45 pounds of CAT

On December the 30th, we all went to the kitty doctor (the vet, but I call her the kitty doctor). This was a new doctor to Apricot and Thimble, although Colby had seen her before when his ears got so bad.

Now here's the thing. I'm one human, a girl, without the effortless upper body strength of most guys. They are three cats. Collectively, they weigh a little over 45 pounds. So how does one human get three cats to the vet? Especially when the biggest one, Thimble, has decided to try on the "scaredy cat" personality for a while. (At least I do hope it's only temporary!)

Last time we all three went to the kitty doctor, I had the two Coons in Thimble's big crate and Apricot in the kangaroo pouch. When I came back, I had Thimble and Apricot in the crate and Colby in the pouch, because that was what they had physically indicated they wanted.

So this time, I decided to put all three of them in the crate. I got a friend to make me (I paid him) a CATillac -- a furniture mover's dolly with a handle and eye bolts, I think they're called, on the sides to tie down the crate to. This would assist me in getting the crate from the car to the kitty doctor's place and back again. I figured I'd get someone to help me lift the crate into the car at the vet's, and I could lower it onto the CATillac.

However, this left the question of how to get the crate plus cats out to the car from my house. Hm. I came up with and implemented this plan.

Everybody got their harnesses put on before I left for my walk that morning. (And hey, this time it was properly cold outside!) The door to the sofa room got shut as well, to keep them from hiding there. I figured Apricot at least would know what's up. (He did.)

The putting on of the harness went well; Apricot didn't even need bothered by Colby in order to walk around this time, which is odd because his harness was just a tad too tight. Not enough that I wasn't going to use it, but enough that I think I need a new one. (Sigh. More expenses.)

When I got back from the walk, I put Thimble into the crate and carried it out to the car, whose door I had previously opened. The crate fits across the back seat with room for me to sit next to it. How convenient.

Then I put the kangaroo pouch on and put Apricot in it, and hooked the pouch's hook to his harness (this was the only reason I wore the pouch; to ensure that panic would not enable a cat to get away from me).

I took him out to the car, opened the door, sat down inside, closed the car door, unhooked Apricot and opened the crate door and fed Apricot through the opening into the crate. Although he didn't even try the splay-legged "NO" protest some cats do, I will admit the advantage to such a large crate is that he wouldn't have had a chance.

See, this way there was no possibility of losing a cat to the outside world. Not that Thimble even made a move from where he was plastered against the back of the crate. Sigh. I wish he were brave like he used to be; it would be so much easier on him.

Then I got out of the car.

Wait, then I opened the car door to get out of the car.

Nope, the handle moved but the car door wouldn't open. Oh for crying out loud! Apparently, the car accident where the guy hit my driver's side door and affected the back door did more damage than anybody thought. While I got the actuator repaired so the key fob would unlock the door from the outside, the inside handle won't open the door. And of course, when do I ever sit in the back seat? And I never have more than one person besides myself in my car these days.

So I scrambled into the front seat and got out the front door, which probably alarmed my poor cats even more.

I repeated the whole process with Colby, who was far more difficult to get in the pouch, seeing as he'd observed me leaving with both Thimble and Apricot and figured, rightly enough, that he was next. I think perhaps I'll just fasten a leash around my middle to be the connection next time.

I had to get out of the car again and go back inside for my purse and the protein bar I was going to have for breakfast, and put the CATillac in the wheel wells of the back seat (it wouldn't have fit while I was in there), but then we were off!

The crate: all strapped in.
Technically this is on the way back, as the crate's on the other side on the way there.

And on time, too. In fact, we were early to our 8:30 appointment! (That never happens to me!)

Nobody said anything on the way there. Not them or me, as I was busy stuffing my face while I drove. It was nice that December the 30th happened to be a holiday this year for a lot of people so traffic was light. I'm glad the vet's office was open.

At the office, I unfolded the CATillac and put it down by the car door where the crate was the closest. Then I pulled the crate out of the car and, using as much arm and leg muscles as I could to spare my back, put it down on the CATillac.

Oops. It was backwards. I didn't think the cats would appreciate the view from where we'd been; they'd be better off facing the end I was pulling, so they could see me and (hopefully) draw reassurance from my presence.

Okay. Concentrate, deep breathing, fingers on one end, fingers through gate of crate on the other end, lift just enough to be able to rotate and set back down.

I did it! I was very proud of myself. And there was a nagging thought, minor, pushed to the back of my mind where I didn't actually think of it till later. "Huh. That was easy."

Colby and Apricot visible as we go up the handicapped paintlines in the parking lot.

Using the pull handle and the handicapped access ramp to the sidewalk, I took my load of CAT into the office.

They sent me right into a room, even though I was early, and I opened the crate door to let anyone who wanted to come out and explore.

Thimble and Apricot aren't going anywhere.

Colby was the only taker. He was like, hey, I know this place! He went under the chairs and stood on his hind legs to look on the counter where before he'd jumped up and knocked over a jar of liquid, but he was just confirming it was the same as before. This time he left it alone. He found the corner beside the window seat against the wall and behind the crate, and decided that was a good place to stay.

Colby the intrepid explorer

The vet tech came in and talked to me about my concerns that day, and confirmed what the vet was going to do (physical exams on everybody, shots for the Coons but not Apricot).

Then Dr. Powell came in. She's very nice. Colby liked her last time.

Colby's Corner

They have a baby scale like I have to weigh the cats in. I decided since Colby was out, I was going to do Apricot first, as he was the easiest to get to in the crate. Colby might go into the crate after his exam, making it even harder to get to the other ones!

So Apricot got weighed, and it really helped that I have that scale at home (not identical, but close enough), as I'd accidentally trained them to hold still in it without being held by me. (I didn't do it on purpose, just would say "hold still" when I put them in it and then "thank you" when I put them back down.)

Dr. Powell looked in his eyes and his ears and at his teeth and his skin, and then listened to his heart rate (172, normal for a cat-at-the-vet), took his respiration rate, and then they took his temperature. That was quite enough for Apricot, who was an angel (or paralyzed in fear) the whole time. He didn't react, just wasn't happy about it.

I put him down on the floor, not the crate, and while he was busy getting his bearings, I fished Thimble out of the crate. And fished, and fished, because he's a very long cat and wasn't coming willingly.

I got a couple of amazed exclamations from both vet and tech when I kept getting more Thimble out of the crate. Finally I had his back end bundled into my arms with his front so I could lift him up.

He went through the same things Apricot had. Only his heart rate was 200. Poor fellow. He was visibly the most scared of the three, even shaking a tiny bit. And he only had to get one shot because his rabies from last year is good for three years, and of the other two shots they get, one is good for two years.

Apricot by now was back in the crate, and I let Thimble go in as well (I kind of just poured him in, as I figured that would be his ideal spot right now).

Then I moved the crate and gathered up Colby from where he'd gone. He earned a new nickname on the scale: Wiggleworm! His heart rate was identical to Apricot's. Unfortunately his heart murmur is back, dang it. I guess I will have to get him ultrasounded in another two years after all. I don't want to; they'll probably have to sedate him. He's calm but he's not the calm do-anything-with cat that Pippin was (Pippin never had to get sedated for an ultrasound, even the very first one).

The arrangement of the cats in the crate was theoretically Apricot at the back and Thimble in the middle now, but when I went to put Colby in, I saw that the two had switched places. More like Thimble had forced his way into the back. But he had his tail curled around Apricot, who was curled up against him. It looked so sweet!

Can we go home yet?

Then we did the pay thing and got the flea control stuff for me to put on later (I haven't yet), and I asked a gentleman who'd come in with a kitten in a tiny crate (comparatively!) to help me out. Well, actually I was about to ask the desk lady if someone could help me and he volunteered.

So he lifted the crate into the car for me once we got out to it, and I thanked him, folded up the CATillac and put it into the car, and off we went back home.

Oh goodness, I don't want to go through all that again, cat by cat into the house. By the time I got home, the physical sensation and the accompanying thought had gotten stronger. Lifting the crate had been easy. I wonder ... I went inside and turned off the alarm and left the house door wide open when I came back to the car.

"Guys," I said, "I want to try something." I pulled the crate out enough to get a hold of both ends and lifted. Completely. I was upright, holding 45 pounds of CAT and the weight of the crate, and although it was heavy, I was okay. I could even walk.

My friends, I carried that entire crate in with me and set it down on the floor. The only part that was difficult to the point of "ow" was the "on the floor" part. Next time I'll put it on the table; they can get down from there no problem--they do it all the time.

Can you imagine? I have never, in my entire life, been able to lift that much weight with my arms, much less walk with it. Hooray for protein and strength training!

Apricot took four hours to forgive me; after two he re-emerged from his hiding spot but wouldn't let me near him. After two more he went back to being normal with me. This was a great relief and I'm glad it only took him four hours.

Thimble held a grudge for about two hours and then gave it up and climbed into my lap where I sat watching a tvshow and wanted cuddled, so of course I did.

Colby was perfectly fine from the moment he left the crate.

And so we survive another vet visit, and I learn an astonishing thing about myself. (Whoo hoo!)

In Which Thimble is Sleeping

After an hour of sleeping on my lap, this is the marshmellow Thimble turns into. I had to keep my hand in the photo as he's got a paw wrapped around it!

There is a Jacket, and Life is Good

It's getting cold, and I wanted a tighter jacket to go underneath the bigger jackets when I walked, so the cold air couldn't sneak up the bottom of the jacket stack and make me cold underneath. As finances are a little tight, I was quite pleased to find exactly what I was looking for at a big box store for $10. (Actually, they didn't have my size. So I ordered it off their website in my size and picked it up the next weekend! So very cool. I love technology.)

Now, whenever I bring home new clothes, unless they're really nice (which I don't usually buy), I put them on the floor so the cats can investigate to their collective heart's content. It makes them happy, and it makes me happy because then when I do wear the shirt or whatever, I don't have cats all over saying, "now hold on a sec, that smells funny. I said, stay put!"

This jacket was a bigger hit than most. When I put it on the floor, it was zipped up. And Thimble, my adorable, silly long-haired cat who loves to burrow into clothes, quilts, sheets, rugs, etc, thought this was awesome! A burrow place just his size.

He went in through the bottom of the jacket.

There was a pause to evaluate, during which Colby showed up and was puzzled.

Colby is still puzzled but, like most cats, pretending it doesn't bother him at the moment.
The Thimble tail is still sticking out of the jacket.

Then Thimble turned around inside the jacket so he could see out. This attracted Colby's attention again.

It also attracted Apricot's attention. He took the opportunity to lick Thimble's head without Thimble able to return the favor. Thimble wasn't all that pleased but he put up with it.

He's quite pleased with the jacket.

One more thing to try: he turned around again and came out the other end, the proper way for a head to be in a jacket.

The next day found Colby trying it out.

Colby doesn't burrow. He liked the jacket to sit on.

In the end, I have had to leave the jacket on the floor for the time being. When I want to wear it, I pick it up and put it on, much to everyone's fascination.

Luckily, the surface of the coat isn't fuzzy so it doesn't pick up cat hair. (The non-fuzzy was deliberate: the dry air of winter makes static electricity. Dry air mixed with a fuzzy jacket made me get shocked a lot. I was tired of it.)

And so far, Apricot hasn't really sat on it (or in it) at all. This seems to be strictly a Maine Coon jacket!

In Which I Am Stalked

Please may we have some?

I started giving them hairball treats, which they all adore, right after I put my evening pills together. I'm keeping the treat bag with the pills so I remember.

It didn't take the gang long to figure out the new pattern to the evening. One night, they were all very very quiet as they gathered behind me. I turned around, expecting to have to call somebody in, and there they all were. Quite close and rather unexpected.

I believe I may have squeaked in surprise.

In Which They Wait For Me

This is what I see most days when I get home. I park outside the kitchen window and they wait inside on either the cat trees or the dining room table. They're both on the table. The bar across Colby's chest is the top of one of the chairs.

It's hard to get a picture of them waiting, in part due to the reflection (since I get home in the afternoon and the sun is shining onto the window), and in part due to the fact that when they see me, Thimble immediately jumps down and goes over to the door to wait for me there. 

It's rare he's both there waiting and not on the floor yet by the time I get out of the car.

I Didn't Even Know It Was Possible To Bruise Your Own Ribs

Two weeks ago on Monday, I observed that the mattress I'd rotated three days before had not been put back in place correctly enough. It stood too far away from the headboard and I was in danger of losing my small blankets down the crack. (This whole situation happens to me fairly frequently, given that I rotate the mattress once a week.)

So I put my hands on the side of the mattress, braced my feet, and prepared to give it a good shove to get it up closer to the headboard. About this time Apricot notices I'm about to move the mattress and jumps up on it, coming over to me to get headbumped and kissed beforehand. (A far cry from his feral origins where he'd never get close if I was moving the mattress; now he likes to be on it while I move it!)

Okay, Apricot head-bumps and kisses over, I reset everything and shoved as hard as I could. My elbows were bent at almost a 90 degree angle and I was pushing with my entire strength down my arms and against the mattress.

I have done this many times without a single problem.

This time, my right arm buckled, the elbow swinging inward. At the same time, like a game of tug of war, I drove my entire body weight onto the point of that elbow. Which, due to an apparently genetic quirk making my elbow level with my ribs, means my elbow stabbed into my ribs.

This hurt.

Since my lungs are behind my ribs, this also drove the air out of just one lung, not the other. I've had the breath knocked out of me before but never just on one side. This feels very strange and even more "wrong" than both sides, oddly enough.

So, being in a great deal of pain and not being able to breath on one side, I naturally collapsed against the bed. I felt rather positive that if I continued the downward trend I wouldn't be able to get off the floor for a while so I just sort of pinned myself against the mattresses, holding on with my arms too,  while I struggled to get things sorted.

Remember Apricot? He's still there.

My head is now level with his. He came closer to me and gave me an exploratory, concerned sniff. "Are you okay? You're acting all kinds of weird."

I reassured him I was okay, just in pain again. He left, looking back over his shoulder as if to say, "well, you don't look okay but I'll take your word for it."

The reputable medical websites all say bruised ribs take 3-4 weeks to heal. I think they're right.

Also, did you know you can sprain a rib? I thought sprains only happened to joints. You can also crack or break a rib, but I have a feeling I would have been in a lot more pain and not been able to "do stuff" while it heals.

I didn't go to a doctor. I really can't afford it, plus, the only thing they can do is xray you, tell you if you bruised, sprained, or cracked the rib(s), and give you sympathy. You're not supposed to bind even broken ribs now, as it causes shallow breathing which can give you pneumonia. You're supposed to take anti-inflammatory drugs to make the pain less so you also breathe less shallowly, but after two days of taking an OTC anti-inflammatory during work, I realized that, yeah, I was getting reaction headaches.

So no pain medication for me. I actually did try to see the doctor at the end of the first week to try to get some prescription anti-inflammatory drugs that might not have the same reaction headache issue, (we're talking migraines here, not something I'd rather have than my ribs hurting) but they didn't have anything appointments open.

It's only been in the last few days that I can lift Colby without having to hastily put him back down again because it hurts too bad; I still can't lift Thimble. Part of it is that Colby weighs less (by about a pound) but part of it is also that Colby relaxes into my shoulder and conforms to my body, making his weight more evenly distributed, while Thimble would stand on my hands and shoulder if I'd let him.

They haven't really understood why I'm not doing as much picking up cats as usual, nor why I'm doing less getting down on the floor with them. (Try it. Notice how much core muscle work is required to get back up? Yeah, those muscles. The ones right across the ribs I bruised. Ow.)

When I told my parents about this whole incident, I expressed the exasperation I had with it. I mean, I knew you could bruise/crack your ribs by coughing, but I didn't know you could bruise/crack your own ribs with your own elbow! It sounds ridiculous!

Daddy told me he'd done it. Twice. Both times when he was driving his truck and having to do something to it. But (lucky me for being a wimpy girl) with his extra guy upper-body-strength, he didn't just bruise his ribs. He cracked them. And then still had to drive home. OW.

It also occurred to me about a week after doing it that I was very lucky my right arm had buckled. Remember the trouble I had making my lung start breathing again? I don't think a sharp, sudden blow directly over my heart (left side) would have been good for me!

And a coworker (who had also bruised his ribs when he was 18 and playing football for high school) showed me a better arm placement so the next time this happens, if my arm does buckle, the elbow will go wide and miss my body and all I'll do is end up with my chest against the mattress. Sounds much better.

Now if only I can remember to do that ....

The Thimble Version of An Alarm Clock

On the Saturday my sister went back home after visiting, I discovered my alarm clock had ceased to work. I take a vacation and my alarm clock dies. Figures.

It's a sunrise alarm clock. It's a monstrously large thing; fills the headboard front to back (Thimble does the same thing) and is about 12 to 16 inches long. It wakes me up with gradually increasing light instead of a harsh sudden noise.

I like sunrise alarm clocks. I didn't realize until I didn't wake up to it, but instead woke up to the backup alarm on my phone (which is a harsh sudden beeping noise), that the light waking me up kept me from waking straight out of a bad dream.

And boy I was cranky. Thimble was not altogether pleased with how cranky I was that morning. It took till late that afternoon before I realized what must have happened. I tried to increase the light manually and nothing.

So, whatever, needs a new light bulb. It's only the second one in more than a decade after all. I put a new light bulb in (it just used normal candelabra bulbs, but had a reflector plus the shape of the "lampshade" to increase the light to the maximum of the full-bright "end" of the alarm). Yeah, new bulb not working.

Um. Phooey. Already proved that waking up without it was a bad idea. I reluctantly went on Amazon and looked up sunrise alarm clocks. Reluctantly because this one had cost about $150 back in the day and I was sure that a new one wasn't going to be much cheaper. It wasn't. It was $130. Ouch. But, the reason why it was less expensive is because it had competition. Back when I bought it, it was the only manufacturer making such a clock and they were kind of rare. Like noise-canceling headphones were originally.

I looked up the competitors, and one that looked like it would work was only about $40. If I hadn't had the other one, I don't know that I would have gotten this one. The old one had a 15 or 30 minute wake up "light getting brighter" time. This one has a 30 minute only time. But I already knew 30 minutes worked best for me. Some other stuff like that, too, but since I had the experience with the old one and its more modifiable features, I knew what worked best, and this new one had it.

Thimble, the new alarm clock, and the old one behind it.

It also had a much smaller footprint, which was attractive to me, as the old one took up so much space on the headboard that Thimble (who prefers the headboard at night) was actually very restricted in where he could be. He had plenty of space as long as he was in the exact same space every time!

It was also less heavy than the old one. I didn't even think about this.

Thimble had observed that if I woke up late on a Saturday, I was very cranky and no fun to be around. Thimble had observed that the alarm clock was what woke me up.

The next Saturday (the 15th) I only had the clock a few days (shipping and everything does take time, you know) and I was still messing it up. The light activated as it was supposed to but I was exhausted and didn't want to get up and at the end, it's supposed to make a noise to let me know "okay, the light's as bright as it's going to get, time to get up now." It didn't.

So I was making all the motions (or lack thereof) that would indicate to Thimble that I was going back to sleep.

Let me stress I was not in a location where my head was directly under the alarm clock.

This meant that Thimble (bless him) had to have pulled the clock along the surface of the headboard until it was over my head, and then pushed it off so it hit me on the head.

Well, it worked. I woke up. Unfortunately I still couldn't get out of bed because I don't want to reinforce that behavior!

I woke up, moved the alarm clock off my face a little puzzled, and looked up into Thimble's concerned square face looking down at me. "Did it work? Are you up?"