it's been a long week already

i've figured out issues with my headaches, taken shadow to the emergency vet, taken shadow to the regular vet, claw marks on my scalp/shoulder/hand, and met with another manager at *store which will not be named*.

so, i'll start with the headaches. the orthodontist helped me figure out that i am clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth on occasion. that absolutely causes bad headaches for me. it's really a stress response, so i'm trying to be more aware of what i'm doing with my jaw. the sinus headaches can only be partially controlled with allergy meds and trips to the dr when it gets really bad. as for the migraines, they are migraines. i'm kinda SOL with them.

moving on... on thursday shadow felt crappy, but he started to seem better friday morning. well, friday afternoon he started to get worse. there was no single spot that caused him pain that we could find, so we guessed that maybe he just sprained something. i called the vet to make an appointment and the soonest was monday, so they said that we could call first thing on saturday morning to see if they could squeeze us in. well, at approx 2:30am shadow started howling in pain. we took him down to the emergency vet in issaquah and learned that his urinary tract was totally blocked (which can be fatal within days if not treated). he had a catheter inserted to drain the bladder and he spent the whole weekend there. we brought him home sunday night and he was doing fine.

moving on again... on tuesday, i noticed that some of the time when he came out of his litterbox from peeing, he would dribble a few drops of urine. i figured that was from the muscle relaxants he was on, but i wanted to double check with the vet. i called the vet's office and explained to the receptionist what was going on. she told the vet that the cat was only dribbling in the litter box, not that he was peeing in the box and then dribbling a little when he came out. sooooooo, the vet told her that was not normal and that we needed to bring him in. i spent 3 of the 4.5 hours we had to wait for our appointment crying. they took him in the back to draw some urine, but quickly figured out that he wasn't blocked and his bladder was empty. after that, we talked to the vet for about 2 minutes, he realized that she receptionist hadn't told him what i had told her. sooooo, it was ok as long as he was actually peeing in the box. thankfully, the vet didn't charge us. i liked him a lot too.

moving on yet again... i did some research into portable stain removing machines after the whole dribbling incident (and spewage and hairballs of the past). i found that the bissell spotbot would be the best unit. we bought one, and took it home to try on one of the dribble spots (which we had used regular pet cleaning solution on and it worked ok). shadow doesn't like the vaccuum and the spotbot was freaking him out, so i picked him up. just a few seconds after i picked him up, the spotbot changed cycles and shadow freaked out and and clawed the hell out of me trying to get away from the scary spotbot. i know that it was an accident, and he didn't mean to hurt me at all. nevertheless, i have a big gash and tiny puncture on my right palm, a 2" long scratch that barely broke the skin on my left shoulder, and a big gash and small gash on my scalp. we called the msft nurse line who said to call our primary physician or go to the ER because cats have lots of bad bacteria in their mouths that can cause up to a 50% infection rate. even though i wasn't bitten, some of the bacteria can transfer to their feet when they groom themselves thus wind up in an open wound. i talked to the doc, and he seemed ok with how well everything cleaned up and that the bleeding had stopped for the most part. he said if it got more red or started to cause lines up my arm, i should go to the er. it didn't get bad enough for that, but i did go to the doctor this morning to just double check. evidently the larger scalp wound was deeper than the gash on my hand, but i am lucky and they weren't quite bad enough to need stitches. so, my hand and head are freaking killing me.

for the final part of my sordid tale... i've been emailing the *store which will not be named* manager every month since i interviewed with her in december. this month, she said that they will probably start hiring a few people soon. she also said that they had done some management restructuring in the store, and she was now the general manager. she said that she'd like me to talk to one of the managers. so, i did that today. i learned that they really do want me, but i'll need to go to a full-day training class that they won't do for just one person. so, it'll probably be very late this month or early next month before i'll have a job there. before i left for the meeting with the manager, shadow was in pain (but his bladder seemed fine) and he was eating and drinking a bit. i asked adam to come home and keep an eye on him. adam called the vet who called in a prescription for valium to help ease the pain associated with urethral spasms that shadow could be experiencing. by the time i got home, shadow was feeling better. so, we have the valium in case he needs it.

so, that's what i have been dealing with for the last week. it has sucked, but my cat is alive and i'll probably have a job that i really want in the very near future. oh yeah, giving pills to cats sucks. it sucks a lot.