Goodbye my sweet Sophie. . .

In August of 2012, my sweet kitty girl was diagnosed with hypotrophic cardiomyopathy . . heart failure.  We had returned from the groomer for her regular shave (she had massive hair that matted easily, this was the best upkeep).  That evening she was breathing really hard.  I sent her to work with a friend the next day.  My friend was a vet tech at a vet that I had used on and off for Sophie.  She stayed there overnight. . . I can't remember what they thought the problem was but I do remember they treated her with steroids which ultimately would never have helped the situation.

The next day my friend called me and said they wanted to transfer her to VSS (Veterinary Specialty Services).   This is a great vet clinic in the St Louis area, that is open 24 hours and has amazing doctors on staff.  Interestingly my friend now works there.   I met her at the clinic and she brought in my very sick kitty.  She had a heated water bladder in the carrier with her as she couldn't maintain body temperature.

This photo was taken after her diagnosis and after her last professional shave.
She never looked that well shaved again because I had to do it.
She loved her heated kitty bed!

The cardiologist examined her and said that she thought she could get her through this episode . . . if she did her prognosis was 6 months - 2 years.   I agreed to the estimated cost and my baby girl stayed in the hospital for 3 days if I remember right.  She was so weak when she came home that I carried her to the litter box several times.  It was a long recovery with at least one emergency trip back to VSS.  But then she stabilized. . . we adjusted medication as necessary. . . she was on a *lot* of medication. . .

Over the years her kidneys had been stressed by the medication. This is common with "heart kitties" as the medication is constantly removing fluid.  She stabilized on medication three times a day. . . every 8 hours. . . she was on potassium, vetmedin, spironolactone (a type of diuretic), clopidogrel (aka plavix), furosemide (probably the most common diuretic/lasix) . .  every Sunday we'd put all these together in various gelcaps and I had a box of pill boxes - one pill box for each day of the week.  Each box had 4 compartments and we filled three of those. . .

At an appointment earlier this year the vet walked into the room and asked how her "miracle kitty" was doing.  I think she was really surprised my tough Sophie girl had totally blown past her prognosis.

Last week things took a turn for the worse.  I came home Monday evening and her breathing seemed too fast.  I had to meet someone in town in an hour and Sophie was purring for me, so I decided to see what she looked like when I got back.  (You can't count breathing when the kitty is purring).   When I got back she was still breathing too fast and wasn't laying or sitting comfortably.  At 8 pm I gave her a lasix and waited 45 mins to see if that helped.  My husband wanted to see how she was in the morning, but I had a bad feeling so we left for the hospital at 8:45.  Sophie stayed the night on oxygen and the ER vet tried to tap fluid off her lungs, but I was told he didn't get much.

Tuesday her cardiologist saw her and her kidney levels were elevated and she still had fluid around her lungs.  She was going to try to be more aggressive getting the fluid off and Sophie would stay on oxygen and stay the night.

Wednesday morning (if you read my previous post you know Tuesday night was a nightmare). . . the cardiologist called and said there was nothing left she could do.  The kidneys were more elevated and the fluid wasn't leaving.   She suggested putting her down.  I trust this vet 100% and I knew we'd done everything we could do.

Sophie and her "brother" Mr Blue.  They weren't friends and this was about as close as they got!
Mr Blue has never been the only kitty in the house.
He's a bit out of sorts and I can tell he misses his big sister. 

So for the first time in my life I made the decision to put a pet down. . . and my husband and I went over there and I got to say goodbye to my baby girl.  She gave me massive purry-kitty-love and I thanked her for being the best kitty girl anyone could hope to have.  I held her on my lap while she forever went to sleep.  It sucked.  I cried.  I miss her so much.

My baby girl had the best heart, unfortunately it just wasn't a strong heart.  She got the short end of the stick.  I will forever be grateful for those 4 years I had with her.  There is a hole in my life right now and my house just isn't the same. . .


One thing Sophie just *loved* was laying in Eli's saddle pads.  I'd leave them out on the floor just for her.

This is probably my favorite photo of  Sophie.  

The week prior to last, I was off work.  I basically got to spend her last week at home (or at least more at home than I am normally) and I'm thankful for that.  In hindsight I think there were times she was saying goodbye. . . she was showing a bit more affection than normal and meowing more than usual (she was usually very quiet).  I don't have many regrets other than wondering if I could have caught this sooner.

This was the last photo I took of my sweet sweet Sophie. . . we called her Sophie McSophers . . . and various other nicknames. . . sometimes just baby girl.  

Goodbye my sweet baby girl.  Love forever. . .

911 . . what's your emergency?

Tuesday night I called 911 for the first time in my life.  I'd like to never do that again.  My husband and I were at my parents' house for my Dad's birthday.  We had eaten dinner, opened gifts, eaten dessert and were getting ready to leave.  Earlier that day my husband said he twisted the knee that he had ACL surgery on before I met him (10+ years ago).  I didn't see him favoring it.  But he stood up to get ready to go home and within about 2 mins mom noticed he looked bad.  He grabbed his leg below the knee and he seemed to almost faint. He said a force was pushing him down (he explained that after).  But during the time he said that his body hurts all over.  We got him a chair.  Mom got him a wet washcloth for his forehead and it went downhill from there.  His head got closer to the table and he seemed to become unresponsive for a few seconds at which time I called 911.  

I can't go through more details here.  I feel it's a bit too invasive of his privacy.   But I will say he had low blood sugar (weird after eating right?) and low blood pressure.  The EMT's had him drink juice and they filled out information.  Then they took blood sugar again.  That went up but blood pressure went down.  They didn't have to take him to the ER as he wasn't classified emergent at this point.  He refused to let any of us take him.  He couldn't walk well but my dad helped me get him home.  He said his knee/ leg hurt  - a 15 on a scale of 1-10.  My mom stayed the night with me and she was with him for a few hours after I went to work on Wednesday.  That day was awful (another post coming).   But I ended up going with him to the Dr that afternoon.  His doc doesn't work Wednesdays so we saw the nurse practitioner.  We didn't get any answer.  But they drew bloodwork.  They have no baseline bloodwork for him.  We got an X-ray of the knee.  Not that it will show anything  as I'm sure it's not bone, but that's the prerequisite for any other test.  Then he went to see his chiro.  She did some acupuncture and electric stem stuff (I'm not sure as she hasn't done that on me yet). . . then she massaged his calf and hit a spot that about sent him out of the chair and made him pee his pants.  Ha! Since then he's had nothing but improvement and he saw her again today.  

I'm not convinced this had to do with the knee/leg.  Maybe it was an extreme pain reaction?  The body sure does different thing in response to pain.  But there have been other things I've noticed that have made me wonder how to connect the dots.  Maybe there is a diabetic/blood sugar issue.   I'm not sure how long it will take us to get answers. 

In the meantime I keep an eye on him, much to his dismay.  I'm making sure he eats right.  I worry if I can't get in touch with him.  I'm really scarred from that experience.  Probably because I don't have answers and I know from experience that I may not get answers.  That's the hard part.  I sure wish that hadn't happened at my parents' house as they've dealt with a lot with him and my mom is traumatized from all of it.  His family never sees any of these issues unfortunately.  ( that whole in-law thing sucks I must say)

This week has been nothing but bad things for me unfortunately.  My stress and exhaustion level are at an all time high.   

More to come. . . 

Losing control . . .

I'm losing control of my eating.  There, I said it.  It's like I'm either *really* good or I'm not.  I can't find a happy medium.  I know some of it is stress.  But some of it is that I just don't care.  I'm back up to 190 and that's stressing me out, but I don't know if I care "enough".  Does that make sense?   The stress in my life is just . . . a lot. . . 

My husband apparently has a larger issue with alcohol than I knew. . . after he totaled his truck a month ago (at 3PM on a Monday afternoon!!!!!!), he's been in "rehab".   What does that entail?  Group therapy 3 times a week. . . which he pretty much thinks is a waste of his time.  He's in a group with people with alcohol and drug issues. . . more drug than alcohol from what he tells me.   And those drug people are your "classic" stereotypical drug users. . some with ankle bracelets on. . . most there cause it's court ordered. . . playing on their phones or even half asleep.  My husband ain't got the patience for that crap and I know he feels like he doesn't fit in and it's a waste of his time.   It's embarrassing to me to even write this blog. . . I'm so ashamed of where my life is right now.  Living with this has been rough but to even realize that this issue is larger than I expected. . .   has been . . . depressing to say the least. I'm pissed off.  I'm hurt.  I'm angry.  I'm sad.  I'm embarrassed.  I'm in disbelief that this is my life and a large part of me wants out.   I feel like this is more than I should say, but I also needed to get some of it out. 

Over Labor Day weekend we went to Cincinnati.  The trip almost got canceled because I came home to find my husband drinking a beer the night before we were suppose to leave. . . did I mention that I can't stand this is my life right now?   This is going to sound crazy, but one of the reasons I wanted to go to Cincy was to go to Taste of Belgium. . . . I saw it on Diner's, Drive-In's and Dives. . .  and since I "lived" in Belgium and I love their waffles. . .  I wanted a "real" Belgium waffle.  I got one. . . more than one. . . 

They were oh so yummy!  We brought 2 packs of 4 (yes that's *eight*) waffles home and topped them with ice cream.  They were amazing and very authentic. 

I discovered there was a Dover Saddlery just outside Cincinnati.  So of course I got something for myself and my main boy. . . 

And in other random news. . . just last night I jumped on the Lularoe bandwagon and I ordered my first pair of leggings.   I hope they live up to all the hype. 

So it's been a month since my last post and I'll probably see you again in another month because quite frankly my life is too depressing to write about. . . 

Advocare Cleanse results. . .

I love love love doing the Advocare 10 day herbal cleanse. 

It consists of a program of clean eating.  In the morning you take a probiotic 30 mins before breakfast.  You drink a fiber supplement with breakfast and then in the evening when you go to bed you take the herbal cleanse capsules.  The eating program is really easy actually.  You just eat clean.  And honestly I eat often and I'm satisfied.  I struggle with a really strong sweet tooth so the first few days can be rough.  It can also be rough to be around sweets or foods I can't eat during the cleanse.  But it's 10 days and I'm here to tell you that *you* can do anything for 10 days.  It resets me, detoxes me from sugar and sets me up to maintain a good eating program following the 10 days.  The eating has become habit and because I feel so good I maintain it.  I have more energy and I sleep better when I eat like this.   

Anyways, here are the results.  I'm down 7.8 lbs, which is pretty typical of what I lose during the cleanse.  I lost 1 inch *each* on my bust, waist and hips for a total of 3 inches overall there.  I also lost 1/2 inch on each thigh.  Do you count both of those and end up with a total of 4?  Or do you only count on thigh for 3.5 inches? I have no idea!   

You can see my daily weights above.  It takes a while to see a difference in fat % and I'm not sure how accurate those hand held monitors are, but I lost 0.5% of body fat.  Normally I would only take that measurement every month or so because I feel like too many factors, like hydration, come into play and it's hard to get a consistent reading.  

I'm really pleased with these results.  I still want to see 176, but I feel like I got control of the scale creep.  I just hope that I can maintain it for some time right now and continue to lose.  I do the cleanse about every 90 days or so.  When I have 10 days with no real social commitments that will sabotage me.  Advocare says not to do it more often than every 90 days.  So I do it 3-4 times a year. 

Other than that life has been way too filled with drama that has been stressing me out but right now I'm not comfortable talking about it.  Unfortunately I find the position my life is in right now to be rather embarrassing and uncomfortable.  I woke up Tuesday morning thinking that life was a dream.  Then I realized it wasn't.  I sometimes wonder how I got here.  But in anycase, I'm trying to distract myself and plan a hot date with my 5 year old nephew this weekend.  We want to take him to see Pete's Dragon.  Has anyone seen it? 

Cleaning it up!

On Monday I started the Advocare Herbal Cleanse.  I do this 3-4 times a year.  They recommend not more often than every 90 days.  I love the cleanse!  It gets me back on track.  I eat a lot of food.  But it's clean.  No cookies, pretzels, cupcakes. . .  And I was becoming a sugar monster!

The amount of *crap* I was stuffing in my mouth was shocking.  I'd eat just because honestly.  The stress doesn't help.  Once I clean up my food choices, I feel so much better!  Less fluffy - goodbye bloat!  I have more energy and I sleep much better.   I might be less moody too, but that's hard to judge cause my stress level impacts that quite a bit.  

After 4 days of eating clean, I'm down 5.6 lbs!!!   Today is day 5, so almost half way there. 
(read the weights from the bottom up!)

I had let my weight creep up too high for comfort.   My goal has always been to see 176 and I never quite make it.  I get to 178 and start going back up.  I'd like to finish the cleanse in the 170's . . . even 179.8 (my scale only weighs in even increments. .  179.9 isn't possible) would be ok!  It would be a big boost to motivate me to keep my eating clean.  Right now I'm rocking and rolling.  I'm determined the weekend will be no different than this week.  I like routine in my eating, so if I can maintain this routine and eat the snacks when I normally do I will be golden. . . I hope!

This week Advocare released a new spark flavor. . . .

I've had two so far and it's yummy.  The flavor isn't as strong as I'd hoped.  I like the strong flavors so I can add more water. . . but it's still really good.  It will be high up on my list of favorites. 

Have a great weekend!  

How much time?

Last week sucked.  I didn't really speak to my husband all week.  After our issues Monday night when I showed up at the park and found him with a beer in his hand. . . I was just too done to talk.  Sometimes you're just talked out.  At least with beating the same issues.   I met my brother in law Tuesday night and talked to him. . . trying to get some advice.  It was good to chat and also good to enlighten him on some things.   Hopefully he tells the family some of these issues (the lack of communication and lies) because as the in-law I'm the bad person.  

This weekend was homecoming in my town.  If you drink, this is the place to be.  How can you pass up buckets of beer?  Yes literally - they sell buckets and fill them up with beer.  If you have kids, this is the place to be.  There is a parade 2 out of 3 of the nights, along with rides, games, fair food, 4H projects/animals. . .    But if you are me. . . this is the place you avoid. Especially when it's your 20 year high school reunion.   But also when you know your husband can't have any fun when you are around.  So Friday night I did this:

Darn right!  I stayed in a hotel all by myself so that I wouldn't have to worry about when he came home, how much he had to drink and I could actually sleep.  Cause my brain won't stop listening for someone if I know they are coming home.  So I toss and turn. . . .  So Friday night I waited till about 5pm, after I knew he left for the homecoming/tractor pull and I went home, made a hotel reservation, packed a bag and high tailed it out of town.  My parents took care of giving my cat her 9pm meds.   I got decent sleep.  I suppose I was still kind of worried about his lousy ass.   I had pizza for dinner. . . 

A week or so ago I was talking to a coworker about how the personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut are the best.  Perfect size, perfect ratio of everything.  Do you remember being in Book Club back in grade school.  I don't remember exactly how it worked, but I remember you read so many books and you earned a free personal pan pizza.  Ahh the memories!  I loved earning that dang pizza.  I was so excited to go get it.  This really threw me back to my childhood. 

So I turned my phone off, read my kindle and eventually went to sleep - sideways on the kind size bed!  Heaven!  I made myself stay in that bed past 7am. :)  Sleeping in is hard for me.  I turned on my phone. . . nothing - not a single text, no FB message. . . I logged into our Sprint account to see if there was an attempted call to my phone on my husband's line.  I figured it would have went to VM and would have atleast registered a 1 min call on his line.  Nope.  Nothing.  I went to the hotel gym, ran 3 miles, showered and then enjoyed the free breakfast that is Ah-mazing at the Drury.  Yes I stay at a Drury whenever I can.  I love those hotels. 

I packed up and drove back towards home - passing home and going to the barn to ride Eli.  Once I left there I went to Kohl's (oh I did go to Kohl's the night before in the town where I stayed.  Why not check out another Kohl's?  I love that place).  I got a Frosty at Wendy's.  Then I stopped by my parents for about a half hour.  Now it's 2;30 pm.  Who has called me?  Who has texted me?  Not my husband.  Nope.  I really thought about staying out another night.  Clearly he doesn't care.  But homecoming was still going on and I was concerned if my cat would get her meds.  If it wasn't for my Sophie girl I would not have went home.  So I get home just after 2:30 and the first thing I ask him is when was he ever going to check on me.  He claims 3:00 pm.  I call bullshit.   How much time would I have had to be gone before he'd call???  how much time would you have to be gone before your significant other would call you?  One of the workers at my barn asked me if I'd ever done this before?  Nope!  Never.  He's always known where I was.  So it was an out of the ordinary thing.  

Clearly we got issues.   Clearly I don't know what to do.   He's in therapy and I'm trying to be patient, but the patience is wearing thin.  It might be time to move on.  

Time flies. . .

Time flies even when you're not having fun.  To say that life has been stressful lately would be an understatement.  I haven't written anything since May.  I suppose because I'm not sure what to say.  I'm not happy with where life is at the moment.  If I break life down into segments: work, horse, marriage, etc. . . there isn't one part of it that makes me happy.  When you want to go to work to not be home I think that's a bad sign.

Let's start with the horse. . . Eli showed up lame in April.  I don't even know if I wrote about it and I'm too lazy to go back to see.   I left for Rolex (I do know I posted those pics!) and left him on stall rest.  I had my regular vet out a few times to see Eli.  But let's be real here.  My regular vet is in his 70's (just a guess) and he's fantastic and amazing.  He's smart, he's been there seen that.  But at this point I think he should be used for routine medicine as he simply doesn't have the equipment needed to diagnose major issues.  So in June we took Eli to the University of Missouri in Columbia MO (Mizzou for short).

After an evaluation, we decide to ultrasound Eli's left front leg.  In this photo, they are prepping for the ultrasound.  It shows up on the TV on the wall!  What did we find?  A tear of the superficial digital flexor tendon.  I won't go into details but we tried a treatment of injecting the tendon with his own plasma.  We then started "rehab".  We went back early July and had some improvement but not enough to make the vet happy.  We did another injection and I've increased the rehab workload after getting a hand smack by the vet.  We return on Aug 22nd.  I'm not optimistic and the vet will likely recommend surgery.  I'm not sure I'll go that route.   In the meantime I'm riding Eli (sort of - we are limited to walk both way and trotting only one direction) and I'm confused about riding a horse with a torn tendon.  But I'm doing what I'm told.  I was really stressing over this, but I've decided to just roll with it and whatever happens is fine.  If I have to retire Eli, then it's just time. I'm ok with that.

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I suppose it's not appropriate to go into my work issues online, but the culture in my office is changing.  People are a bit nervous about the future and I am too.  In April I will have been here 10 years and I guess I'm a bit uncomfortable about what might be happening.

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Then there's my home life.  Marriage is very very hard.  People say it's hard, but that doesn't relaly prepare you for just how hard.  I don't know what to do or where to turn.  My husband has "threatened" to kill himself the whole time I've known him.  I finally asked his mom and sister to intervene but it seems they don't take me seriously.  He also seems to be a chronic liar.  His go-to when talking to me is to lie.  And I guess he's an alcoholic.  Why do I say "guess"?   Well he doesn't drink every day.  Sometimes not even every week.  But when he does drink it affects our relationship.  He's an asshole.  He looks at me with hatred.  He yells at me.  He brings up all kinds of issues that he won't talk about when he's not drinking.  The bottom line is that the alcohol affects our marriage so I assume that qualifies as a drinking problem.  He is struggling with grief. . . his father died 2 weeks before we got married.  It was March 2011 (we were married 4/2/11).  His brother passed away suddenly in Jan 2013.  I'm not clear where the grief is really stemming from.  I'd say the two combined.  My husband farms.  And he's home all day by himself.  His mother no longer lives on the farm (his parents did when his dad was alive).  So he's alone all day with the voices in his head.  He's depressed.  He's on medication. He finally (*FINALLY*) started therapy yesterday.  But it just might be too late for us.  I haven't trusted him for the majority of our relationship.  We met 10 years ago this weekend (at the local homecoming).  I trust that he's not cheating on me.  But I don't trust him with the small things cause he tells little white lies all the time.  And he hides the beer and lies about it.  We had this big blow up fight July 14th.  He said he'd stop drinking. . . last night I went to the park where he was setting up for homecoming and he was standing there drinking.  "It's just one damn beer" he says.  I don't even know what to say.  He doesn't communicate with me.  We can sit and eat dinner without really talking.  We can be in the car together. .  . say driving to somewhere an hour away and literally not even speak.  We've talked about divorce.  I often think we make better friends than an actual couple.  But he's 44 years old. . . he makes really *bad* decisions about beer. . . he lies. . . it's like he wants to live the single life but be married.  He was married once before and I know that he doesn't want to get divorced again and that's basically the only reason he fights divorce.  It's not because he loves me so damn much.  In fact I think he hates me.  When he yells at me the hatred is palatable.  I have some tough decisions in my future, but I really think I'm delaying the inevitable.  He's a good guy deep down, but his issues run really deep (including childhood issues) and I just don't know that I can wait around for them to be fixed.  After 10 years of the same record playing over and over, I'm tired of waiting for the change.  I'm not perfect, even though he accuses me of that.  But there are so many issues that I cannot fix.  I can't do it for him.  I can't make him grow up.  I can't make him tell me the truth.  I could go on and on, but that's where I'm at in a nutshell that probably doesn't represent the whole issue.   Life is tough. Marriage is tough.  Being an in-law flat out sucks.  And I'm just so damn tired of it all.

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I'll leave you with one more photo. . . . on Amazon Prime Day I caved and finally bought the pressure cooker that I wanted.  I got an Instant Pot.  Along with many many many other people that day.  I am still learning the thing, but so far it's love. . .   last weekend I made a cheesecake. . . in a pressure cooker. . . and it was YUMMY!