Why do they always get sick around Christmas?

Our pets have a notable history of getting very ill during the holidays.  This is significant because it’s the time of year when we have less money than any other time of year.  We’re scrimping and saving to try to buy gifts for a few family members (at the same time that our contract work is in short supply), and then the pets go and need bladder stone surgery, or need knee surgery, or die (a shout-out to a cat I really miss, Sweet Pea), and it’s getting so bad that soon I will dread Christmas because it means scary visits to the vet’s office.

The good news is that Carlo does not seem to have any heart problems.  It cost us $350 to find that out, but peace of mind is pretty much priceless.  The other good news is that Bunny seems to have responded well to her heart meds, because she’s been acting like a wild and crazy kitten for the past few days.  She’ll have blood work done on Sunday, to make sure the Lasix isn’t damaging her kidneys, but she sure seems to be in good health right now.  The bad news is that we still have eight other sick cats with upper respiratory infections, two of whom also have bad eye infections.  We had to pick up antibiotic ointment for their eyes yesterday (I bet you can guess how much cats like ointment being put into their eyes twice daily).  The other bad news is that in the midst of all this, Cricket the dog seems to have developed pancreatitis.  She’s been eating Stella and Chewy’s brand of raw food since mid-September, but we finally ran out, and there’s no place around here to buy it.  So, we picked up some good canned food, like Spot’s Stew, and figured that would suffice until we could figure out how to affordably get the dogs back on raw again.  After just a couple of days on cooked canned food, Cricket started to throw up and act as if she was in severe pain.  We thought she was perhaps constipated, but after taking her to the vet (and treating her for constipation), x-rays and blood work indicated pancreatitis.  She’s doing a bit better now that she’s got pain meds, but eating is still uncomfortable for her, and today she was throwing up again.  Tomorrow we have to go in and get some anti-nausea meds for her, as well as a refill of her pain meds.  Cricket is a typical yappy and easily agitated small dog, so it’s easy to tell that she’s not her normal self.  To be honest, I don’t miss the constant yapping, but I’d still rather have a happy, bouncy, annoying Cricket than the sickly one we’ve got now.

I really need the pets to be in good health for when I go to Canada, because I don’t want Flippy to be burdened with anything on top of the usual household chores.  She wanted me to try to have Greg and Spiderman gone before I went away, and I accomplished that, but I replaced them with the Beanie Boys, one of whom is still a bit sickly.  I spend a large part of my day tending for the pets in one way or another, and I’m already feeling guilty about the workload.  It’s just going to be worse if she has to be worrying about sick animals, too!  I thought I could do something like make all the pet food up ahead of time, so Flippy would just have to defrost it, but when I envision how much food that would be, I think it would mean we’d need to buy a new freezer.  Despite all the obstacles, I really do have to go home for Christmas for once.  Of course I miss my family, but I’ve been gone so long that I just deal with it.  My mother, on the other hand, has convinced herself that having so many animals means I’ll never be able to travel again.  I want to make this trip just to prove her wrong (I hope Flippy won’t need to be hospitalized for mental and physical breakdowns when I get back).

After posting once or more each day during Nablopomo, I went a week without saying a peep here.  I think the Bunny news burned me out, because I spent most of that week in bed, sleeping.  I felt so great after taking the Medrol pack last month, but the stress has undone all that good work, and I’m back to square one again.  I’ve found a new companion in my battle to ease stress and to relax, though:  he’s my new boyfriend, Glenn Harrold.  He sleeps with me every night now, (which makes the bed really crowded, as we’ve also got Frank, Bunny, Carlo, and sometimes a few others in there, too).  I found Glenn at Audible.com, after reading that many fibromyalgia patients have had success battling pain and stress by using hypnosis and meditation audio recordings.  At Audible, I found “Deep Sleep Every Night”, and “Heal Your Body by Using Your Mind”, both written and read by Glenn, who is a graduate of the British School of Clinical Hypnotherapy.  At first, I wanted to giggle a bit because the concept of laying in bed and being “hypnotized” by someone with a cockney accent was quite silly.  One I actually started to listen, however, the recordings actually worked.  I’ve fallen asleep to one of them every night for the past week, usually in under fifteen minutes.  I’ve never heard either of them in their entirety because I can’t stay awake.  This is quite good for me, because although I suffer from a lot of fatigue, I also have trouble falling asleep at night.  I’ve been using some form of sleep aid since 1999.  Now I’m sleeping without the sleep aid because of these recordings.  I can’t say that I’m being “hypnotized”, especially because I’m not awake for very long to get the full effect, but something sure makes me relaxed and drowsy.  I’m also someone who likes to sleep in complete silence, so it’s a 180 degree turn for me to be falling asleep to talking/music while wearing earbuds.  If you’re looking for some sort of stress-buster or sleep-inducer, I encourage you to give one of these titles a try.  I can’t vouch for the more “active” titles (the ones that are supposed to make you want to exercise or do work), but the relaxation titles are very good at what they do.  Try and listen to a sample before you buy, so you’ll know that the speaker’s voice doesn’t annoy you.  Glenn Harrold is very compatible with my ears, but some people find his accent too unusual to be comfortable.  A woman named Lynda Hudson has a relaxation title which was well-reviewed and recommended, but when I heard her say “Relaaaaaax” on the sample, it sounded like she was telling a ghost story.  It made me giggle, which is normally a good thing, but not when you’re trying to fall asleep.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 12/12 at 03:52 AM

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