what's cooking?

The last two weeks have tested my patience in reference to Murphy's Law.  Funny, a friend of mine from New York and I compare notes-all the time-and always hope that the next month will be "better".  The next year filled with much less angst or in Yiddish terms:  Tzuris.

But no, things just seem to creep in to keep us on our toes.

I did have a tiny bit of good news about my last lung x-ray.  The reading said, "Save for obvious scar tissue from nodules, this patient has normal lung readings".  FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC!

Never mind that I had been holding my ribcage for well over the previous weeks and was suffering from spasms.  My bloodwork didn't match the x-ray, but I figure at some point it will catch up.  Anyway, I just kept grimacing about the rib thing.  My allergies were acting up and the sneezing had been pretty bad, so my thoughts were that I had simply pulled "something" and it would eventually get better.

To prove it, I just kept going to water aerobics and walking.  Nothing says fun like exercising with spasms.

Then last week, we met some friends during our weekly grocery trip and were chatting when my ear kept plugging up and the sinus headache in the middle of my eyes had me suddenly seeing cross-eyed.  Told Steve I was actually going to skip class the next day and go to Urgent Care.

My friendly, wonderful doctor who had diagnosed my Valley Fever and saw me when I nearly stroked out 6 months ago was my intended medical person.  He looked in and said, "Well, for starters you definitely have a sinus and ear infection.  I know you just had a chest x-ray, but since this is YOU we're taking care of and the rib has been hurting for a while, let's get another one."

So, I did.  Guess what?  Those sneezes?  They broke my stupid 10th rib!  At least the last time I broke a rib, I got a good bear hug out of it.  This time I'm just getting PAIN!

He gave me antibiotics (which I'm almost done with) and said to give my rib a rest.  He said I could still go to class and walk, but no twisting and try NOT to jump.

Not jump?  In water aerobics?

I listened.  I walked on Thursday, but no pool until Monday.  I also went on a very long walk with the kids/dogs on Sunday.  Hey, I'm going to hurt anyway and given the fact that my stupid broken second metatarsal has been literally broken since last summer, I think this is just another one of those things I'll live with for a time.

But wait, there's more!

As you know, we have three furbabies.  The eldest being Pepper our 16 year old tabby.  All of a sudden he refused to eat-ANYTHING!

We've made adjustments about his senility (rubber sheets on my side of the bed, under litter boxes and not having any bathroom mats unless we're showering just to name a few).  But how do you "adjust" to a 6 pound cat deciding not to eat????

I was frantic.  Our wonderful vet said we had to expect that at some point things were going to happen and we had to decide if it was "time".  She mentioned kidney failure and such, but I was already crying my eyes out and couldn't really hear the rest of the future.  While assuring me that he was in NO pain at the moment, she wanted us to realize that we had to watch him carefully.

Then we were eating ham for dinner.  He came up and took some off of Steve's plate (don't judge us, we had already tried baked salmon and tuna).  We know the salt content isn't good for him-but it's better than him starving himself!  Then we went and bought pureed cat food/baby food, sardines in evoo and gave him baked chicken.

He's eating, he's drinking and he even was chasing Sunshine in circles around and under the bed.

We're not fooling ourselves.  On senior day at the markets we didn't do our usual buy of canned Friskies, but we'll just keep on loving him and doing what we can to make sure he continues to not be in pain, eating and happy.

If you can, say a little prayer for our little guy.