It’s been quite a week and a half or so here. It amazes me sometimes how quickly some things tend to happen. You think you’ll have plenty of time to deal with major life changes, but that’s not always the case. Ok, so maybe this wasn’t as major a life change as some, but it was still significant.
A week ago Sunday (the 15th), Joel noticed that Sheba, our kitty cat, wasn’t eating or drinking. Monday, he got an appointment to take her in to the vet where they did a battery of tests. By the next morning, they were able to tell us that Sheba had developed chronic kidney failure. We went in Tuesday evening to learn how to administer subcutaneous fluids (looks like an IV, but it’s not in a vein, it’s just under the skin). We administered fluids every night in the hopes that she would bounce back enough to lead a decent life for a while. If she did bounce back, we’d have to keep giving her the fluids every night, but other than that she could seem relatively healthy.
However, Sheba never quite got back to acting like herself. Besides being a little less social than normal, she started throwing up once or twice a day. Joel finally decided on Saturday that it would be cruel to keep her going as she was, so we took her to the vet on Monday night, left the kids home with a sitter, and put her to sleep.
Sheba was a sweet kitty. When we adopted her 4 years ago, we brought her home expecting her to run and hide at first, but instead she got out of the carrier and jumped into my lap, purring. She was that way with anyone who came in the house… sweet and attention seeking. She hated cat treats, catnip, cat toys, etc., prompting us to speculate that she was part dog. 🙂 She was good with the kids, too… very patient with a toddler’s poking and patting. It’ll be hard to find a kitty like her again.
Be that as it may, a cat-less house doesn’t feel right, so we’re already looking at some possible new kitties. We want two this time (Sheba didn’t like other cats, so she had to be an only), so we’re looking at sibling groups. It’s fun to look, and it takes my mind off of Sheba. We went this morning and bought some new things for whatever cats we end up getting. We never needed a scratching post before, for instance, because we adopted Sheba when she had already been declawed. We’d like younger cats this time, so we got some stuff for them to scratch. I got toys, too, since we didn’t bother getting them for Sheba. She’d rather play with a twist-tie than anything you could buy in the store.
I’ll have to post here when we do get new kitties. It’ll probably be soon.
In other news, I know that the Virginia midwifery bill HB581 made it through the House and was supposed to be voted on in the Senate sometime soon, but I haven’t heard anything else about it. I’ll keep checking on it to see what happens so I can post if/when it goes through.