One Day At A Time

Here is a photo of the finished Clue 3 for SOTS II:

Well, I did get a chance to work on Clue 4 for a few rows last night. That helped calm my nerves since I have been worried about my cat. I had forgotten that when I adopted her in 1993 she was a year old so she will be 16 years old next month!

She has been off her food recently,looking uncomfortable and extremely whiny in the last week. When it snowed here in NYC on Friday she had climbed over to the windowsill and was watching the snow. She hasn't been hiding, but she has not been eating her normal amounts. Which might have contributed to her not having a bowel movement from Wednesday through Saturday when I took her to the vet without an appointment. I avoid Saturdays there since it is their only weekend day and EVERYONE tries to bring their pets in. Plus the senior vet is not usually working. But this time he was and the wait wasn't much longer than I have waited weekdays when I had an appointment!

In the end I was about $500 lighter in the pocketbook and had antibiotic pills to give her. The assistant took her in the back to draw blood and get a urine sample. This time a urine sample was "volunteered" and the assistant was spared any bowel movement samples. The in-house blood test showed that she was dehydrated and indicated a higher level than normal of something (which I forget) that could have indicated kidney problems. The exam did not show anything enlarged or anything much in the bowels and she only hissed at the vet once. Which is better than our last visit. Until the more complete blood test results and urinalysis results came back from the lab Monday the vet felt giving her some fluid subcutaneously and antibiotics should help.

It did seem to help since her appetite was good immediately after our return from the vet, but later that day she only nibbled on her food. I managed to get only a partial dose of the antibiotic in her on Sunday but Monday she got a full dose.

When we spoke on Monday he was more upbeat going over the lab results. She had a high white blood cell count so she definitely has an infection. Since there were white blood cells in her urine she has at least a urinary tract or bladder infection. Which he explained could be causing the high levels indicating kidney problems. He instructed me to continue the course of antibiotics and call them if anything changes that concerns me otherwise I am to bring her back after the antibiotics have finished. The antibiotic he had prescribed should help with any kidney infection as well as the urinary or bladder infection.

She managed to eat most of what I had mixed the antibiotic in this morning but enough for left for me to be concerned. Luckily when I got home tonight she had finished it off. I tried the tip one of my fellow SOTS II members had sent me of warming the food slightly to increase the smell which often enhances it's appeal to an animal with a cold. Well it worked and she ate some, walked away and returned several times to nibble some more before going for a nap. I will have to try it again a little while later after I eat with the remainder of the can. That should increase her fluid intake and give her more energy as well.

Just taking One Day At A Time and hoping she does better. Maybe I will be able to work more on Clue 4 as well.

SOTSII - Clue 5!

Clue 5! Yikes!
I am on row 143 of Clue 3. First I haven't had time to work on the project consistently. Then almost every time I do I will think one of the rows is fine but then even if the stitch count is correct I will find out that I missed a YO or counted the knit stitches wrong or something. So I wind up tinking out the return row and tinking almost all of the pattern row. Because of course the mistake is close to the start of the row! *sigh*

I hope to make progress and be less behind this weekend but somehow it looks less and less likely that I can ever be close to catching up with the current clue.

Of course I am still recovering from oral surgery, work has had it's emergencies and last night I discovered a disaster in the kitchen just before I was going to bed. My kitchen sink pipe leaks every time any liquid goes down the drain!

I had to remove everything from under the sink - soaked boxes of garbage bags included and then get all the water up. I hope it did not leak into the downstairs apartment or I am responsible for fixing their damage as well as mine.
Then I had to figure out how to dispose of what could not be salvaged, where to put what could be salvaged and how to catch any leaking liquid so no further damage would be caused. All at 2am!

Okay so I knew I would have to get a plumber sometime to take care of those pipes since I discovered that a joint further along was oozing a couple of years ago after I moved into the apartment. Think it has to do with the prior owners replacing pipes so that the metals in the different sections are incompatible.

The only "lucky" part is that it seems the leaking is really at the main portion where I can place a bucket. For some odd reason the pipe with the trap is so low that the trap is about 1/4-1/2 inch above the cabinet floor. Hard to get anything under it and impossible to empty anything without spilling most if not all of it out on the cabinet floor.

With the bucket in place and one of those sponge wipes clipped over the pipe running across, the water gets directed down into the bucket instead of along the pipe and all over the place. Surprisingly running the dishwasher did not result in a huge amount in the bucket. Whew!

Well perhaps I can work on clue 3 more tonight and be more alert while doing it.

Sometimes you can only deal with things one hour at a time.

Finally Finished SOTSII Clue 2!

Well, I finally finished the second clue on Saturday night 2/9/08. I did not get far in Clue 3. Of course, Clue 4 was released on Friday. *sigh*




It did not help that I had a molar removed on Wednesday afternoon which was the tooth that had a bad abscess that emerged the prior week. Totally unexpected. When they removed the tooth they discovered that most of the side where the abscess had erupted was destroyed by the infection. So that was the right decision. The two dentists had been debating whether a root canal would remove enough of the bad material so that additional bone loss would not occur or if removal was the way. Both would mean additional work to make a functional molar which would also prevent my teeth shifting on the jaw (again).

I swelled up alot overnight and looked like a chipmunk hoarding nuts. I was extremely uncomfortable but not in pain. I am still swollen but now there is just a harder area the size of a large walnut in the area. I feel alot better. I am still on antibiotics for the next few days.

To top everything off, I woke up this morning to the coldest temps here ever!
It is 11 degrees but with the wind chill it is minus 10 degrees! My subway station is of course elevated so I can imagine what it will be like!

Tomorrow a snow front is due in the afternoon but that will be turning to rain. Only time will tell.