wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee *coughcough*

[kellan_the_tabby]

Tuesday night I drove into Albuquerque, because the boys had a vet appointment Wednesday & I figured I might as well get my impending bloodwork done that morning. Parked for the night near the doc, & then Wednesday commenced.

I chronicled everything in tweets, as I do, & I shall herewith transcribe these transmissions here, as is foretold by the prophecy.

... y'all, it's been a rough couple days.

so far today I have:

stuck Tom in a shopping cart to roll him BACK to the van across most of a parking lot

got blood drawn

got the van jumpstarted

fixed the loose connection on the battery

stolen a really nice pallet

wandered around the park with the boys

met three tiny dogs & their person

prevented Tom from murderating any of the tiny dogs

& found another stack of pallets

& there's still three hours til we gotta get to the vet

whaddaya think, nap?

... so that was an only slightly festive start to the day. One brief van-related trouble, swiftly fixed, at no cost to me. Yay!

Then the vet visit. The vet remarked about Hades & Tom, their glowing health, their exceptional calmness at the vet (at one point all three of them were curled up on the padded bench in the examining room, ASLEEP), their truly unique personalities!

But Loiosh? Has been slowly losing weight. Needed the levels of his seizure meds checked. & needs to have his teeth done, badly, which means another LARGE round of blood tests.

oh gods y'all THE BOYS ARE FINE but I just spent five hundred something at the vet & Loiosh is gonna need his teeth cleaned & that is NOT cheap

so uh SOAP FOR EVERYONE this giftmas amirite

*exhausted flopping*

With that I filled up the tank (ABQ ain't close, but at least it has cheap gas), drove the two hours home, & went the hell to bed. Where I stayed, until 2PM. & when I got up, my brain was kinda full.

yeah i slept a helluva lot

no great surprise, I didn't sleep well the night before in the van, plus a lot of driving, plus EXTENSIVE cat-related stress

like, Loiosh is PROBABLY fine but he HAS been losing weight & that's part of why so many blood tests which is part of why so expensive

chances are really good that it's just because his teeth hurt & he doesn't want to eat as much, his teeth ARE in not-great shape & thus he needs the cleaning, which is the other reason for all the bloodwork

(i mean plus also checking his phenobarb levels, because that has to happen once a year, both to see if his meds need to be changed & also to make sure I'm giving them to him & not taking them myself I GUESS)

(but yeah MORE bloodwork, MORE money)

& now the cleaning which I possibly foolishly scheduled for the 23rd, which will be fine as long as Loiosh comes through okay which he will because it's really a low-risk thing but I am ALWAYS terrified when one of my boys has to be anesthetized

& ALSO that's, you know, a couple to SEVERAL hundred bucks, which is at the very least going to eat the REST of the comfortable pad of savings I'd had going for a while, I'm gonna be absolutely financially FLATTENED even after the giftmas rush

so yeah there's another layer of stress, I spent a lot of the drive back last night going 'I can't afford them, I can't take proper care of them, I need to give them up to someone who CAN' & that was ... y'all, my boys are what keeps me going, full stop

if i give them up i'm giving up

that would be me, giving up

*deep breath*

so yeah anyway the OTHER reason I was in town yesterday was getting blood drawn, which is usually a couple days for results & then you get them in the mail UNLESS something is scary, & i woke up to email from the doctor which means something was scary

my cholesterol is high (old news) but also my A1C is high (fuck) & neither of these are terrifying things but

(A1C is a measure of blood sugar over the last couple months & is correlated with diabetes, I am now officially 'prediabetic' & have i ever mentioned that i do NOT DO WELL WITH NEEDLES?)

also BOTH of these are things that will cause most any doctor in the universe to tell me to just lose some weight, that'll take care of most of the trouble

(fuckin WHY IS IT SO HARD for them to LOOK AT THE ACTUAL RESEARCH that says that THAT IS BASICALLY IMPOSSIBLE)

i'm already preparing my scripts (what would you tell someone at a 'healthy weight' with this diagnosis? how would you treat them? have you seen this research, & how does that affect your recommendations, since you're currently recommending something that's basically impossible?)

but that is STRESSFUL AS FUCK & in the back of my head there's STILL that voice going 'if you'd just LOSE SOME WEIGHT then EVERYTHING WOULD BE EASIER'

FUCK YOU, VOICE

like. probably I can get my A1C into line with stuff that I've been wanting to do ANYWAY, like take a walk more often than never, chances are decent that this will be the sort of prod that actually WORKS on me

the cholesterol, not so much? but i'm used to that, my cholesterol has been high for years, i've more-or-less accepted that between that & my family history it's gonna be something circulatory that gets me in the end

(it's still scary, I still don't except to make it to 60, my father didn't)

so yeah between the cats & the money situation & the health thing & the entire world i am more-or-less at ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ why even fucking bother

(i'm not in danger, as long as the cats are okay i'm okay)

(but i'm not ... i'm not _okay_, either)

okay i've got people asking what they can do

hugs are always good, y'all

you're the best pocket friends in the fkn universe

y'all actually BELIEVE IN WHAT I AM DOING & that is SO FUCKIN AMAZING

buying soap is good, giftmas is coming & i'm still shipping to the US for another week or so

the Patreon -- seriously this thing has been saving my ASS for the last couple years, it has been a HUGE part of how i could finally afford to do the tinker's wagon

i've got a couple folks who send me links when they think of it -- tiny houses & woodworking stuff & leashcats & language geekery & things they know I'll like. this is A Good. Because who the fuck has money these days, but everyone has cool stuff to look at

but just. stick with me, y'all. we're all getting through this together.

---

I'm doing better now. Getting it all out of my system helped. I DO have the best pocket friends & that includes y'all. I'm NOT giving up the boys; I will move all our asses into the tinker's wagon & live on the road if I have to. & the money situation is now not as dire as it was.

but DAMN has it been a long day

*dramatic, exhausted flop*

Comments

[morgynleri]

*hugs you tightly*

[kellan_the_tabby]

*hugs* *clings*

[ewt]

Hugs definitely offered.

[kellan_the_tabby]

*right gladly accepted & likewise returned*

OH HEY i got some vitamin D & suddenly i have energy & think so: THANK

[danabren]

Friend.

[kellan_the_tabby]

Thank.

[azurelunatic]

*hugs offered*

Also am relatively sure that R considers a trustworthy person living in house a Good Thing and might be amenable to Arrangements if it becomes necessary.

[kellan_the_tabby]

*hugs gladly accepted & likewise returned*

& i mean PROBABLY but one does not like to ASK *flailing*

[ladypoetess]

How old is Loiosh these days? It is not entirely out of line for kitties to slim down as they age - I freaked out some many years ago when Diana started to lose weight and the vet assured me that she was fine, it was just her weight redistributing and making her seem to be dropping serious weight because her spine was more visible then. And indeed, it was at least another 5 years before her health really declined, she was just doing the normal aging kitty thing.

So, can I ask which vet you use?

[kellan_the_tabby]

He's 11, which I thought was a bit young to start just getting skinnier, but I could be wrong. He's still just a baby, you know.

I use a small independent vet -- Vista Largo in Edgewood, New Mexico. I've used VCA vets & had a variety of luck with them. I've never been to a Banfield but I kind of love that they're everywhere.

[ladypoetess]

I believe they start considering cats "elderly" at 8, and Diana was exactly the same age as Loiosh when she started getting skinnier (not the skin-and-bones at the end of her life, just the first bit of "eek I can see her spine this is bad right???").

I have been going to Banfield for over 10 years now, and now please allow me proselytize for a moment.

Not only are Banfield hospitals everywhere, so the vet records can be accessed everywhere if a problem happens while you're traveling, but they have Optimum Wellness Plans. These aren't pet insurance, but they save me a metric buttload of money on routine care that I'd never be able to afford for all my babies otherwise. For about $35/month per cat, you get unlimited free office visits, all vaccines, 1 free dental cleaning a year with sedation & blood work, 2x full sets of labs per year, and a discount on any meds you buy direct from the vet. There are different levels of plans, and the "Special Care" plan that Diana was on now *also* includes a set of x-rays in addition to the EKG it had before. Thoth is on that level now, actually, because of his heart murmur and the need to monitor for thickening of his heart.

That's easily several thousand dollars worth of veterinary care per year, evenly spaced into monthly payments, and it means my cats get that care when I couldn't guarantee being able to pay for it, otherwise. The caveat to know is that, should the worst happen and your pet dies, you have to finish paying out the year if you've used any of the services. I'll finish paying off Diana's in a few months, myself.

Oh yeah, they also added an app recently where you can talk to a vet at any time about an issue, show them pictures of what's going on with your cat/dog, and get basic advice that's more reliable than google. They can't prescribe or diagnose over the app, but they can tell you if something is an emergency, and what you can do at home.

I'm a big fan of the wellness plans, and I really highly encourage getting them. I see that the closest one for you is in ABQ, but also since you travel a lot for work, and with the boy's seizures, having access to a vet with all his records could be a really good option for you, too.

[kellan_the_tabby]

...oh WOW, that sounds AWESOME. I'd been more-or-less meaning to switch over to Banfield when I got on the road more often (although I LOVE my current vet, she's GREAT) & this has definitely tipped me in that direction.

[mdlbear]

(((HUGS)))

[kellan_the_tabby]

*hugs* *clings*

[cellio]

{Big hugs}

That sounds like a lot of stress. And no, you will not give the boys up; you need them and they need you. You'll all get through this somehow.

Have you considered crowdfunding for the vet stuff? I've seen that before. Some of the same pet-lovers who support animal shelters will also support *specific* pets.

[kellan_the_tabby]

*many hugs*

I'm not giving them up. Sometimes I just have to say that, so I can realize what a terrible idea it would be.

Giftmas has gone pretty well, & I should be fine for paying for the boy's teeth. I keep crowdfunding in mind, though, should anything really dire happen; I'm pretty sure I could raise a LOT of money pretty quickly, if I really had to. Loiosh has a LOT of fans.