Life in general

So it's another early morning for me, although I'm not all together sure why, the best I can say is that last nights attempt at sleep was a bust. Every time I thought I had it down, I would wake up again, toss and turn, contemplate getting up, the force myself back to sleep again.

In all honesty though, I felt like I spent more time awake than asleep and so at around 3am I gave up altogether, crawl out of my pit, got dressed and headed for the living room, with the lovely Mia in tow. 

Mia is the cute Kitty gazing up into cam, behind her is her lovely sister Molly.

It's safe to say that I am getting pretty fed up with my erratic sleep patterns and am somewhat disappointed to find that even with my new pain relief I am still struggling to sleep. 

I guess that means it wasn't the pain alone that was keeping me up. 

So the meds! Well, having taken Solpadol before I know that it can cause some pretty serious nausea and a fair amount of drowsiness. Sadly that didn't help me last night. 

Since starting now to take it again I've not really felt sleepy, but I have at times felt a little spaced out. What I have had in bucket loads is the nausea, but I know this will pass once my body adjusts and that this brief period of discomfort is more than worth it for the pain relief Solpadol  gives. 

Something I don't remember feeling before is the sense that my stomach is essencially hollow and eating itself. That sounds so strange I know, but it's really hard to explain. This feeling doesn't come with a sense of being hungry as you might expect, which just makes it all the more strange. 

I'm wondering if it actually has to do with the fact that my appetite for the last few months has been pretty none existent. 

When I eat it's in very small amounts, which is incredibly rare for me, and even those very small portions I struggle to eat. 

I've not seen this as a bad thing. After all I need to lose a lot of weight, but it seems to be creating a new side effect when combined with the Solpadol, to the point that the only way to ease the strange feeling is to force myself to eat something I don't really want, a solution that also works well to reduce the feeling of nausea. 

Again though I am not to fazed by this side effects. In the past the nausea disappeared after my body got used to the Solpadol and I am hopeful that this will prove to be the case again. 

As for my new anxiety medicine. I really don't know too much about it at this point other than what I have read in the leaflet. It's a tiny pill that I take once a day and is called Citalopram. 

I have to admit that the anxiety tablets always make me a little nervous, mainly because they always seem to carry the warning that your anxietys may get worse before they get better. 

On top of this, it irks me that they are also for depression and I know that is the case for most anxiety pills, but it leaves me feeling as if I'm being accused of that too, when I am definitely, 100% not depressed.

 I know this because I have suffered from depression before and I guess it's silly, but I was really proud of myself for slowly crawling out of that dark hole and don't like the though of anyone thinking that I am back there when I am not.

So far I have only taken one dose of the anxiety medication and if there are any side effects I really couldn't tell you, because I have pretty much taken all my side effects to be due to the Solpadol. 

Although I could be wrong and perhaps that hollow, stomach eating itself feeling is a result of the Citalopram and not the Solpadol. 

One thing is for sure though, I am loving the pain relief the Solpadol provides. Especially given that yesterday, for the first time in a long time, I was able to knock out nearly 7000 words in one day. 

Okay so maybe a large quantity of them were complete trash and will be relogated to the bin, but that's okay, because as the day wore on I did find my stride and feel that I have a least one great chapter in there that's worth keeping. 

Given my sleep deprivation, I am aiming to get just a couple of thousand words done today. On top of this blog post. 

After that I think I will snuggle up under my blanket and have a movie day with my son. 

So how about you? What are your plans for the day?

The weather here at the moment is pretty nasty and there were predictions last week that bad storms were heading our way. 

It's my husband I feel for at times like these as he has no choice but to head on out in it and having a job building conservatories and fitting windows and doors it means he is pretty much outside and dealing with the elements 85% of the time. 

With the winter creeping in, I know he is gonna be coming in wet and miserable on a regular basis. Thankfully, he has me and Kye to help cheer him up and provide him with warm, dry clothes fresh out of the tumble dryer. 

It's funny, because winter used to be the best part of the year for me, but not anymore. I loath it with a passion now. Largely because the cold makes my pain so much worse. 

I'm not alone in this either, my poor old boy Harley de is much the same. 

Yesterday was a particularly cold and miserable day and he was not impressed. Every trip to the garden was made in a very slow, sulky manner. With frequent pleading looks throws my way, in the hopes of earning a reprieve and also a couple of sneak attempts to hide under the quilt in the bedroom, while I was not looking, in the hopes of being forgotten in the mayhem of escorting a spinning, happy, everything is oh so wonderful Ludo, outside. 

My memory maybe bad, but I've yet to actually forget that I have two dogs and not one, still I guess you can't blame him for trying.

As much as Harley loathe going out in the cold, even with his coat on, it's important that he does and regularly because you see Harley's bladder is not what it used to be and being an old boy, the urge to pee sometimes creeps up on him, resulting in a very startled and embarrassed de, running across the room living a trickle trail of pee in his wake as he desperately try's and fails to make it to the back doors. 

He's a very proud old man is my De and he does not like to wet himself, but these things happen for all of us when we get older and if he stop being such a stubborn old fool and accept that regular bathroom breaks are indeed required, maybe he would see that I am saving him from the mortification that comes, from his old bladder deciding to empty without a moments notice.

My dog has old man issues.

I actually succeeded in irking him even more yesterday. When I attached an inflatable collar to his normal collar. 

It for medical reasons as all summer Harley has been plagued by seemingly phantom itches that have caused him to chew himself bare in places. 

Despite mutiple flea treatment, skin treatments and the soothing application of many creams we have yet to discover an actual cure.

The vet believes that his skin has just become more sensitive with age. Meaning that just one flea bite can drive him berserk.

We have now been advised that Harley needs to wear his protective collar pretty much all the time, as soon as we see any sign of chewing. Even if that means the thing is never off, because as the vet pointed out, even when a dog has been treated for fleas it won't stop a flea being picked up off the grass, while outside and biting down and as just one bite is enough to send Harley into a week long chewing session due to his now very sensitive skin, it means Harley is just going to have to get used to his new tire like attire. His is a picture of Mr sulky wearing his new collar. 

He was not amused, but at least it's better then one of those horrible plastic cones. 

On all other fronts, Harley is doing much the same as always. His cataracts is no worse or better, meaning his eyesight isn't great, but he has yet to lose his sight completely. His hearing is also no worse or better and yet again he has yet to lose it completely. His glands are good, the arthritis is no worse or better and the lump on his leg hasn't grown any bigger or changed in a way that the vet feels is concerning. So again, he wants to leave it be and just keep and eye it. This is the standard practice with Harley now, mainly because of his age, as the vet is loath to put him under unless absolutely nessicary, as the risks are greater with older dogs.

There is; however some good news, with regards to my old boy, he has now lost enough weight that the vet is happy that he is at an acceptable weight range for his combination of breeds. 

For those of you who don't know, Harley is my extra special pup, mainly because he has been with me since he was born. Before if you count when he was in his mummies tummy, as his mum Tamika was my dog also, as was his Gran Sasha.

 I watched de be born, the first pup and only boy in a litter of 6, at 3am Christmas morning 2000. He has been with me ever since and was the best early morning Christmas present I ever had. 

Now 14 and soon to be 15 he is a contancarous old fool, who likes nothing better than to gripe and moan about, well pretty much everything.

He has been a part of  my family even longer than my husband and is so unbelievably important to me, that I dread  to think what a mess I will be the day he eventually leaves me to head for the rainbow bridge. (I've told him he's not allowed to leave me and I am hoping he'll be as stubborn as his father in this matter and cling onto life until he's twenty, if not longer.)

You see the problem is, a home just doesn't seem like a home to me anymore without a Harley de in it and I really cannot comprehend, the possibility of my  grumpy old git being gone. Especially as he is the only mature adult in this house, who is able to keep us all in check. 

And I can't imagine our lovely loopy lu every taking over that role, he is far to gentle and clownish himself. 

Aww look at my babies. 

You know I had an odd chat yesterday with a woman who made me pretty made 

She was advertising a need to rehome her 16 year old cat, due to moving close to a main road. Now, I can understand that sometimes things happen which mean we can no longer keep our pets, due to circumstances out of our control, perhaps, but this didn't sound like it was out of her control at all.

So her add reads very basically: 

Free: 

Desperately after a home for my 16 year old cat who is called puma, we are moving and will be near a main road and worried he will get run over. Please contact if you can help. 

This was followed by a couple of pictures of that cat sitting on a hard concrete floor, not even looking at the cam. As if she couldn't really be bothered. 

Now puma is a beautiful black cat with a bit of a brown chest. Short haired, just adorable.

So a girl comments before me and say "Can you not just keep him and keep him as an indoor cat. Given his age he shouldn't really care to much and you have to keep him in for 6 weeks after moving anyway."

To which no response came.

So I chimed in "Contact Sammy Bell, she works for Hilltop animal haven and they give elderly animals, inpaticular cats a forever home, in a home environment. That said, I agree with the previous commenter about possibly just keeping your cat I as that would be nicer for the cat than having to settle into a new home at 16."

I get a reply saying "Thank's I will contact Sam."

Sam tells her that she will have to wait until Monday for an answer because Sam's boss is away. She also adds that Puma will need to be up to date with his jabs before they can take him as they have a lot of elderly and poorly kitties and cannot risk Puma bringing anything in that might make them poorly. Which is standard practice. 

To which the woman reveals that she cannot wait that long as he needs to be gone by Monday. 

Now, you have to assume she has known for a while that she is moving, so why has she left it so late to try and find him a home, but let's give her the benefit of the doubt and say that perhaps it was a sudden move and all very rushed and unexpected. 

I ask "Well what will you do if you can't find him a home by Monday?" To which she replies thankfully. 

" I don't know. We'll keep trying I guess or have to see if we can find him a temporary home." Well at least it wasn't "put him to sleep."

So I suggest that perhaps if she gives a bit more information it will help in finding him a home. 

To this I get a private message.

"Could you not take him?"

I have four cats, two dogs and three rabbits. No intention of having anymore. So I say. "Well, I don't know about that, my house is pretty full. Maybe I could take him temporarily if Sammy's boss says they can take him. He could stay with me until his jabs are up to date and hilltop are ready to take him I guess, but I have so many animals and need to know that he is going to be okay with other cats and dogs and also if he is castrated because I don't need an intact male coming in and fighting with my poor Tom cat." 

To this she responds that she doesn't know about dogs but with cats he is fine and yes he is castrated. 

Now my collie is very boisterous and de man takes no crap. If Puma were to try and tell De off, he'd be bound to get a telling off back. So it's really not sounding like a good idea to me, however, short term I figure I can keep them all happily apart so I say. 

"I guess I would have to keep them apart then, but I guess it would still be doable as long as you had definite confirmation before hand that he could go to hilltop once his jabs were all up to date." 

"And you'll pay for them, right?" She says. 

Wait a minute, what I never said that. Why would she think I would pay for her cats jabs. Deep breath.

"No you would need to do that.

Straight away she comes back with. "Oh it doesn't matter someone from my village is going to feed him until the new people move into this place and then they are going to keep him so he can at least stay in his own home now."

And I'm thinking "Wow, she arranged that fast. But tell her that great and wish her and Puma all the best.

About half an hour later I am on the phone to Sam discussing the strange events and when I tell her about our private messaging Sam says, "I bet you, she just leave that cat and that she doesn't really have anyone to look after him."

Naturally this made me really nervous and I'm thinking could someone really so that to a cat they've had so long.

Well when I voice this to Sam she says, "Oh yes, we see it all the time. We've had people ring us and ask us to take their elderly cat or dog because of all kinds of silly reasons. Such as... "Our old dog doesn't like new puppy, will you take him?" Him being the old dog and not the new puppy. "Our old cat doesn't match our new furniture, will you take him?" I kid you not that really happened. "Our kids are bored with them and want a new pet, if you don't take them we will have to put them to sleep." Two of our cats" she continued, "Actually came from the vets after the owners just walked in said "we don't want them anymore can you put them down?" Before just walking out the door and leaving them there and again This was elderly cats." 

Well, I listened to her in shock. I just couldn't believe anyone could do such a thing to a pet they'd had so long, but then I remember that in this day and age anything was possible.

Now, Sam and I both agreed that it didn't really seem as if this woman really care what happened to the cat or who she gave it too.

My instinct is to dive in and save this cat, but the reality is I don't know if she is genuinely telling the truth about this new found villager willing to feed the cat until this new family moves in that are willing to take the cat on. I hope she is telling the truth and not as Sam fears, just going to abandon it. Especially given its age, yet I couldn't help but notice that her add is still up and she hasn't put anything on it to say that the whole thing is now sorted. 

I do really hope for Puma's sake she is not lying. That poor cat deserves a loving home. 

So have you ever come across anything like this? Perhaps you've heard some rediculus excuse for rejoining a pet. If so I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Well this has been a fairly long post and it's time for me to head on out and get on with my day. 

I hope your Wednesday is a pleasant one and I'll be back for more rambling soon. 

Love and hugs all

Joss xx

P.s. Please keep Puma in your prayers.