03Apr26: there are challenges living with a cat…and dosage…

It is worrisome. Andy eats so much of his wet food, then stops. Since dosing it with taurine, it is concerning he’s getting more than in regular food, but not enough. Today I tried making his wet food more a slurry, reduced the zap time so it didn’t get too hot, added the taurine in the whole (unappetizing) mess, presented it to Andy for his approval, then waited. As expected, he drank the liquid, ate some of the solids, left most of it before he wandered off for a kitty bath.

Success looks like this? For an Andy-cat, yes, perhaps a close third or fourth place in the race to get Andy to the top in kitty class eating.

Andy saw me and stopped by. I was going through mail, most of it having to do with Veterans Administration appointments and my recent Scottsbluff hospital stay.

One, though, was a letter from a class of 1966 classmate.

He noted he enjoyed my photos taken at our monthly luncheon get togethers.

He missed them, but realized I’d had health issues recently. (Like the whole first quarter of 2026!)

He hoped I could do it again, take the photos. Me, too!

Our hostess had an excellent craftsman build a ramp up her front stairs, making it possible to get in the door much easier. I got his name and number from her. Though Ben, the apartment complex maintenance guy, made a very workable ramp for me, the inside bump over the door frame requires going out the door backwards…down a sloped ramp, onto a sloped sidewalk, into hell on earth on the sloped lane if I don’t have someone pulling me over the bump. Excellent wheelchair brakes are a good thing, too. Too much drama, as noted, otherwise!!

That pretty much ended it. Eventually, I photographed the note and sent it to my friend who coordinates class of 1966 news and events.

I edited the message out of the photo to the point you get the gist of what else was included against my will

02Apr26: domesticticity is exhausting..! Part 2

I’m still working through the mess on my table.

I worked out a slow but safe way to shower, which I took to wash away morning cobwebs. Knowing what I was coming back to … a washer load and the table… I made sure the warm, soothing, wetness pouring out of the hand shower continued for a very, very long, slow, and safe time! Luxury, thy name is Warm Water! But, it had to end. Ugh!

Yes, call in day for home grocery delivery. Don’t forget! I made my list. (Remember our president marveling over that new word, gro’-cer-ee. Gro-sir-ee’. Grow-sur’-ey. Never had to shop for ’em in his life, is my guess! Lucky duck!)

It’s call-in day for oxygen supplies, too. That’s been messed up since my dialysis days were switched. Delivery day landed on a dialysis day, and the rest is a nightmare!

It turns out Chris spends his day in Alliance taking care of our needs. Of course, dialysis on days is a very different animal than my old shift. It’s a catch-all of patients who require short sessions up to regular four hours ones.

You get put on a machine when it’s cleaned and ready after someone who might have had a short, medium, or long run starting whenever the machine was free.

Consequently, my sessions get done early or later. Telling Chris, the oxygen delivery guy, when to come by on Friday, then, is highly problematic. I think we will have to set up a telephone system to let each other know when to do deliveries, pick up empties, etc.

Getting Andy to lick up his taurine. He tends to lick the water and skip most of the food. Dissolving the taurine in the fluid on his wet food plate, I hope to improve his life by assuring him an established level of this vital kitty cat stuff, but without zapping in his wet food – I add it after – or having commercially baked kitty food sourcing a diminished level of taurine.

In the olden days, butchers gave people liver and other offal to feed your cats. Gave! Or they ate table scraps and supplemented their food with wild mousies, grasshoppers, and the like since they mostly lived outdoors.

Andy’s glad he’s just a kitty. He sees me fluttering around like a bee to flowers. “Slow but safe, Douglas!”

(Is my cat allowed to use that tone of voice on me? Hmmm. I must check it out on Google!)

=(^+^)=

I need a nap.

But…

…you can take lessons from your pets. Slow but safe. Safe but slowzzzzzz.

02Apr26:

Andy had early money snacks, then had a drink at his fountain.

After dialysis, I signed my tax papers, then gave thought to food. I continued to feel that fatigue wall crushing in early. I hope it shifts to later when my body adjusts to the daytime dialysis schedule.

Why? Look at my table! I was so exhausted, several different things ended up there, some should have been returned to the refrigerator. Some just needed to be rounded up to avoid losing them. Others were notices of appointment changes, including the notorious pulmonologist’s appointment that has been changed three times…once for being too late in the day for public transportation I’d use since I don’t drive at night (lots of deer crossing roads at night). Another was on a time and date suitable for my old dialysis schedule. Finally! One that works for my new di a lysis schedule. And more that I have to sort through after a halfway decec3bt night’s sleep where it happened – my chair, sleeping to the drone of the television news I didn’t stay awake to see. Oh, and nestled on my wheelchair a partially eaten pizza I settled on for food after dialysis yesterday.

01Apr26:waiting to sign tax papers…

People on dialysis have a fatigue wall set in that is so intense, uncomfortable,
that the only “cure” is to find a bed and sleep it off.

While waiting for my tax preparer to bring my2025 tax paperwork over to sign, I accidentally snapped a photo of me going over to the fatigue wall. That started around 3:15 yesterday afternoon. I fought it several hours, all afternoon till the papers arrived at…never.

Did I take this? Must have. No one else here. 6:36 pm.

Where’s my kitty? We need kitty “stuff” in here

=(^+^)=

I set my cup of ice water on the floor so I could reattach some oxygen lines.

I was going to take some extra strength Tylenol with that water.

Geez! Still waiting. Tylenol. Need it bad.

Tax preparers!! I tried Tylenol, ice, opening a window on the door enough to let in icey air. I’m starting to have visual disturbances. I think it’s time to call this off and make an appointment at their shop. I’d hate to be the one pushing a total of a 117 kilo man plus wheelchair up their entrance, but I can’t die waiting for someone who comes over, if at all, so long after the fatigue wall sets it. If you haven’t experienced it, you can’t appreciate how much it takes to try to stay awake hours after it sets in.
Not fun. Not fun. Five hours

31Mar26: confusion..

I’m having some issues keeping up with all of the appointments. Too many doctors and too many pieces of paper changing medications of so aspect of my care!

“Doug! My highway tends to end here! I used to have a great one past the window. It was over the desk. I could run over it or stop to enjoy the window show. Hey!”

Yeah. We need to see about that, Andy. The 80’s girl bear toy can go somewhere else. I don’t know if the books will be a good landing spot for you, yet scrinching them closer together might work. Then you can hop onto the secretaire, which is plenty solid. The secretaire chair is a potential landing spot, too.

=(^+^)=

This week, my almost 36 years in quality came back to haunt me. I kept seeing parallels between making hydraulic hose to given tolerances and a chore given me to measure and record amounts of drainage from my cancer surgery wound….

Henry Ford – yes, that one! – used to say that if you need a tool to do a job and don’t buy it, you still pay for it.

He meant you had more scrap, higher reworks, more employee injuries, more customer returns for off dimension or crap quality, and more with the worn tool needing replacement than the proper new one

The cup I had to measure my drainage was marked ambigously. Below 30ml, there were marks that were in lines in English units (no clue which…) AND metric, also not clearly marked. I mistook the scrambled lines for being for the metric.

My measurements, consequently became blended! And meaningless! And impossible to sort because I don’t know which lines I referenced in my notes. I became frustrated because I used to work in English units, clearly marked on precision tools that were calibrated to reference tools 10 times that precise and accuract. Those tools, in turn, were verified by master tools maintaine⁹d and used by Bell Aerospace’s calibration services. THOSE tools were traceable to the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) master references. I mean, anal obsessive level temperature, humidity, cleanliness, moon suit level master maintenance to an atomic level. They have the atomic clock in Colorado, too, so all time changezzzzzz ! Sorry. I’m endlessly fascinated by the topic, but we were talking about my experiences with more precise and accurate ways to get data compared with the poorly marked measuring cup a Henry Ford might spit tobacco juice into, then toss.

I used to have a quote under my desk cover. My job included a lot of data analysis, crushing those data to learn what they showed about a given product process, etc. (My mind went through each of these uses, intruding on sleep, food, quiet times, and more. I’m sparing a lot of reading here with that simple “etc.!”) That quote help focus me when I sat in front of my computer with a spreadsheet or apps capable of doing lots of statistical mischief to data: “Torture numbers and they’ll confess to anything.”

The data on my drainage…meh! Torture them or not, they won’t tell anyone squat. I’m ashamed to have my name attached to them! Give me a graduated beaker, a bit of scientific glasswork, and you’ll have numbers you can make sense of!

“Go back to sleep, Andy. My readers are joining you, too!”

The right tool in the worker’s hand is the start to the result you need in industry. It seems that applies to your temporary “employee” measuring drainage from a wound,too.

The nature of variation. Now there’s a topic you DON’T want me to get started on. Oh, come on! You know maths are fun! Then we can talk standard deviations; probability theory; design experiments; statistical process control; how Shewhart at ATT developed simple statistical tools (process data collection) methodologies) that Juran, then Deming further developed and taught to the Japanese after WWII; and that’s why you may be driving a Toyota or Honda today! Yeppers! “My world, not that plastic cup one.

I know! You love it when I talk maths! Good kitty!

30Mar26: the nemesis…

Sorry, Andy, but I finally figured out where your Auntie Kathy put it.

Surely that’s not The Comb!. (I thought it was well hidden….)

Yep! Stripping loose hair from your body once again.

A brief confrontation. Doug brushed Andy, Andy RAWR’ed the comb.

A nap is in order, but one eye probably will be slightly open.

=(^+^)=

I found this among my papers when I was shredding those I didn’t need to save. Yes, that’s US Army Spec5 Thomas in 1971 or whenever Reforger III was held. You can’t see it well, but my super Munich-made Arriflex camera is in the photo. Loved that camera! My silver-colored camera case is viewable on the right. I probably was cleaning camera parts, loading a film roll into the Mickey Mouse film holder and mounting it onto the top of the camera, and preparing my paperwork so I was ready to get names, ranks, units, hometown, and other information our bosses in Washington required. Mess up a shot or change your mind on how to approach one, you just turned your camera on and waved your hand in front of tbe lens. That way, they knew you knew the shot was bad or unacceptable for some reason. Best of all, it assured they gave you a good review – I was really good at mopic work! – because then they knew you knew they knew you knew they knew, etc., etc., etc.

This mysterious comment was written on the back of the photo. 50+ years later, it means nothing to me now.

=(^+^)=

There’s ⁹a bit of chill in the air today. For the first time in a long tone, I decided a mug of stout coffee was what I needed.

While in dialysis today, I had a phone call asking if I’d be willing to change my 12 o’clock appointment tomorrow for a follow-up with my breast cancer surgeon to 9:30. Absolutely! There’s weather coming in. Perhaps that’s why.

29Mar26

Sleepy boy definitely likes the wheelchair!

Look really hard. Andy was in the hammock on his birthday cat tree, his first use in years!

I can’t resist gently stroking my sleeping kitty. I hope it brings him dreams of his Momcat and her loving kitten care.

Of course. Andy has other favorite roasting and sleeping places!

He heard me over on the glide rocker, and…

GREENIES TIME!

=(^÷^)=

I had elbow macaroni with thick meat sauce, lettuce salad with
*Dorothy Lynch dressing, and potato salad for supper. I usually have plain water or Perrier or St. Croix plain flavored sparkling water with meals. I feel like hot chocolate now.

*(Dorothy Lynch salad dressing is made on Grand Island, Nebraska. It may be ordered online, though most likely by people who tasted it in the initial distribution area, mostly locally. It is sweet, spicey, tomato-based, and probably very similar to Russian salad dressing.)

=(^+^)=

All the new spots are great for sleeping, but the recliner footrest still is his default place to go for a nap.

Oops! I woke him up. You can see just how shaggy and unkempt he looks now that he’s having early shedding season.,

=(^+^)=

From scratch hot chocolate, with a touch of mint.

I keep forgetting I have grapes hidden in the bottom drawer of my refrigerator. The bagel is smeared with cream cheese and grape jelly.

Yes, everyone is worried if I’m eating! This is a late night breakfast. For my late afternoon lunch, I had that leftover macaroni with marinara-meat sauce, potato salad, and lettuce salad with Dorothy Lynch dressing. Yes! I am eating! And, clever monkey that I am, I even scrambled the eggs that I tossed on the sautéed green pepper, onion, and chopped tomato for my breakfast burritos. The cheese, a mild cheddar, I added after the eggs were just nearing the soft cook stage I like. It was a good breakfast, with a cup of tea. But I told you that earlier.

I emphasize, too, that I DO make sure I have secure anchors (solid objects or object with two solid anchors…) before I make a move. I think it through, pause, consider other possibilities that might give me better anchorage.

Sometimes that entails moving to a different spot the next time I’m moving onto a spot, if the anchorage or angle moving over feels more secure.

I’ve revisited every place I go to this level of thought. SAFETY FIRST!

I’m not just sitting there. If I’m in the wheelchair, the first step is to lock the brakes! You don’t want try to get in or out of a wheelchair with unlocked brakes. Believe it.

Typically, while I’m pondering anchorage, I tell meyself: “slow and steady” over and over (…the mantra of wheelchairists unless they like landing on their butts!); the attack angle for minimum air time, physical effort, or awkwardness moving from one seated place to the place you want to be seated; how would I get up in the location if I failed to transfer safely and fell; how, if I fell, would I get help if I couldn’t get up; if I fell, would I have room to get on my hands and knees, crawl over to a solid object (chair, for example) on which I could use my upper body strength to drag myself onto my feet; do I have access to my LifeAlert call items in case all else fails (probably not).

Sometimes I’ll just sit in my wheelchair, rethink whether going and doing things that passed through my head is worth the effort, decide not, and sit for several minutes to decide what to have for my next meal.

That’s fun! By the time I eat, I have changed my mind so often, I don’t have an answer, making a what I fix interesting because it isn’t what I thought I’ d have!

I rarely make food by recipe, so every familiar meal can have variations previous meals of the same thing did not. The elbow macaroni had currywurst ketchup in the meat sauce, for example, and onion, green pepper, and chopped tomato I sautéed and added to the sauce. The potato salad got a does of Doeothy Lynch dressing because I like a slightly sweeter, spicier potato salad. I ground coarse black pepper on it all and a bit more salt on the macaroni. I don’t add much salt to food, if at all , but this time, the sauce seemed flat, needing a bit more than the pasta absorbed from the salted water I boiled it in.

Tomorrow, the last day I can tolerate more of this pasta, I’ll either add something else to it – sour cream? cream cheese? – or bag it for the freezer.

I know this has been too much on the topic of feeding myself and use of the wheelchair, but there was concern that I wasn’t ready to live alone, that I needed someone to come in to prepare meals or vacuum and clean.

My Mom taught Red Cross swimming for 60 years. My siblings and I knew that that was her priority for daytime, that we could prepare meals for ourselves from whatever looked good on the shelves or in the refrigerator. I like to eat, so I’d try different things, for example, mix Jello flavors to see what (brown) Jello tastes like. You had to be careful which color Jellos you mixed! Ha! (Answer, good, especially if I mixed shredd carrots, celery pieces, even chopped onion in it. It’s a Midwestern sort of thing, I think.

I have a couple boxes of Jello in my cupboard I probably bought so long ago but never fixed. I wonder if they ate edible! Dialysis patients have to watch water intake, though. Jello is water heavy. Grapes are, too.

I tend to sip water with bites of food because of a slight paralysis on the right side of my mouth. My shingles legacy. It helps wash food down. You probably were told not to do this. A physical therapist in Denver told me I could choke on food if I didn’t break the rule!

I rarely finish a full can, bottle, or cup of a drink, so am glad bottlers offer those 7.5 ounce little cans. Twenty ounces!! Too much, and the fizz diminishes the linger they are in the refrigerator. I order small cups of pop at fast food places, and “small” sometimes is 20 or more ounces! Gad! Large is outrageous.

Anyway, for wheelchairists, walker users, and cane people, public places and restaurants tend to be a pain. The handicap parking is far away from the entranc3 or close with a steep curb to negotiate. You get inside, and waitress is fluttered about where to put you because your mobility device is “big”. (Sweetie, it can fit in a booth with you, but she hides you in some undesireable spot, pissed you weren’t happy to be isolated from everyone else. Mi Ranchito and Ken and Dale’s, folks. I stopped going to both.) Also, mobility devices do fold, making it possible to bring them into the both with you or secure them in some small place.

If they deliver, perhaps an infrequent restaurant meal is a small indulgence worth considering. IF THEY HAVE HELP THAT WELCOMES ALL CUSTOMERS. I note that while I abhor paying tips because proprietors underpay their help, the help are charged taxes by federal and state revenue services in the USA because of the assumption they get a certain amount in tips. To help that out, no matter how I feel about stupid tips, I never go below 25% or above 35%. Could it be that’s why I expect EXCEPTIONALLY BRILLIANT, FRIENDLY Service? Damn right!!

28Mar26: “…want the kitty food? Yer the kitty!

“

Andy waits, then decides it’s kitty food time. He wastes most of it, being a proper fastidious kitty, then takes a…

…drink in his fountain next to his wet food feeding station. Dry food and treats are his favorite, but he needs more taurine in his diet than these provide. A supplement is added to his wet food for that. (One plays this game of trying to get a healthy balance among his food sources, but it never works out predictably!)

Since he doesn’t read the Sunday Times, quaff port, or smoke cigars, Andy does the best best thing: he prepares to take a post breakfast snooze in a comfortable spot.

=(^+^)=

Years ago, a friend at work told me she was taking a bit of time off to visit her family in Mexico.

“Virginia, if you think of it, could you bring me a…

…small Mexican souvenir. You know, something not touristy or stereotypical of the country? Thanks, buddy!”

She brought me this coin! Love it! Love it!

Who is Juana de Asbaje? That’s your homework today, Dear Reader. Extra credit if you can tell the story of the eagle eating a snake on a cactus and how it ended a migration to find a place to build a major world city in it’s time and now, same city, different landlord. Mexican history is incredibly rich pre- and post- Conquistadores. Carlos Fuentes celebrated it in many of his books. That’s another Google-worthy name and destination. If you enjoy Latin American authors, Fuentes isn’t terribly hard reading, just intense and rich in history, with allusions to spirits of earlier times!

=(^+^)=

“Santa?”

“No. kid! Let go of my leg, or I’ll thump you.”

I wouldn’t say or do that. When it happened to my bearded brother, he just went along with it. Dick was a very nice man!

=(^+^)=

Why are there food photos? It seems amazing to others that I eat, let alone can prepare “normal” food. Yes, tea and breakfast burritos for my morning meal.

=(^÷^)=

A little Andy “stuff.”

…is ready for a nap.

27Mar26: reflections…

It is a quiet, sunlit morning where and when I write. Andy purrs softly while eating his treats, and I pause to thank Ye Gods.(insert whatever, whomever, or…your choice) for a wonderful morning..that followed with a call from my tax preparer telling me one document he needed was missing. I looked, no document.

Now I’m in a black mood! Damn it!

My mood quickly changed when Bill, my tax preparer, guided me through the process of retrieving a copy of the missing form. This extra special care is why I continue with the tax preparer I do.

=(^+^)=

Andy sitting on my paper shredder. He’s not a bad shredder himself.

=(^+^)=

World Cup time coming again. I had a difficult time watching it because I often supported both teams playing specific specific matches.. (2010? I think it was.)

I’m not a huge fan, but I enjoy the heart and compassion of “football” – Yeah! Yeah! I know! – and am pleased more and more schools feature it in their sports departments. I think I would have enjoyed playing it back in the days before dirt was invented!

So, the February page from the 2011 calendar I had made of favorite Louie photos popped up during my tax document search.

Louie was a very Kool Kat I named after another very Kool Kat, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong. What’s that have to do with “Danmark,” a Kool small European country and this business of a hint of a ginger tabby cat blocking a goal while a suspiciously laughing cat in Danish colors observes and cheers for Danmark? (Think of that French Laughing Cow fromage.) I think it was my team of the day, and they played well, but not against any of the other teams I wanted to win, against all probability since only one…yeah! Crazy, I know! But it must have been a very satisfying game to prompt this dreamscape!

FIFA World Cup has been ruined for me this year. I may try to watch the mess tied to US venues by US politics. Shxt. The same for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US. I just hope the US survives the year!

Louie had a magnificent tail. I miss him. He died on 1 August 2011. When I picked up his ashes later that month, Tara, one of the veterinarian techs, brought out wee Andrew, a weirdly cute Persian kitten. Would I be interested in having him? Awwww! He walked right over to me, something he does with people even to this day to decide what to make of them. I began the next phase of kitty living that moment.
Dougy came a week later, and l had the same reaction. What do you do if you are clueless about how to raise one kitten? Get a second one! Ha! And a book titled
“Kittens for Dummies.” (Dougy didn’t read the book, so never learned he was supposed to stop scratching furniture when I used the book’s methods.)

I’m fascinated by these images doubled in the mirror. I know Andy must have some thoughts about his image in the mirror, too, because I have seen him staring at himself before

“Who is that handsome kitty? I wonder if he likes Greenies as much as I do. Does he know the same neighborhood kitties that come to my door? That squirrel? Those cottontails?All those birds? Ho-hum! Time for a nap.”

I tried to. Fish tacos and a taste test on French fries of two brands of Currywurst sauce. The fish tacos need a little more thought and my “failproof” method of identifying which sauce was which (initial for each brand) got messed up in moving to the table. I think “H” is a bit more spicey and thicker than “Z”, making “H” the winner. We’ll try some future test to confirm. European ketchup is thinner than US ketchup, so clings less well to “stuff.” I’ve no strong preference either way. I do like German “Senf” (mustard) better, though all mustards in the US aren’t the classic yellow mustard typically slathered on hotdogs. Everywhere the French mustard… of course! That is, I think, the srandsrd. Why else would people try to emulate it?

The seal on
)Greenies is a toy to Andy. I don’t play with it much or leave it where he can get it. Trash is best. Looks like a veterinarian’s house payment or down payment on a car to me!

=(^+^)=

I tried the street taco sauce by dipping a knife in it and tasting a tiny bit. Classified by the Mexican producer as green Chile and mild, I won’t fall for that a second time! Ha!

A Chicago chef (Rick Bayliss) with a classic Mexican restaurant featuring cuisine usually not prepared in my country, had a television show where he made food without the so much fire, just seasoning mere mortals can handle.

26Mar26: a busy morning on Lane 2…

The front door has to be open long enough for tons of these nasties to get in. I’ve tossed whole plates of food because one landed on them! I hate these bugs! Soooo, this is Fred the Fly, alive, preparing to dive bomb my breakfast.

This is Dead Fred, stuck on the wall after a swift swat with my Murder Wand. The only good fly is one about to die. Better: very squashed and dead!!

This arrangement has worked incredibly well to limit the Greenies mess around the ottoman.

A few get away. Used to be the carpet was a solid mass of escaped Greenies. Anything that helps housekeeping is a boon to a mildly disabled guy!

A bonus kitty! When I took this photo, I planned on editing it down to the left hand kitty. Then I noticed I got this double Andy, thanks to the full-length mirror. LOL! Loving the jaunty angle of his tail in the mirror image.

I have to dump and record leakage from my surgical wound every..sort of…eight hours. It is slowing down to almost nothing, which I find encouraging. It isn’t hard, stinky, or difficult, just a bit too much routine at eight hours. I’ve not done well on that. On top of it, the measuring cup used to get drainage amount is poorly marked. As a former guy who was involved in measurement work that was at the thousandth of an inch, I abhor sloppy measuring tools!

Andy ate a few Greenies, left before I could snap a photo, and is over by the full-length mirror at his stainless steel water fountain.

=(^+^)=

I have a wash load of clothes nearly ready to dry. Andy put some souvenirs in his litter box that I can dig out. I’m feeling stronger each day and more confident in how to transfer from wheelchair to chair or whatever, a maneuver that requires a thoughtful, careful, slow-as-needed motion one to be safe. Lock those brakes, Doug! I’m beginning to develop those muscle memories that help make tasks semi-automatic. Semi-automatic because never, ever must they get so cool you forget the brakes or to have the wheelchair positioned at aless than optimum place relative to where you want to go!

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