0032. i'm too tired to think of a song lyric

When we got home last night, we found that Ditto was still peeing on the floor in the bathroom, as well as in the kitchen.... in the kitchen. I'm not really ok with him peeing in the bathroom because it's gross, but it's been happening for so long that I've basically resigned myself to it. It's gross, but I hit it with some bleach and it's gone.

But peeing in the kitchen? OH HELL NO. I cannot and will not resign myself to that shit. It's disgusting, it's unsanitary, and it's just plain wrong!

What's worse is that he's still peeing blood. Yesterday it was really bad and seems to have tapered off a bit today, but it's still bloody and again: that's gross. So PK told me to call the vet and see what to do. Of course, they say "Bring him in!!" because apparently that means he's getting ready to block up again. I fail to see how him leaking everywhere means he's going to block up, but that's beside the point.

I can't stop thinking (or talking) about this stupid cat situation. It's destroying my freaking life!! I've talked to one of the guys in the counseling office about it, plus my Film & Lit professor (who noticed I was looking down today & asked me what was wrong - big mistake, I vented all over him), my boss, my mother, and everyone else who comes into the office.

This is fucking ridiculous. I shouldn't be this preoccupied with this stupid cat and I definitely shouldn't burst into tears when the vet tells me to bring the fucker in.

I called my psychiatrist because the bursting into tears part was a little alarming. She said that the bloodwork I had done last week to check my Lithium levels wasn't showing up in the computer so I need to come in tomorrow for more freaking bloodwork but she also wants to see me. At this point, I know I need it, so I'm not going to bitch about going to the psychiatrist.

0031. i wanna be a billionaire so freakin' bad

I'm talking to a friend in IM right now about the whole Ditto situation (see my previous post if you have no idea what I'm talking about). Because it's basically a straight copy/paste from an IM conversation, it might not flow as good as you're used to when I ramble... ok, it's exactly what you're used to when I ramble. But here is the end of the tale. (see what I did there? Tale/tail... nevermind)

The vet wanted to charge us $840. In addition to the $333 I already paid, it'd be $1173, which we're definitely not willing to pay.

We went in the back to talk to the dr & we told him that we felt like he basically held Ditto for ransom because we kept asking how much it was and they never would tell us. That hurt the doc's feelings so he said he'd knock an additional $250 off (he already gave us a 25% discount, which was $300 off - that's how much work they did on him). PK SAID NO!

He told Doc that he knew a lot of time & work was put in, so how about $125 instead. Doc said no, he fucked up, so he'd meet in the middle & $175 has been knocked off. It's now $665, which is more manageable since we're splitting it, but still. If they would've given us regular financial updates, he would've been put down $600 ago.

PK added everything up (including the $333 I paid last week), divided it in half and subtracted what I already paid. My "half" is $166, but that leaves him with $499 and that's an awful big ass chunk out of the money he's saved for Italy. I'm going to go ahead & pay half of the current total because I'm a good wife.

He didn't want the doc to think that we're all about the money (sorry, but in this instance, we are - we're trying to save money for Italy & he's WAY BEHIND ON SAVING) We can actually afford to pay the entire thing without any money being knocked off. I just don't want to. Like I said. Saving for Italy. I'd like to have AT LEAST $1000 saved up, but I'd prefer to have $2000.

The doctor knew he'd fucked up by not keeping us in the loop even though we asked every day about the current price on Ditto's treatment. That's why he knocked off 25% and then offered to knock off the additional $250.

PK wasn't pissed because it cost so much. He knew that having a cat in the hospital for 7 days wasn't going to be cheap. He was pissed off about the fact that they didn't tell us when they were doing something or let us know every day when we asked them what the total was.

Wednesday, when I talked to the chick dr, I was of the understanding that it'd be around $300 if Ditto came home on Friday. They kept him over the weekend and suddenly it's over a grand? Seriously?! I get that they saved his life, but $1173? SERIOUSLY??

They saved his life because he had a severe bacterial infection in his bladder. He had "sand" (crystals) in his bladder that ended up stopping him up completely. He couldn't pee at all, his bladder filled up and nearly burst (which is why he was screaming, couldn't get comfortable, & threw up - he was in that much pain). After they put a catheter in and drained his bladder, they did blood work and noticed that his kidneys were failing. if they hadn't done everything they did, he would have died.

Supposedly he's not going to pee everywhere anymore. We have to keep an eye on him to make sure he's actually peeing because there's a chance he'll stop up again. We have to change his diet (wet food only now - dry food isn't actually good for cats because there's so many carbs in it & they need protein, not carbs) & medicate him... although that's for an entirely different reason.

Ditto chases/attacks his tail. Seriously. He attacks that thing like it slapped his Momma. He growls at it & bites it and all sorts of other weirdness. We used to just laugh at him, but when we brought it up with the doc, she said it might he hyper sensitivity or hallucinations. The other doc (the owner of the clinic) checked him out and apparently Ditto suffers from mild seizures. He'll be on liquid phenobarbitol for the rest of his life.

He's now resting comfortably in my closet and I imagine when I go lay down he'll end up laying down with me (he's all cuddly now that I'm being nice to him). It's nice not having an insane cat who pees everywhere. Hopefully it lasts.

0030. I need no soft lights to enchant me

iTunes: The Nearness of You - Norah Jones

Mood: tired/exhausted/overworked/underpaid...

I took Ditto to the vet last week because I was tired of him peeing everywhere. I was hoping it was a medical thing so we could give him a few pills or get him a shot and he'd be over it. Well, PK was right that it was medical, but I was wrong that it'd be a quick fix. They diagnosed him with a bacterial infection in his bladder and "probably some kind of kitty mental issue where he hallucinates, and that's why he chases his tail everywhere... that, or he's super sensitive to everything around him and he's responding to that" (gotta love how exact medicine is). He's been at the kitty hospital since last Tuesday, when he threw up on my couch and FREAKED OUT because he was in so much pain. Whatever they gave him stopped him up and he couldn't pee at all! The day after he was admitted, they told me that his fucking kidneys had shut down! He's doing better now, but what the fuck did they give him??? He was FINE except for peeing on the bathroom floor & sometimes the bed. Now his bladder is so bad that he needs a fucking catheter and his kidneys are shutting down???? Something's seriously weird about this whole thing....

I've been on the phone with the vet every day since he was admitted. I ask how he's doing (because even though I'm mad at him for peeing everywhere, I feel bad for him and I realize that he's really a sweet kitty when he's not hurting) and then I ask how much the bill is, because I know keeping a cat hospitalized isn't cheap. They haven't told me how much it is. The last time I had a real solid number ($300) was Wednesday. I kept asking, because PK set a limit of $500. They kept telling me that the doctor hadn't put the notes into the computer yet, so they weren't sure and the doctor would call later to give me a medical and financial update on the cat. I got the medical update, but not the financial update. Saturday, when the doctor finally gave me a total... $830. In addition to the $333 I paid on Monday for "a routine visit that costs $100", the total is now $1163. And even better: the fucking vet hasn't called me back yet, the clinic closed at 6:00, and now there's an additional day of hospitalization to worry about (which is $55 per day).

Oh crap, I realized that there are 2 additional days tacked on to that $1163, because I spoke to him on Saturday. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I'm sorry, I love Ditto, but there is no cat in this entire world that's worth $1273 (plus whatever medical crap they had to do to him since Saturday).

There goes every bit of money I saved for Italy. FUCK! I feel like they kidnapped my cat, performed all kinds of procedures on him THAT I DID NOT AUTHORIZE (like the x-ray on Monday that cost $106 and was completely unnecessary), and are now holding him for ransom. I'm wondering if I can tell them I'll pay them the $500 I planned on and they can fuck themselves on the rest.

0029. Emma Pillsbury I'm not

I have OCD. It's not as intense as, say, Emma Pillsbury. I don't wear gloves when I'm eating. I don't insist on polishing each and every grape I eat.

But I do bleach my house, my pens are stored in a separate box as are my pencils and highlighters, my bedroom and closet doors have to be closed while I'm sleeping, the bathroom door has to be open while I'm showering, the kitchen can't be dirty when I'm cooking, and if I'm cooking, all the ingredients have to be set out in the proper increments and in the correct order of when I'm going to use them.

Ok, maybe I'm a little more Emma Pillsbury than I thought.

Case in point:

0028. my mommy is my best friend

No really. As much as I love Nerf, Gigi, & MamaChelle, my mommy is my best friend. Maybe that's why I've never really acted out against her. I've never told her I hated her. Don't even remember ever telling her I didn't like her. Even when I've been pissed off at her and thinking that she was "out to get me" (don't all 16 year olds think that at some point when they don't get their way?) she was always my best friend.

My mom has been sick for over a decade now. It started out with a cyst growing on her pancreas. It developed into chronic pancreatitis, which brought with it chronic pain from the multiple surgeries she's had to have and the nerve damage that resulted from those surgeries. Now, she lives with chronic pain and full-blown Type I Diabetes because her pancreas finally gave up the ghost. She's always in pain.

She had her pain pump removed a little while ago, which sounds like a dumb move because of the pain that she's always in, but she had bad reactions to the medications they filled the pump with as well as the pump itself and it was so bad that she couldn't continue living with the pump. Now, she's managing her pain with medication her doctor prescribes, but it's a controlled substance, and the doctor is only legally allowed to prescribe a certain amount per month. She's getting ready to run out, and her appointment isn't until the 15th. She's had several rough days this month, and it seems to only be getting rougher. Normally, she'd just say "Whatever" and deal with it, but she can't now. She can't take the normal amount that she needs because she'll run out faster. She can't stretch it out too much because it might start the process of withdrawal... which would kill her.

My mom is not strong enough to go through that. And I'm not strong enough to go through losing my mom. I've cried myself to sleep countless times at the mere thought of losing my mother, and her talking like she talked to me today terrifies me. I literally walked into the office and collapsed on my friend.

If I can't even deal with the thought of losing my mom, how am I going to deal with actually losing her?

0027. all my agony fades away when you hold me in your embrace

iTunes: "All I Need" - Within Temptation

Mood: happy

I know it's been a while since I've posted. There are plenty of good reasons for it, namely that I've been working and doing the school thing. Monkey got sick for a while and she took up pretty much all my time & energy (the flu is bad enough, but when it's a 5 year old that's sick... it's awful). My internet had all sorts of issues and I was without internet for a week or so. But mostly, I was too busy with the whole wedded bliss thing.

Yup, you read that right. PK & I got married!

Technically. We filed a Declaration of Informal Marriage, which is common-law marriage. But in Texas, it's as legal as going in front of a judge or a priest, so we're as married as married can get. I hyphenated my last name and we now refer to each other as "husband" and "wife" because we're silly like that.

HAPPY TIMES!!

Speaking of happy times... I've been battling with pretty severe depression for almost my entire life. I've talked about it on the Twitloss blog a lot because it deals with health and weight loss issues, but basically - I'm bipolar. It's not as severe as some other people I know, but it's enough that it does affect me and those around me. It got to the point where I couldn't handle it anymore, and I finally broke down and went to Mental Health at the VA (something I put off for 2 years because I was so certain I could handle it).

Turns out, asking for help with something doesn't make you weak, and being bipolar doesn't make you crazy. Amazing, the stuff you learn when you reach out...

Anyway. They put me on some meds to help level my moods out. In the 5 weeks or so I've been on it, I've been sleeping better, I haven't been crying or screaming nearly as much, and I'm generally happier. The one issue I have with it is that I"m hungry all the time. And it's really hard to resist grabbing the puffy Cheetos (which I'm craving BIG TIME). I drink a TON of water because the meds dehydrate me, but also because it helps to curb my appetite... kind of.

I'm secretly terrified that I'm going to gain all the weight I lost back, but as of the last doctor's appointment, I've only gained 1 pound back, and that was during Girl Time, so I'm attributing that pound to water retention.

I've cleaned up the house and it looks nearly model-like again. I just need to get the boxes out of the corner and see about setting up that damned elliptical. I need to jump on it & get the remaining 40 pounds off. If we're going to Italy in the summer, I don't want to look like a beached whale when we hit the private pool at the villa.

Oh, did I forget to mention that part?

We're going to ITALY for TWO WEEKS this summer!!!! We're going with PK's family and a few very close family friends. Monkey's staying home with Nana, so it'll kinda be like a honeymoon. At some point, PK's hoping to take me to Rome for a day or two, just us. I can't wait!!

And in other good news (I'm full of it today, aren't I?) I've been elected president of my college's creative writing club. Kind of exciting, but at the same time kind of scary since I don't know the first thing about running an extra curricular club. But I'm sure it'll be a blast either way.

Guess I'd better get to work. Or pretending to work. :)

0026. I hate my cats. Still.

I've never really been what you'd call a cat person. In fact, I sort of hate them. But I got Stinky for Monkey anyway, because I felt she needed an animal to grow up with, and a dog is out of the question because we live in a small condo with no yard for the dog to run in. At the time we got Stinky, I didn't know that PK was going to move in with us, because he'd been hemming and hawing over us officially living together for a while. While I'm over the moon that PK finally did move in with us, I'm not-so-ecstatic that the animals came with. Obviously.

Remember my I Haz Anger post? I hand-wrote an "I Haz Anger... Part 2" post the other night. To sum up (because the hand-written post is about 5 pages long): the cats pooped on Monkey's comforter. A few days later, I accidentally locked them in my room and they pooped and peed on my comforter, which is too large for me to put in the washing machine, so I had to take it to the laundromat. The day I got the comforter from the laundromat, they peed on Monkey's bed.

If you remember from my last post, I've been having some serious anger issues lately. I had all sorts of fantasies about how I was going to kill the cats. Antifreeze in their drinking water. Letting them out of the house. Running them over with my car. Throwing them out the window... I'm not a violent person normally, but this is getting out of control and I don't know what to do.

PK won't let me get rid of the animals. Any of them. Even though Tessa sits in her cage all the time, never played with, rarely talked to, and making a mess for me to clean up - because even though she's PK's bird, I'm the one who feeds, waters, and cleans up after her. The same goes for the cats (although PK does play with the cats a lot - they're his babies). I'm the one who feeds and cleans up after them.

And how fair is that?? Why is is that I'm the one taking care of them? They're not mine. I don't want them. And yet I'm saddled with the responsibility of keeping them alive & happy. If I had it my way, they'd be given to good homes or sold (in Tessa's case... she's worth about $3,000).

Per TwiMom227's suggestion, I'm going to write a letter to PK, stating my feelings on the situation and asking for a peaceful (and fair) resolution. The one thing I have to say though... if Ditto continues to use anything but the litterbox as his place to pee, he's got to go. I cannot and will not allow him to remain here if he does. It's not sanitary and I refuse to put my child (and myself) in that kind of living situation. Not to mention the risk of toxoplasmosis...

I had Monkey's carpet professionally cleaned today. The guy who did the room said that the smell might come back, because the carpet was fairly saturated in urine, and because it's especially acidic, it's likely already gone through the padding and is possibly starting to eat at the concrete below (cat urine is acidic, concrete is alkaline. mixing the two is not good juju). I'm going to call the landlord and ask him if we're allowed to rip out the carpet and replace it with something else. I'm thinking wood flooring, since carpet sucks. We already have to replace the wood flooring in front of the bathroom because the asshole Ditto used that for his bathroom before he discovered Monkey's room.

God, I hate my cats.