Job is still the same, just with less people. We're VERY short of staff, so it's rough, but still the same old routine. I'll hit 21 years there at the end of this month. Never thought I'd be there that long.
Family. We lost my mother in April 2016 to lung cancer. It was short and she was never miserable or in pain. She lasted not quite a month after diagnosis and my sister and I lived with her in that time. I saw family who just didn't seem to be able to cope, friends who were able to talk normally with mama, and a preacher who visited by some family member's request who realized he was in over his head. It was beyond obvious he'd never dealt with visiting a terminal person before. :( Mama was cremated and had a short, simple funeral at her own request. My sister and I are the ones who buried her urn. She'd have had a fit. We got a little silly, but she would have expected it. We did it up like a "normal" funeral. Went to the store for green table cloths to simulate grass. Would have gotten miniature folding chairs if we'd found them.
Aunts and uncles came for the goodbye. It wasn't overly sad, just like mama would have wished.
My sister got a job! After years of being out of work, her youngest was finally old enough to get her license and not have to have her mama there anymore. She works where I do now. :)
The kits. Three years ago January, I took in my sister's cat Smudge. He was having health issues and it was becoming a problem. It was thought he had Cushing's disease. I was finally able to afford the test Halloween 2017, but he tested negative. Unfortunately, he went downhill from the test date. He started losing weight and not wanting to eat more often than usual. By January, he finally tested as diabetic and started on insulin. It was only six days.
This was taken around 11 pm January 19, 2018. He passed in my arms a little after 2 am. He was taken to be cremated and is back with his mama. I think he had something other than the diabetes going on and it was just too late.
In order of age for the rest:
Gaia will be 9 this summer. She's doing well. Her weight dropped somewhat in the last year, but I've gotten her back to about 5 1/2 pounds or so. She'd gone under 5 at one point. Never sick or unhealthy, she just doesn't eat as much as the others at feeding time, so I put her in a cage to eat now whenever she feels like it. She also had a dental Halloween and had a couple of bad teeth removed. That's helped a lot with her eating, too.
Chiara, Pewter, Bunny, and Miska will all be 8 between May and August. All are doing well, though Miska has an appointment March 6 for a dental and to have a mass removed from her side. I'd never worried about it, but turns out I should have. Seems it's not a common thing for cats to have lumps. A friend just had her girl have surgery for the same thing, strangely in almost the same spot, and it turned out to be cancer. They got good margins, so hopefully, she'll be ok. I'll find out what Miska's is in a week or so. She's also having a dental the same day. She's only eating on the left side of her mouth and that's another weird thing for cats. No bad teeth seen, but he'll be able to tell better under anesthesia for cleaning.
Rat will be 7 this month. He's still his big lug self. Hates getting his claws cut, not big on cuddling, cute as all hell.
Trysten will be 5 this month. He was diagnosed with FLUTD and has been on prescription food for about a year and is doing well on it. He didn't like Smudge being in the house and is having trouble learning that the bedroom is now safe for him to enter and there's no strange cat there anymore. I'm just hoping this change doesn't stress him into another urinary-stress issue. He's otherwise his usual lap cat self and, as always, is "the kitten" of the house.
About a year ago, I had to deal with EVERYONE except Rat getting sick. Turned out there was some kind of bacteria or something that'd found its way into my yard and I manage to track it inside. I have never cleaned up that much cat puke in my life. And I've never been so scared. I had cats that were unable to eat for days. Rat was the only one who never caught it and I have no idea how he managed not to.
Pretty much it for the updates. Nothing much else has changed. Spend my time playing on Facebook and watching various anime shows. Occasionally a book by an author I like comes out and I buy it to read. That's it.
