Back to the vet...

I woke up this morning and Arnie was still laying in exactly the same spot I left him in the night before. I thought he was dead. He wasn't. I put him on the couch and put the eye drops in his eyes and set him back on the floor. He laid down right where I put him and went back to sleep. In the kitchen I found some vomit. Apparently he did move at some point during the night, if only to vomit.

I called the vet again. He got me in this morning. Arnie plastic cone collar was covered in snot from his almost constant sneezing. His eyes - both of them now - are runny and he is lethargic and not eating or drinking. Yesterday I tried to spoon feed him and he took only one teaspoon of food. At the vet, they weighed him and he's lost two pounds since Monday. He's also dehydrated, running a temp and is constipated.

So they're keeping him overnight. They'll give him some IV fluids and antibiotics and feed him with a syringe and give him an enema to make him poop. The vet wanted to do blood work too but right now I can't afford that so that's on hold at least until I get paid in September. I hate that I had to choose what treatment to do based on what I could afford. I suppose the treatment will make him better but the blood work would have told me exactly what was going on.

I've been researching Arnie's symptoms on the web and they all match something called feline herpes virus. According to what I've read, cats can only get this if exposed to another cat who is a carrier. Arnie has only ever been exposed to one other cat - Brigette. My Brigette is fine - healthy as a horse - but she could be carrying this virus and not show any symptoms. If that's the case, I'll have to make a hard decision on whether or not to keep her. And as if Arnie being sick wasn't breaking my heart, having to give up Brigette will really do me in.

Just plain ick...

Yeah so, this week so far really bites. I'm still not feeling great. I went to work in spite of it and almost made it through the day. I came home a couple of hours early. Arnie is pathetic. Just plain pathetic. He's so sick right now. His eye is ugly, he's not eating well, and he's uncomfortable because of the plastic cone collar. When I came home I sat down on the couch to rest and he climbed up into my arms and went to sleep. I didn't have the heart to move him so I let him stay there and sleep for two hours. I wasn't feeling like getting up to do anything anyway so we sort of just vegged there together. I was happy that he came up to me. He's really shying away from me because of all the eye drops. Of course, when I finally had to get up I first put some drops in his eyes which I'm sure will now make him never want to snuggle with me again.

I hate that he's sick. I feel like I am the most inept person. I just don't know what to do other than what the vet says to do and, frankly, that doesn't seem to be working all that well. Alex tells me to be patient but he hasn't seen poor Arnie just completely lacking any energy or joy. I find myself celebrating the small victories like when I noticed he did go and eat something finally or when I check to see if he's really just sleeping or if he's still breathing.

I never thought I would become a crazy cat lady but here I am in a panic over this furball. I can't help it. He's fully taken his place in my heart and I'm responsible for him. I feel like a failure. I can't make him better.

Sigh...

He's gone. Left on a plane at 4:25pm today.

Some days it's just like this...

The last part of this week has been very strange for me. I've been stuck somewhere in the crossroads of emotions and normalcy. Or maybe that is normal...who knows...

I know why I feel this way. In four days, Alex will be leaving, returning to Sweden and it's back to the day to day shit again. Even though I feel we've grown even closer as we do each time we're together, I don't feel like we're any closer to making the permanent move happen. Maybe it's that I just want it to happen so badly that any amount of time it will take is too much. Maybe we just really haven't spent the kind of time that may be necessary in getting the plan together in a way that is sound. Maybe it's all just that I know he'll be gone in four days and I'm going to miss him like crazy and be sad for a long time.

It's so hard to go back to talking by phone and seeing one another on webcam every so often. Funny how that used to be so great and now it's just another reminder of how much distance there is between us. I want to be able to enjoy the next four days and not start crying all the time but every time I think about this, I tear up. I can't help it. There is just so much standing in the way of the future and sometimes it all seems so impossible.

Sad...

He's gone. Just left. 'nuff said...

It's creeping up on me...

As if the realization that Alex is leaving for Sweden tomorrow wasn't enough, it just dawned on me that I will have to return to work in two days. Talk about adding insult to injury. I really was able to forget about work for this entire time that Alex was here. I got a couple of work related calls and each one sort of took me by surprise but once they were done - pffft! Out of my brain entirely! This phenomena has happened only once before in my life. That was last summer when I spent a month in Stockholm. I didn't think of work even once! All of this leads me to believe that I am meant to be there permanently.

It's taken me a long time to learn how to leave work at work at the end of the day. I still bring it home, in my thoughts, in my dreams. I have many sleepless nights worrying about it so when I get these times where I don't think of it even once, well...w00t!! For me, that is a milestone.

I know that I will go back on Monday to a mountain of stuff that no one else could figure out how to do while I was gone. There will be meetings scheduled for me that I will have to attend. There will be much catching up to do. And I will be all kinds of bitter for having to go back to it all and so sad that Alex is not here anymore. It will probably be best if people stayed clear of me for a few days. Just a word of warning.