nsfw or anytime you don't want your eye makeup to run

i wish i could still think of witty, cute, or meaningful titles for my blog.

but i can't.

anyway, i know i'm still a bad blogger.  my only excuse is lack of time.  between my work at home gig and piercing, i'm working 55-60 hours a week.  and i'm still in school full time.

granted, it's online school.  but it's still a lot of work.  and last week i had two finals due.

i got my jellyfish filled in last week.  i think it looks pretty fucking sweet.  i know nicki wants to see it.

eee it's a jellyfish!

 that's when it was new and fresh.  now it's scaly and oozy.  so, you know.  that photo is better.

last week was also my birthday.  it was the same as any other day, except awesome husband came home from work early and we went to benihana.  and ate A LOT.

 

already full of hibachi deliciousness and sushi.  and ONE mai tai.  it was my birthday.

now the week before THAT (keep up now, we're talking march 7th and 8th) we had a bit of a thing happen here.

my oldest cat, taylor handsome aka papacat, always slept on the foot of our bed.  that wednesday morning he stretched and yowled and jumped down like normal to go get breakfast with awesome husband, just like every morning.

i slept lateish because it was going to be a busy afternoon/evening at work-at-home gig and my brother stopped in on his way to work to say goodbye to me and papacat.  papacat yowled and snuggled like he always did.

a little later that morning, i heard him jump off the bed - nothing strange.  all of the cats make a thud when they jump off the bed.  it has nothing to do with their size (i swear that jake is not fat) and more with the way the house is built.  i was in the kitchen so i peeked down the hallway to say hi as he came walking towards me.

what i saw was not good.  and is not easily described.  he was listing and stumbling.  a few steps and he's take a tumble.  he'd get back up and do it again.  i ran down the hallway to pick him up and he just looked at me.  no yowling or mewing or anything.

i took him back to the bedroom and put him on the bed.  taylor kind of hunched over and, after a minute, tried to take a few steps.  and tumbled headfirst.  i settled him back down and grabbed the phone to call the vet.  i tried to explain what was happening but i couldn't.  they told me to bring him down in about an hour.  i took my macbook pro into the bedroom and sat with him while we waited.  he just kind of looked at me still.  no sound.  i checked all his limbs, thinking maybe he hurt himself jumping.

he had done that once before - tweaked his hip.  you should have heard the noises he made when we manipulated it.  that hip injury earned taylor weeks of anti inflammatory medication and painkillers.  but this time, when i manipulated any of his legs, joints, feet - he just looked at me.  no sound.

i really started freaking out.

he wanted to jump off the bed and do something, so i put him on the floor.  taylor walked in a couple of circles and tumbled again.  i put him right back on the bed and snuggled him.  when it was time to go to the vet, i put him in the carrier with no fight.  and taylor was ALWAYS a fighter when it came to those damn crates.  but no fight this time.

the vet checked all his limbs.  there was blood flowing to his feet because they were still warm and stuff, but he just didn't care if we poked at him.  he still hadn't meowed this entire time.  she checked his belly and back - everything seemed fine.  we decided to do some blood work to see if his kidneys had finally given up.  taylor made a couple of half assed yowls while he was back there, but they made me sadder because they weren't as hearty and loud and blood curdling as his usual yowls.  as i waited in the exam room with taylor, we just cuddled.

papacat and i resting in the vet's exam room.  just waiting.

as you can see, he was just lying on me.  taylor was very limp at this point.  when i would pick him up under his arms, he'd still stretch like always, but then he'd settle back down like this.

the vet came back in - his kidneys were actually functioning BETTER than the last time we'd done blood work in september.  there was nothing wrong with him that the blood work was showing.  the vet said she wanted to try giving him an anti inflammatory (just in case), an antibiotic in case he was fighting something off, and some fluids.  so he got a little mouthy about the injections, just a short 'mrow' to let us know he didn't love it, and we gave him some fluids.  i had her show me how to, just in case it helped and we would have to give them at home.  i put papacat and his saddlebags into the carrier and went home.

within hours, there was a noticeable difference - he was even less interested in anything around him.  he didn't want to pick his head up - i'd hold it up for him and he'd just let it drop back to his pillow.  taylor kept trying to get up and walk - i'd left him on the bed.  so i picked him up to see where he needed to go.  the answer is the litter box but we didn't quite make it.  i was so worried i didn't have time to get grossed out.  i cuddled him in a towel, put him back on the bed, cleaned up, and called the vet.  she said if i couldn't handle it, we could hospitalize him for the night, but it might take more than a couple of hours to see any positive change if anything positive was going to happen.  she suggested a more confining bed.

so i pulled out the bed purchased for jake that all the motherfucking cats hated, but was like a fuzzy three sided box.  i bundled taylor up in his towel and snuggled him in the box bed.  he settled right down.  he'd never slept in a bed in his life.  he always hated them.

i took good care of him.  he wouldn't eat.  he licked a bit of milk off my fingers.  he slept in that box bed next to my bed that night.  i woke up every couple of hours to check on him.

the next morning, things were no better.  i called the vet to make an appointment that night and had bed cuddles with him one more time.

 

sleepytimes papacat and me with no makeup on.

that's how i held him most of the day.  i put him in his bed on the floor while i took a shower and when i had to take pee breaks, but while i was working at home on the computer - i cuddled him.  i got the blanket my mom made that he usually slept on and swaddled him in that.  i made it like a sling almost and kept him with me the entire day.

awesome husband came home a bit early so he could shower and stuff in time to take us to the vet.  at 5:45, i snuggled taylor up and brought him to the car in his blanket.  i refused to put him in the crate for his last car ride.

and it was peaceful.  he was so sleepy and out of it already, he barely noticed when the vet gave him a mild sedative so the IV wouldn't be a problem.  i held taylor in his blanket until he was gone.  i whispered to him that he'd be happy and healthy soon.  i asked taylor to say hi to mom for me when he found her - because i know they'll be together again.

as soon as he passed, awesome husband stopped crying.  it took me a few more minutes, but we stayed with him until i composed myself and we walked out of the vet's office with an empty blanket.

rip papacat, taylor handsome.  9/7/1995-3/8/2012

i love you, BUT...

i love my cats. they're all so different and special and wonderful. MOST OF THE TIME. piglet is just weird, with her aversions to food and cuddling. and samantha... well, we didn't call her 'little baby retard' for nothing. the whole not-being-able-to-smell thing makes life interesting. and taylor is basically my fur brother. he's been around for half of my life, and i love him to bits.

BUT.

now that he's older, mostly deaf, and in kidney failure, he seems to have developed some old man habits. like the yowling. i feel like i've written this blog already.

oh wait - i have. he does this almost every. fucking. night.

let's go through taylor's day.

6am ish: the sun is just barely starting to lighten the sky. mom troops out of her bedroom to shove taylor outside. he stalks around the perimeter of the patio, surveying the landscape, and shouts a bit at the cats across they way if they are out. by the time i wake up and open the blinds around 8ish, he's curled up on one of 'his' chairs, soaking up the sun (in the 83 degree heat. i don't know how he does it).

9am: the other cats may want to go out. usually samantha. if taylor is over by the table, she'll stop to say hi. they may swat at each other a couple of times, then go to sleep. taylor may or may not have moved over to lie on top of our patio table. it has a glass top and appears to be cooler. *shrug* or something. he may clean at this time.

10:15am: taylor wants a snack. he does cat stretching and then sits on the very edge of the table, and peers through the patio door waiting for someone to look at him. the second you do, he meows with his rumbly, purry meow. and does it over and over again until you get him.

NOT until you open the door. but until you actually go outside and CARRY him into the house. i'm not fucking kidding. then you have to walk WITH him down the hallway to the kitchen, where his food dish is. he may at this time go to the litter box like a good boy. then he wants to go back out.

he'll either lie on the ceramic tiles or on the fucking table until 4pm ish. he may require another trip to the litter box around 3pm, but this is not a normal occurrence. but 4pm ish is when all three cats decide it's close enough to dinner time to start making a nuisance of themselves. they yowl, they fight, they pick at the upholstery. samantha will sit in front of mom's bedroom door while mom's working and give these pitiful, LOUD yowly cries. nice.

5pm ish: this is generally when they eat. if you feed taylor inside, he will immediately vomit his dinner up. so we feed him outside, where for some reason, he only vomits up his dinner about 15% of the time. then he goes back to his cycle of cleaning and sleeping.

6pm-8:30pm: he does sleep most of this time. but he will also go back to sitting on the edge of the table, peering in at us. he can see the couch, and that's where awesome husband and i sit most of the night. the second we make eye contact, he starts shouting at us. if you open the door, he looks at you like you have six heads. very rarely, he will jump down to meet you, and either will just say hi and rub on you, or come in for another snack or surprise trip to the litter box.

10:45pm ish: we bring taylor in. he has a snack. he sits on a bed for like four minutes, and then goes and yowls by the door to be let back out. we bring him back to bed. you must lie down with him until his ass hits the bed and he starts cleaning before you can trust him to stay there.

11:50pm-12:15am: this is when he will make his first nightly bid for freedom. taylor will go push his head through the closed vertical blinds, shouting and yelling to go out. i usually grab him and either shove him in mom's room, or bring him to our bed.

2am ish: escape attempt two. this lasts much longer, since we're all usually deeply asleep by now. either myself or mom will be slowly roused from sleep by the incessant, throaty, loud, annoying yowl of taylor as he shuffles the vertical blinds around. whoever gets up first will bring him to bed.

3:15am ish: attempt three. i usually get up for this one. i bring him to bed with me, where he will not settle down but runs off to the patio doors again, yowling. so i grab him, snuggle him up next to awesome husband, and awesome husband will initiate cuddling with taylor *without waking up*. i go back to sleep.

4am: attempt four. mom or awesome husband usually gets this one. whoever gets him brings him back to bed.

5-5:30 am: attempt five. taylor will yowl especially loud at this time, perhaps because he realizes it is close to the time when mom will lose her fucking rag and finally shove him outside. i generally take this one, and force-cuddle him while watching home movies on adult swim.

6am ish: taylor runs off for the sixth and final attempt, which is not so much an 'attempt' as it is 'annoy the living fuck out of mom so she stumbles out of bed in her nighty and opens the patio door, cursing quietly the entire way'. this escape has been known to rouse awesome husband, which pisses him off since he usually wakes up around 7am, and you know how hard it is to get back to sleep during that last hour of sleepytime.

taylor was at it all. night. long last night. i must have gotten up five times to drag him back to bed and try to settle him off to boboland. i cursed him all night long, every time i woke up and grabbed him. i kept explaining to him that you can't go outside in the middle of the fucking night, because people might try to steal him (i know, i know. i live in perpetual fear of someone catnapping my kittehs). or because we can't let him in and out to use the box.

taylor just doesn't listen. i wonder if there are sleeping pills for cats? or if we keep waking him up all day long, if he'll sleep more through the night?

this is why i don't have kids: i have kittehs.