A Bit Challenging in Everyday Ramblings

Every day out there spring is barreling through. My bird feeder has gone quiet and it seems very early to me. The song birds are nesting. It still gets cold at night. Just a few days ago I was hearing the “Hey Sweetie! Sweetie Hey!” Chickadee call and the Red-winged Blackbirds were all in full mating extravaganza last weekend at the wetlands. I like the fact that the tree blossoms and the house color go together in the above picture I took last Sunday morning.

This has been a crazy busy week for me on so many levels and I have three more days of it and then things calm down a bit. I admit I got a bit testy with Sam last night. He fusses at me constantly and goes through these periods where when I am home and trying to stay still for a few minutes he is restlessly climbing on me or sitting on what I am trying to do or standing in front of me yelling at me.

Part of it is that we don’t have Stella around running interference anymore and part of it is that I am not around so much these days working in the office for 5 and a half of my 8 plus hour days three times a week and going in for meetings on my at home days and all the other stuff out in the world I am doing. And part of it is that Sammy is getting sicker, his kidney disease is progressing.

Yesterday during my lunch break I had to power walk up the hill behind my place to go to Occupational Health to get my first TB Test (for the volunteer yoga teaching job) read. That would normally be when I give Sam his subcutaneous fluids and I needed to run off just after I clocked out for the day to go get my eyes dilated again to check that my retinas are in fact fine and not torn from the PVD (I am still seeing lights and floaters out of my left eye.) so I didn’t really have time to do it then.

And as I was walking my beloved cat sitter texted me to say she had been called into a job and could not come give Sammy his fluids and his arthritis shot after all. So when I was finished with my TB Test read I barreled down the hill and came home and got Sam all setup and started to administer fluids.

At least I thought I did. I don’t know what happened, something with the new bag or the way I placed the needle or… Anyway, after all that I just didn’t have the heart to stick him again. So I grabbed my coat and went back to work. And spent my evening later trying to pretend it isn’t annoying to have one’s eyes dilated for hours and hours. Poor Sam. We are quite the pair.

My sister is still in the hospital. She has 8 more radiation treatments to go. We are not sure if they are just going to keep her in there until they are finished or what. She is most unhappy and miserable and grumpy and it is heart wrenching to be here and not there to actively advocate for her.

And then there is the terrifying prospect of what the bills will look like on all the secret mysterious copays she will be expected to pick up just lurking in the background. This experience has been both revelatory and instructive for everybody in the family.

I read the long fascinating article the other night in the current New Yorker by Andrew Solomon about the interviews he has with the father of the very not neuro-typical shooter at the elementary school in Connecticut. Then last night I listened the Fresh Air interview. This is fascinating stuff to me. I found listening to the interview helped me understand the article a little better in terms of the personal conclusions that Solomon has drawn now from all the work he did for Far From the Tree and his thinking since then.

Sorry this isn’t more upbeat. Mama said there would be days like this. :)