24Apr24: Andy’s ‘nipped…

He’s got the blank look of a ‘nip user, and he stayed there like this, immobile for several minutes.

He’s really twitchy now, my next clue.

He moved over to the lapboard and slept it off. Good ‘niip!

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I couldn’t access the Internet on my laptop yesterday. It looked pretty grim because Spectrum tech support’s Jaimie wasn’t able to come up with a solution. I decided it was a good time to stand away from the problem and come back the next day. I have exactly no idea what I did differently today, but I have WiFi again. I hate computers! And I love them to death.

01Aug20: What’s up, Doug?

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Andy’s curious. Why won’t I let him come around to the other side?

Maybe it’s because he has “Itchy Paws” and all I need to start hyperventilating again is Andy to wipe out what little hard won progress I’ve made on the nightmare configuration issues on my new laptop and photo sharing from my smart phone.

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Seems like I resolve one issue and bring up twelve more. I’m not kidding about hyperventilation! ( I hope the person who cuts my beard and hair is operating again soon or I might be tempted to do it myself. >self to myself< “Don’t do it, Doug!”)

Post 1896: The kitty boys are back!

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We’ve had a grumpy few days, thanks to a laptop giving up the ghost, but my new laptop means the kitty boys and I can return to regular posting.

What’s going to fall apart next? I suspect it’s time for the smart phone to go belly up. I mean, don’t expensive things always fail close to expensive holidays like Christmas? And it’s about the only bit of technology I use that’s left to croak!

25Mar26: Good morning!

Also, my wheelchair puts Andy at just the right spot to pet and “scritch” my kitty!

Andy finds it is just right for hopping over to the ottoman for…

… a bit of morning loving! Andy is adjusting to the new arrangements in the apartment.

He learned, for example, that coming from the back route over the recliner instead of hopping over from the front route, he still has a high road cats love over instead of going in a straight line on the ground.

(Cat people will understand that contorted sentence!) These front route is very much altered, maybe unusable for Andy now.

And a few treats. The new way of giving Andy Greenies on a paper towel turned out to be a very neat – literally – way of doing it. Check the mess in the previous photo versus the last photo. All I have to do is fold the mess up and toss it. It also is a lot easier for Andy to eat the treats since they don’t get away from him when he tries to lick them up.

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I continue to do well. I refused a prescription of Oxycontin. I am not experiencing any pain Tylenol can’t handle, if at all most of the time, and I will not take any opioid. When I was in the US Army back before dirt was invented, I saw enough people who ruined their lives on that sort of crap! I also rejected a suggestion I go on “swing bed” for a few days. I don’t understand the concept. You just lie in bed and are – it seems – taking up space so the medicals can observe your recovery at the same time you get weaker because that’s what happens when you aren’t ever as active as you’d be in your usual daily activities. I know that wasn’t a good pair of refusals, but I’ve rejected that drug before but agreed to the “swing bed” to end up floppy like a rag doll!

At home, I have my kitty sleeping peacefully next to me, I don’t have to wait for someone to take me to poop, I’m making my own meals, washing my own dishes. I even brushed a thick layer of dust off Andy’s 10th birthday cat tree gift, possibly the main reason he hasn’t been using it. Best of all, I notice I am stronger, able to stand longer, if with support, and am learning how to navigate my new apartment arrangement in a wheelchair.

I still will use a walker at home, but I need wheelchair practice. Oh yes, I made that mess brushing Andy’s cat tree – dust plus cat hair, I suppose – and did a little vacuuming from a wheelchair. I have always done it from a walker. I’m a clever enough monkey!

Then, because I haven’t use that particular new vacuum much, emptying it, I made a few new messes. Ahem! Soooo, I got a broom out of the closet and established I can use a broom efficaciously from a wheelchair. Walker brooming is easy and old hat for me, so now I know I have two ways to keep the floor neat.

My kitty!

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Nope! I prepared more than I was up to again. My appetite is good, but execution – eating all I fix – still needs a tune-up.

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It was a busy morning. The afternoon was spent thinking about what things I need delivered from the grocery store, which appointments need to be on the appointment board, and if the dryer component came in yet. I can hang wet clothes, but it limits how many items I can do each time.

24Mar26:

last day in hospital; I return home…

Andy’s happy to view the world outside the back door again!

Birthday cake, courtesy of my doctor. It was so good, I ate the whole thing!

Thanks! The card and this gift were waiting from my family.

I ate one, of course. It’s my favorite candy!

Andy checked out the front door. Later, I put his walker-perch there so he could enjoy the front yard scene.

He stood there, patiently, while I filled the Royal Canin bowls.

My favorite street food in Germany was “Currywurst mit Kartoffelsalat” – Curry sauce on sausages, with potato salad. I bought some German-made sauce, used kielbasa sausages, and treated myself to half the treat. The sausage more typically used varies, as does the potato salad recipe. When I have more time, I’ll try to zero in on the most authentic version! It’s good!

Their sauce is thinner than we are used to, but tasty.

Oh yes, Andy was excited about having some Greenies!

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By the time I got everything I wanted to get done before I fixed breakfast, it was lunchtime.

I made coffee for the first time in awhile. It’s in my “happy mug.” Of course a vanilla yogurt sounded good, as…

…steamed eggs on toast. I hope I’m that hungry.

22Mar26: happy b’day to me!

The best birthday gift in my world is to be blessed with so many excellent healthcare people caring for me before and after cancer has been removed from my body! It’s gone!

I get to go home tomorrow afternoon if all is well. I can’t wait to boop “mah kitteh’s” wee “nosie!”9 I may even wake him up if he isn’t at the door. (I bet he is.)

He will have to learn to share his recliner, though. While I heal, this will be an easier place for me to sleep.

Even if he begs me to share the recliner, I will…um…maybe share it. He likes the footrest best, and I can go that far.

After Greenies, he will want to sleep on the lapboard anyway.

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Speaking of the lapboard and Greenies, it’s always been a housekeeping problem giving Greenies to Andy there. Lots of them fall on the floor, making a mess everywhere.

My sister Kathy and I discovered if we put the Greenies on a paper towel, it’s just textured enough that it’s easier for Andy to eat them without the spillage, and any crunchies mess stays on the paper towel!

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Whew! I wore myself out responding to your comments and those on Facebook yesterday!

One day’s comments I gave a sad, little generic thank you to everyone. The 20th’s? I had a very good night’s sleep, though, on the greatest Baroque composer of all time’s birthday, the 21st of March. Yes, “mah man” J.S. Bach was born a few years earlier, one day before my birthday.

I wish I had been born on that day, too. It’s a music lover’s thing….Happy 341st Birthday, J.S.! Of course, that’s the Julian date. I guess the current calendar has him born on the 31st of March. I know the people in Eisenach celebrate it either day. I think….

In the Lenten season, my tradition has been to listen to the St. Mathew Passion. It won’t be as compelling on my smartphone, yet it is an option till I can listen to it on a proper player. YouTube has a good version, if I recall right..

I wonder how Andy’s enjoying the backyard scene today?

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My birthday breakfast came with a huge piece of birthday cake, a nice surprise!

21Mar26: cancer off…

Andy sleeping on the lapboard after begging for too many Greenies.

Yeah, no boopery is the sign I’m really missing my kitty.

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My pain level is one-ish if you are familiar with those pain charts in hospitals. It’s mostly at a low roar, present but only with occasional jabs if I move awkward ways.

As usual, staff at Regional West have been very caring, competently doing what they do, listening well, respectful of my quirky nature, laughing – they better! – at my terribly long stories. To the latter, I need to come up with a safety word for them to use when I inevitably get off topic. I think “stop” is a good one.

I thought the surgery would be more painful, frankly. I will have follow up, initially, I think, to let me know if the lymph nodes show advancement of the cancer from the breast. In that case, I will require radiation treatments. If not, what? I have yet to learn.

I suspect more medications are to come, and there are definitely more blood draws, that are difficult on me because of my 23 year history of the vascular disease, WG/GPA that affects small and medium sized blood vessels. What’s left have been used so often that my poor left arm must have very few vessels that give up blood willingly!

20March26: it’s off…

I came through surgery with flying colors. I miss Andy, of course, but his caregivers – s I ster Kathy and Tori from dialysis – both are cat people. Andy knows both, and love, loves them – boop! I am comfortable just knowing he’s well cared for.

Just a random email selection of Andy’s on my smartphone to hold you – am me! – until I can shoot new ones! Thank you all for your care and comments. I especially answering all comments coming in because they frequently have their own pet stories or answers you’ve found to pet issues of the day. Since I love all animals great and small, this is and always been a place for anything great and small! I regard each of you following this blog as part of a great cloud of blessings! Thank you!

Doug

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I’m sorry I’m taking this lazy way to.thank and return comments today. I’m very tired from catching up with all the good wishes, prayers, and thoughtful comments I’ve come to have from my bloog family and on Facebook. Believe me, I do appreciate each and every one!

I’m glad the surgery is over and that yhe reports show I’m improving, that the cancer is gone.

Doug

19Mar26: Andy’s busy day…

Later, Andy became interested in what Kathy and I were having for lunch.

Attention diverted. The table is a smellishous place for a cat.

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Andy is very busy checking out all the new scents and situations.

18Mar26: getting used to it…

Checking out my niece Shannon’s temporary work station!

The litter box is in a new place. Andy approves. (Good!)

Kathy and Shannon reorganized the living room with the objective of making it friendlier for me to get around it on a walker or wheelchair! I approve.

Andy is especially happy in this corner. The backdoor is cleared up open, with the little red chair, again, for him to watch the wildlife in the backyard; the sun on the floor is great; the litter box is close by; his 10th birthday cat tree lets him get high to enjoy another perspective of the backyard. Did I mention water and food close by?

He still has changes to explore, yet I think he is enjoying what he finds. I know I do. My sister Kathy and niece Shannon are minimalist when it comes to apartments.

They cleaned and declutered this part of mine in a day and a half! I never can thank them enough. It would’ve taken me forever, if ever, to get the same results.

Birdies tweet, then his “horns” activate.

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All of the kitties that passed – top to bottom: Freckles; Louie; Dougy. Some had been missing after they fell behind a CD storage cabinet. They reappeared after the cabinet was moved into a new position. Shannon suggested this arrangement by the large photos of the two kitty boys, Andy and Dougy, in boxes.

Lots of cleaning and reorganizing while I was at dialysis….

Giving up, Andy’s ploy to get more Greenies was a bust.

Hey! On plus side, the little red chair he can use to look out the back door is back!

16Mar26: waiting for company…

(The mild winter sped up “Shedding Season” and Andy looks positively lumpy!)

Staged, of course, but I’m hugging a pillow, relaxed like that.

14Mar26: this is for the 14th and 25th…

It is a bit sparse. (The blue cup is significant….)

…I put out the Greenies!

(The blue cup was my sparkling mineral water.

Andy ate a few Greenies, needed a drink…yes! Out of my cup. I stopped him – perhaps the carbonation was uncomfortable. I said a few words, thought about it,”Heck! I’m on two antibiotics now. Cat mouth or not, I’m drinking that! Antibiotics!”)

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It was some day – disaster after disaster. I spent at least two or two and a half hours washing dishes and putting groceries away with my oxygen canula hanging out of practical use!

Upset with myself, I put the canula in position. They are best stuck in your nose!

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My oxygen line tangled with Andy’s dry food – see the huge spill!

He wouldn’t eat any of that when I took his hint he wanted some.

When I turned the corner and saw what he wanted, I was appalled he still wanted me to add to that mess!

That blue cup gets around. I wanted to organize the table before family arrives tomorrow/today. Didn’t happen. (In storytelling, this is foreshadowing an event.)

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I went to the grocery store this morning.

We will eat lots of enchiladas and tacos this week…I hope!

Uh oh! Remember, the blue cup is significant to this two- for-one!

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Yes, another fall. It was in my bathroom when I stood up too fast.

No phone on me, no oxygen – left in front room because the antibiotics are making me loose.

Further, my LifeLine lavalier used to get help was in another room. I took it off when it was tangling in my oxygen line. No sleep under that condition!

After that, it same old same old, with police and EMTs doing their emergency things, a trip by ambulance to the emergency room. And blahblahblah. I’m tired of documenting these incidents.

No fun for me, time wasted that was meant for organizing my apartment for the visit.

The blue cup was still on the table when I came back. I was in the emergency room for a bit longer than five and a half hours, virtually the whole afternoon.

I got a ride home in an APD patrol SUV. I didn’t have my phone, so didn’t have phone numbers. It was charging at home. Bus service doesn’t run after 4 o’clock or on weekends. My car was at home since my ride was in an ambulance. I didn’t have my walker. What a mess. The APD doesn’t give rides to good guys as a rule…. When we got to my place, the APD sergeant had to go into my apartment for a walker.

A mess!