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Eyes, Nose, Wrist and Brain
Dec. 16th, 2021 12:11 pmWe've been spending a lot of time lately treating our oldest cat's latest flareup of a herpes condition that gets into her eyes and points south from time to time. The last round was back in the spring, and we still had the eyedrops for it in the fridge. They were technically out of date by a few weeks but the vet said they would be okay.
Objections, of course, were forthcoming from the cat. At first, we both sat down with her twice a day to administer the drops. She no likee. She runnee and hidee as soon as she saw the two of us coming. So we've switched to each doing it solo- Eleanor mornings, me evenings- and she seems to be getting used to it. When it started running low, we renewed the scrip, but they also reminded us of an antibiotic that she'd also been on the last time for the secondary issues that came up with her breathing. We suspect the latter condition was what was making her go off her feed for the past week or so. She just has a hard time sticking her kisser in a food bowl with her schnozz all stuffed up. So I picked that one up last night and we tried the first dose. It's a liquid that goes in an eyedroppy thing you shove down her gullet.
Or try to. She REALLY no likee that, and I've got the scratches on my wrist to prove it. We then remembered that we gave it to her the last time in a bowl with tuna juice mixed in, and it went like a charm....
down the gullets of the other two idiots who broke into the room we were stashing it (and her) in:P It won't hurt them, and we now know to completely isolate them until Zoey is done. Eleanor gave her a full treatment this morning after I left for work and she hoovered it right down. She also ate everything I gave her at 6 a.m., and she looks and sounds much better, so hopefully this is headed in the right direction.
----
If only Eleanor's ills were as simple.
She's back on disability, and is still trying all kinds of remedies for fixing the wrist issue that her working retail aggravates to the point of excrutiating pain. She'd been seeing an acupuncturist for related ills last year, but that practice shut down, and a newer one basically wanted to pay for his next boat with an upfront commitment to eleven sessions. Finally she found one who was able to do pay-as-you-go and thought six weeks of treatments would be enough. She's halfway through, and it seems to be helping some.
Medicare, not so much. She stuck with her Medigap plan after open enrollment, though she did switch drug plans this time which could be an aggravation post in itself. This time, though, she was on the phone for hours trying to find out whether Medicare would cover any or all of the acupuncture cost. She finally got an answer: they only cover it for back-related issues. Fortunately, she wasn't on the automated voice-bot system when she found that out, because otherwise it would have gone like this:
Eleanor: They only cover acupuncture for back pain.
Me: ASSHOLES!
Bot: No, we don't cover it for any pain there, either.
Just under three years before I get to look forward to this:P
----
Which leaves the brain, or what's left of it. The first two workdays this week were incredibly intense, Monday with endless paper-pushing for the big new case I filed last week, Tuesday with running round to various clerk's offices to file or attempt to file things. We've been watching Aubrey Plaza in a bunch of films of late, so I picked up library disks of Parks and Rec which we'd never watched and are trying her out in that, as well. Today, I had a Teams appearance at 9:30 (which really wasn't one but I got what I wanted out of it anyway), and then a phone conference in a second case and an actual live court appearance in a third, both at 2 p.m. So I'm full frontal for once in a suit all the way to the shoes, and will call into the phone one while waiting for the other. Or vice versa.
Tomorrow's the office party in Rochester with axe throwing, and I have to come up with a stupid White Elephant gift. Since most of our discretionary funds have gone to animals this week (we also got Pepper groomed yesterday), maybe I'll just bring a bag of kibble. Wet cat food has become the latest supply chain item to go mostly missing, and I've been reduced to slumming in dollar stores to find Nine Lives, our forever brand of choice.
The brain also barely survived another season of Learned League. Most past competitions, I've made it my goal to finish at least at .500, but that went out the window toward the end of last week. So I was on the verge of being kicked out of my skill-level group if I didn't finish in the top 25 (out of 32), and I went into the final round yesterday smack in the Extinction Zone. Fortunately, I pulled out a win, putting me barely in 25th place. Several of us had the same overall number of points, but I preserved my spot on the first tiebreaker, which was the daily points difference over the 25 game season. Another guy had the same number of points and actually won and tied more games than I did, but he unfortunately forfeited three times during the series and you lose points for that. He and I were the only ones who received even close to as many points as we surrendered. We never played head-to-head this time, but I did have one person forfeit on me a few weeks ago. Even though I only know two other current players out of thousands (and they're literally out of my league), I still worry when someone doesn't show up. I almost reached out to him to make sure he was okay (he was- finished in second place and will be promoted to a smarter group next time).
So thank heaven for small favors- even if I have trouble remembering them;)
Objections, of course, were forthcoming from the cat. At first, we both sat down with her twice a day to administer the drops. She no likee. She runnee and hidee as soon as she saw the two of us coming. So we've switched to each doing it solo- Eleanor mornings, me evenings- and she seems to be getting used to it. When it started running low, we renewed the scrip, but they also reminded us of an antibiotic that she'd also been on the last time for the secondary issues that came up with her breathing. We suspect the latter condition was what was making her go off her feed for the past week or so. She just has a hard time sticking her kisser in a food bowl with her schnozz all stuffed up. So I picked that one up last night and we tried the first dose. It's a liquid that goes in an eyedroppy thing you shove down her gullet.
Or try to. She REALLY no likee that, and I've got the scratches on my wrist to prove it. We then remembered that we gave it to her the last time in a bowl with tuna juice mixed in, and it went like a charm....
down the gullets of the other two idiots who broke into the room we were stashing it (and her) in:P It won't hurt them, and we now know to completely isolate them until Zoey is done. Eleanor gave her a full treatment this morning after I left for work and she hoovered it right down. She also ate everything I gave her at 6 a.m., and she looks and sounds much better, so hopefully this is headed in the right direction.
----
If only Eleanor's ills were as simple.
She's back on disability, and is still trying all kinds of remedies for fixing the wrist issue that her working retail aggravates to the point of excrutiating pain. She'd been seeing an acupuncturist for related ills last year, but that practice shut down, and a newer one basically wanted to pay for his next boat with an upfront commitment to eleven sessions. Finally she found one who was able to do pay-as-you-go and thought six weeks of treatments would be enough. She's halfway through, and it seems to be helping some.
Medicare, not so much. She stuck with her Medigap plan after open enrollment, though she did switch drug plans this time which could be an aggravation post in itself. This time, though, she was on the phone for hours trying to find out whether Medicare would cover any or all of the acupuncture cost. She finally got an answer: they only cover it for back-related issues. Fortunately, she wasn't on the automated voice-bot system when she found that out, because otherwise it would have gone like this:
Eleanor: They only cover acupuncture for back pain.
Me: ASSHOLES!
Bot: No, we don't cover it for any pain there, either.
Just under three years before I get to look forward to this:P
----
Which leaves the brain, or what's left of it. The first two workdays this week were incredibly intense, Monday with endless paper-pushing for the big new case I filed last week, Tuesday with running round to various clerk's offices to file or attempt to file things. We've been watching Aubrey Plaza in a bunch of films of late, so I picked up library disks of Parks and Rec which we'd never watched and are trying her out in that, as well. Today, I had a Teams appearance at 9:30 (which really wasn't one but I got what I wanted out of it anyway), and then a phone conference in a second case and an actual live court appearance in a third, both at 2 p.m. So I'm full frontal for once in a suit all the way to the shoes, and will call into the phone one while waiting for the other. Or vice versa.
Tomorrow's the office party in Rochester with axe throwing, and I have to come up with a stupid White Elephant gift. Since most of our discretionary funds have gone to animals this week (we also got Pepper groomed yesterday), maybe I'll just bring a bag of kibble. Wet cat food has become the latest supply chain item to go mostly missing, and I've been reduced to slumming in dollar stores to find Nine Lives, our forever brand of choice.
The brain also barely survived another season of Learned League. Most past competitions, I've made it my goal to finish at least at .500, but that went out the window toward the end of last week. So I was on the verge of being kicked out of my skill-level group if I didn't finish in the top 25 (out of 32), and I went into the final round yesterday smack in the Extinction Zone. Fortunately, I pulled out a win, putting me barely in 25th place. Several of us had the same overall number of points, but I preserved my spot on the first tiebreaker, which was the daily points difference over the 25 game season. Another guy had the same number of points and actually won and tied more games than I did, but he unfortunately forfeited three times during the series and you lose points for that. He and I were the only ones who received even close to as many points as we surrendered. We never played head-to-head this time, but I did have one person forfeit on me a few weeks ago. Even though I only know two other current players out of thousands (and they're literally out of my league), I still worry when someone doesn't show up. I almost reached out to him to make sure he was okay (he was- finished in second place and will be promoted to a smarter group next time).
So thank heaven for small favors- even if I have trouble remembering them;)