I would really like to be working. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I feel tremendously guilty about not bringing in any money, and instead being a big, expensive, city-dwelling drain on the bank account.
I’ve been wondering why it’s been so hard, not just to find a job, I get that, the economy sucks, I’m looking for something part-time, I’m kind of picky and I’ve reached the stage in life where I feel the need to enjoy what I’m doing… What I don’t understand is why it’s been so difficult to motivate myself to SEARCH for a job.
Of course that can also be attributed to adjusting to a new city and the search itself being demoralizing, but I’m usually pretty gogogo about things, and I just haven’t been since I got here. Or so I thought. And then I realized that when I first got here, I was pretty gogogo, and I looked at when things changed.
I was pretty active and organized in August. And September. Even in early October, I was posting a lot here and trying to figure out what Chicagosity would be. But suddenly, everything just stopped. No energy, no activity on the blog, I was working on a show, so that kept me a bit busy, along with my weekly dates with Heather, but otherwise, I spent a lot of time being pretty listless and lethargic.
Was it the enormity of the move finally getting to me? Or the distance from my husband?
Maybe. But having had the two weeks I’ve just lived through, with more of the same to come for the forseeable future, I think it was something else entirely. Something small and furry and very, very old. I think caring for Katala, our geriatric CRF cat, has taken more of my time, focus and energy than I’d realized.
Looking back at my energy patterns, I can see how the shift parallels my visit to Minneapolis in October. Not that the trip was an issue, but that a few days before, both Katala and Imogen were diagnosed with urinary tract infections. Not surprising, considering the stress of the move on their little systems. Then I rushed Imogen to the emergency room the following weekend, and rather than getting better over the ensuing week, she continued to get worse, until we realized that switching her to the KD because of her age and kidney damage had exacerbated the effects of the antibiotics on her system. Once she came off the KD and went back to the WD food, she rallied quite quickly. But Katala never really did.
I spent the fall worrying about a sweet Old Lady who just didn’t seem very comfortable most of the time. Who would curl up behind me in my chair and spend the day sleeping. Her bright, sweet, active personality nowhere to be seen. Until I started giving her some oral electrolytes twice a day. Then my girl came back. For a while.
She flagged again just before Christmas, the two long-ish stays at the vet were partly to blame, I suspect. She didn’t get her electrolytes and she’s never coped very well with being boarded. But she was slowly coming back when the next development occurred, shortly after the first of the year. Vomiting. Every morning. At 6:00am.
That happened for two mornings. I thought the first was a hairball. Then it happened again. I dosed her with probiotics. She didn’t barf the next morning. But did again the morning after. And the morning after. Which is when I called the vet. Who said, “It may be stomach acid production. Try ¼ Pepcid AC every evening before bedtime.”
We talked about Katala’s issues with medications. Her system is so sensitive that she reacts BADLY to many, many things, but the Pepcid shouldn’t have been a problem. And it wasn’t. For five lovely days, I had my girl back again. Better than she’d been in months. Until the morning I woke up to Imogen’s hairball hacking and discovered diarrhea all over the wall by my head because Katala had got it on her tail when using the litterbox.
So I took her off the Pepcid and started giving her the probiotics. Again. Things seemed to be clearing up, though her tummy acid was obviously beginning to bother her. She’d been off the Pepcid for four days when I took her into the vet on Wednesday. Diarrhea isn’t supposed to be a side effect of the Pepcid. But it seemed to be the only change in her lifestyle (the vet suggested that overeating due to feeling better might be a culprit). Whatever the cause, she got better with probiotics and coming off the Pepcid. But she needed the Pepcid to feel better and not vomit. The vet and I agreed to try limiting the Pepcid to ¼ tablet every other day, perhaps even every third day, if Katala’s system seemed to be okay with that. And to continue the probiotics to help.
I gave Katala a Pepcid on Wednesday night. Within an hour and ten minutes, she was her happy little self again. I gave her a probiotic too. And for the first time in five days, I slept through the night. She was fine all day yesterday. Last night, she was still fine, so I didn’t give her another Pepcid. But I also didn’t give her a probiotic. Because her system seemed to be handling things just fine, and I didn’t want to stress her overmuch.
Which brings us to this evening. When I discovered diarrhea on her tail again.
So far since then she’s had a dose of the probiotic paste which should help stop the diarrhea, a probiotic capsule to get her gut back into shape, a squirt of electrolytes because the diarrhea had to have depleted her, and just now, 1/5 of a Pepcid tablet because I couldn’t quite cut it into something as small as eighths. I had to give her the Pepcid. Her tummy was clearly bothering her.
It was after I had cleaned her up, and the couple of spots on the floor, that I realized I no longer had any desire to cut up the vegetables I’d brought home from the store this afternoon. Or read more of Conversations with Arthur Miller, which I’d been enjoying today. Or do any of the other things I’d planned for this evening. I was out of energy. Brought on by the stress of once again worrying so much about this sweet little animal—one of the nicest people I’ve ever known—and whether I was making the best choices for her. I mean, how do you decide whether to give an animal something you know will make them sick in one way to simply keep them from being sick in another?
I don’t want to extend her life beyond her happiness and comfort. Right now, aside from the runs and the barfing, she’s okay. She’s maintaining weight, her fur is soft and shiny. The Pepcid always brings her happy attitude back; when her tummy is feeling good, she’s flirty and demanding and snuggly and sweet and happy. She purrs nonstop when she’s feeling good. But what if the probiotics don’t help with the intestinal issues while she stays on the Pepcid? Clearly I was stupid for not giving her one last night. But will I be able to get her system back under control this time? Or am I consigning both of us to weeks of unhappiness for moments of comfort?
I don’t know.
All I do know for sure is that since she started to go downhill in October, when she didn’t bounce back like she had all of the other times, I haven’t been able to really give my focus to much of anything. I had the horrible thought today, “I’ll probably be able to go out and get a job once she’s gone.” Who knows if that’s true? I could be devastated and exhausted and no better off than I am now. But it was that thought that made me look back on the last five months and realize how much of an effect first the double-whammy of her and Imogen and now the protracted Katala illness has really had on me.
The last time I had a cat in the final stages of CRF, I was in graduate school. The first semester was excruciating for a number of reasons, mostly because I was doing grad school and dealing with the cat alone. The second semester became much easier, because I could trade off interrupted sleep nights with Dave. And I knew that when the time came to say goodbye, he’d be there.
None of that is true this time. I have no busywork to occupy my brain. Dave has other commitments elsewhere, and so can’t be here to swap off nights with me. So it’s all me. And because of those other commitments he has, followed by the two weeks of out of town commitments I have, if Katala needs to go before the middle of March, one of us will not be here when the time comes. I don’t know if I can make that decision on my own. I hope I won’t have to. I’m hoping Dave won’t have to. I’m praying that the probiotics and the smaller dosages will maybe do the trick and keep her entire digestive tract chugging along. Let’s hope.
In the meantime, I’m going to keep looking for a job, but I’m going to cut myself a little slack. I’ve been a full-time caregiver with very few breaks. No wonder I can’t summon the energy to do much of anything else.