If You're Going Through Hell

[Gin]

Kay,

sorry about your kitty.  So hard to watch your pets suffer.

[MartyT]

Oh Kay. I'm so sorry to learn that your dear Kitty isn't doing well. And this so soon after what you've gone through (and still are) with Miss Mocha. I know how much this hurts . . .  

[kayc]

She's still with me, but still not eating, I've offered her all her favorites.  Waiting and seeing...

[Clematis]

9 hours ago, kayc said:

Today my cat appears to be on her deathbed (Kitty)...she's 20 and I lost Miss Mocha 2 1/2 months ago so it's really hard to take.  She HATES car rides and would be very distressed to go in to the vet where there's a room full of dogs so I'm not taking her, I'll let her go in peace the way she'd choose.  I hope it isn't so but it sure appears to be.  I've noticed her slowing down recently and eating less or turning her nose up at food this week.  She doesn't seem sick though.  I think it's just old age.  Poor Kitty, it's so damned hard!

Oh Kay, I am so sorry to hear about your Kitty being so sick and quite possibly near the end. That is really hard, and I really feel badly for you. Cats are such a treasure in our lives...

[kayc]

She looks slightly better today, doesn't want me to touch her (?) but she ate a little bit, which she did not do yesterday.  Right now I'm waiting and seeing.  Yesterday I was sure she was dying...when I woke up this morning I was afraid of what I'd find.

[Margm]

I'm sorry about your kitty Kay.  Kelli's partner DT had ???(cannot remember his name) 17 years and then she built a monument at my mom's house for him which really freaked my mom out, as she was already losing it pretty fast herself and  had never really cared for animals.  The monument is still there.  He was so old and cranky.  If you put your hand to pet him he would bite you.  But people love their animals.  When my friend's husband was in rehab from a stroke her two Rottweiler's slept on either side of her and she said she would have gone  crazy without them.  They don't seem to stay long in this life though and she has lost those two and two more since.  I could not even buy live flowers I am so tired of death.

[Widowedbysuicide]

I am sorry you are going through so much right now.  Life is very unfair.  

Thinking of you and hoping for better days ahead.

[Clematis]

Awww, Kay - I'm so sorry to hear about Kitty. I'm thinking of you both...

[KATPILOT]

2 hours ago, Marg M said:

 I am so tired of death.

;

[TerriL]

I just wanted to add that I, too, have had lots of dental work done on my teeth throughout the years (my parents allowed me to have bottles of orange juice in my mouth when I'd go to sleep as a toddler and my baby teeth even came in all rotten---I went through hell having to go to dentists as a baby and my dental phobia still exists). Just as all of you are saying, mine is also falling apart and I'm in desperate need of seeing a dentist. Paul would drive me and sit in the waiting rom if I did have to see one, so it's been extremely difficult for me to wrk up the courage to g on my own. If it was my old dentist from the '80s, I'd have no problem. The only dentist I've ever loved and trusted 100%. But, he moved away. (Of course.) 

Kay, I'm sorry Kitty is starting to have problems, but just wait a few days. I've had older cats who have acted like that and like us, they must have just been having  a bad day or two and then, they'd suddenly go back to their old selves. Not every time, but enough to warrant waiting on it. I'm with you, too, about allowing nature to take its course rather than stressing them out so bad. At least her last moments will be in the home she knows and loves surrounded by her favorite things and the person she loves most int he world. 

That feeling of being tired of death and sadness and sorrow is one I share, too. I seem to lack enthusiasm for things some days. Everything around here where I could go or the things I could do remind me too much of Paul and then I lose the desire to do anything, period. Unfortunately, just up and mov9ing isn't an option for me at the moment, as tempting as it would be to try it. I need to keep the baby-cats in mind with everything I decide. They are my first and most important responsibility. Totally unrelated and random, but the lawn people my BIL hired without my consent two weeks ago came back and did the lawn and hedges today. Yes, they are cheaper in price, but they decimated my two cape honeysuckle shrubs at the end of my driveway. I looked out and saw a bunch of sticks where the lush, full leaves used to be and just sat down and stared into space. I went out there and they also had left a huge chunk of my bougainvillea bush untrimmed. I guess I will have to be out there supervising next time unless i fire them and rehire the more expensive lawn guys. They cost a bit more, but they did know how to trim hedges. 

[Margm]

This is my Grief One Day at a Time for today.  It tells us exactly what this forum and the people on here try to tell us all the time.  Sometimes we listen, sometimes we are deaf..

"Smile, breathe, and go slowly." -- Thich Nhat Hanh.   i don't know about the smiling, but I seem to be breathing and definitely going slowly.  

Finally Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, he finishes up with this:  "I think I will amend this quote to say: Smile or frown, breathe and go slowly.  In other words we must feel and express whatever we are feeling, work on living in the moment, and be patient with ourselves.  That is perhaps the simplest recipe for healing in grief.  And aren't the simplest rules always the hardest to live by?"    Amen. 

[Gin]

Al went to cardiac rehab for many years in a nearby suburb.  We would always go to he same grocery store on the way home.  I have not been there since he died.  Today I went to a book club in that suburb and stopped at that grocery.  Mistake!!  When we would go together, he would go get something while I went and got other stuff.  Usually I lost him and would be looking for him down the aisles.  Today, I kept looking for him. I am sure I looked weird looking down the aisles with tears flowing. By the way, I did not find him. I tried.

[TerriL]

Marg, so true that the simplest things are sometimes hardest to be able to follow through on. Thank you for sharing that. Those things do help.

Gin, I'm s sorry you had that experience. That's exactly what I would be afraid of, looking and looking for Paul, like I would in the past and always lighting up when I'd spot him in a crowd or see him walking toward me. Just knowing that will never happen again keeps me from wanting to go to all the places around here. Everything is such a reminder. After my mom had passed away back in 1998, Paul and I were shopping in the grocery store we all used (my mom and dad didn't live far from us, so we went to the same stores, sometimes even running into each other there). There was a couple in the frozen food section----an elderly man pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair. Her hair was very short, like she may have undergone chemo at one point (that's how my mom's looked when she passed). The woman also looked as if she could have had a stroke---her face was sort of slack on one side and she wasn't speaking, just looking around. Paul saw the look on my face when I went over to the woman, stretched out my hand to grab hers and said hi to her. I rhetorically asked her "how are you today?". And then, Paul and I walked over to the next aisle, where I promptly burst into tears (quietly, so the couple wouldn't hear) and Paul just held me right there in the aisle as I silently sobbed. Fortunately, no one was on that aisle, but I suppose I could have always said, "I just found out they're discontinuing an item I really liked." It's the perfect example though of how grief can strike you anytime, anywhere. You just never know what will trigger it. So, my thinking is, why go to some place you KNOW will trigger it? 

That song that made me burst into tears the other day? The CD got stuck in the CD player---it won't open at all---and I haven't been able to get it back out. Maybe Paul saw me losing it and said, "Okay, that's enough of that." and deliberately broke my CD tray. 

[Gin]

Terri,

i try not to go places or do things that Al and I did together.  Sometimes I think I am better and can handle it.  Well, I can't.  Maybe  Paul should have turned your machine off, so you could use it.  No, he probably knew you would play that song again.  

Gin

[Margm]

Found a note written by Billy, don't know when.  Must have gone fishing.  "Marg, Love you, be back by noon."  I taped it to his urn.

[kayc]

This has not been a good week, so I guess I shouldn't have expected today to be any different.  The dentist presented me with $1,775.00 estimate, but I can save some money if I get a stainless steel crown instead of a porcelain one, which will have to be replaced with a porcelain one within five years, costing me more overall, but biding me some time.  I just don't have it, I need a new heating system.  But I've already lost too many teeth and can't afford to lose this one, I don't have a lot to chew with in the back.  And he can't get me in until September, today was just the exam part.

It is 108 here today and I have no A/C or cooler, inside the house it's nearly 90.  It isn't going to cool down much tonight and tomorrow will be just as hot.  This is the hottest I've ever seen it in Oregon, and definitely the hottest temp. I've had in the 39 years here in this place.  My dog and can't look like they're dying.  Kitty dashed outside to escape the heat until she realized how hot it was out there...she was right back at the door wanting in.  Yes, she's still with me today.  Appetite not normal yet, cut at least she's eating something.

I gave Arlie a bath last night and laid fresh cedar chips in his pen, hoping his gaping wound in his side would not get infected.  When I checked it last night and today it looks like his fur is covering it much like a gauze bandage so that is good...I'm going to leave it alone and hope it scabs over or closes.  It's not big, but it's concerning nonetheless.

What a week!  I don't need anything else to go wrong!

I won't be able to afford so much as a cup of coffee out in the next 1 1/3 years!  Ugh!

 

[Margm]

Bad karma with teeth.  I wrote a whole lot, (deleted it), but we all have to do what we have to do.  I am sorry it is costing so much.  My doc quoted me $9,000 for the screw in things and then I read up on them.  While reading up on them my doc, another dentist friend and the doc's two daughters were killed in a plane crash.  I didn't look into it anymore.  I just imagined that steel toothed man on the James Bond movies.  

I am sorry all that is happening and it is terrible that it is hotter in Oregon than it is back here in Louisiana.  But I guess the wind blowing off all the flooding and Gulf of Mexico cooled us off.  Geeze, that is sure hot.  I am so sorry.  I hope it cools off enough at night you can get some sleep.  

Let us know how things are going.  This has been a bad week.  

[iPraiseHim]

2 hours ago, kayc said:

This has not been a good week, so I guess I shouldn't have expected today to be any different.  The dentist presented me with $1,775.00 estimate, but I can save some money if I get a stainless steel crown instead of a porcelain one, which will have to be replaced with a porcelain one within five years, costing me more overall, but biding me some time.  I just don't have it, I need a new heating system.  But I've already lost too many teeth and can't afford to lose this one, I don't have a lot to chew with in the back.  And he can't get me in until September, today was just the exam part.

It is 108 here today and I have no A/C or cooler, inside the house it's nearly 90.  It isn't going to cool down much tonight and tomorrow will be just as hot.  This is the hottest I've ever seen it in Oregon, and definitely the hottest temp. I've had in the 39 years here in this place.  My dog and can't look like they're dying.  Kitty dashed outside to escape the heat until she realized how hot it was out there...she was right back at the door wanting in.  Yes, she's still with me today.  Appetite not normal yet, cut at least she's eating something.

I gave Arlie a bath last night and laid fresh cedar chips in his pen, hoping his gaping wound in his side would not get infected.  When I checked it last night and today it looks like his fur is covering it much like a gauze bandage so that is good...I'm going to leave it alone and hope it scabs over or closes.  It's not big, but it's concerning nonetheless.

What a week!  I don't need anything else to go wrong!

I won't be able to afford so much as a cup of coffee out in the next 1 1/3 years!  Ugh!

 

Wow.  You have had a challenging week.

I have researched crowns, root canals, etc... and have found some interesting information.  For those interested I can post the links. My last experience with my last dentist visit was really bad. (Bad attitude and caused me a lot of pain and embarrassment).  I am reluctant to go to another dentist.

Kayc, When our A/C went out a few years ago, it was the hottest days/weeks/ month of the year. I put a window A/C unit and a portable A/C unit in the master bedroom. Our family and two dogs stayed in the bedroom where it stayed a cool 70 meanwhile the rest of the home was 95-100.  It gave us time to shop around for the best price/service with no pressure.  It's amazing that it is so hot in Oregon now.  I will continue to pray and intercede for you.  You are never alone.  - Shalom

[Clematis]

Dang, Kay! That's terrible! Living in the heat with escape is brutal...the last summer I lived in Tucson I was selling my house to my friend with multi-chemical-sensitivity (aka environmental illness) and she was frantic because they were building 188 homes on the formerly empty acreage and spraying with termiticide before laying the foundations. She didn't want me to run the swamp cooler, and hence pump the pesticide through the house. All Summer! She also didn't want me running the water in either bathroom tub or shower because there was some issue that could cause mold. I ran water in the tub with a garden hose to bathe. At least I could cool off while bathing. This was the two months after my mother died and I think I was suffering too much to really grieve.

I was trying to pack up to move that summer, and also had a bronchial infection that hung on all summer...I didn't have health insurance or any money to see a doctor, so I couldn't get the antibiotic I needed. It took me six months after I was clear of the infection before I could do any exercise or drink iced beverages without coughing my brains out. I totally believed it was permanent and that I would never be able to sing again. On the plus side, I discovered that lemon-mint sugar free Ricola cough drops were better than any asthma medication since coughing is my biggest asthma trigger.  It's amazing what we can survive. It's also amazing that it's that hot in Oregon! It's probably humid as well, huh? Hope you get some improvement in things soon!

[kayc]

Well it's supposed to cool down into the 90s tomorrow so I only have one more day to suffer to that extreme...holding on for tonight as it drops at night.
Good news is Kitty is improving, still not eating as much and I don't think it's just the heat because she wasn't eating as much before this heat wave came.  At least she's getting demanding again which is a good sign that she's getting back to herself.  I truly thought I was going to lose her on Wednesday.

I'm keeping Arlie's wound clean and putting Neosporin on it, the only thing I can think of that doesn't sting.  His fur is covering it and acting like a protective barrier, much like gauze, so that's good.  For once having long fur is paying off!  I'm glad I bathed him even though it made the house humid (night before last).

George, I'm with a dentist I trust, I've been to three generations of dentists in the same family, and they're like extended family to me, they truly make you relax.  I've had a lot of work done as my teeth were made out of chalk.   I have one I can do without but it's healthy, the rest I really need to keep.  All are crowned but two & I have a bridge.  It's unreal how much it costs nowadays!

[brat#2]

Kay, sorry you had such a rough week.  It seems that it all comes at once.  I understand how the heat is making everything miserable, I do have central A/C and couldn't live without it.  George had a good idea, getting a window unit might not be a bad idea, they are pretty efficient now and at least 1 room could be cool, however, you probably don't get that many days that are so hot you can't stand it normally.  I'm glad that Kitty is improving and that Arlie is doing better.  Hoping the rest of the weekend is good.  Hugs

Joyce

 

[TerriL]

Kay: Wow, 108 degrees and no AC? I thought it was hot and humid HERE! I am so glad to hear that Kitty and Arlie seem to be on the mend. You really don't need any other problems right now, but no one knows that better than you. 

Marg: I was researching those dental implants, too. I thought it might be a good idea until I remembered that with my Crohn's (or any autoimmune condition, for that matter), I run a risk of having my body try to attack the "invaders" and I am not about to go through the hell of a full-out Crohn's flare again, if I have any say in it. So, when I find a dentist I can trust and who also will arrange a payment plan for me (I refuse to take out one of those dental credit cards, with 28% interest! No thanks!), I will tell them do whatever you can to save my teeth but I can't do dental implants. I won't take that risk, no matter what they might try to talk me into. I'm now a tougher person than I used to be when it comes to doctors and dentists. Especially after the last experience I had with dentists. :::shudder::: I know what's worked in my mouth and what hasn't and there have been times when I was correct and the so-called "experts" were not. 

Well, today, I decided to take the bull by the horns and I used caulk to stick the dryer vent plate on the outside of the house. It doesn't look very professional---haha!!!---but, so far, it seems to be holding. Fingers crossed. It's been a very hot, sunny day with no black storm clouds to be seen in any direction, so I figured this was it. I won't do any laundry for at least 24 hours or so, to make sure that the caulk dries really well and the plate is adhered. I don't want the hot air coming out to melt the caulk and have my vent plate sliding down the wall of my house. Now THAT would be a trip!   

 

[kayc]

Mine is screwed in instead of caulk, not sure how well caulking would hold in the winter here, glad you got it done!

[TerriL]

Yeah, Kay, I see where there are holes for screws. My old plate, however, was caulked on, so I just copied what was done before. I don't remember if Paul is the one who put that on or not, but it had to have been him, since he'd owned this house since 1981 (before I moved in). I can't imagine that a plastic plate would have held up from before that. Either way, it seems to still be stuck on! I did a load of the cat's towels this morning---I woke up to the always-inspiring sight of a hair ball---and I am now about to test my new vent plate, as I need to go to place them all in the dryer. Oh geez...wish me luck. 

 

[Gin]

I thought I was going to have a good weekend.  My daughter came over yesterday for a few hours.  Today my other daughter came over and we went for lunch.  She only stayed until noon.  I felt very sad that she was leaving.  I tried to hold it together, but as soon as she left, I burst into tears.  I will not see her for a few weeks.  It is so lonely and I miss Al so much.  He has been gone for 10 months and I am amazed that I can still cry so much.  I do not feel like doing anything.

Gin