Fighting the Rat of Death

It's been a rough year. First Baxter was sick and we weren't sure if he was going to make it - thankfully, as he explained in the last post, he is doing well.

Then my mother-in-law, who has dementia and has been in a nursing home for nearly 8 years, started declining rapidly, after being relatively stable for a long time. Looking back, we realized she had been declining all along, but so gradually we didn't really notice it until this year. By June she had forgotten how to swallow properly and had started getting recurrent cases of aspiration pneumonia. Finally, she wasn't able to eat at all. DH's father made the decision to have a feeding tube inserted to enable her to continue to eat. "I can't just starve her," he said.

DH and I had looked into this back in 2005 when my own father was in a nursing home with dementia and was no longer able to swallow. All of the literature we read online and elsewhere said that inserting a feeding tube when someone has dementia and has lost the ability to swallow does nothing to prolong life and just results in numerous, constant complications.

Unfortunately, after 67 years of marriage, in the end, DH's dad couldn't let her go. He wanted just a few more months with her. So, the feeding tube was inserted after a few days of angst and tears on all sides. (Except for my mother-in-law, who, thankfully, had no idea of the drama circling around her). She hasn't been able to speak, other than occasional grunts or simple yes or no answers, for years, and at this point she was hardly even doing that, and was sleeping most of the time.

Next came a problem with our 13 or 14-year-old dog Diva. We adopted her 10 years ago, but were never really sure how old she was at that time. Given her arthritis and very grey muzzle, we are thinking she may have been as old as 4 when we adopted her, making her 14 now.

We started to notice changes in her behavior over the summer. She gradually stopped coming upstairs to sleep on our bed, preferring to stay downstairs on her own bed nearby her adoptive "sister," Angel.

Then in September we realized she was getting very deaf, and more and more sensitive to odd noises. She had developed a fear of thunder and fireworks a few years ago, but now she became afraid of acorns falling on the tin roof at our cabin in the Adirondacks, nail guns, hammering, and any other abrupt noises. She started shaking whenever one of these objectionable sounds occurred.

Then we went to Cape Cod for a week and she acted nervous in the car going up, panting and restless; then at the cottage, a new one for us that we hadn't stayed at before, she started acting nervous and pacing around every evening.

We had gotten a prescription for Xanax from the vet for her since we had started noticing this nervousness before we left, and that calmed her down but didn't cure the problem. She decided the bathroom was the only safe place to sleep, so we put her bed in there. Not very convenient when we got up in the middle of the night to use the facilities, but at least Diva was happy. We were afraid she was developing doggie dementia and that it was a sign of age and it would only get worse...

Then, the day after we got home, we finally realized what might be part of the problem - she had a urinary tract infection! She started asking to go out and urinate every half hour and we realized there was blood in her urine. We rushed over to our local emergency veterinarian clinic and had her checked out and the vet gave us antibiotics and painkillers for her. After only a day on the antibiotics and painkillers, her behavior became much more normal. After two weeks she seems back to her old self; but she still won't sleep on our bed.

We were up at the cabin this past week while she was still getting better, and we were still worrying about her, as well as DH's mom, who was back in the hospital with yet another bout of pneumonia. She had also developed a C. difficile intestinal infection from the antibiotics she was being given for the pneumonia, and was not doing well at all. Based on my experience with my own mother, this infection could very well be what swept her away.

One night while we were at the cabin, DH had a terrible nightmare. I woke to find him pawing my shoulder and making odd noises. I finally shook him awake and said, "What's wrong?" He said, "A rat. A huge rat."

The next day he remembered the dream: He had been dreaming there was this huge, snarling rat attacking Diva, and he was trying to beat it with some kind of a stick and get it away from her. He had been calling for our other dog Angel to come kill it but she was nowhere around in the dream. He said it was one of those dreams where you can't do anything -- you can't hit the rat, you can't move fast enough, nothing works.

I told him it must have been that he was fighting the Rat of Death and trying to keep it from Diva, and that Diva might be representative of his mother as well, since he was so worried about both of them.

The next day one of the doctors taking care of his mother in the hospital in New Jersey called to tell us that his mom had taken a turn for the worse and it was really time to let her go; he said it was unfair to keep having her go back to the hospital for treatment over and over, and make her suffer further (which of course we did agree with).

We left the cabin earlier than we'd planned and returned home, arriving late in the evening The next day we received a morning call from the doctor overseeing my mother-in-law's care to tell us she'd had to entubate her after she had stopped breathing earlier that morning, because DH's dad had not made a decision to put her on palliative care. She said Mom had been moved to intensive care.

We met at the hospital along with DH's dad, and told them we would like her taken off the respirator, expecting her to pass away an hour or so later.

As it turned out, after the respirator was removed, she stabilized and has been holding her own ever since. She is being given morphine and is no longer receiving any curative measures. But she continues to fight against the Rat of Death a little longer.

My father-in-law asks, "Why? Why am I going through all this at this stage of my life?" I can't give him an answer.

The Snowpocalypse Continues, and What I've Been Up to for 8 Months

Well, here is my first post of what I hope will be a month of daily postings. I decided that is the only way to get back into the habit of blogging and catching up with all my blogger friends and their posts as well.

One reason for my long absence is, for the second half of last year we were living in a condition of total chaos as our kitchen was being totally renovated.

It all started about a year ago when we decided to renovate our upstairs bathroom, which had deteriorated to the point that we truly expected the tub to land downstairs on top of the kitchen stove at some point. Tiles had fallen off the tub wall to reveal that there was no actual wall behind them. Things were not good.

The configuration of the bathroom was horrendous as well - it was claustrophobic and dated to the 1940s or 50s, we believe.

So we contracted with a local kitchen and bath contractor and started on the bathroom. It was to be a full rip-out, and they would be turning the tub crossways under the window to make the room more spacious.

Once they ripped everything out, they found, no surprise to us, that all the joists needed to be replaced and/or reinforced since they were rotting from water leakage over many years. This meant ripping out the kitchen ceiling to be able to get underneath the joists.

Now, the kitchen ceiling was a problem to begin with. It was a dropped ceiling, and we had long known that above that was a long-ago disaster of some sort, as there were two layers of plaster ceiling above it that had obviously collapsed at some point. All of the later plumbing had been piped in below the plaster ceiling and above the dropped ceiling.

To make a long story short, the bathroom turned out great. The change was amazing.

But before the contractor did anything about closing up the kitchen ceiling, he said,  "Um, since your ceiling is already all torn apart, if you were ever thinking of redoing your kitchen, now might be the time to do it."

DH and I looked at each other, thinking about the fact that some day we may want to sell the house, and the current kitchen just didn't cut it. It should be noted I'd also been watching a lot of HGTV recently. We decided to go for it.

We had to take everything out of the kitchen and the pantry. I had no idea how much STUFF we had stuffed into the cabinets. It all went in boxes. I tried to separate out stuff we didn't need anymore or was too old and gross to keep, from stuff we wanted to keep. The boxes went in the living room, the dining room, and the sun porch where we hang out and watch TV.

The boxes stayed there from the end of August to the end of December. No cooking could take place so we spent a lot of time up at the cabin or eating out.

When we were at home, DH would go out and buy McDonalds Egg McMuffins for breakfast on weekends and I was hitting Dunkin' Donuts for a bagel and coffee during the week. Every day around 8 a.m. the Men would come to work on the kitchen. We got to know a lot of the Men. The dogs loved all of them, and they loved the dogs too, luckily. The cat mostly hid under the bed.

Finally just before the holidays, it was all complete, even the painting. And then we had to put everything away. We managed to give away all the stuff that we wanted to give away (thank goodness the veterans and the Lupus Foundation keep calling me to see if I have anything to donate - I kept saying yes and making sure I had boxes to put out for them).

In the end we had gotten rid of our pantry and replaced it with a powder room. We finally have a first floor bathroom, and now that we have it, I can't imagine how we lived here for 27 years without one.

The rest of the pantry was converted into a deep closet, which we are using as a smaller version of the pantry - we put a set of shelves from Ikea that we'd had in our pantry into the back of the closet, so all the extra cans and boxes, pet food, paper plates and whatnot can go there. The rest of the closet has room for the vacuum cleaner and other cleaning items. We put hooks on the back of the door for coats, since we usually come in the back door.

We like our new kitchen so much we put a small table in the middle so we could eat dinner there and sit and stare at it in wonder. I've even been cooking more as a result of having a brand new stove, and refrigerator that actually is in the same room as the stove and sink! The old configuration required that our fridge be in the pantry, which was quite inconvenient!

So. That is what kept us occupied last fall and early winter. 

Then the snow came.

If you are living anywhere in the Northeast, or even many parts of the South, you know this has been the Winter from Hell. I haven't seen this much snow since maybe the mid-90s.

Of course, there were snowstorms in more recent years, including 2011 when our dog Angel showed up in our driveway at 8:30 at night on February 10. I wrote about her briefly at the time, but I don't believe I shared the full story of how she was found.

When we first saw her, she came from behind a huge snowbank at the end of our driveway, just as we got out of our car. We had been to an "elegant dining" event at my mother-in-law's nursing home and were just getting home. As I stepped out of the car, I heard DH say, "Well, hello little pit, where did you come from?" And then this very thin white and gray pit bull with cruelly cropped ears and hanging teats, who had obviously recently had puppies, timidly approached him.

She let us both pat her and the next thing you know she was following us up the front steps. The forecast was for the temperature to plummet to 17 degrees overnight. What could we do but bring her in?

Diva started barking when she heard and smelled a strange dog, but we were able to hustle the new arrival into the kitchen and keep her there with gates overnight. We started off the next day by giving her a much-needed bath and clipping her over-long nails. Here is what she looked like right after we found her.

We then took her to the vet and learned she had mange and had to have shots of ivermectin and special medicated baths. After a few days it became clear that she was now our dog. She wasn't going anywhere and we had fallen in love with her by then. We think she was used for breeding and then dumped when the last puppies were gone. 

We learned later on that she had approached another house in our neighborhood just before we came home, and they had not let her in. At that point she must have seen our car drive up and ran up the street to greet us.

We named her Angel because she came out of the dark like a white apparition. Her personality matches the description as well, since she is as sweet as can be and all she ever wants to do is sit as close to her people as possible. In the beginning she would run out in the yard to do her business and run right back in again as if she was afraid she might get locked out.

Now, after three years, she is much more confident. She and Diva have become great friends and make a wonderful team; especially when they're begging for food! And, she's not skinny anymore!

Of course, things aren't completely perfect. Angel has a very strong prey drive and apparently wants to eat our cat Baxter. He has to stay upstairs now, separated from Angel, as we still have not managed to train her out of trying to chase him. 

However, Baxter and Diva sleep on the bed with us at night, so he does get his share of attention. Plus we have been bringing him up to our cabin in the Adirondacks when we were still going up there - he actually seems to enjoy it. He gets the whole loft to himself and can look down on whatever we are doing and lord it over the dogs.

So, anyway, back to the snow. 

Sunday night we are supposed to get yet another snowstorm, and I really don't know if I can face it. Here it is, March 1, with possibly 8-12 inches of snow bearing down on us. Many other years we've been able to go up to the cabin by this time of year, but not this time. It has been so cold that we haven't been able to go there since early December. We truly have cabin fever this year, in more ways than one! 

Picture courtesy of BitStrips(R)

So basically I've been a hermit for the past several months. I sit around most of the day on Facebook; it's amazing how fast the day goes. While Facebook is indeed a big time-sucker, on the other hand most of my Facebook friends post links to interesting articles and news items, which I find very educational. Plus I have some really good discussions with many of them. (Of course, that's because a lot of my Facebook friends I first met through the blogging world!) 

I haven't even gone out to go grocery shopping if I can help it. I have discovered the joys of Peapod, the grocery delivery service used by Stop-n-Shop. It is remarkably reasonable - only $6.96 for delivery of all orders over $100, which is easy to reach with very little effort! Plus you give the driver a tip. But it's worth it to have it all delivered to my door, especially when there are heavy things like cat litter or bird seed! Too bad there isn't a wine delivery service as well!

I also keep busy with local goings-on. I write articles about my town's council meetings and occasionally planning, zoning or other board meetings, for a local blog called Baristanet.com, which includes news, restaurant reviews, and other information about several towns in our area. My mother would be happy I'm finally doing something with my communications degree, for what it's worth.

There has certainly been no shortage of news in our town. We've become a national spectacle because of an incident where our local police were caught on video pulling a car over on the highway and then proceeding to beat up the driver. All the facts have not come out yet, but the video is pretty clear that the man was being hit even after he was in handcuffs, and that his hands were up when the police first approached the car. This came on the heels of another scandal where the acting police chief accused one of the councilmen of trying to coerce favors from him. Both incidents are now under investigation by the county prosecutor's office. So, never a dull moment in our little town.

I think I have caught you up on the main events in my life for now. Next time I may have Baxter post! I know he is very popular with all his fans, and he has lots to talk about, I am sure, after all this time.

A Cat's Eye View

Baxter here. I am finally ready to Blog again after a Long Absence. As you Know, my Humans have procured a New Dog, and I am Not Happy About It.

Because the New Dog, Angel (Ceiling Cat knows why they picked THAT Name for her), is Bad With Cats, I, Baxter, have to Suffer. I am confined to the Second Floor so the New Dog doesn't chase me down and possibly Do Damage to Me. Of course, I have my Own Room, complete with All My Toys and my Scratching Post Perch thing, my Box and everything I need. And I can go into the other Rooms on that Floor, including the Bedroom where my Humans and That Dog, the one they call Diva, sleep. So I do get Some Attention.

But I'd like to continue to come Downstairs and sit with the Humans when That Dog is sleeping, as I did Before. But until the New Dog gets used to Me, I guess I'll have to put up with the Situation. She has come to my gate when I was in my Room and looked at Me. Once I gave a Mighty Hiss and Growl and she seemed Intimidated. But the next time she just Barked at Me.

So. Here I am, finally ready to Blog about Current Events. But the Current Events have been So Horrendous in the past Few Weeks that I don't know where to Begin. I'm going to Skip the most Tragic events such as the Terrible Events in Japan. So, that leaves Me with...Libya.

OK, so like the other Countries where the people are Revolting (well, the PEOPLE aren't revolting, they are staging a Revolt), Libya has its own Revolt going too. Unfortunately the Human, if You can call him that, Qaddafhi or Gadhafi or whatever Crazy Spelling you want to Use for him, threatened to Kill all the people who are Protesting. So our Country, in its Infinite Wisdom, has decided to Get Involved. We didn't Get Involved with any of the Other Revolts, but who am I, a Mere Cat, to Question the Government?

From what I understand, Other Countries asked us to Get Involved. And it is a Coalition Force, acting on a UN Resolution. Sounds Vaguely Familiar to me. What was that war called? Korea? Oh, wait, it was a "Police Action." Wonder what they will call This after the Fact? Jon Stewart had a few ideas:

The Daily Show - Define and Conquer Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Turd Sandwich, Anyone?

Personally, as a Cat, I find it Foolish to Get Involved in what is basically a Civil War. If I am going along, Minding my Own Business, and see a big Catfight happening on the Other Side of the Street, you can bet I am not going to Get Involved. I certainly don't want to get in the Middle of it; it's a Good Way to Lose an Ear, or worse!

Of course, President Obama has said he's Not Getting Us Involved. He's just Protecting Civilians. He didn't seem to care that Much about Protecting Civilians in some of the Other Countries where Revolts are happening. Maybe we just Like their Dictators better.

At any rate, I hope this Ends Soon and we don't have another Big Mess on our hands. In the meantime, could the Pundits and Congresspeople ever think about the Economy once in awhile instead of Arguing over Every Last Thing that President Obama has ever supported or done? As My Favorite Human, Jon Stewart, noted, in the Eyes of the GOP, President Obama can't do Anything Right.

The Daily Show - America at Not-War Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

By the Way, my Female Human and her Friends were in the Live Audience at the show just Above. It was their Second Time there, and they are going to see Stephen Colbert next month. As a Cat, I would not be Allowed In, which makes me feel Discriminated Against. They also don't let Kids Under 18 in. I guess it's because All Those Words that get beeped on the TV show are said Quite Clearly in the studio. But Come On, what Teenager doesn't Already Know those Words?

Well, that's About It from MY end Today. Oh, before I go, How do you Like the New Format? My Female Human suggested that I Make Some Changes in honor of Spring, to perhaps encourage it to Show Up. So far, she tells Me, all these Sunny Days I observe from my Window, are still Very Cold and Windy. Let's hope that Changes Soon.

In the Meantime, keep hitting the Catnip and hope we are not Now Involved in Yet Another Costly War in an Unfriendly Country.

Farewell to Little Cat -- And, Hello to a New Dog

Sorry for not being around for awhile. I have some sad news - Little Cat (Zoe) started going downhill over the past few weeks, and about four days ago she lost interest in her food. So we took her to the vet on Thursday and they gave her IV fluids and nourishment, but it didn't help this time. She was just fading away. So we took her home and let her be in her own little bed. She spent a quiet day yesterday and slipped away a little after 7:30 p.m. last night. I'm glad she went so peacefully. She looked as if she was just asleep.

The vet had her down as 15 years old, but we've long thought she was older than that. My mother had gotten her at a shelter so her real age wasn't actually known at the time she adopted her. We knew when we got her after my mom died that she wouldn't be with us for that long. I'm just glad she had so many good times up at the cabin with us and that her last months were so pleasant.

In the meantime, we have decided to keep Angel, the pit bull who showed up at our house three weeks ago on a freezing cold night. She was probably used for breeding, as she had obviously recently had puppies. She was also emaciated, very smelly, and had very long toenails, as if she was never walked. After she had a bath we took her to the vet and she got her shots. She's completely housebroken, and sweet as can be. Her only flaw is she goes nuts when she sees cats and small dogs. But we hope training will help. Angel is gaining weight every week and is looking really good now.

Unfortunately, we also realized that she has an itchy skin condition which the vet and I think must be mange. The vet didn't find any mites when she did a skin scraping, but sometimes they don't show up. So we're treating her for mange. Luckily it isn't necessary to do horrible things like dip the dog in insecticide as they did in the old days. The vet gave her a shot of Ivermectin, which must be repeated in two weeks, and we have to shampoo her with a medicated shampoo once a week. It's always something! Sometimes I feel as if I live at the vet's office!

Luckily she and Diva get along well, amazingly enough. I thought Diva wouldn't put up with another dog, especially a female, but she is being surprisingly tolerant. We can even have them in the same room and they get along well. So we are keeping her. She is the most affectionate dog; all she wants to do is sit next to you and cuddle. She walks well on the leash, is great in the car, and just lives to please you. How anyone could have mistreated her like that is beyond me.

Here are her latest pictures. We gave her a toy and she was beside herself. She'd apparently never had one before.


This one is actually from about a week ago but I love the way she cocks her head (which is why it is a little blurry as we captured her doing it!).


So, that's the news from our household. I'll be back again soon and may actually write something of substance now that things are calming down around here. Hope to be visiting your blogs more too!

A Cat's Eye View

Baxter here. I'm finally Back. Sorry to have been Out of Touch, but I had a Health Issue over New Year's Weekend. My Humans went away to that Cabin place with Little Cat and That Dog, and left me here to fend for Myself as usual. But I didn't feel Good.

When they returned, I hid under the Bed and wouldn't come out. Finally I did come out and then stayed All Night by my Litter Box, just lying there, and refused to Eat. My Female Human then stuck me in that Zippered-Up Bag they put me in to Travel in, and dragged me to that place they call "The Vet." I was Not Pleased; especially when they shaved some Fur off my chest and stuck me with a Needle. Most uncomfortable. It turned out I had Something called Anemia and they didn't know why, plus I'd lost 3 pounds; I was down to a svelte 19 pounds.

So my Humans started giving me some Pills that made me Hungry and I started gobbling down Wet Cat Food, something I don't usually like to do; I've always been a Dry Food Type of Cat. But I figured why not - Little Cat has been getting All the Attention. Now it's My Turn. I started being Finicky and only eating Fishy Tasting Stuff. (I'll sneak Dry Food once in awhile when I'm sure the Humans aren't watching though). I'm off the Appetite Pills and doing Fine.

They still don't know what was wrong but I'm back to my Old Self and am feeling Quite Perky. Losing a little Weight didn't hurt me any; I have started Running up and down the Stairs again in the Middle of the Night as I used to do when I was Younger. My Human says she'll take me back for a Check-Up in a month or two and make sure my Anemia is gone. But since I'm acting Healthy she isn't as worried now.

However, something Else has happened since then. My Humans seem to have found Another Dog. Mind you, I haven't gone anywhere near It. But I've seen It from my safe perch on the Bed in the Spare Room.

From what I understand, The Other Dog appeared out of the Dark on Thursday Night and seemed lost, so the Humans took It in. Apparently It's a Girl because my Humans say she recently had Puppies. She was Very Skinny, had Really Long Nails and could hardly walk on them Properly, and smelled Very Bad. They gave her a Bath and took her to the Vet. Now she's getting ear drops for an Ear Infection, but is Very Healthy otherwise. I heard my Female Human saying something about her having had Shots and that she will be Spayed in a month, whatever THAT is.

My Personal Dog, the one I usually complain about, is Unhappy. I think she's Jealous of the New Dog. If she's Not Happy the Humans will have to find Another Home for the New Dog. I think they call her Angel. I don't really know why, because, as a Cat, I can vouch for the fact that NO Dog is an Angel. Far from it. But that's what they call her.

So, the Household has been Disrupted ever since the New Year. Little Cat and I are eating lots of Wet Food and there are Dishes of food lying around All Over, the New Dog is kept in the Kitchen to keep her Separate from the Old Dog. The Old Dog can't get out in the Yard through the Kitchen so My Humans have to walk her more than Ever. (That she's probably Happy about). The New Dog gets Jealous if the Humans pay attention to the Old Dog, and Vice Versa. It's a Real Circus around here.

Just thought I should check in and let you know What's Happening around the Maui Household. There has been Lots of News I haven't been able to keep up on, but either my Human or I will be back soon with some Updates. Oh, and here is a Picture of The New Dog. Anyone want to Adopt her so this Place can get back to Normal?