Year 5, Day 26: Last week, I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of my seeds today for planting the front yard and the garden. Not only are they still in Florida today, throwing my planting schedule into a shambles, I’m anticipating a terrible conversation with the internist about Sera’s prognosis. She relapsed over the weekend and was hospitalized for lifesaving care. After going through half a box of tissues and putting a cool washcloth on my eyes, I did some grasping at straws research. None of it did any good. Her prognosis is bad. She’s already on the best possible treatment plan and it’s still failing. The other treatment options aren’t truly options, they’re desperate attempts to prolong life without regard for quality of life. We’re bringing her home for doggy hospice for as long as she still feels good. If she relapses again, when she relapses again, it’ll be her time. It would be deeply unkind to force her to go through this over and over.
It’s a good thing that I did a lot of work on the weekend because I’m fit for nothing today.
But she felt better enough from the overnight care to have a laugh at me.
Trying to shift her for her last walk of the night at 945 pm: Sera. Sera. Sera. (Gently shake her shoulder) Come. Sera come. Sera, come. Seraaaaaaa come. (Start worrying she’s relapsed again the past hour) Sera. Sera. Serraaaaaa? Ok fine, you leave me no choice. Open the wipes packet to get a wipe. (To wipe her down because she IS still a bit grubby from the hospital but I’m not going to make her have a bath now.)
She pops up like a jack in the box.
AH HA YOU WERE JUST IGNORING ME.
We finally went out and instead of going right back in like normal, she took me on a jaunt to sniff the ALL sniffs. She still doesn’t want to eat much of anything but her energy is much better than it’s been in days. I don’t know how long this will last but we’re going to make the most of what time we have left.
Year 5, Day 27: I can feel the depression gloom creeping in. I don’t want to eat, I don’t want to talk to most people, I want to be left alone with Sera to just be quiet together. I hand fed her boiled eggs this morning, she was strangely excited about it so I boiled some more for her. Of course she then decided she was done with eggs. I’ll have to think of something else for her dinner. Several cries later, I got some work done, listened to her snore, cuddled with her a bit, and then she took me for the longest walk in the recent history of walks. She was either feeling her oats or taking her farewell tour, or both.
We were both fairly wiped out but there was still the usual stuff to do so I went through our usual routines: “I’m going to pick up JB now, you can stay here and nap”, then “we’re going to run an errand now, we’ll see you when we get back”.
And she was here when we got back and she was coddled some more with hand feeding and head rubs. JB wistfully says, now and again, I wish she could get better.
Me too, kid.
She was hospitalized overnight and part of one day and the house positively echoed with her absence. It’s going to be so much worse when she’s gone.
Year 5, Day 28: Sera woke me before 5 am trying to get out the door because she had the Tummy Troubles and we didn’t get out in time so the first hour and a half of this predawn was spent scrubbing the carpet, the floors, her tail and bum, and washing blankets and towels. That was a lot.
She seemed fine the rest of the morning so I decided it was more important to get some calories into her around lunchtime than to go the full 24 hours of withholding food. This proved to be a Big Mistake. She frantically (for her, this just looks like a tense body and an intense eyeball) got me to take her out at 6 pm and had a real mess before we got across the street. I had to get some warm water and wash her up. She smelled of Mango Tango for about ten minutes before she continued to have Tummy Troubles a few more times. Oh well, good effort.
I camped out on the sofa so I could get to her quickly during the night if she needed to go out urgently again. She did. Every single hour until 5 am. But not for Tummy Troubles, half the time she needed to pee, half the time she was asking for water. I’m grateful I didn’t have to clean up but am ever so tired.
Year 5, Day 29: Just in case, I’m switching her to morning meds only. I gave her the steroids she’s been on for months last night. I’m not sure whether it was the steroids or if it was because I camped out and she was thrown off by the light and relocation. Thankfully no tummy troubles since 7 pm but I am whipped and it’s only 7 am. Another 12 hours of water-only and tiny amounts of rice to be safe.
I’ve cycled through all the stages of grief in the past few days and I’m sure when the clock really starts ticking I’ll be cycling through them again a few more times. But for this moment I’m finally in a brainspace of trying to just be in the moment with her, whatever that moment contains.
I’m mentally (and photographically and sometimes here) recording her maybe-lasts. Tonight, she came to Smol Acrobat’s room and laid down nearby when they started to tantrum, following Seamus’s tradition of going TOWARDS the alarming and loud screaming. They never interfered with the yelling, they would just be nearby radiating support. She followed me out of the office yesterday afternoon to see where I was going, like she used to do all the time. I’m trying to commit these all to memory. Smol Acrobat cuddled her face gently tonight. It breaks my heart that they’re not really going to remember her. They’re still too young to remember this year on their own, outside of pictures and stories. I hope we have a good night tonight, maybe a good day will follow that.
Life is still inexplicably going on around us. We’re scheduling the final review of the will and trust. I marked up my first round of edits and sent those back already. This week I marked up a second round of clarification questions to be sure I know how some of these details work when we brief our new executors/trustees for our meeting. Then it has to be notarized to be official. That’ll be one giant important thing off my list. Then we need to make sure all the relevant people have a copy of the paperwork and understand our wishes and our thinking.
My seeds are still in transit. I’ve been itching to plant them and have something good to look forward to, to do something that’s positive and not sad.
Year 5, Day 30: Starting at midnight, she kept coming to fetch me to go outside every hour, then half hour, then quarter hour. She threw up everything she’d eaten yesterday evening, and it wasn’t that much to begin with. It tore my heart up trying to support her as she heaved.
It’s been almost seven years together and she’s only now communicating clearly to me. Each time she comes to get me, I know she wants me to take her out. Maybe it’s less about clarity and more about consistency. Most of the time, prior to her illness, she didn’t need anything, she was just keeping me company. I’m just slow and sluggish on my third night of this, having had no sleep, day or night. She settled on the kitchen bed, instead of coming back to the bedroom like usual. She wanted to stay near the door. We went outside seven times by 330 am and I was absolutely beat. I begged her quietly to sleep for a while. We both needed it. I was dizzy and no longer seeing straight. Miraculously we got three whole hours of sleep before she fetched me again and out the door we went.
I wondered how much longer we could keep this up. She was still interested in food, she was still ambulatory, but she wasn’t going to get better. The disease had progressed too much. And I was getting delirious.
I sat and held her paws for a long while, crying and contemplating what we could do to make her more comfortable. I wondered how we’d make the decision. I wondered how I could let her go. I don’t want to. She’s come so far, we’ve tried so hard.
But by mid afternoon I had my answer. She was crashing again. She had always jumped up for her midday walk. Today, she didn’t even try to get up. She just looked at me. It took such coaxing and encouragement and helping her up to get out the door. Once out, she was fatigued and unsteady. Not nearly as bad as when we took her to the ER but we already knew that we could not let her get that bad again. When we returned, and I offered her baked salmon, she’d only take slivers. Nothing like enough to sustain life.
She sat nearly in my lap as I hugged her and snuggled close to me for a while. That was a first, and last. She’s never, not once, been a lap dog like I’d hoped she would become. Seamus certainly was and he had 30 lbs on her. It’s like she was checking every last box this week except the one where my dogs are on 20 year contracts. But she was telling us it was her time, so we called the vet, got the kids, and brought her to say goodbye. We were with her every minute, telling her how much we loved her. I felt like the world’s worst traitor. She trusted me and I tried but I failed her. And now …
The vet was as kind as could be. She pointed out that Sera’s š¶ body condition showed it was time and reminded us that we’d done everything we could do. She talked the kids through what was going to happen and gave us time to say our goodbyes.
This has been one of the most painful days of my life, having to make this decision because of a disease, before her time. She deserved more years, more pets, more cuddles, more love, more treats. Everything feels terrible and unfair and awful.
Frankly I don’t remember how to exist with my dog. She’s been a constant companion, day and night, and everything in between. She’s my officemate, snoring and running in her sleep while I gripe at the computer. Sometimes stinking up the joint with her toxic farts. When your heart breaks, you hug your dog. What do you do when your last dog is gone?
(Saved from drafts purgatory: I started writing this last summer and ran out of energy and brain cells.)
A few weeks ago, I guiltily texted a friend to check in and make plans to meet up. I was about 7 months overdue in setting this up, but I’d also spent four of those months trying to stop being sick and the rest of them just getting my mental stability back. I felt terrible that I’d been so unable to set up playdates before.
When I did hear back, it was a doozy. She’d been physically abused by her spouse and he’d been arrested. She was filing for divorce without a lawyer and scared because his family has money and connections while she has no family in the area. I was stunned. Then I offered to help do research to find her pro bono legal aid and other support with the kids. It’s going to be an uphill battle for her. I worry how she’s going to do it alone and if she’s going to be able to keep primary custody of the kids. We’ll do our best to offer support but I’m not sure how much we can do (or what she needs, yet, either).
Relaying all this to PiC later, I thought about how hard it would be to have to suddenly leave your marriage like that, and with kids. Don’t get me wrong, I celebrate divorces when they can happen. In far too many cases, they can’t happen. People are stuck in unhappy and/or abusive marriages because they don’t have the resources to leave or don’t even know they’re being abused and think they’re the cause of unhappiness.
I’ve known people who tried to stick it out until they couldn’t take it any longer and left, feeling broken and starting over with nothing. I’ve known people who left with just the clothes on their backs. I’ve known people who negotiated from a position of knowledge and power, leaving the marriage happiness and dignity intact. From good to terrible and everything in between.
It’s not the first time I’ve been on the sidelines helping out a friend through this kind of thing. Every time, I’m reminded how important it is to have your own means of earning income and access to your own money. And it’s hard not to look at our own lives while worrying about how friends are going to get through this. No matter how strong we think we are as a couple, I can’t assume that we’d never change such that we might be happier apart, someday. I don’t think it’s inevitable, I just know that I can’t know what the future holds. Not a comfortable feeling but what feelings are? I’m still not at peace with feeling my feelings.
If we were to split up, we’d always said we’d split everything equally. Even assuming an amicable split, that would still leave each of us in a more challenging position than before. He would have to learn to manage his own money. I would have to learn to maintain my own vehicle.
I probably couldn’t afford to live in this area on just my salary and I’d need to pay for my own healthcare. Rent in this area for a smaller space runs between $3000-4000. After utilities, gas and insurance, groceries, there wouldn’t be much left. I always start with savings but at a certain point in the income vs expenses axis, that margin gets really slim. If I left the area to, say, live with a surrogate parent for a time to save money, shared custody would quickly get complicated. I can’t imagine a world where he wouldn’t want to share custody but I’ve heard that before, so let’s assume there’s also a chance I’d have them most of the year. Figuring out how to share time would be messy, transporting young kids back and forth long distance would be painful. Managing single parenting life with two young children would be unbelievably tough. Coparenting is already difficult now with these two. Not having back up? Good grief. I might crumble under the pressure of the already difficult juggling act. All of this is assuming it’s an amicable split. I’ve seen it happen but it seems rare in the dozens of divorces I’ve witnessed.
None of it would be impossible but it would be several extra heaps of challenges. That doesn’t even touch the emotional toll it would take on everyone. I certainly wouldn’t be able to afford therapy which would also certainly mean I’d struggle to manage my pain and fatigue on a long term basis. Early retirement would be off the table. Maybe retirement wouldn’t be but it’s hard to say what kind of impact splitting up would have on that without running some numbers.
All of this to say, I find it hard to mentally manage the logistics from a position of relative comfort and safety. I know it’s much harder for others who have young children, and/or less savings, and/or less recent or even any work history, and/or made less money.
I hate that so many people have to stay in bad relationships and bad jobs to keep financially afloat and keep healthcare.
People should have better options than to tolerate abuse or toxicity to keep basic needs met. They shouldn’t have to hope they’ll get lucky enough to have a support network that might help out enough to scrape by.
Year 5, Day 19: My OB’s covering person is being really thorough. She’s approving routine prescription refill requests, and emailed me to follow up on health issues I reported in 2019 and 2020 first, before approving them. They’re not a problem anymore but that was weird and unexpected. If only all doctors were as diligent (and believed their patients with chronic issues).
Brain fog is thick today, and I find myself easily irritated by the littlest things that require brain processing. I have so little to spare today, y’all, I need every little bit I can hold onto! But I got through a record amount of work with some time to spare for recruiting JB into my weeding crusade. Quality may be another question entirely but for now we’re not asking that one.
But in “happyyyyy??” (as they would say it) news, it was Smol Acrobat’s turn to make me think they were bodyswapped. They ate their entire dinner using their own hands, including veggies, without a complaint or dragging heels. After each food group they’d turn to me: I ate my vegetables, are you happyyyyy?? They used the toilet and the real capper: put on their face lotion all by themselves. They NEVER do the face lotion! They always kick and whine and fuss. I know it won’t last so I’ll marvel over it now.
Year 5, Day 20: Our bills coming due this and next month will be spectacular in the blowing cash flow sort of way. I keep thinking what on earth did we spend on??? Oh yes, Sera š¶ (4 digits this month alone), the new washing machine (another 4 digits), therapy. Some big ticket items are coming up soon too, between life insurance and homeowners insurance premiums, so I am having to harness my “we have enough cash for all the things” feelings, particularly when it comes to mutual aid. There’s so much need but we have to take care of our responsibilities first.
Speaking of which: we have a working washing machine again! Thank goodness. We didn’t replace the dryer because it was still working, please cross your fingers that it continues to behave another few years to justify not replacing them both at the same time (which would have saved $300). I’d like to keep it out of landfill for at least 3 more years (totally arbitrary number).
After getting dive bombed by that daddy long legs, and catching and releasing it outside, I caught the little sneak trying to get back inside the house three more times. I yelled “you don’t live here” but it just tucked up against a box and ignored me. Rude.
I took the Favorite IA Supporting Character Quiz and ended up with Her Grace. I do like her a lot. But maybe primarily because she’s linked her survival to Dina and so she won’t turn on her. I’d be less of a fan if she weren’t so bound.
Year 5, Day 21: šæļø mode today. My brain wants to dwell on “you’re a bad friend and a bad person“. I asked a longtime friend for advice and they were angry at me when it landed as selfish and inconsiderate. Of course I apologized, I try not to be horrible to my friends intentionally but am not immune to accidentally being so. They haven’t spoken to me since so it feels like I broke our friendship over asking for advice. That feels awful. And as another friend observed, my brain reflexively blames me when things go sideways so if someone I respect and care about deeply called me selfish, maybe they’re right. I mean, they’re definitely right that I haven’t been able to check in with everyone I care about on a regular basis. I try, but this year has kicked my ass in so many dimensions I can’t even count the number of ways I feel like a failure, so that plus one, now. Maybe there’s something else going on but, in the end, they felt I was selfish at them and seemingly don’t want to be friends anymore. That sucks. This whole thing hurts. But I’ve done my best to mend fences to no result, so the best I can do now is to try not to destroy myself over this.
My gut reaction (to blame myself and go to that dark place of just how horrible am I) is not super healthy so, after a hefty dose of therapy, I’m working overtime to stay in neutral emotionally even if I can’t manage to be affirming. That means constantly redirecting my brain every single time it wants to go There. That means SQUIRREL!
I started a load of laundry. Filled the dishwasher and started that.
My seeds still haven’t shipped. *Poke poke* Ship them! So that I can plant them and then stare at the soil waiting for them to grow..
We had to file our tax return very close to the deadline so it’s still processing. Poking “Where’s my refund” won’t make them process any faster buuuuut…
I ordered garden stakes, maybe they’ll arrive when the seeds arrive.
I scheduled recheck appointments for Sera š¶ who still isn’t eating nearly enough to sustain life. Her appetite dropped off last week and it’s been a daily struggle to get her to eat anything but a handful of treats. She’s weak and unsteady on her feet much of the day and some of that may be her disease but the low caloric intake cannot be helping. She’s also increasingly resistant to taking her meds. I’d started out giving them to her with pill pockets, now she refuses the pill pockets. She keeps chewing them up and spitting them out. WHY. The whole point is that you don’t need to taste them! I started giving her a handful of treats, roughly the same size, mixed up with those pill pockets. That worked for two doses, then she started chomping on the entire handful and spitting it out. Now I’m wrapping them in smaller pill pocket wraps and embedding treats in those smaller pieces. Cross your fingers that she stops being so picky about it all? I really don’t want to have to pill her twice a day. It’s unpleasant for everyone.
There are MANY more things on my to do list but I can’t seem to spare the executive function to schedule any more things, so keep circling back to my emotional support bank accounts for comfort. Alas, it’s not helping the way it used to.
Year 5, Day 22: Taking care of Sera š¶ is bringing up all the grief from losing Seamus as she declines in small but significant ways. She wandered the hall last night for hours. I took her out for a pee at midnight just to be sure she was ok and she paced intermittently for the next three hours. I listened to the click click click of her nails, remembering Seamus’s last months when he’d have confused nocturnal meanderings and I’d have to get up and help him settle down. But his first choice was to settle right on top of Sera. She didn’t object.
She absolutely refuses to take her meds now. She will take the treat wrapped pills from Smol Acrobat’s palm, not mine, but then she bites it in half and spits it out. Her appetite is very low. Her energy is correspondingly low. She’s still responsive to us but in a grumpy detached sort of way. She doesn’t follow me around half as much as she was doing last month. Her walks are much shorter and a little less frequent, by her preference. She doesn’t like to sunbathe when it’s warm anymore, she prefers when it’s cold. It feels like a lot of these changes developed in the past two weeks. I’m hoping that my gut instinct is right. I’m hoping she’s just exhausted from months of treatment, twice monthly pokes for bloodwork, six walks a day, etc, and needs more time to bounce back. Hell, I’m exhausted from all of this and I’m not the sick one. So I try to hug her and rub her ears as often as I’m tending to her and hope really hard she’s going to come back from this.
Year 5, Day 23: This Ask a Manager post reminds me of my regular musing about retirement (whenever it is, early or not). Will I have enough to occupy my time by then? It really depends on where we are in life by that point. I have friends who retired early who are busier than they were when they worked. We currently have young kids and an aging dog, and that makes us REALLY busy because their needs are so high now but that’ll change. Who knows what that’ll look like ten years from now. And who knows what my community and friendships will look like ten years from now. I’m terminally online socially because I can handle that. Socializing in person, even with people I like a lot, leaves me so very drained.
In other news, I’m so frustrated with these work people who are actively obstructive. Driving home in an empty car, a rarity, I made like Orro and screamed my frustration to the heavens. I did not claw the air, though I wanted to, both hands on the wheel. It helped a little. Like a tea kettle venting steam. Nothing has changed but at least I don’t feel like I’m going to burst with the pressure of keeping it all in.
Year 5, Day 12: I was in a terrible mood yesterday and woke up on the precipice of that terrible mood again today. That, my utter lack of patience for anyone’s anything, and my pain and fatigue during school dropoff when I’ve normally walked twice that distance by the time we’re done – it’s screamingly clear I’m completely at the end of my emotional and physical ropes.
Between last week (travel, Sera’s health scare, hours of catching up, Smol Acrobat suddenly deciding that they’re ready to use the toilet so we have sixteen false alarms a day, Smol Acrobat’s stomachaches that spiraled out of control last week) and the weekend (scrubbing Sera’s vomit out of the carpet, the rug, and off the floor x 4, the washing machine dying, my backup computer turned main work computer trying to die)… I need a break. But I have a full week ahead of me so there’s no room for recovery in sight.
I put myself to work on meditative tasks: washing dishes and cooking turkey for Sera in an attempt to settle my ruff.
*****
I simply don’t understand why people call it “six months of the Gaza war”. It’s a genocide, not a war. The Palestinians are not waging war. A small part of their population is committing crimes and the entire population is being held responsible for it. To quote a friend, “one side in this has the power to exterminate the other and they are using it.” Of course we all know the chaos and horror that suicide bombers can wreak and October 7 was horror upon horror. And then it was followed up by a relentless six month extermination campaign. How is that going to bring any hostages home? They’re murdering indiscriminately, children, women, men, aid workers, it doesn’t matter anymore. Israel is just on an all out destruction rampage. They even killed some of the hostages themselves: 3 hostages killed in Gaza by Israeli troops were shirtless and waving a white flag, official says.
Year 5, Day 5: Taking a moment to reflect on the fact that I really didn’t expect to still be writing my weekly posts into Year 5 of COVID and, since we’re going to apparently be living with it forever, is it time to stop tracking the days? It’s mostly a habit now, like masking, but I don’t intend to stop masking any time soon.
We’ve taken the unusual decision to take the kid on an impromptu quick trip into the wilderness (Yosemite). I have been so busy with work and Sera that I have spent exactly ten minutes discussing or thinking about it, PiC did all the planning and booking. It wouldn’t have happened without him but also without me being an active part of the planning meant lots of things were missed. Not all my fault, we always tend to forget one thing unless my list is really extensive and I’ve been working on it for months.
We forgot to pack laundry mesh bags (small deal), warm hats (eh oops), PiC’s driver’s license (big oops), boots for Sera (which she might not have even been willing to wear). We don’t even own boots for the adults. The kids had rain boots that worked for them but my feet went up a half a size each since Smol Acrobat so my warm fuzzy boots don’t fit anymore. Wonder if it’s worth getting a replacement pair sometime.
Year 5, Day 6: Oh my aching everything. What a time for a flare-up. I had lava bones all night and well into the morning. Not great. Not great at all.
While granting that none of this trip was really made for me, I’ve made the grumpy snap judgment that I am not at a stage in my life where I appreciate nature enough to trade it for inhaling this much dust, being this cold, being this cut off from Internet connectivity and functioning GPS (I cannot stress functioning GPS enough) and being an hour of twisty windy long and slow drive away from anything. The majesty of the park struck me but fades into the background of my physical discomfort and preoccupation.
We always knew my body is no longer fit for camping but assumed I’d be fine near nature in a nice enough accommodation.
Year 4, Day 363: Yesterday was exhausting. We had to entertain people in three shifts, PiC took the middle one so I could get Smol down for a nap. This morning,Ā I swore off Sunday activities for the foreseeable future. Then PiC reminded me we have a commitment next Sunday. Booo! Boo, past me agreeing to that! Shame! It’s not something I can get out of, or I would immediately.
Ah well. On our walk today, I saw one of our neighborhood crows attacking the local hawk, driving it out of their territory. I’m torn. I love the blackbirds I’m trying to befriend but I also love raptors. It was a surprise that it only took one of them, though.
I was wrong about DST not affecting the humans. We’ve been slugs every morning since the time change. We’ve also had several late nights for various reasons which doesn’t help anyone.
My fingers have been like balloons for the past ten days, swelling up and deflating at random intervals. When they’re swollen, the skin gets extra tight and overstretched, the joints are tender, and my fingers can’t bear weight well. This is very annoying.
Year 4, Day 364: My cup boileth over sort of day.
Get up, medicate Sera š¶, take her out for a walk immediately. Give her just a little water to start her day or else she’ll retch it up.
Get the kids out the door.
Sit down to inhale breakfast with one hand and work with the other.
Answer questions, triage emails.
Walk Sera, get her bloodwork results, see that they suck. Have feelings. Write to the vet about her poor appetite and incontinence.
Answer more emails, start digging through HR documentation for answers and find more questions.
Walk Sera, grab a salad for lunch, clean the robot vacuum so it can run while I work and try to untangle another mess. Add urine collection and a run to the vet (45 minutes) to the calendar for tomorrow.
Ask JB to start the rice or take Sera out to the yard for a pee before we left the house. They wanted to do the rice, then fussed about getting their jacket sleeves wet. Exasperated, I swap chores with them only now Sera refuses to pee for JB so I have to deal with that myself too as soon as I get done with the rice. But Sera refuses to pee for me too, so then we have to rush out the door while I worry worry worry if she’s having kidney problems between her random incontinence and now refusal to pee when she normally would need to. š¤Æ
Work frantically through JB’s class, when I would normally be paying attention to the skills they’re practicing so I can help JB later (#guilt), stopping five minutes before class ends.
Head directly home post-haste hoping that Sera didn’t have an accident while we were gone. Immediately walk her so she doesn’t have an accident while I’m prepping dinner. Reheat leftovers for dinner, make Sera’s dinner and serve it up. Work for ten minutes before PiC and Smol Acrobat get home. Check Sera’s weird scab that was torn off last night and bleeding profusely to make sure the bandage didn’t stick and irritate the wound. It didn’t, whew. Smol Acrobat has taken JB’s role of my faithful assistant taking the old bandaging to the trash and asked to cut the bandages and generally were helpful instead of trying to be helpful but only getting in the way.
Underlying it all are issues at work that I’m still working through, processing, and not loving.
Feelings right now
Year 4, Day 365: I was on my own with all 3 critters this morning for the first 45 minutes and boy, getting a toddler to get ready to walk the dog who needs to go out ASAP is not an easy juggle.
Most of yesterday’s checklist rolled over to today, swapping out JB’s lesson for an extra run to the vet to drop off a specimen for testing ($300) and pick up an appetite stimulant ($90). GACK.
That hurts but we’re lucky that we can take care of her to the best of our abilities, I remember a time when I could only afford good care for my dogs when I worked for a vet.
Sera’s added to her list: a wound I’m managing, plus incontinence, this week. Can we apply for a cap on the number of problems per dependent at a time? One or two at a time per critter, please?
My bright spot for the day: the neighborhood corgi was in a good mood and gave me a nose boop and kiss.
Home stuff: PiC thinks we’ll need to do our roof sooner than later because our gutters are a mess and there’s no sense in doing the gutters first and then messing them up when we have to do the roof. Given this year’s uncertainty, I’m going to define “sooner” as maybe in the next five years. I don’t even want to think about how much it’ll cost. But of course that gets my brain thinking about how much it’ll cost. $30k? $40k? š¶āš«ļø I’m NOT ready to pay out that cash.
Year 5, Day 1:Ā Sera’s incontinence isn’t due to a bacterial infection so whoop here we go on a third possible long term medication. *pulls face*
Bits and bobs: A raven visited the neighborhood this morning. Wasn’t one of my semi-regulars, those two know me enough to come hop-hop-hopping over to nab the treats I leave before I get five feet away. This one waited for me to get at least twenty feet away before coming to inspect the treats.
JB: “I’ve never been in the snow before!”
Yes you have, you just don’t remember it. Existential question: Did it happen if you don’t remember it? That sent me down a darkish path of remembering dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Smol Acrobat: “Mommy, Sewa is worried inside. Can you check to see if Sewa is ok?”
Yes, I can. I will be spending my entire day checking if Sewa is ok, like I have been doing for the past 80 days.
It’s very annoying to know I was reading a book somewhere on my phone but not remember which book and which app.
It’s also very annoying that I still have lil smokies for fingers. Two solid weeks now of swollen fingers. I’ve done my time, haven’t I?
Year 5, Day 2: My crow duo, the town crier and the scout, came by this morning. I set out dog treats for them and stepped way back to watch their sideways hippity hop approach. They could just divebomb in to fetch them but they’re clearly not ready for that yet. One day, though!
Spreadsheet day! I’m torn between wow that’s grown a lot (over 3-4 years), and ALSO dang that’s still so far away (not sure how long it’ll take to get to the “enough” point). The double giant stressors of a possible layoff and the huge shifts at my work are pushing hard on the latter button because I want to feel like I can walk away if things continue to deteriorate and we can’t turn it around. I keep telling myself to wait it out 2-3 years, let’s get Smol Acrobat into public school, and / but it turns out my patience in my 40s is nearly non-existent compared to my patience in my 20s. I don’t want to live like that any longer. I’m very much over the grind of being overworked, underpaid, and constantly fighting political battles. We don’t know for sure if it’ll go that way with the latest changes but it is possible and that possibility makes me very cranky. I want an escape hatch that isn’t “start over at a new workplace”. I want the option of being able to just walk away from all that stress and just deal with the stress at home but not trading it for the stress of being unemployed without sufficient income. It reminds me of PiC’s friend who had his multi-millions in the bank. When confronted with the hiring of a terrible manager from a previous job that he advised against, he just said that’s ok, I don’t need this job and retired.
Year 4, Day 356: Nothing like avoiding any Sunday scaries by being so completely exhausted that you can’t even think ahead to Monday. We overdid it on the weekend and today we need a secondary weekend for recovery. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?
A very small part of it was I finally had the werewithal to pick two Lakota families to help. One family is grieving the loss of a son and have been on the list since January without much help. They were in need of propane, formula, clothes, and diapers for the baby, and clothes for the surviving family. I requested to tackle the propane, formula, diapers and wipes. The second family was almost out of food, and they’re also the home where people keep dropping off dogs that need feeding and care. I put together a giant grocery shop for them while I waited for the information I needed to complete the orders.
I’m annoyed with Costco Pharmacy. They save us a bit of money but I called in a prescription on Saturday and they gave me a choice of picking it up Saturday after 2 pm or Monday after 2 pm. Every time I called for an update, it was “scheduled to be filled”. They didn’t bother to fill it until today after 2 pm. So why offer that option if it wasn’t really an option?? Huff. Thankfully I had enough brainspace to figure out the refills while we still had a week left. I wanted the Saturday pickup because weekday pickups are so much harder for us to squeeze in.
Dinner: Frozen lasagna + yesterday’s leftover meat sauce +plain pasta for Smol Acrobat because the frozen lasagna is a little too spicy for them + 4 leftover ravioli + frozen green beans. Both kids were intensely irritating about eating their green beans but they ate them all in the end and Smol Acrobat even ate all of their pasta and the meat sauce under their own steam. Yesterday the meat sauce was a big frickin’ deal. Today they kept telling me “I am eating my pwotein. Are you happppyyyy?”
Year 4, Day 357: Day 2 of weekend recovery.
My Big Task is mostly completed! I should have done this a long time ago. I knew that I should and had started the process, so I shouldn’t complain, buuuut it’s no fun and I’m going to complain. I’m finally separating my work and personal digital lives from the one computer. It’s just so much more convenient for them to be on the same machine, I could multitask so much more easily, but it’s better to keep them separate so I bought a laptop for household use last year. Several months later, I set up logins for ourselves and the kids. Another several months have now passed and now push has come to shove, changes in our systems mean it’s time for me to fully remove the personal from the professional. The process took hours: moving bookmarks over, backing up the files to our external hard drive and our cloud system to transfer them to the new laptop, and THEN to remove them completely from the work machine. HOURS. So many hours. And errors. And disconnections. And one mysterious failure where the power to the modem and our server both failed even though it was plugged into the Yeti to prevent exactly this loss of power that interrupts file transfers. I’d be tempted to say that I SHOULD have done this in stages but that wouldn’t work so well either because the point is to transfer the full contents of the hard drive at this specific moment in time and carry on working on personal stuff from that date forward entirely in the personal computer. A multi-stage transfer would mean I’d miss files that were changed in the interim period because I’m always doing something.
My personal files are all transferred to the home computer. Now I am practicing typing, the keyboard is just different enough to throw off my typing, and get in the work groove so I can make some decisions about critical software. I despise the Microsoft subscription model so I went looking for and found that we can get an older Word product key from Costco for $150 (plus a $25 Visa back). Or other places, I haven’t looked at them yet. That’s probably the software I’ll need the most.
Year 4, Day 358: Day 3, I think the PEM is finally starting to fade after 2.5 really tough days and nights. My bones still have lava for marrow but the deep and full-ton fatigue has lightened a bit to a more normal load when I’m trying to walk Sera. It’s not quite over yet, though, and this is probably where I accidentally overdo it because I think “I’m ok now!” Reminder to self: not quite yet.
I did one very slow walking set of karaokes on our morning walk and we went on one slightly longer walk midday but that’s it. I’m pacing myself!
Well that and I did the other half of a massive food prep. We got takeout yesterday so with some of my time saved, I cut up 6 lbs of meat and made the nuoc mau for the thit kho. Today the stock pot came out to play. I boiled the meat to clean it, set it to simmering for 3 hours, adding things periodically to end up with a large entree for dinner, two freezer portions for other non cooking weeks, and sent a large portion to our friends for their dinner. I’m satisfied with my performance in the kitchen for once, though I cooked it a little longer than intended and the meat is literally falling apart. Whoops! I really need more childhood recipes that can be frozen for later eating. Most of our recipes weren’t that sort of meal, they were all meant to be enjoyed fresh.
Feeling: So glad it’s not Monday anymore, so glad it’s not Thursday yet.
Year 4, Day 359: Taxes are in process. Will update is in process. Which genius thought it was a good idea to do those at the same time??
I thought my diet needed to be adjusted a bit to get to a shape I felt more comfortable in. It was a theory, attempting to lose weight has never been a thing in my life. It wasn’t about the number on the scale, I just hate(d) how my body has changed and feels after two pregnancies. The feet changing sizes is annoying, one changing to be a half size larger than the other is annoying, the stretch marks are intermittently annoying. All annoying but ultimately ignorable. My belly shape isn’t ignorable. Last month, my jeans were intensely uncomfortable after 2-3 hours. So I thought I’d have to figure this out.
I never even tried my lower carb trial since 2024 has been terrible, I didn’t want to give up one gram of carb or sugar. I did add in salads for lunch courtesy of PiC. (I’m terrible at feeding myself when it’s just me during working hours. I’m even worse at eating my vegetables these days so these were a neat fix for both problems.) What’s changed?
I’ve been going out on 5-6 walks a day with Sera since January, that’s the same.
I threw in those karaokes a few days a week recently. I noticed I’m just less hungry during the day but always hungry late at night when I’m too tired to do anything about it. I haven’t put actual effort in but it seems like maybe I’ve gone from a 4.5 month belly to a 3.5 month belly. Soft pants are still the best but the jeans aren’t awful anymore. I’d like to shed another couple inches to feel more myself but we’ll have to see if it happens with my current routine. I’m just trying to keep up with life and Sera’s š¶ needs and I don’t have the energy to experiment with more.
Year 4, Day 360: Sera had more bloodwork. I’m crossing everything that the results come back looking better. She’s getting balky about these visits, she doesn’t want to go at all anymore. It’s a poke every time and she hates it. And I feel terrible but it’s gotta be done.
PiC usually makes time to do that during the week but couldn’t make it happen so we all went tonight. (I have a Pavlovian need for hot dogs anytime I even think about going to Costco. Anyone else?)
Somehow I managed to get through all my work and a little of my backlog today, so that was good but I was also totally wiped out by the end of the night. I should have reconsidered…well, no. It’s hard for PiC to do Costco with both kids in tow. One or the other is doable but both is just an exhausting combination, plus I needed to run a specific Costco errand as well. So it’s good that I went, I’m just knackered.
*****
I notice that some neighbors never cover their windows. Not even their front facing windows, so people can see into their home day and night. What is that about? It creeps me out on their behalf even though it’s their own privacy they’re giving up.
*****
I grew up loving Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car without ever knowing the name of the song. It came on that radio today with the wrong name: Luke Combs, and JB’s friend started singing it. That was all kinds of confusing so I had to go down the rabbithole. Oh, he’s covering the song. And then I found this and it pulled up all kinds of feelings. What a world we live in.
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.