The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
The big boy was a lot more lively this morning. He went for a poo, almost made a break for freedom, had a large drink of water, ate a full portion of food and then did a spot of grooming.
All of which pleases me to no extent.
Current Mood:
Happy
From the campus for-sale mailing list:
Free to a good home, young goat called George.
Anybody having designs on making curry goat need not apply ;-)
Current Mood:
Amused
I’ve uploaded some pictures that I’d had lying around my digital camera for a while. For your viewing pleasure, I give you:
The nursery:
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/nursery/
Katy’s second visit to Addenbrookes
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/katy_addenbrookes_2008/
Reenie, when she managed to jump out the bedroom window(*)
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/irina/slides/dscf6075.html
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/irina/slides/dscf6076.html
(*) I’d been vacuuming and, given how cats and vacuums get along together, she freaked out and jumped out the bedroom window while I was doing the bedroom and nursery. I only realized she’d done so about 30 minutes later when I heard her miewing from behind the bedroom curtains.
Current Mood:
Rushed
It’s been a long, long week and there is no sign it’s going to get better.
First off, the good-ish news. Tolstoy is back home and is on the mend, even though things are still rough around the edges with him. His jaw is only broken in the one, usual place and has been wired together without the need for reconstructive surgery. His pelvis is fractured but should only require cage rest to heal properly. His lungs are bruised but that should clear up by itself. His feeding tube was removed when they found that it was pushing against the back of his throat and was making him gag and cough. He seems to be able to eat soft food – he just doesn’t do it often enough for our taste. We went to see him twice over the weekend and he seemed to be ok. He spend the whole time we were there on Saturday curled up to Katy’s bump, though he was much livelier on sunday and was making good progress at standing on his hind legs and walking around. He’s been passing urine and feces, so there are no problems on those ends either (which had been a concern, given the location of the fracture). So, all in all, the boy is going to be ok, or rather, his chances of doing so are good.
We bought a large dog crate and kitted him up well, so he’s living in the sitting room at the moment. We just hope he doesn’t get too depressed about not being able to wander for the next two months. He’s still lethargic and off his food at the moment, so we need to keep an eye on him.
Stephane kindly drove him and I up to the vets in Milton again last night, in shit weather I might add, because we were worried that we might have injured him while trying to give him some antibiotics that morning. He does not like them and, in attempting to break free of Katy’s hold (I didn’t feel confident to do it), he fell backwards in his litter tray. Katy phoned me at work later on that day and said that every time he tried to use his litter tray, he’d cry out in pain :( Hence, the trip to the vets that night. They said he didn’t have a fever and that poking and prodding him didn’t seem to cause him pain so they gave him a shot of long-acting antibiotics and sent him back home. We’re still playing around with his food to find something that he’ll be interested in eating.
Reenie, in the meantime, really isn’t too sure what to make of the whole situation. She’s hissed in the general direction of the cage a few times, but we’re hoping that it’s just because Tolstoy doesn’t smell like his normal feline self after a trip to the vet and an operation.
I’ll say it again as well, thank god for insurance. His vet bill so far? Around £1275 or (about 2500$ CAD). We’ve only had to pay the first £65 and the cost of the dog crate. Makes a rather large difference.
So now the bad news. Katy’s been admitted to Addenbrookes again. We had the usual afternoon delight of 5 clinic appointments yesterday afternoon. Her sugar levels are still high, so they’ve played around with her insulin levels and have put her on tablets that will make her more sensitive to insulin (so hopefully she’ll respond better to what she’s taking). Her blood pressure was higher than usual though, and they didn’t like that. We’ve both been stressed about the whole Tolstoy situation, but it seems that that’s not good enough an explanation. A medical student prescribed her beta-blockers (until I caused a bit of fuss and bother when I told them that there were multiple notes in her file indicating that she shouldn’t take them because they send her body temperature completely out of whack. The last time they tried that, she was complaining about freezing all the time when physically, she was so warm to the touch that it was uncomfortable to sleep next to her). So yeah. No BBs. That caused a bit of a stir, so finally they decided that they were going to try and up the dosage of the meds she’s currently taking. Her options were to either be admitted that night or to come back in the following morning for observation. They were concerned about the possibility of her blood pressure going too low.
They shouldn’t have been worried, as it turns out, because her BP is still too high for their liking this morning so they’ve admitted her. If they can stabilize her BP in the next few days, she’ll be allowed to come back home. If not, there is the distinct possibility that she’s going to be in the hospital until her induction date. That was supposed to be at 38 weeks, but I’m thinking that this might be moved forwards to 37 weeks.
Things were going so well until last Tuesday. Now? stress!
It’s really frustrating right now. The only bus that goes from Hinxton to the hospital is a joke. It only runs once every hour and is notoriously unreliable. It also stops service at 6:30 pm so if I want to go see Katy after work, I can get to Cambs using the work shuttle but I need to take a cab to get home – and that’s £20 a ride. Stephane can give me lifts back home once in a while, but there are still limits on how much I can abuse his generosity. I’m not worried about groceries and shit like that, because I can have most everything I need delivered. The whole situation is just very stressful and all this shit seems to all have decided to rain down all at once. The timing of it sucks as well, because we only managed to get one ante-natal class in and this week’s session – which we’re going to miss – dealt about the various pain relief methods available during birth and the how the whole induction process works. Right now, this information seems very important indeed. Next week’s session – which I have no idea if we’ll get to or not – deals with what to do with a baby once you have it. Which, ya know, also kind of important when you have no idea what you’re doing. So yeah.
Worry, worry, worry! Fret, fret, fret!
One part of my brain, the small part that is still a bit rational, tells me that things are actually ok. Tolstoy is stable. Katy is being looked after. They’re not just going to chuck us home with a baby without telling us the basics of how to care for it and we can pick the rest up as we go along. Somehow, in the middle of all this, I take a bit of comfort in knowing that most of our Christmas shopping is done. Somehow, this seems very important to me right now. I think I’m rather insane, but there you go.
More randomness. Our next-door-but-one neighbour is in the same ante-natal classes as we are, so that means they’re due soon-ish as well. We were hoping to get introduced to them on Thursday so that Katy would have somebody to have tea with in the village and talk baby-shop-talk.
Yet more randomness. We went to mothercare last weekend and bought the last of the bedding that Katy insisted we get. Her nesting instincts were yelling that we didn’t have enough sheets and covers, so we bought bumpers for the cotbed, as well as sheets and cellular blankets galore. The nursery is pretty much ready to greet Ben, so that’s one less worry – which is always good. I’ve taken pictures of the nursery and I’ll be putting them online some time today.
So much for work today. Katy being admitted threw me for a loop. My productivity in the last 3 months (pretty much since all of Katy’s health gremlins started making their presence felt) has been, for lack of a better word, shit. I’m having great difficulty focusing on work right now. I seem to have a lot on my mind.
Current Mood:
Worried
Katy had her many appointments at Addenbrookes yesterday and all is well. Her blood pressure is good, her blood sugars are acceptable in the sight of the diabetic team and they say she’s doing all the right things – even if it is driving her up the walls – and the growth scan indicates that Ben is a healthy 5 pounds 10 ounces at the moment. That’s actually very good news because the last scan indicated that he was very big for the stage he was at and that might have been due to the diabetes. The curves are a lot healthier this week and the midwife on the ultrasound said that the last scan results were probably a blip caused by the fact that Ben was in a very awkward position. Since she was the one who took both scans, she’s very confident about this week’s scan because Ben was much more cooperative.
The end is now in sight. The obstetrics consultant said that they generally induce women with diabetes at 38 weeks, which is less than 24 days from now. A lot could still happen between now and then and circumstances might mean that it’s sooner than later but it won’t be later than mid-November.
That is all good news indeed. It had been a long day and I couldn’t be arsed to cook so we went to the pub for an impromptu celebratory dinner.
The bad news is that we had to take Tolstoy to the 24 hour vet tonight. He came in at 9 with blood in his mouth and looking in pain. We think he’s been hit by a car. The vet says that his jaw is broken, possibly in multiple places. They’re keeping him overnight on fluid and painkillers so that he stabilizes and they’ll take x-rays tomorrow and go from there.
The good-ish news is that it could be a lot worse. There was another cat who came at the same time as us with a broken jaw and a possible spinal fracture. To make matters worse, the owner wasn’t insured (we are, and that makes a very big difference when faced with a thousand pound bill). On the plus side for our grumpy boy, he had to jump the back fence to come in and was walking, albeit slowly. His vitals were stable and so far there’s no obvious internal trauma. The prognostic for a broken jaw is very good for a young cat in good health. If it’s just a question of money, the insurance will cover all of that. So, for now, we wait.
Current Mood: Worried
It’s been a while since I last posted something more meaningful than an article lamenting the decline of the US (still, there’s lots to lament). I have actual, honest-to-goodness content to post today, so I might as well get started.
Katy’s started coming on campus to have lunch with me a few times a week. It gets her out of her PJs and gives her the occasion to see Stephane and Sheila once in a while.
We went to the NCT nearly new sale two Sundays ago and got the last bits of baby clothing we wanted (mostly some sleep suits and something suitable for what passes for winter in this country). After the chaos that was the sale (imagine a few hundred mommies vying to get the best bargains in enclosed spaces – I’m surprised there wasn’t any bloodshed!), we went to Saffron Walden for a late lunch. We tried Dish, a place we’d walked by countless times before but finally decided to go in. We were happily surprised. The decor tries a bit too hard to be jazzy and stylish, but the food is fresh, tasty and they even catered to my various allergies without batting an eye.
We saw a hedgehog on the neighbour’s doorstep one evening last week. It was cute and spiky and wanted to be left alone, so we did.
Katy spent another long Tuesday at Addenbrookes, getting poked, prodded and smeared in ultrasound jelly. The good news is that her blood pressure seems to be stabilizing, as are her liver enzymes. The less good news is that her blood sugars are still all over the place and aren’t even considering playing nice. It seems that the more insulin they put her on, the worse off her sugar levels get. It makes no sense… We’re going to have a long, hard chat with the diabetic clinic midwives tomorrow to figure out what options we have. Katy’s almost taking more insulin than her mom, which is wrong on so many levels it defies description. On the upside though, Ben is still dancing the rumba on a daily basis so he seems to be doing fine.
We got the all-clear from Addenbrookes to go see Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall last Thursday evening. I’d taken Thursday and Friday off so we could take our time getting there and back. Turns out that Phil, a work colleague, was able to give us a lift to London in the afternoon because he and his missus also had tickets to go see the show.
It had taken me the better part of a day to get the tickets when they first went on sale (and the website melted down!) but it was so, so worth it! We were 6 rows from the stage! Most excellent :) The show was great and we’ll be buying it as soon as it comes out on DVD.
We had an al fresco picnic in the courtyard of the RAH before the show – chicken drumsticks, sausages, bread, cheese, olives and home-made coleslaw. All very yummy, but the experience would have been more pleasant if not the fact that we were freezing our butts off :)
We had a show pootle back to the hotel after the show. 20 Nevern Square is, by far, our favouritest hotel in London. The rooms are great (especially given the fact that they upgraded us to a suite both times we’ve been there) and the breakfast is kick-ass. We’d planned to go to the British Museum and the V&A on Friday but Katy was feeling less than stellar, so we headed back to Cambs on the train.
As you can see, Katy was tired and I was despairing at my ever-advancing hair loss.
We were expecting Lennart, Leen and their son Reuben for Sunday lunch, so we spent most of Saturday cleaning house and prepping culinary delights. I made a ham and roasted a chicken. I haven’t been impressed with the quality of the chickens Tesco is selling these days, so the menu changed from roast chicken to chicken, mushroom & bacon pie. It was very well received :) We spent a very nice afternoon talking about babies and cats.
Speaking of cats, our two are becoming increasingly clingy these days. Surprisingly so!
No, I don’t have a night-vision camera (but I do have Photoshop).
They had their first baby experience last night when Reuben was in a bouncy chair on the kitchen floor. Tolstoy was curious enough to try and sniff the strange creature, but his natural courage quickly reasserted itself and he scampered underneath the kitchen table.
This week sees us at Addenbrookes again on Tuesday, and then we continue our Christmas shopping. We’re getting it done early for several reasons, most notably because Katy is still on full pay at the moment and we want to get it done before Ben shows up :) We’re doing the bulk of it online – yay, internet shopping! We’re going to go to Scottsdale garden centre on the weekend to see their xmas display though. That’s always fun.
Oh, and I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – can I be a spoiled rotten cat in my next life, please?
Current Mood: Happy & 
Tired
After a worldwide vote, Montréal will represent the most expensive property on the new MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition game board. Latvia’s national capital, Riga, joins Montreal to round out the dark blue property group, the most prestigious property group in the popular game invented by Charles Darrow in 1935.
During a six-week period in early 2008, MONOPOLY fans from around the world voted for the global cities that they would like to see represented on the first-ever World edition game board. More than 5.6 million votes were cast for 70 world-class cities, which determined 20 of the 22 cities featured in the game. The 20 cities with the most write-in votes faced off in a bonus vote and the two with the most votes, Taipei and Gdynia, earned the brown property spaces on the game board.
“We hope that fans of the world’s most popular board game will enjoy buying, selling and trading real estate from around the globe in the new MONOPOLY game that they created with their votes,” said Helen Martin, Vice President of Global Marketing for toy and game-maker Hasbro, Inc.’s MONOPOLY brand. “We are thrilled that the first-ever global game board includes an interesting mix of cities that showcases the dynamic cultures, sights and history of the planet.”
The 22 cities that earned spots on the MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition are as follows, listed in order of property groupings with the highest rent properties listed first:
Along with the 22 property spaces featuring world-class global cities, the game will include updated Chance and Community Chest cards that highlight events and culturally relevant scenarios from countries around the world. Players may celebrate at Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, organize an international music festival or host a St. Patrick’s Day festival in Dublin. Additionally, the tokens, houses and hotels reflect icons and styles from all seven continents.
The new MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition will be available in stores around the world starting on August 26, 2008 in more than 50 countries and in 37 different languages.
Current Mood: Amused
Rob Sandler comforted his infant son as he lifted him out of the crib, cooing in his ear while he walked to the living room. “Something didn’t feel right,” says Rob Sandler, who developed a male version of postpartum depression.
If his baby had needed to be soothed three months ago, Sandler, 36, of Houston, Texas, might have handed the baby off to his wife and then found an excuse to leave the house. “Honestly, it felt like when I was at home, the walls became very, very close in. I wouldn’t say claustrophobic, but very cabin feverish,” Sandler said. It turned out that Sandler, a medical device salesman, had more than cabin fever. He recently got an official diagnosis: He has a male version of postpartum depression.
“This comes as quite a shock to men who are expecting this wonderful time of baby bliss with the new baby and a time of bonding,” said Will Courtenay, a San Francisco, California-based psychotherapist and founder of Saddaddy.com, who is a leading expert in the United States on paternal postnatal depression.
“Each day in the U.S., 1,000 new dads become depressed, and according to some studies that number is as high as 3,000. That’s as many as one in four news dads who become depressed.”
“We hear this from a lot of men,” Courtenay said. “They can’t stand to be around their baby…they can’t stand the smell or the sound of their child screaming.” Video Health Minute: Watch more on dads and postpartum depression »
Courtenay said a number of factors may cause the depressed feelings. “It’s likely that sleep deprivation plays a major role,” he said. “Hormones may also play a role.” According to Courtenay, “It’s a double whammy. Not only do our testosterone levels go down, but our estrogen levels go up and these female hormones coursing through our body can really wreak havoc on a man’s functioning.” Although experts aren’t exactly sure, they theorize that these fluctuations may be similar to “sympathy pains” that individuals feel when someone they’re close to is hurting.
Male postpartum depression is different from the “daddy blues,” he said. The signs of full-blown depression are usually more severe and last longer. Some of the symptoms of postpartum depression are the same as those for generalized depression, such as sadness, a sense of worthlessness and a loss of interest in sex or hobbies. A rocky relationship with a spouse, a sick or colicky baby, anxiety about becoming a father and a history of depression can also contribute to the condition.
Courtenay mentioned one of the best predictors of whether a man will become depressed is if his spouse is depressed. “Half of all men whose partner has postpartum depression are depressed themselves,” Courtenay said. Men are also more likely to hide their depression from loved ones, he added.
Sandler’s symptoms began not long after his son Asher’s birth in June. “Something didn’t feel right,” he remembered. “I felt like a lot of loss of control of my life…a feeling of trappedness came over me and it would not lighten up. It kept getting worse and worse as the days went on.”
Sandler said he would make excuses to get out of the house. “Simple errands to the store that would maybe last 30 minutes were now lasting an hour,” he recalled. Sandler’s wife Traci, 38, who was recovering from a Caesarean section at the time, recognized something was wrong almost immediately. “At first I wanted to slap him across the face,” she said. “But he said ‘this is not normal’ and he realized he needed help.”
When his baby was about 3 weeks old, Rob Sandler went to see a psychologist and then a psychiatrist. Sandler credited twice-weekly counseling sessions and a daily dose of an antidepressant with helping him turn the corner.
Left untreated, mood disorders often worsen, Courtenay said. “If a man doesn’t get effective treatment for his depression, it could have damaging, long-term consequences for himself, his marriage, his career and his child.”
He suggested there are several ways for new fathers to try to prevent postpartum depression. Courtenay recommended that men with a history of depression see a mental health professional before the birth of a child to work through any issues that are causing stress and anxiety. Similarly, he told couples to seek marital counseling ahead of time if they’re having trouble communicating. Financial responsibilities also can fuel pressure in new dads. Courtenay said couples should evaluate monetary resources before a new baby arrives.
Rob Sandler revealed he felt similar worries as the sole breadwinner of the family.
He admitted he still gets overwhelmed at times, but now that he’s received treatment he’s feeling much better and described the emotional difference as “night and day.”
“Now I see myself wanting to come home earlier and spend time with [the baby],” Sandler said. “Whereas before I was running from it, now I kind of want to go back and be part of it.”
Current Mood:
Contemplative
I’m going to disable LJ comments as of today. If you want to leave comments, please do (!), but you’ll need to use the comment form on my WordPress blog using the links below.
Thank you,
The Management.
Current Mood:
Aggravated
Current Mood: Amused