Today was quiet, for the most part. We’re all pretty drained, exhausted and fighting different kinds of pain.
I’m incredibly frustrated. The weather and temperatures are absolutely ideal for working outside, and I can do next to none of it.
I never took the hydromorphone my husband gave me, last night. I waited until I was more confident that I had no T3s left in my system and, by then, the pain had subsided on its own. I wasn’t about to take such a high dose without genuine need. When my 6 hour alarm went off during the night, when I would normally have taken more T3s, I wasn’t even dealing with a lot of pain in my hip, so I skipped it. In the morning, there was just a dull ache. This time, I took a tramadol instead.
It made no difference.
Aside from my daughter doing the morning routine outside for me, we mostly just took it easy. We did have a planned outing, though. My husband has a birthday this month and my older daughter treated us to his dinner of choice. Normally, that would be pizza, but he can no longer tolerate dairy, even with Lactase, so he chose Chinese food, instead. With this, we typically order just a lot of meat and seafood, with my husband also getting some chicken fried rice. We order enough to last us a couple of days, at least, which got us some free rice and deep fried wontons, and we prefer to do our own vegetables at home. This time, my older daughter baked the last of the bush beans and summer squash we had in the fridge, which was quite delicious.
My younger daughter and I headed out shortly before 1, to miss the lunch rush and to pick up a 40 pound bag of kibble on the way out. We both were thinking today was Tuesday, though. It’s Wednesday, which means the general store closed at noon. We’ll have to go tomorrow, instead. Which is fine.
When we got to the area around the restaurant, we had to drive around the block a couple of times trying to find parking. There was nothing nearby at all, and we ended up parking closer to the marina. I wasn’t even sure it that area was public parking, or parking for boat owners.
By this point, I was having trouble walking, but still well enough that I turned down a cane when my daughter offered to get one out of our collection in the back of the truck for me. We placed the order and paid for it, then set a pick up time long enough for us to make a side trip to the grocery store. We wanted to pick up drinks for everyone, but ended up getting a Boston Creme cake that was on sale, even though there is still a bit of the Costco slab cake left. I noticed some good sales on grapes and a few other things, so my daughter and I also picked what we needed to have a small charcuterie later on, to go with the new cheeses we got in the city. By the time the groceries were paid for, I was relying on the cart to use as a walker.
When we got back to the restaurant, there still wasn’t any parking nearby, so I dropped my daughter off by the door then pulled over in the lane around the corner. After she got back with the food, I had to ask her to do the driving. My alarm had gone off for my afternoon T3 dose just as we returned to the truck after ordering the food, but it made no difference. The pain just kept getting worse.
It has since subsided again, and I’m down to a dull ache. Tomorrow, my Percocet gets delivered. I’m really hoping that works better than the T3s. If it doesn’t, then I’ll probably end up with my own prescription for hydromorphone – just not as high a dose as what my husband is getting!
After we enjoyed our first day of birthday take out, I felt well enough to go outside and do the cat feeding. I even watered the south garden beds, though I wasn’t up to doing the main garden area, too. After a couple of hours, I went out again to top up the kittens’ bowl of kibble softened with cat milk in the catio, since other critters have been stealing their food. Then I set up the camp chair and started fishing for kittens.
The little black one with the white stripe up the side of its nose is more enthusiastic about it. One of the tabbies got curious and started coming over, but not close. The other kittens were much more interested in playing among the white lilacs.
The Grink wasn’t interested this time, but Sweetie sure was! At one point, she was stalking the lure at the same time as the kitten, but she does not like the kittens at all. Without the distraction of the lure, she growls and spits at them, and I’ve even seen her bat at them.
I did manage to get the little black one close enough that I could reach down and touch its back, but it did not like that, so I didn’t push my luck with it.
Then my alarm went off for my evening meds, so I headed back inside.
Tomorrow and the day after, there are people from the rescue available to meet up with us, so I’ve talked to my daughter about working on getting kittens closed up into the carrier. That will mean heading out fairly often to see if they’ve gone in, and maybe setting some treats out as bait. Hard to do that and keep the other cats away, though. Thankfully, the rescue have us quite a lot of donated treats, including some just for kittens, so we could probably set out some for the bigger cats as a distraction, then put the kitten treats out for the little ones.
I pray for quick success on this! With their mother gone, there’s only so much we can do to protect them. We really need to get them in to the rescue for fostering and adoption! Otherwise, their chances of survival are very low. At this point, it even looks like Sprout and Sprig, the two calicos, are gone! Sprout had Sprig last year, along with two others that disappeared. The older white and grey that we are also trying to catch is Sprout’s from this year, and I am sure she actually had more than one kitten.
We have had so many adult cats disappear this year. We would expect that with some of the males disappearing for the summer, then coming back for the winter, but these are mostly females that have disappeared. At least a couple that I’m sure had a litter somewhere. Among the others, both fixed and intact cats have disappeared. The person at the rescue whose daughter had been fostering Domino is pretty devastated that they brought her back, and now she’s gone.
Such is the reality of yard cats.
I say as I hear the sounds of cats fighting outside my window!!!
Excuse me while I go check on that.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 