Friday Favs – Where Did the Week Go?

Friday Favs – Where Did the Week Go?

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Happy Friday, friends! Last week was too crazy for me to find time to put a post together, so we’ve got some catching up to do! Friday really snuck up on me this week, too. Can I pause time for a day or two to catch up?

1. Last Tuesday was rough, y’all. I woke up to texts from my sister that my mom was in the ER again, opened my laptop to see that I’d been assigned a bunch of stuff to write at like 3 a.m., which meant I had about an hour to complete it (Emailed the company about THAT. Grr.), and then discovered that my sweet Bear cat didn’t want to walk. I’ll get back to that in a second, but first I’ll share the Twitter account that I enjoyed scrolling through to de-stress during a crazy day.

I scrolled through his entire Twitter history, and it was a lovely break from the madness. I’ve seen his stuff on Buzzfeed or Distractify or something before, and I guess he’s on Instagram, too.

2. As I mentioned, Bear didn’t want to walk and spent most of the day just kinda laying around. He looked uncomfortable but not in pain, so I figured he’d landed weird from jumping or maybe gotten into a fight with one of his brothers and hurt his foot or something. With my mom being in the ER (She’s fine now) I didn’t have as much time to keep an eye on him as I normally would have, so that didn’t help.

When I got home that night, he was still just chilling so I picked him up to carry him to the bedroom so he could be close to me and I could keep an eye on him. I guess doing that hurt him because he threw up as soon as I put him down on the bed and then started to look way more uncomfortable than he had before. He squatted on the bed like he was going to pee once I put him down, so I grabbed him and took him to the litter box, but he didn’t do anything. Hmmm.

I went to school with a girl who is a vet now (as mentioned in my last Friday Favs) – I had put off messaging her since I’d just had to ask for her help the week before, but between the throwing up and the looking less comfortable, I gave in. I described his symptoms and right as I was adding on, “I have a weird feeling it might be some kind of urinary or intestinal blockage?” she asked, “Has he ever had urinary problems before?”

Bingo. Everything fit for a urinary blockage, which can be fatal of you let it go for too long. This was at like 9 p.m., and since he was still just looking uncomfortable we made plans to meet at her office at 8 a.m. for her to see him. I asked what to look out for that would mean we needed to run to the emergency vet instead, and she mentioned panting and becoming less responsive.

I let Bear just relax for awhile, but around 11:30 p.m. he started breathing harder and kinda zoning out. I spent a while trying to decide where the line between breathing hard and panting was, but decided screw it, I’m not taking that chance and he’s clearly hurting, so I loaded him into the kitty carrier and set off for the emergency vet, which is over an hour away. I was literally sick from stress, very ready for bed, and running off only 4 hours of sleep from the night before, but if anything happened to him I never would have forgiven myself. When Sam had his blood clot last year he died about 3/4 of the way to the vet, so I kept trying to check if Bear was breathing as we made our way there, even pulling over at one point. He was not happy, but he was alive.

We made it to the vet around 1 and got him checked in, and after a quick exam they agreed that he was definitely blocked. They took him back to give him pain meds and from across the clinic I heard him do the specific meow he does when he’s calling for me. UGH. I’d managed to hold it together to get there, but that brought the tears.

They discussed cost with me after getting his pain meds started. Remember how I’ve been saving up to get my car registered? Work has been SO SLOW the last few months that it took me 3 months to save up $630 of the $900 I need. I had been messaging with a friend who had offered to loan me a few hundred if necessary, but I was realllly hoping I’d have enough to cover it. His estimate was $540, so my car fund was totally drained, but I had enough. Whew.

The plan was to let the pain meds kick in, then sedate him and put in a catheter to clear the blockage. He’d need to be on IV fluids and observed overnight, then transfered to a regular vet before the emergency vet closed at 8 a.m. They let me cuddle him before he got sedated, which I really appreciated, and then I left around 1:30 a.m. I seriously considered just sleeping in my car in the parking lot, but it wasn’t the best part of town and I knew I wouldn’t actually rest, so I made the 70-ish minute drive home and was in bed by about 3. Got up at 5:45 to head back up there, and was thrilled to find a much happier Bear than the one from the night before.

He needed to be on fluids for another day or so, and the catheter needed to stay in for at least 24 hours, so I moved him to my friend’s office to be hospitalized. I spent about ten minutes cuddling him in the car before taking him in – he was still pretty drugged up and super affectionate, and I was so freaking happy that he was just alive that we needed a few minutes before I said goodbye to him for two more days.

Spent around 20 minutes discussing his care and everything with my vet friend, then made the drive back home. Friends kept messaging to ask if I was ok to drive after the night we just had, and my reply was “Bear is ok so I am ok.” TBH I was pretty out of it from the stress and less than 3 hours of sleep, but I made it and sunk into bed for like 4 hours. I had plans to meet my sister at my mom’s or I probably would have just slept the day away.

The good in all of this is my friend being SO awesome about answering all of my questions, hospitalizing him for as cheap as possible for me AND letting me get invoiced for it since I was pretty broke at that point. She even took her kids by before bed to check on him and sent me pics of them petting him. I got to pick him up on Thursday afternoon, and it was so good to have him home! Unfortunately, he started having trouble getting much out that same day, so this past week has been spent keeping a close eye on him and making sure he got all of his meds on schedule. I’m exhausted, but he’s finally getting better!

3. This seems so small after that last massive story, but I mentioned that my sister was visiting. When she drives down from Iowa, she stops at the Trader Joes in KC for me and picks up whatever I ask for. I saw their ABC Bars (Almond Butter Cocoa) in a vlog was was intrigued, so I asked her to grab me a box. THEY’RE SO GOOD. Asking her to get like 3-4 boxes next time, since she only comes down every month or so. Oh man, another reason I need to move back to Orlando – we have TJ’s and Whole Foods there. (My Facebook timeline has been FILLED with photos from the cast member previews of the new Galaxy’s Edge area. It’s so sad when all of your friends are hanging out in a galaxy far, far away and you are stuck in Missouri.)

4. The new Taylor Swift album dropped last night. I’m not a huge fan but I liked the last album, so I checked it out on Spotify. Totally recommend doing it that way because there are videos. They’re mostly gifs of like, her cats (which I approve of), but for “Me” there’s a video of her and the Panic at the Disco guy lip-syncing to it, and it’s actually pretty cute. I tried to take a screenshot but it blacked out the image. Thanks, technology. (Side note- I haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but I’m pretty meh about this album.)

A clip of the video:

5. I really should have canceled yesterday’s dressage lesson since I’m BROKE, but I needed something fun so I went. It was only 80 degrees and I was in the indoor arena, but I was still soooooaked in sweat afterwards. It’s hard work! I rode a horse named Harry – a big, muscley guy. He’s actually in the photo I posted of Louie recently! He’s the one in the middle:

Despite feeling like a hot mess through most of our trot work, the instructor said I’d improved a lot since last time and we could move on to cantering soon, so yay! Riding different horses almost every time has been good for me, since like 50% of it is figuring out their silliness.

Speaking of horsing around, I’m working trail rides tomorrow. Thankfully it’s only supposed to be 80 and we might even get rained out part of the day. Things will probably slow down a lot after Labor Day and I might even get laid off soon, so I just want to try to enjoy it while I can!

This week’s post was totally thrown together at the last minute – I’m at the coffee shop working and I’ve been typing up bits and pieces here and there when my brain needed a break. Hopefully this coming week will be more chill!

Side Note- I hate the new WordPress update! I can’t even find where I’m supposed to add tags. Has anyone figured it out?

Linking up with Bright on a Budget & A Little Bit of Everything

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