I didn’t post this yesterday, but I took our older cat, Trish, to the vet for shots and a well check. While there, she got a Feline Leukemia test, and it came back positive. They ran it twice, and the vet said it was a mild return, but still positive. This, he thought, in addition to her age (she’s almost 11) would explain the bad gingivitis they also found *sob*. Since cats with Feline Leukemia tend to have a short life expectancy (2-3 years after it’s contracted) I was a little upset, especially following so closely on the heels of Oliver’s death (Brianna still talks about Oliver, wondering if he’ll come home).

But lest you think I’m a complete cold-hearted witch because of the title of my post, I’ll tell you now that the vet called this afternoon to tell me the lab he’d sent her bloodwork to found she was NEGATIVE for Feline Leukemia. The tests in the office were false positives. Wheeee! I’m so relieved. In a moment of deja vu, he delivered the news to me when I was in the fabric department of Walmart. I say deja vu because I was standing in the exact same spot when he called to discuss the bad news of Oliver’s health. I’m just thankful this time the news was good. Yay!

We still have to treat the gingivitis, but the outlook for that is much better now that we know it’s not complicated by Feline Leukemia.

Brianna has taken to telling everyone, “I have two dogs! I have Reesie and Heath!”

And I do mean everyone. Every time we check out at the store, she tells the cashier (Target, Walmart, random clothes stores, it doesn’t matter.) Stop to talk to someone? She tells them. Today it was a random lady in the doctor’s waiting room and then the nurse and then the doctor. Before too long, Brianna’s going to be known as The Girl with Two Dogs.

I did feel bad for the lady in the waiting room, though, because she made the mistake of engaging Brianna in conversation and thus got to hear a list of our pets, including that “Oliver went to cat heaven”.

And no, we haven’t gotten the idea of “stranger danger” quite impressed on her yet. Although Brianna does tell me that if someone tries to take her, she’ll yell really loudly. After she tells them she has two dogs, I’m sure.

No, I haven’t sent them back yet. Or gone to the doctor seeking medication for my apparent insanity. I did take them to the vet yesterday though for checkups and shots. They were unthrilled by that, to say the least. Both have fleas, both have umbilical hernias (which can be fixed when they get…errr…altered) and the vet apparently decided that since I’d already given him a crapload of money for Oliver, he was going to take pity on me and waive one of the $125 initial sign up fees for the Wellness plan (through Banfield pet hospital). And he gave me a free bottle of flea shampoo. I guess paying promptly and being a concerned pet owner scores points.

Potty training is…going. They know to potty when they go outside. It’s the getting outside part first that’s the challenge. Heath is learning to go to the gate to the kitchen (which leads to outside) and whine. Reeses wants nothing to do with outside. It’s cold. Crating them is helping with potty training though. We have been crating them together but starting today (well actually yesterday afternoon but I caved last night) I’ve been trying crating separately. I feel vaguely guilty about that, but everything I’ve read recommends it. It might actually be harder than doing CIO (cry it out) with a baby, though, because Reeses made enough noise for the 45 minutes to convince anyone walking by that I was burning him with a cigarette lighter. Seriously. Loud. And. Piercing. Every time I thought he was going to give in and go to sleep, he started up again. I don’t know how the other one (whose cage is right next to his) slept through it. And yes, after 45 minutes, I caved again. It was either that or hit the bottle. On a good note, earlier tongith Reeses went “missing” and I found him sleeping in his crate!

I did find out today that they’re actually 10 weeks, not 8 weeks as the people originally told us. I emailed to ask for their birth date and while they didn’t know it, they did say it was 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. That means 10 weeks.

Otherwise, their individual personalities are starting to show, they’re definitely puppies as they’re chewing on everything, and Heath has been wonderful for cleaning all the stray socks, gloves, and toys out from under the couches. He’s the more…energetic of the two and is going to be the hardest to get under control. Good thing for him he’s got that sad puppy face.

Funny enough, Reeses is the one we’d have gotten had we only gotten one and I think he’s the more low-key of the two. He’s the one that wants to do his outside business and bust a move to get back inside. But he’s also the one most likely to play quietly and least likely to wander off while exploring. Don’t think he’s all good though. He’s the puppy who always manages to grab a bite of the cat’s food on the way from the back door to the puppy play area (aka our living room).

Tuesday night I got some fleece and made them both a no-sew blanket for their crates and some fleece rope puppy toys. They are loving them some toys–small tennis balls, rope toys, and soft stuffed toys. They’re not interested in any bones though. And still, they chew on the stuff they’re not supposed to. Like the wheels of my laptop cart. Fun

On a side note, I think it’s funny how a post on puppies brings lurkers to posting!

And since no post is complete without cute puppy pictures…Heath under the couch and Reeses on his new blanket (this pictures gives you a good shot of his eyes, which are very pretty)

I’ve been steadily wearing Josh down on the dog thing, poor guy. After we had to put Oliver to sleep, I had the puppy lust even more. When Oliver was alive, we knew that there was no way we could have a dog, because Oliver was grumpy and mean and hated dogs. It wouldn’t have been fair to him, the dogs or fun for us.

Last night we went to “look” at some puppies someone was giving away, and uh…well. Meet Reeses* and Heath.

Yes we got two. Yes, I am insane and yes, I think we’re going to need more puppy toys.

They’re 8 weeks old, border collie/beagle mix puppies. The people who had them still had both parents, along with two other dogs, plus they were keeping one of the puppies, they had two cats, a hamster and three kids. They liked animals.

I don’t think either of us intended to come away with one, let alone two. We really went to “look”. But once we saw how many dogs they’d been living with, we decided they’d be lonely on their own.

So far Brianna is thrilled, our cats (Max and Trish) not so much. Both puppies have peed on the carpet and eaten a ton of food.

Reeses is the darker one with the Rottweiler type coloring. He was the runt of the litter and that was actually what they named him.

Heath is the lighter one and was the little girl’s favorite(she was about 8 or 9). We renamed him to match Reeses.

Both are very social, very friendly and like to lay in laps. Let’s hope they don’t get much bigger than a beagle or that’s going to be a real issue.

The most challenging part of this is going to be getting them on a schedule, so I can get them potty trained and still get some work done. We’re going with the crate training method because really, I can’t imagine not crating them. My vet is closed Mondays and Tuesdays so that will be the next order of business, getting them there, and then I’m going to look into classes for the puppies and me to take.

click here to see more puppy cuteness on their Google Web Album. For those who saw this link before I posted it on my blog, I did add a few pictures.

Oh, and puppy advice is always welcome!

P.S. It needs to be said that my husband is the bomb-diggity.

*I know Reeses is spelled with an apostrophe but I thought that was weird for a dog’s name, so I’m not using it. I felt the need to put that out there because invariably, someone would be compelled to point out the editor’s misspelling.

I’ve been all sorts of entertaining lately, haven’t I? Um, yeah. But I hear I’m not supposed to share personal angst with you guys, so what’s left? Oh, I know! Cute toddler pictures.

Lucky for all of us, there are way more where that came from. One for every day of the week, maybe.

So as you all know, life goes on. I really appreciate all the emails and notes I got about Oliver, and for you guys not making me feel silly for grieving for a cat. It’s funny, because one thing that became clear to us pretty quickly was how much we’d adapted our behavior to having him live with us. We have two other cats, but he was the one with the preponderance of bad habits. Knocking over trash, eating bread if it was left on the counter (or anything left on the counter, for that matter), trying to run out the door when it was opened, using Brianna’s stuffed animals as sex slaves…well, yeah. There’s quite a list. Every day we realize something that we don’t have to do anymore, because Oliver’s not around and isn’t going to get into trouble. Weird. So now I want to get a dog. Bwahahaha. No really.

I don’t think Brianna even realizes that Oliver is gone. Of all the cats, she interacted with him the least. Now, if something happened to Max, I think she’d notice. I’m glad, actually, because this has saved me a lot of painful explanations. But I did get a lovely toddler book that I highly recommend to anyone who has a cat die Cat Heaven.

Otherwise, we’ve been busy. We took Brianna to see Santa last week, we built a snowman, we did some cleaning, I attended a fabulous moms-only Christmas party and oh! I caught a cold. Which thankfully I’m not on the downhill side of. Of course, that means it’s Brianna’s turn to get sick.

In the meantime, Josh started a new job this week which we are yay! so thankful for. If you’ve heard me talk about his job stress hear on the blog or elsewhere, you know it wasn’t much longer that he could have lasted at the previous job. Such a terrible place for anyone to work. He got out just in time to avoid the 17 straight work days coming in January (you know the ones you’re expected to work but aren’t compensated extra for?) Instead, he moved to this new job who told him he HAD to take the day before and the day after Christmas off or he’d lose those floating holidays. Errr, okay. Twist his arm. Seriously, this job is the difference between being treated as a human being with a life and a family, versus being treated like one of the machines you expect to run 24/7 with no shut down or failure time. Night and day.

You see how exciting my life has been? Now you know why I haven’t been posting. But I do have a few editing posts saved in my drafts. And did I mention more cute toddler pictures? So I’ll try not to be too scarce.

Unless something changes, I won’t bore or torture anyone with future updates after this one.

I took Oliver to the vet this morning and well, long story short, he’s probably dying. He hasn’t gained back much weight and he was still dehydrated (and had to get more IV fluids while he was there). When the vet felt his abdomen, Oliver took great offense (because of the pain). So yeah, he’s got an abdominal mass. Is it cancer or is it an intestinal thing? Another $1000 for an ultrasound and exploratory surgery would tell us. The end result is that if it’s cancer, he’d still be dying. If it’s a major intestinal thing, he’d still be dying. There is a small hope that it could involve only a small portion of his intestine, which could be removed and he *might* get better. The vet was pretty grim with me today, which was a change from all of the more positive possibilities last week.

At this point, I simply cannot afford to spend another $1000 dollars on a small possibility. I walked out of the vet’s office with another round of steroids, which will help him feel less pain and encourage his appetite. I also left with a lot less hope and feeling a little devastated. Last week, the vet said “feed him this special food that’s much better for him” and this week I got “feed him whatever he’ll eat”. If he doesn’t start eating more, or stops eating altogether. Well. We won’t discuss that because I’m ugly when I cry.

We’ll go back in another week for a check up and I’m holding on to the slim hope I have that he’s going to get better, but it’s getting harder to be positive. I can do it. One day at a time, right?

It’s in the 60s here and both Brianna and Oliver have gotten to go outside and enjoy the great weather.

I’m not cooking today. It’s only the three of us this year and Josh and Brianna are happy with just turkey and mashed potatoes (and maybe some green beans). I, on the other hand, want stuffing and sweet potatoes and all that good stuff. But I’m not making it just for myself. So we’re going to a local restaurant that’s doing a buffet (they have yummy food so yay!) and if we find we’re missing the leftovers, we’ll make a turkey next week. Actually, I really want to fry a turkey, but the initial outlay is kind of expensive so I’m not too sure about that.

I’m watching the Macy’s Parade now and hopefully this afternoon we’ll get to watch some football and I’ll maybe get some sewing done! Though I’m not really sure which project I want to work on.

We were going to avoid the Black Friday sales, since Josh has to work and I wasn’t going to drag Brianna around by myself, but Kohls is having a great deal on a garment bag, which I’ve really been wanting for work travel, for when I drive to conferences instead of fly. And Target is having a deal on Guitar Hero III for the Playstation II, which is a game Josh and I have been looking at, so I might send him to Target in the morning before work. Then, Bath and Body has Wallflowers on sale for $5, and we need refills. And they have a fab free gift. You see how I get sucked into these things?

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to those who are celebrating!

Thanks to everyone who posted/emailed their well wishes for Oliver.

After he spent the day at the vet yesterday, he’s back home now. The vet was very pleased with how well he responded to treatment yesterday, so Oliver even got to come home a few hours earlier than expected.

Of course, he was sent home with four different medications and prescription food (making feeding time at my house, with three cats, a fun time) so we still have a ways to go before he’s better, but there’s a definite improvement! He’s using the litterbox (yay!) and eating (yay again!) and sleeping a lot. But he looks better, you can see some of his old personality, though he’s still being remarkably good (staying out of the garbage and off the counters) so I know he’s still weak.

I’m very positive about this, and am going to believe that the medications will keep making him better. Though the vet did warn me that the steroids will make him present as “healthy” for the short term, even if it’s cancer, I’m going to believe it’s not a mass that they saw on the Xrays (since they really weren’t sure) and that he’s going to keep improving. Thanks again for your kind words, I appreciated them so much!

I know, bad blogger. I have a post started with a recap of last weekend (I attended a conference) but my blogging motivation has been sadly lacking this week. I have the blahs, which is a combination of my job stress, Josh’s job stress. the time of year and something else I’ve been dealing with. If you look back at past archives, you’ll see I normally blog about my mom and my grandfather at this date every year. Yesterday was the anniversary of my mom’s death and my grandfather’s funeral (easy to remember when they occur on the same date). I realized that in two years, I’ll have been alive as long without my mom as I was with her. Very odd. But this weekend I’ve been otherwise occupied with something else that’s been difficult.

moar funny pictures

I have three cats at home: Oliver, Trish and Max. Max is the one year old, the cat Josh and Brianna found on Brianna’s birthday. Trish is ten and I got her from a shelter when she was 1 1/2, from a shelter. Oliver is also ten, but I’ve had him since he was a kitten. I even know his date of birth. He’s been with me through college, a number of moves, and 2 marriages. When I was in college, doing internships in another state, I used to take him back and forth with me on the weekends. He’d ride in the back window of my car and because he was so huge (almost 20 lbs) and orange, people would stare at him. It wasn’t uncommon for me to stop at gas stations and have people come up and point at the fat orange thing (much like the lolcat in the picture above) or say they saw us driving on the road.

moar funny pictures

This weekend, we realized Oliver is very ill. He’s been losing weight for awhile now, but we attributed part of that to better food that doesn’t taste as good, so he wasn’t gorging himself. But in the past month, he’s gotten a little skinnier. He’s also started urinating outside the box. That we thought was behavioral because Max is starting to try and establish his dominance. But last night, Oliver collapsed. He couldn’t walk, his back legs were weak. We realized, in retrospect, that he hadn’t been doing any of his bad-habits lately (trying to escape to the open outdoors, jumping on counters and knocking over the trash can to find better food). He wouldn’t eat wet cat food or even small pieces of ham (his favorite). He’s sick. Very sick. My fat man is now under ten pounds.

We took him to the vet today, where he still is, and $1000 later we know…not a lot. He’s dehydrated, he’s got inflamed cells and high white blood cell count. Xrays show something wrong with his intestinal system and that combined with the other things lead the vet to think he’s got an infection, think it might be a feline bowel inflammation. Or it might be cancer. The only way to be “almost” sure is to do exploratory abdominal surgery and take biopsies. For another $1000. And that could still be inconclusive. Unfortunately, my vet does not do payment plans. All payment at the time of treatment. Today’s vet bill is compliments of Mr. Visa but we can’t do another $1000. So instead the vet is (reluctantly) going to try the steroid treatment, hoping we see a big improvement in Oliver. The problem is, they may make him feel better for a few weeks, and then he’ll relapse. At that point, it’s probably cancer. Or the steroids might make him feel totally better and he’ll have to stay on those the rest of his life.

I feel horribly guilty that I can’t say yes to the surgery. But honestly, I tried to explain this to the vet, it’s not an option. Sure, he can do it, but I couldn’t pay him and I’m sure that’s not a happy option for the vet. So Oliver is there getting IV fluids, we’ll pick him up at 5pm and then take him back in the morning for another course of IV fluids. He’s also getting antibiotics, vitamins and a whole host of other stuff to get him on the road to recovery, tempt his appetite and hopefully make him feel better. *sigh* I think Brianna’s Christmas is going to depend on the grandparents this year.

Tony Casavetti emerges from an undercover assignment only to be summoned to NYC by Charlotte, the Devlin Group’s executive administrator. When he arrives, he finds out she may be ruthlessly efficient, but his assumption about her being matronly was dead wrong.

Charlotte Rhames has it all—looks, wealth and the respect she craved. But an attack on the Devlin Group throws her back into the pit of sex, money, and murder she’d crawled out of.

With Tony’s life at stake, how far is she willing to fall?

Book 2 of the Devlin Group series

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