Post-Bella

I had this funny little quip all prepared about nicknames and how they come to be, and how I got my many monikers, but it flew out the car window as soon as I pulled into the parking lot at the vet.

 

How ominous did that sound? You’re asking “Scribe, what happened at the vet. What’s going down?” The answer, bloggers, is Bella.

To be honest I haven’t felt like writing over the past three days. I’ve posted the nickname blog to the Blogger editor only to have it sit there, all written and nicely capitalized where it should be and I haven’t pressed the publish button. The tears have something to do with it.

It’s my life post-Bella, my soccer-ball head of a cat that has seen me through the good and bad, my first apartment on my own, my first marriage and first house and onward. Until Tuesday.

I wrote about her a while back. She wasn’t well. She was diagnosed with “borderline” diabetes. We changed her diet and considered insulin, but she continued to go downhill, drinking copious amounts of water and missing the litter box for both the liquids and the solids. She also soiled herself on many occasions and over the past three weeks, she decided that she didn’t feel like eating either. Her fur was no longer brilliantly white and soft. Her little lamb-like legs were covered in feces. I did wash her constantly, but she constantly ended up back in the same state. She was no longer the Bella I knew. I still loved her but she wasn’t herself and hadn’t been for a long while.

Nothing prepared me for Tuesday. I was stoic, or so I thought. I was emotionally attached but able to handle anything. Until she was gone, her pink tongue sticking out mid-lick. Oh, how I cried. I’m still crying, and I’m still walking by the basement door and touching it, believing her to be on the other side in her usual sleeping position on the top stair, or on one of the heat registers in the kitchen. She was a heat hog.

Yesterday morning was my worst. Just one day before she was yelling at me from the kitchen to shake a leg and fill up her dish. Even though she wasn’t eating a lot, she still loved the ritual of rubbing against my leg, mewing at me to hurry up. It was our routine and now it’s gone.

My life post-Bella will be different. I won’t tell you how she felt in my arms seconds after she fell asleep. I won’t tell you about walking out of the vet unable to breathe. I’m sure you can already imagine that. I will tell you what I will miss (not in this order):

1. Bella wrapping herself around my legs and tripping me down the stairs. I didn’t appreciate it then but I miss it now (even the concussions).
2. Headbutts. The girl could give the best headbutts (yes, concussions again!)
3. Giving static electric shocks to each other each and every winter for 15 years.
4. Her cries from behind the basement door after climbing into the ceiling and sliding down the cold air return and dropping herself into the crawlspace/storage area in my parents’ old house.
5. Belly rub flops.
6. Kneading (and being needed).
7. Never having alone time in the bathroom. Between Bella and Kao, I never get any peace.
8. Trying to train her to sit and wait for her dinner (and no accidents on the stairs). It was a test of wills. She won.
9. Her very loud purr that sounded more like a pigeon than a cat. The girl actually cooed.
10. Kissing the top of her head every morning and night.

A lot of people can’t understand why I’m still sad. A part of me wants to lash out at them, to beat them upside the head, take a bat to their knees. A smaller part feels sorry for them because they can’t understand that she was there for me when many people were not, and that makes her my family.
 
My heart post-Bella is heavy but grateful.

 

Weekend report

It's been a weekend of aches, vomit and diarrhea and most of them haven't been mine.

I wish Bella would use a toilet... maybe then her ass would be a little cleaner

As many of you will already know, my sweet cat Bella was recently diagnosed with diabetes. We've since changed her food to the wet diabetic management cat food. It's been a month and just today (after me buying 24 cans), she's decided that her delicate system can't handle it. Unlike us humans though, she can't tell me that and decided to show me by pooping in the basement - not just any poops - the runny kind and in many places. So, I had to wash her ass and do a major clean-up around her clean litter box and into the bowels of the basement (no pun, really). This was after we stepped in some and tracked it through the house, necessitating a washing of the floors in the kitchen and foyer. So, it's back to the drawing board on what to feed her.

V is for Vomit, D is for diabetic diarrhea

If it's not the cat and her runny poo, it's Kao and his projectile vomit. Yes, Kao has spent the last two days spewing his food. The cause: a pair of trouser socks he had unearthed from the laundry basket (newly bought, thank you very much).

He had also rummaged through the garbage, and even though I'm embarrassed to admit this, he had ingested a used, yes used, sanitary napkin. There's a reason I don't use them often and this is on top of the list. So, he's been puking. Thankfully, he's kept it to the back yard, and that, my friends, is how I discovered the socks - bought at Winners the week before. Can't I keep anything nice or anything private!?!?
I mean, it's my socks and my old, bloodied pads!

The puking has stopped, thank god. But now I'm wondering what else he's ingested! I thought his underwear-eating days were over but I guess not.

Aches and pains, my back, oh my!

You remember the cleaning house I had planned for my Saturday? I manged to clean the kitchen, load the dishwasher and do a few odds and ends. My back has been killing me for the past two weeks.

At first, I thought it was from all my coughing. I had a head cold for the last two weeks, though I took no time off of work, save an hour for a doctor's appointment. I then thought that it was from the confirmed bladder/kidney infection. But, it still hurts, so much that I couldn't do everything I set out to do on Saturday. I even put myself to bed for a nap at 5:30 in the evening, thinking I would sleep for an hour and then venture out to pick up the dog food I said I would get. I slept until 3 a.m. Thankfully for Kao, the Man stepped up. Our early morning conversation is another topic for another time.

Today was better. The back still hurt but I mustered through it and ended up going to my art class, where I drew houses, did poop patrol in the backyard, made dinner, did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. Unable to sit still, I ran the duster through the living room. I even took Boyo for a walk with my friend The Girl. I bribed her with coffee and conversation.

Bathroom calamity

I don't know what made me go into the powder room later this evening. There, I discovered the toilet leak. The toilet had been running on and off for a bit. Repairs will have to wait until tomorrow, when I can call in my Jack-Of-All-Trades friend. I'm not handy and know when to call for help. The Man turned off the water to the toilet and I drained the tank. We believe it's a leak from the tank to the toilet, and hopefully, it won't take much to repair. Do these repairs ever end? It was just a year ago that my kitchen ceiling fell in, thanks to another leak in the upstairs toilet. The contractors hired to renovate the bathroom had failed to put the waxy seal between the drain and the toilet. Hopefully, this repair will be more clear-cut. In the meantime, I've wiped up the existing water and cleared around the toilet.

So, that was my shitty weekend. I tried to make the best of it and told myself that I can control the things I can (my attitude and reaction) and take a deep breath over the things I can't (like the toilet and the pukey and shitting pets).

Monday is the start of a new week and new goals. I'll endeavour to keep a clear head and an open heart.

Isobella the Temptress

There’s nothing sexier than a robust woman cleaning herself for hours at a time. Or at least that’s what Isobella would have you believe.

She spends hours laying in the sun and stretching out her volumptuous frame, prepping herself for some serious maintenance. She doesn’t care who sees her. It’s not that she has no sense of decorum – she’s insulted if you catch her on the toilet with the door open – but for grooming, it’s an all-out lovefest and she’s oblivious to everyone and anything. That is, until recently. Sure, she still makes an attempt, but even her toiletry skills are slipping.

Last week, she didn’t make it to her bathroom so she picked the softest, most absorbent spot and squatted – on a pair of jeans, and again on a bath towel. We’re not sure why she picked that spot, but we’re just glad that she avoided the lovely bedroom carpet that is significantly harder to clean.

Since then, she’s been monitored, prodded and probed. She’s not a happy girl and certainly not feeling like the temptress she believes herself to be. She hasn’t cooed in the last day, still reeling from the car ride, the initial consultation with the doctor and the needles and rectal probe. Oh, the rectal probe. Later today, I will have to attempt to take a urine sample. I suggested that we just squeeze out the towel, but the doctor just looked at me with one hairy eyeball, disapproving of my brand of humour.

He also suggested that Isobella is 5 lbs. on the opposite side of svelte. Her eyes opened wide at the suggestion that she cut back her food intake and step up the exercise regime. “What, and give up my life of leisure,” she pleaded with her eyes. “Not a chance. Now, go fetch me some peeled grapes, you pion.”

The next two days will tell more about Bella’s current condition. Is she lazy? Yes. Is she overweight? For a cat, yes. For a baby, not so much. But at 15, she’s so set in her ways that it will take bulldozers for her to change. It took almost that to get her out of the carrier and into the vet’s hands. She also lost clouds of her Holstein-coloured fur, which, I say, should account for at least one pound of her fighting weight.

After numerous references to her weight (yes, I know she’s fat but she’s like a soft, round, cozy ball of fur), the doctor uttered the dreaded words: diabetes. At 15 and at her weight, it’s a very real scenario. She’d have just another thing to bond over with my neice. But, unlike her, Bella has only a few good years left (if that), and I am certainly not going to have her spend her last days stuck with needles on a daily basis.

The vet was surprised, aghast even, when I said that I would say my goodbyes to her if diabetes was the reality. I would be extremely sad and probably would need a good day to cry over my girl. Okay, who am I kidding, it would be longer. But, I am not going to keep her alive for a year or two for my own benefit.

Gone are the days when pets were a member of the family, but when it was time to move on, we did just that. We had our pets put down, put out of their misery or their health turmoil. We let them go when they needed to go. Despite our attempts at humanizing our dogs, cats and even rats, they do have a shorter lifespan than we do and it’s not unimaginable that we will have to bury at least one pet in our lifetime. Insulin needles will not bring Bella back to her playful, kitten self, and I for one, will let her go in dignity and not when she’s unable to control her bodily functions. She has her pride and I’d like to keep it that way.

And then there were five

Last night, my brother and his three kids came over for a whirlwind visit. The "kids" - Emme, Ry-Guy and Toby - were the whirlwind. Coffee cups were almost knocked over, toys were fought over and upstairs off-limits rooms were explored. Oh, and I now have a new air conditioning system thanks to Kao. Yes, he put his entire head through the front screen door.

He was excited to see his cousins, and especially to see Toby and his full-body afro. Now before you get a visual in your head, let me explain that Toby is my brother's 8-month-old Labradoodle, who would look so cool with a mohawk that I am trying to convince my brother that I should give him one.





Toby is coming for the weekend, a sort of extended play date while my brother, sis-in-law and the kids are at a weekend-long baseball tournament in Amherst, NY. They left this morning, with me in charge of picking up the mutt at the end of my work day. It will be chaos for the remainder of the weekend as both boys love jumping, boxing and barking. Toby does most of the barking, but Kao howls at his rubber chicken and when he thinks we're not listening to him.

Chou is on reprieve for the night. His excuse... I mean reason: a baseball game. It's his regular team so I have no cause for complaint. Only I will be the one to chase both dogs through the house as Toby explores every nook and cranny while Kao follows wondering where he can find his next pair of underwear. He considers it a delicacy, especially when they're mine.

A few dozen dog park visits are in order, I think. It will give me a little bit of a break and the boys will hopefully let off some steam before we venture back to the house of breakables, Bella and bells (cowbells).

The weekend, bloggers, has gone to the dogs. Bella is going to have a heart attack. Either that, or she'll pack her bags and start hitchhiking to the next town.