Slice of Life: Memorial Day Division

We had a bunch of family in town for my baby shower on Saturday and Matt’s mom was staying with us.  Sunday morning they decided to head to church together before the rest of the family came over for brunch.

Matt: You’re a veteran, maybe they’ll do something special for you for Memorial Day.

MIL: Matt, I’m not dead yet.

Matt: Oh….

I may not agree with our government’s choices, but anyone who signs up to fight for their country and anyone who has lost their life in the process, they are truly strong and courageous, and worthy of our respect and admiration.

We didn’t do anything for Memorial Day, but did have a fabulous weekend and got to see a bunch of family we don’t get to see much of.  All the parents trekked over from WI and both my sisters were able to make it (from KS and CA) which was absolutely amazing.  I had a fabulous shower hosted by (one of) my BFFs and I’m just feeling so special and loved and thrilled that this baby is going to have a truly awesome community of family and friends around him.  #PregnancySappiness

I’ve also hit Pregnancy Level: Hobbit Feet and had some seriously impressive swelling over the weekend.  My mom freaked out a bit and demanded my sister give her professional opinion.  Sister asked me if I was up to date on my rabies vaccine because she’s a veterinarian and not an MD. I picked up some sexy compression socks took it easy for the weekend and now my feet have shrunk to slightly puffy.

I still have this weird feeling of guilt when I take up the comfiest spot, don’t get up much when guests are over, and ask Matt to do simple things like get me some water because I just don’t feel like being on my feet anymore.  Matt, on the other hand, has been scolding me to take it easy since forever.  I’ve just been stubbornly resisting because I am not a fragile little flower… only now it kind of hurts to move and I’m tired so I’m giving in.  Stubbornness and pregnancy do not mix terrible well.

I’ve got a prenatal appointment on Friday and an onsite Nurse at work if anything seems concerning before that, but I was under the impression that crazy feet swelling was a fairly typical pregnancy symptom. Plus I’m still a bit scarred from the Doctor who insisted my Asthma flair up might be a pulmonary embolism and told me to get to an ER like, NOW.  Spoiler Alert: It wasn’t and the ER docs thought I was a little crazy.

Happy Mother’s Day

First off, I want to wish a very happy Mother’s Day to all the moms, moms-to-be, step-moms, and foster moms out there.  You’re all amazing!

It may be my first first sort-of Mother’s Day, but we didn’t do anything special–more work on the nursery and lots of naps for me. Matt did surprise me with the Eames elephant I’ve been lusting after though!  He had planned to surprise me with it for the baby shower, but the color he knew I wanted was no longer available.  He broke down on our anniversary and asked me if another color would be ok and it just arrived a couple days ago… so it’s sort a combo anniversary/mother’s day/baby shower gift.

mothersDay2017

I think I will name him Alonso. (Allons-y!)

As for, I’m officially in my Third Trimester now–home stretch baby! I’ve been steadily hitting the pregnancy milestones too.  Yay?

Having Issues Getting out of Bed

Not because I’m huge (I definitely look pregnant–although not in the above photo oddly enough–and am seeing numbers on the scale that are distressing-yet-normal, but I’m not hugely pregnant), everything just hurts.  My pelvis especially hurts when I’ve been laying down for a while and try and get upright again.  It’s similar in feeling to having done waaay too many crunches so your abs start to burn and rebel, only lower down.  The last midwife I saw sent me a video of some stretches to do, so hopefully they help.

Stairs are Hard

I finally had to give up and recruit Matt to carry my laundry down to the basement.  I can handle our main stairs fine, but our basement stairs are narrow and I’m a little unbalanced at the moment so I need to hang on to the hand rail.  Suddenly there’s not a whole lot of space for the basket unless I balance it against my belly which is its own level of awkward.

I also feeling mildly bad for the slow, plodding way I ascend stairs when I’m out in public.  Then I figure, the stairs are wide enough, if you have a problem with my speed just go around.  I did have to come to a full stop on a landing at work because two ladies were walking up side-by-side and chatting.  That’s fine and all, but if you’re taking up the full width of the stairs and someone’s trying to head the opposite way switch to single file for like 2 steps. This is even just general politeness and not purely because I’m a cranky pregnant lady.

The Cat is Pissed

Schmutz was napping on my belly the other day when the little dude starting kicking.  He’s now big enough that you can feel (and often see) the kicks on the outside.  Schmutz turned and glared at me since she’s not used to be kicked by her current bed (and it was clearly my fault).  Mort’s started obsessively kneading my belly and then deciding to sleep next to me instead.  I don’t know if he thinks I’m too lumpy or what.

So Many Kicks!

The first movements I really felt were just from the kiddo shifting around (I think).  I would just get pressure changes in a specific area as he wedged himself into a new position.  The last few weeks I’ve been getting more and more definite kicks and they’re getting increasingly more visible on the outside of my belly.  They started off feeling like weird little muscle spasm-y things, but he’s gotten some good shots to my ribs lately and thrown a couple punches that have made me wince a little bit.  I am really not looking forward to the day he discovers my bladder…

OMG Heartburn!

One of my very first pregnancy symptoms was some mild heartburn (but we were also eating our way through a large batch of chili so I thought I was just getting old and decrepit at the time).  Now I’m getting legit heartburn and popping Tums like candy.  I get heartburn by so much as thinking about food.

Unsolicited Advice

This actually hasn’t been bad at all!  Most people keep pretty quiet or share the “this worked well for me, but it’s honestly a crapshoot” kind of stories (which are actually useful).  The only person who rubbed my the wrong way was, oddly enough, the midwife at one of my prenatal appointments.  I was talking about how I was considering a water birth because I am deathly afraid of needles* and don’t handle pain well.**  Her response was that I clearly just needed to educate myself further because it didn’t seem to her like a good reason to try a water birth.  I sort of wanted to shoot back “look lady, the reason I’m already freaking out about this is BECAUSE I was reading about it and looking at my options.”  Then she seemed a little miffed that I didn’t have any questions.  Maybe it’s because I’m actually reading about what to expect and I hadn’t encountered anything out of the ordinary at the moment?  Most of the midwives I’ve seen at my appointments have been awesome, but this one was just not a good match for me.

My mom (of course!) also hopped on the unsolicited advice train after looking at our baby registry.  She means well, but she started questioning some of the bigger items (Were we sure we wanted this car seat instead of that car seat because so-and-so really liked that one).  While she definitely brought up some good points, it just stressed me out that all the previous research I did was wrong so I re-researched everything…aaaand ended up with the exact same products I picked out the first time.  Moral of the story: everyone is going find different products that fit their individual needs.

Trippy Dreams

These have been happening for a while. I don’t tend to remember my dreams but I definitely have while pregnant!  The last notable one was a nightmare about how I was never ever going to get the ceiling fan I wanted for the nursery.  I was shipped a broken one, then someone tried to convince me it was perfectly fine and I couldn’t exchange it anyway because it was the very last one ever.  The next day I called Lowes to check on the status of my order because the dream may have freaked me out a bit….

Bye Bye Wedding Ring

My fingers have started to swell enough that it’s getting really hard to get my rings off.  I had to resort to some windex the other day, so going forward I’m probably safer just leaving them off before they get solidly stuck. My ankles are starting to swell a bit too, but thankfully they haven’t morphed into full-on cankles yet.

Pregnancy Brain

More notable moments have been going to work with my skirt inside-out (thankfully it was stripey pattern and really not noticeable!) and getting halfway to my car before realizing I was still in my slippers. I also nearly forgot Matt’s birthday.  Ooops.  In general I’m just spacey as heck and very easily losing my train of thought.

Glucose Challenge Test–PASSED!

The internet really builds this up as being awful, but it wasn’t that bad.  The drink they give you is sort of a like a half-flat soda, so not exactly tasty, but not completely vile either (I went with the orange, but everyone I know recommended a different flavor).  I chose to have mine done first thing in the morning and grab breakfast after since I’ve heard any sugar consumption (not just sweets, but things like fruit too) beforehand can mess up your results.  How true this is, I don’t really know, but I really didn’t want to get stuck doing the 3 hour test so I figured it couldn’t hurt.

 

*  Really, it’s bad.  My regular doctor tried giving me valium before a shot once and it didn’t do a thing.  Nitrous Oxide at the dentist doesn’t have any effect until after the shots are done (ie I calm down again).  I currently have my own stash of prescription lidocaine to use before blood work, but I still get super anxious until it’s over  Yeah, I’m kind of mess.

** I am so screwed.

Sunday Fun-Day: Music Edition

Busy editing a backlog of photos… I’ve got actual projects coming soon (custom door/window casings! drywall!).  In the meantime I hope these make you smile.

The first time I saw James Corden was on Doctor Who and I sort of adored him.  This goes to show he is even more awesome than I originally thought!

 

Cookie Monster can step it a notch too.

 

Not gonna lie, Katie Perry grates on my nerves something awful (she was waaay over-played on the radio station they played at my job years ago).  This is one of my favorite song parodies though!

 

Don’t know if as many people will find this one amusing–it’s definitely for the typography nerds!  If you’ve never seen the music video for Lady Gaga’s Poker Face it’s definitely worth watching because they did a great job parodying the video AND the music.

 

I don’t actually love this song (it’s ok, just not in my personal music collection), but I think the video is pretty powerful.  Related: a list of celebrities who aren’t a fan of crazed Photoshopping.

My Sunday So Far

We’ve been hard at work this weekend and I have more detailed posts to come, but I am officially out of commission today.  My dad and I custom routed door and window casings and I was stupid and didn’t put a mask on until I realized how much sawdust was ending up in my nose (we were about 1/2 way done).  Consequently, I woke up on Saturday with an obnoxious asthma flair up which decided to linger.

Sunday wasn’t any better.

4am: Cats keep fighting with each other and Matt decides to separate them.  He grabs Schmutz and closes her in the bedroom with us.

5 am: Mort has been crying outside the door incessantly because he wants snuggles.

7 am: I give up trying to sleep (partly because I can’t really breathe) and get up.  Notice Schmutz has crapped over Matt’s side of the bed.  She would have crapped directly on Matt, but the blanket was in the way.  Thank god for duvet covers.

10 am: We start mudding the ceiling.  Due to limited ladders and my on-going asthma attack I’m mostly acting as a gopher and watching my dad’s mudding technique.

11 am: Despite doing next to nothing, I’m exhausted and go and lie down… except I can’t exactly lie down because of my chest congestion so I go an prop myself up on pillows and wallow in guilt for not being more useful. I am amazing at wallowing in guilt, even if things weren’t really under my control.

12 pm: I officially sound like a Muppet.

1 pm: Pass out on the couch, because I’m still exhausted.

4 pm: Trip to Urgent Care for a nebulizer treatment.  Officially my first DIY-Induced trip to urgent care.  The doctor treating me tells me that because I’m pregnant I should go to the ER to check for a pulmonary embolism because pregnancy=higher risk factor.

6:30 pm: Grab some take-out and double check with the emergency midwife line.  Midwife agrees that even though it seems unnecessary, I should go to the ER just to rule it out.  Ok, fine.

7:30 pm: Get to the ER where the doctors look mildly perplexed and inform me that the only way they can test for for a pulmonary embolism is to do a CT scan, ie expose the baby to radiation.  Awesome.  They also tell me I have no actually symptoms of a pulmonary embolism except for trouble breathing.. which was clearly brought on by a specific event and responded to asthma treatment.  I opt out of the CT scan and am given another nebulizer treatment and a dose of prednisone.  They also gave me a prescription for a few more days of predisone and a new inhaler since mine was nearly out.

9:00 pm: Drop off prescriptions and am told it will be a 15-20 minute wait.

9:45 pm: Prescriptions finally ready.

10:00 pm: Swing by grocery store to pick up breakfast for tomorrow.

10:30 pm: Make it home.

Hopefully nothing else goes wrong in the next hour….

 

 

Oh BOY!

Looks like we’re officially expecting a little man this July!  This also means first baby pics!  Wheeeee!

baby1

I am notoriously bad at deciphering ultrasound images, but I could usually figure out the head and spine.  Once the tech started pointing out the stomach and kidneys….. um, sure.

baby2

I just think this shot’s kind of hilarious.  This is a frontal view of the face and if you look for it you can see the left eyeball, the nasal cavity, and the mouth open in a fish-faced little pucker.

Everything’s looking normal for the kiddo, but I do need to go back in another 4-6 weeks for them to check if I may have Oligohydramnios (ie Big Scary Word Thing that may or may not be an issue). In the meantime I’ll just be trying to drink water like it’s going out of style.

Now that we know the gender, I can finally get cracking on the nursery design!  My current inspiration is a selection of Yago Partal’s Zoo Portraits.  I picked up a calendar a few years back just to dissect it for the artwork (calendars are an awesome source of cheap art!).  We had them in the hallway in our apartment, but I think they’re awesome for a baby room–whimsical, but not overly cutesy.  It’s harder to find bedding to coordinate with art than vice-versa so the prints may possibly get swapped out.  We’ll see…

Next week my dad and brother-in-law are coming to work on the nursery.  All the drywall is up on the walls, but we still have to tape and mud (and sand and mud and sand and mud), and do the whole ceiling.  It also looks like we’re going to have to route some custom casings, because despite the fact that the door and window casings in this house are the simplest design ever (apart from just a plain 1×6) they are impossible to find.*  Hopefully my dad will save the day with his router!  This also means we should have actual house stuff to show in the near future! Woot!

 

*We found something really close once, but despite the fact that it was the company’s standard back-cut knife, there would be $200 setup fee plus the cost of materials.  For 2 doors and 2 windows (and only the vertical casings) that seemed excessive, so we’re DIYing this shit!

Save

Save

Slice of Life: Bad Advice Division

Me: I don’t think [brother-in-law] is going to take my crappy parenting advice.  He was wondering what to do about an 8 year old who won’t stop asking questions, so I suggested “why don’t you turn it into the game of questions?”

Matt: What’s the game of questions?

Me: You mean you don’t know?

Matt: Should I?

Me: Do I need to look everything up for you?

Matt: Don’t you always?

Me: Aren’t you an adult?

Matt: …

 

Winner: Me,  Loser: Probably our kid

Random Thoughts I Had This Week

I’ve been a little ADD this week for some reason.  My best guess is that my energy level is finally going up and just hit me a little too fast to process.  I actually started writing this post when I was supposed to be finishing up previous one.  That one got posted a day later than planned and I kept adding to this because I don’t do Twitter.


There were some reps from Lifetime Fitness in our lobby at work today.  They were advertising free seminars on sugar and carbs.  I considered asking if there would be free samples.

I’m pretty sure Mort falls pretty low on the emotional intelligence scale.  He’ll try and play with Schmutz, she’ll get all pissy, flatten her ears down and growl at him like she wants rip his throat out.  And then he just stares at her in mild confusion and tries to play with her again. Aren’t you supposed to be able to understand the body language of your own species?  It’s like if someone was brandishing a knife at me screaming “Die bitch die!” and I was all “Let me give you a hug and we can be besties!”

Every single stupid person I’ve encountered in the last week has been from Portland.*  I’ve never been to Portland, but based on current experience I can only assume that it really needs to get its shit together.  And maybe put more birds on things.

I want to quite my job and design non-crappy ceiling fans.  Really.

Matt started to have a small freak out about having everything ready for the baby.  I am so not used to being the calm, rational one in our relationship.  It was mildly unsettling.

Against my better judgement, I got sucked into a political argument on Facebook. What outraged me the most was that someone replied to me and clearly did not understand how quotations work (she also missed my point entirely, but that seemed like the smaller issue).  I was all ready to reply to her with just a link to the “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotations Marks, but then the thread got deleted.  It was probably for the best.

Actually, any time I get sucked into a crazy political discussion that gets to the point where people aren’t even trying to acknowledge there are other viewpoints besides theirs and all I’m doing is repeating myself and I should just stop except now I’m pissed and have some irrational desire to have the last word even though I know it’s really pointless… then I think I should reply with a link to Wil Wheaton collating paper.  If you want to steal this idea, feel free to substitute whatever random link you choose.  It just has to leave people questioning “wtf just happened here?” If I get sucked into a real life discussion that deteriorates that far, I’m just going to scream “THIS IS HOW SOCIETY BREAKS DOWN!” and run away before anyone can respond.

I thought first baby kicks were supposed to be all soft and bubbly like “butterflies” or “popcorn popping” according to the books.  I started thinking I was having crazy muscle spasms or something because it kept feeling like I was getting elbowed in the abdomen, only the calls were coming from inside the house. I asked about it was told, nope, that sounds likes baby kicks. I’m a little afraid of what this is going to feel like once the kid is larger than a potato.

Matt thought the baby kicks sounded adorable, so I started elbowing him in the stomach.

While sitting at the table I suddenly became convinced that I had broken a rib.  Apparently spontaneous rib dislocation is skipped in all the pregnancy books.  Instead they waste their time talking about butterfly-like kicking.

On my drive into work today I was behind a truck with both a “Flammable Gasses” and “Non-Flammable Gasses” sign attached to it.  That’s a pretty serious mixed message.

Netflix emailed me telling me they just added a TV show they think I’d like: Ultimate Beastmaster.  Given that I mostly watch nature documentaries or crime shows, I think either they’re really confused or this show has a way more violent ending than it sounds.  It’s also possible they know about all those Saturdays I spent binge-watching Ninja Warrior marathons on cable.

I have a WordPress plugin that judges the “readability” of my posts.  They’re rarely rated as “good” and it tells me I use the passive voice too much.  Well, I live in Minnesota, we’re supposed to be passive.  If you don’t like it I may have to leave a politely worded sticky note implying that you should bugger off.  Please.

Facebook could be vastly improved if it gave you the following options when you choose to hide a post:

  • I don’t care what pages my friends like
  • I don’t care about people I don’t actually know
  • This is bullshit and I don’t want to see it

I just bought a pair of jeggings.  Don’t judge me.

 

*If you’re from Portland, I’m sorry.  I’m not saying everyone in Portland is stupid, it just seems like some sort of idiot virus broke out over there in the last week.  You may want to take some precautions before you catch it too.  Or before it spreads. 

Slice of Life: Parenting Wins

I had my second prenatal visit about a week ago.  Kid still has a heartbeat which has got to make us parents of the year or something (don’t set the bar too high and you’ll always feel good about yourself!).

This past week one of the (male) cafeteria employees at work asked me if I was pregnant.  I debated for a split second about answering with “no, I’m just fat” but decided not to be a total asshole.  I’m growing as a person. Plus, this guy keeps me in french fries so it’s best to stay on his good side.  I still need to ask him what he would have done if I had said no…  It’s generally considered unwise to ask a women if she’s pregnant, but I suppose I was waiting there with my hand on my 4-month-belly looking like I was about to puke so the question wasn’t totally out of the blue.

Also this past week I had a major pregnancy epiphany.  Technically I’ve got 2 hearts at the moment–I’m a Time Lord!  er… Lady.  Now where’s my TARDIS?  I REALLY wish I had thought of this at my first appointment when we got to hear the heartbeat for the first time.  The midwife probably would have thought I was absolutely nuts (not that she would have been wrong…).

And finally… we were out at breakfast yesterday and there was a soccer game on that Matt was half paying attention to.

Matt (watching an “injury”): Magic spray!
Me: You’re going to use that on our kid, aren’t you? They bump their head–magic spray!
Matt: That’s brilliant!
Me: We’d really just need a little spray bottle filled with water… I’m not opposed to this.
Matt: No way, I want the official EPL** Magic Spray!
Me: Good lord, I’ll make a fancy label for the bottle.
*If you never watch soccer, pretty much any time there’s an “injury” (ie someone pretends they’ve suffered extreme bodily harm in the hopes that the other team gets a penalty) someone inevitably comes out and sprays the afflicted area with “magic spray.”  I think it’s Windex.
**English Premier League

Flat-Pack & Vintage is Expanding!

Well, at least I am…. literally!  Matt and I are super excited to announce that we’re expecting a new addition to our family in July!

Which also means that this…

nursery1

… is the future baby room. (and yes, this picture was taken today)

Will we get it done in time?

Will I give up and say “screw it, kid can sleep in a box, I want ice cream”?*

Will I whack Matt with a crowbar for treating me like a fragile flower?**

Will I have to trust Matt to handle painting projects?***

Stay tuned….. same Bat Time.  Same Bat Channel.

 

If you’re interested in the details (if not, skip down to the next break, it’s cool), I’m officially in my second trimester as of today.  Woot!  According to different trackers baby is the size of a beet, a lemon, a cupcake…. or a mouse?  Either that’s some tiny produce (and mini cupcake) or someone out there gets some ginormous mice…. I also feel like the produce comparisons are kind of weird because there’s such a wide variation in sizes.  Twin Cities peeps, if you’ve been to Lunds and Byerlys you know there are lemons out there the size of naval oranges.  Anyway… there’s a baby, it’s the size of a something and it’s continuing to get bigger so wearing jeans kinda sucks, even with a belly band thingy.  I still maintain that leggings are not a proper substitute for pants unless your ass is covered.  Luckily I tend to like tunic tops anyway, so I’m in the clear of my own personal prudishness.

I seem to have lucked out with my first trimester in that I never got bad morning sickness, although I tended to feel pretty gross in the evenings.  Sources seem to say I should be feeling mostly normal again around now, but actually this last week has kind of sucked and been filled with day-long bouts of dry-heaving.  Hopefully that will end soon (it sounds like 16 weeks is the sweet spot for the majority of people… please?).  I know it could be way worse, but I’m still feeling ucky enough to be generally uncomfortable.

In terms of plans for the blog… yes, there will be baby stuff happening but I still plan to focus primarily on design and DIY.  The current project though is obviously the nursery (I’ve always wanted to design a baby room!).  As a first time mum though, I obviously have no frickin clue what I’m doing (I didn’t even hold an infant until my mid-twenties!) so I’m clearly not one to be doling out advice.  Babies are exciting though so he/she will definitely be making an appearance here and I’m sure I’ll be sharing both my excitements and epic failures, because, let’s face it, life is filled with both.

 

And because I’m just full of news today, we have a more recent addition to the household as well.

Meet Mort.

MeetMort

We adopted a new sweet little boy cat (age 2-3 years) to hopefully be a companion for Schmutz.  She’s still pretty pissy but slowly (very slowly) coming around.  Mort is an absolute sweetie who loves snuggles and following me around… Matt might be a tad jealous because we seem to have ended up with another mama’s boy.  He’s also spent a large part of this morning chasing his own tail so he’s a bit of a goofball.  Mort’s very interested in Schmutz and we’re hoping she’s more friendly with him by the time the baby comes because that’s going to be pretty hard on our little furry diva too.

 

* Not gonna lie, this is a real possibility.  I stared at a BOGO ice cream sale at the grocery store for a full five minutes before convincing myself I could in fact live without it.  I was always told being an adult would come with hard choices.

** And then take a nap because hefting a crowbar is a lot of work and man am I tired.

*** Thankfully this sounds like a no since interior paint is almost all low VOC now.

Save

Goodbye

About 8 and a half years ago I went out shopping for work pants.  In one shopping area I passed a PetSmart that was advertising Cat Adoptions that day.  I had moved to MN only a few months prior, was still bummed that I had had to give up my dog who didn’t handle apartment life well, and was still really missing being around cats (I had grown up around cats and am definitely a cat person).  I figured I’d wander in, get some kitty snuggles, and be on my way.

Only I ended up leaving with a cat.

spencer4

He was so chill despite being in a strange place surrounded by strange people.  The lady from the rescue group saw me petting him through the cage and told me to go ahead and open the door.  As soon as I did, he stretched up and gave me a hug.  I melted.

I brought him home and named him Spencer.  He immediately waltzed out of his carrier and investigated the apartment then picked a chair and took a nap.  He was friendly right off the bat but it wasn’t until a few weeks later that he started snuggling.  One night I woke up to find that my arm was completely asleep–he was curled up next to me with his front paws wrapped around my arm and completely blissed out.

spencer3

Spencer was the most mellow cat I’ve met.  He liked strangers.  He liked dogs. He did well with small children.  He even tolerated the vacuum cleaner (he’d put his ears back because of noise, but rarely moved).  Every night he’d cuddle up to me in bed to sleep.  He loved bread and he loved curry (I once tried sprinkling cayenne pepper on my plants to stop him chewing on them…. he thought they were even tastier).  He loved having his belly rubbed… and wouldn’t spontaneously change his mind in the middle.

spencer2

About 5 years ago I met Matt, we started dating, and eventually moved in together.  Matt already had a cat when we met and we had to blend households.  Schmutz was super social with people, but Matt was told when he adopted her that she didn’t really like other cats.  Spencer won her heart anyway.  The two of them would snuggle and play together, and Schmutz would groom the heck out of Spencer whenever she had the chance (and put him in a headlock if he tried to move away).  Anyone who’s had cats know that blending cat families is hard and pretty much a crap shoot.  Most people hope for an ignore-and-tolerate situation, but these two were buddies.

spencer1

Then a couple weeks before Christmas our super-sweet, snuggly, floofy boy-cat started just picking at his food.  We brought him in to the vet, they ran some labs and started him on an anti-nausea medication because their best guess was Inflammatory Bowel. A few days of the meds didn’t change anything but the lab work didn’t show anything abnormal so they had us start him on Prednisolone.  We were hoping to see an improvement before we left for Christmas to visit family, but nothing really changed.  He’s a super difficult cat to pill so our cat-sitter couldn’t really continue his meds while we were gone but we made sure he would always have plenty of food available to him.

When we got back home he was super skinny and really wasn’t eating so we hauled him back to the vet.  They gave him another shot of anti-nausea drugs and some IV fluids plus an appetite stimulant and he seemed to be doing a little better that day…but then immediately went back to not eating.  We started syringe feeding him a prescription, high-calorie diet but still couldn’t get a lot into him.

spencer6

We took him back to the vet Saturday since he still wasn’t showing improvement.  They re-checked his red blood cell count and it had tanked, so he was clearly severely anemic, but the blood work didn’t show any clear causes of the anemia, which the vet thought meant there was a strong chance he had cancer which was attacking his bone marrow and bringing his RBC count down.  We had the option to do more tests and a blood transfusion…but the likelihood that anything would change the outcome was very slim  and we just didn’t want to put him through additional stress.

We brought him back home.  Snuggled.  Cried.  Matt cooked him some super-buttery tialapia which he even picked at a little bit.  We later made an appointment with MN Pets who will come to your home.  We didn’t want to stress him out anymore by bringing him back to the clinic.

Dr Heather came out today and was very supportive and patient.  We went over everything we had done so far and what his labs showed and she agreed that it also sounded like cancer, but even it wasn’t he was too severely anemic for there to be a good prognosis (especially since he was already on steroids and they weren’t helping).  There’s no way to feel good about this decision, but I’m pretty confident it wasn’t a bad decision…. even if it was an incredibly painful one to make.

spencer5

I got to hold in my arms in the end and I hope he was aware of how much he was loved.  I already miss him like crazy but I couldn’t bear to drag this out and watch him get even weaker. He was one of the best companions anyone could have ever hoped for and it breaks my heart that I had to lose him so early. I feel so lucky that he was able to be a part of my life.

 

Save