Tag: christmas

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.