Caught in the Shit Storm with This Umbrella Full of Holes

Note: Today is Day 19 of my 30 day blog challenge. If you want to get my random thoughts about random stuff in your inbox, you can subscribe at the bottom of any post or mash the RSS button if that’s how you roll.

Oz peed on the couch.

We discovered this a few days ago, while watching TV. We didn’t discover it sooner, because it probably happened weeks ago, maybe while we were out of town, and we don’t spend a lot of time on the couch.

He had been peeing in the tub regularly and he’s always been good about the litter, so we took him to the vet and discovered he had crystals in his bladder. It probably made it painful to pee, pain he came to associate with the litter box. It makes complete sense for a tiny kitten brain.

We changed his diet, filled the tub with water to encourage him back to the litter, and it seemed to work.

The couch has now been sprayed with Nature’s Miracle and is out of commission, cushions raised up and askew, while they dry.

Xander exploring the new couch cave (Photo by Jess)
Xander exploring the new couch cave (Photo by Jess)

Yesterday I had a couple of meetings and a bunch of work to do. I left the house around 10am, ran a bunch of errands, went to a meeting and a lunch date and then settled in to work at one of my coffee shop ‘offices’ for the afternoon and early evening.

On my way home, I mentally went through a list of things I needed to do when I got home. It was the start of Jess’s three day work weekend and I wanted the evening to go smoothly.

My crankiness from the ridiculous amount of hormones I’m taking seems to get worse each week. I’m not the easiest person to be around right now, and Jess has been a trooper. I didn’t want her to have to worry about anything when she got home from her 12 hour shift. I had an equally selfish motive as well. Jess can go into lecture mode when I forget to do things a certain way, or don’t do things that need doing, and I knew that I was stunningly ill equipped to deal with that in my current emotional state.

I got home, put my bike away and watered the all the potted plants outside. Then I went in to feed the cats. It was past dinner time and Xander was letting me know just how late I was, in his angry adorable way, as I scooped out Oz’s canned food. I even took a snap chat of him and sent it to a few people.

Then it dawned on me–Oz was not there, yelling at me to hurry up with his food already.

CRAP.

I ran upstairs. I heard him meowing behind a door. I opened the office. Nothing. With a feeling of dread, I opened our bedroom door. He came running out.

I had been gone from the house for 10 hours. There was no way he could have held his bladder that long. I fed him, fed Xander, then went to look for the damage. I definitely smelled pee and could only hope that it was somewhere in the carpet. But no such luck. I lifed up my pillow and there was a huge wet stain.

https://twitter.com/juliepagano/status/363490491939446784

https://twitter.com/juliepagano/status/363491207068262400

This was bad. Really really bad. Jess likes to have nice things so our bed consists of a very expensive latex mattress, another wool pad on top and a mattress cover. And wool pillows. All very hypo-allergenic. All very expensive. The wool pad was toast (can’t be washed). The only saving grace was that it protected the mattress. I stripped everything off, and put my nose deep into the mattress, but didn’t smell any damage and didn’t see anything that looked like a stain. That meant I might not end up single by the end of the evening.

Eventually I had to tell Jess, who was at the end of her 12 hour work day, what had happened. She was understandably livid. She’s been cleaning up one cat mess or another (Oz puked up his entire smelly soft food dinner one night in the middle of the carpet) for at least two weeks.

All things considered, she didn’t let me have it as much as she could have, but it wasn’t exacly the relaxing evening I had hoped for. When I accidentally closed the door to the second bathroom–the one that houses the cat litter that Oz had already been without all day–I felt like jumping off the nearest bridge.

On the surface, it still seems like I’m a relatively healthy person, doing normal things and taking care of life. But mentally, I feel completely broken. I’m desperately trying to not make things worse and I keep making things worse. I’m pretty much ready to go into seclusion for the next 17 days until it’s time for surgery (when I can stop taking hormones).

As terrible as this whole year has been, health-wise, I know that it could be much worse and I’m grateful that I have a problem that is relatively easy to fix, and the insurance to be able to afford fixing it (thanks honey!).

But I’m used to being the healthy one, and adjusting to the reality that I have to triple check everything I do because my brain can no longer be trusted, is a hard pill to swallow. Almost as hard as swallowing the pills twice a day that are making me this way. But I’ve seen the alternative and it’s not pretty.

So I just have to suck it up for 17 more days, try not to kill anyone or kick any puppies and wait for the alien fibroid baby to get taken out and stored in some lab jar where it belongs.

This post is part of the thread: 2013 Battle With Fibroids – an ongoing story on this site. View the thread timeline for more context on this post.

4 Comments


  1. ugh!

    i’ve been battling some bad kitty behavior at home since spring and ended up buying mattress covers from IKEA for the couches. cheap, vinyl lined, twin covers go over the cushions and then I throw some stylish sheets over those. makes it easy to keep couches clean (as i try and rotate covers out weekly to keep cat hair and dander down), even when (as it still happens when i leave for a few days or more even if the boxes are are clean) one decides to pee or leave a poop present. it doesn’t excuse the behavior or make me feel like a great pet parent, but it does mean that i no longer have to deep clean or replace cushions when someone decides they want to leave me a message.

    ps. your blog launched my girlfriend and i into some awesome conversations last night. you (or your alien baby) have a way of sharing the right stories to provoke further thought, introspection and empathy.

    Reply

    1. I look forward to hearing more about that at our next lunch date. 🙂 I hope I can still blog without the baby…

      Reply

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