions worked at all for our Moosecat, and he was at the end of his life unless this surgery worked.

When we walked into the vet’s office yesterday, we were not prepared to see him doing better after a week of decline. It became apparent that this one last surgery was the only possible way to save him, and it was a gamble. There is no way we could have had the PU done if we thought he’d live in pain or have anything but a good quality of life afterward (assuming he recovered at all, of course). There was a very real possibility that he could die during the surgery, or even afterward. There still is.

If it comes down to it, we will make the choice to euthanize him to keep him from suffering a horrible, painful death.

I am so grateful today to tell you that post-surgery, Moosecat has been doing well. No fever, he’s eating again, drinking water again, and the best part of all– urinating! On his own, with no catheter, for the first time 10 days. He was very affectionate, and with a little continued luck, he might even come home tomorrow for a long convalescence.

‘Tis the season for eternal hope. I hold tight to my hope that we’ll not only have all of our human family home with us for Christmas this year, but also our furry family members. Thank you for being there through our journey.

When I visited our sweet kitty yesterday, he was not doing well at all. He could hardly stand up. I prepared myself all night and today to have the courage to euthanize him.

My husband and I visited Moosecat this afternoon, and despite his fourth urinary tract blockage (two in a row is rare; four in a row is unheard of in a single week), he was actually doing better. We threw our last Hail Mary pass and asked the vet to do a Perineal Urethrostomy (PU) procedure that basically makes our "he" cat a "she."

He made it through the surgery and according to the vet was doing "great" in recovery tonight. As long as he can use the new equipment to urinate, he can come home in a day or two. If it doesn't work and he can't pee, we will be bringing him home to say goodbye, as there is nothing else we can do.

Our middle-age cat (he’s twelve) has been steadily losing weight since we got the kitten in July. He’s had bouts of vomiting and a slowly decreasing appetite.

We thought at first it was the extra exercise due to the kitten, but by October we started to get really worried. He has weighed 16 pounds his entire adult life (not fat, just long and tall with a bit of neutered-male swinging belly). I took him back to the vet on Monday, and he’s down to 10.5 lbs– literally skin and bones for this boy. We agreed to have an ultrasound to see what might be going on internally (thinking either the big “C” or irritable bowel disease).

On Tuesday, “life” intervened when we noticed that he was hardly moving and not eating at all. When I tried to carry him to his food bowl, I felt an orange-sized ball in his belly, which I know for a fact was not there the day before. Immediately took him in to the vet (thank goodness my hubby was working from home that day so he noticed his behavior), and I made it before closing time; any later and he would not have lasted the night.

Our Moosecat had a blocked urethra, and that huge balloon I felt in his skin-and-bones belly was his BLADDER. Poor cat! Unfortunately, the blockage has nothing to do with his other symptoms, which are perplexing out vet.

We had some blood work done, but won’t know anything until later on Thursday. He could be in kidney failure, which would probably mean the end of his journey. He is staying at the vet’s office until his catheter is removed or we have some idea about his prognosis.

With previous animal emergencies, we’ve at least had some idea what was going on and had a reasonable amount of hope that things would improve drastically with treatment. This time, we have no such reassurances. It sounds awful to say, but this is also the worst possible month to get a huge vet bill; our reality is we just paid property taxes and there is no fat left on this calf.

I am desperately hoping that our sweet kitty boy will get better; he is the epitomy of the perfectly-mannered cat and a great companion. Any healing vibes you can spare will be greatly appreciated.