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withdiamonds at 05:36pm on 27/09/2014
withdiamonds at 05:36pm on 27/09/2014I'm so behind on reading LJ that I'm just going to post instead.
I'm sitting here holding ice on Neville's back foot where he got stung by a yellow jacket. We know this because he came inside limping and when Lar checked to see what was wrong, the bee was still there. >:(
That, of course, has been the least of the events of this past week, starting with Thursday night when we got back from Japan. Lucy started throwing up, which is nothing new, but she was obviously sick, and on Monday she had surgery, where the vet found an intra-abdominal abscess. Those are generally cause by a bowel perforation, usually from eating a foreign object. The bowel had sealed itself off by the time she got in there, and there was no foreign objects, but poor Lucy was in bad shape. Then she got into some heart failure and pulmonary edema from being fluid overloaded, which isn't good in a 14-year old cat. But she had some Lasix, got rid of her IV on her own, and started breathing easier, but then she stopped eating because of all the oral antibiotics she had to take. Now she's mostly fine and came home Thursday. The cultures from the abscess haven't come back yet, so she's still on multiple antibiotics. I have to give her NINE pills a day - thank god for cream cheese, she takes them like a dream. She's seems almost back to normal, although she's having a bit of difficulty jumping up on the bed. She's very glad to be home and seems to think that even though she's better, she still deserves to have canned tuna everyday to entice her to eat. She hasn't realized that I can see her chowing down on her dry food.
Also, $3200. But what are you going to do, say no, don't treat her?
While we were in Japan, my stepdad had his gall bladder out. It was infected and he needs IV antibiotics for several weeks. Every day he calls either me, my stepsister, or my sister-in-law, telling us he needs us to all come to Tennessee. What the hell they were thinking, sending a 91-year old man home from the hospital with oxygen, and IV port, and his 92-year old girlfriend to take care of him, is beyond me. Well, okay, his caseworker told me that they wanted to send him to a short-term rehab facility for a while to deal with the antibiotics but he said no, because in his head, that's a nursing home and there's no way he's going to a nursing home. But today, after my stepsister spent all yesterday on the phone finding someone besides Dorothy to drive him to his IV appointment everyday, he decided a nursing home might not be such a bad idea, since he called 911 twice last night, once because he couldn't get out of his chair, and once because he fell getting from his bed to the bathroom.
He does fine living by himself when he's healthy, but being sick just throws him for a loop. I'm not sure how much longer we can let him live on his own, but none of us are prepared for that fight yet.
Also, Sebastian has pink eye and couldn't go to daycare this week, so I had him. Which was lovely, except now I'm sick and it's probably a deadly daycare germ and not a bug from the flight home from Tokyo. Daycare germs are the worst.
Speaking of Japan, the wedding was lovely, and we had such a nice time in Japan. Adam said he wanted up to see as much as possible in the week we were there, so I feel like I spent a lot "" of time on trains. We spent two nights in Kyoto at a Japanese guest house, or Ryokan, which was awesome. The bedrolls were comfy, whenever you were in the hotel it was fine to wear the hotel-provided robe, even to dinner, (and the food was beyond fabulous) and the onsen was spring-fed. When they explained that there were two communal baths, one for men and one for women, and stressed the words "naked" and "communal" several times, Larry's 74-year old sister was the first one there. She had such a good time, and lots more energy than her much younger brother.
Flying to Japan was much easier than flying to Europe (because I'm such an international traveler!). I think the 12 hour time difference helps, because both when we got there and when we arrived home, it was time for dinner and bed. There was none of that pretending you'd had a good night sleep when in reality you'd napped for an hour on a trans-Atlantic flight and then arrived at noon with a whole day to kill before you could sleep.
Even the fact the flight was 13 hours long just wasn't that awful. The only bad part was that we flew American Airlines, which sucks so, so bad, but it's not like we didn't know that. Crappy food, cranky flight attendants, broken video screens, what more can you ask for? Obviously we're going to have to make this trip on a regular basis, so it's time to find a better airline. It shouldn't be too difficult.
Kae told me that 90% of Japanese weddings are Western style, with five-course French dinners, and her family was surprised that they had a Japanese style one, with Japanese food. She said that's what Adam wanted. They changed from their kimonos after the bride and groom and both sets of parents broke the top of the sake barrel with a wooden hammer, and wore Western style wedding clothes to cut the cake. It was great fun, although there were things going on the interpreter didn't tell us about, while she was very happy to tell me several times that I was holding my chopsticks wrong. I told her I've been holding them like that for years and it works for me, but she had real issues with it.
Adam seems very happy. We went to the bonsai nursery and bonsai museum where he works, which were really beautiful. The oldest bonsai tree in his nursery is 2000 years old and worth $3m. He still can't believe he's allowed to touch it.
Kae's parents were delightful. They went with us to Kyoto, and even though we couldn't talk much to each other, we all cried when we said goodbye. They're worried that Adam and Kae will come live in the US and thanked me for letting them have Adam. I thanked them for taking care of him for me. I miss him, but he does love it there.
The bride and groom. That kimono Kae's wearing weighed a ton. She could barely lift it up to walk.
Tokyo is very, very big, very dense.
I take terrible pictures, but this one didn't turn out too badly. It's a gold temple in Kyoto. Adam took us to all the places he really loves.
This was my favorite, a very old rock garden.
Larry and his sister in our room at the Ryokan.
Dinner at the Ryokan. I knew I liked Japanese food, but wow, I fell in love with it completely while we were there. Poor Ashley almost starved to death. "It's a texture thing" she kept saying. She didn't complain, though, so that was good.
Breakfast
Can't close without a picture or two of Sebastian. Apparently he's been on a kissing spree at daycare.
I'm sitting here holding ice on Neville's back foot where he got stung by a yellow jacket. We know this because he came inside limping and when Lar checked to see what was wrong, the bee was still there. >:(
That, of course, has been the least of the events of this past week, starting with Thursday night when we got back from Japan. Lucy started throwing up, which is nothing new, but she was obviously sick, and on Monday she had surgery, where the vet found an intra-abdominal abscess. Those are generally cause by a bowel perforation, usually from eating a foreign object. The bowel had sealed itself off by the time she got in there, and there was no foreign objects, but poor Lucy was in bad shape. Then she got into some heart failure and pulmonary edema from being fluid overloaded, which isn't good in a 14-year old cat. But she had some Lasix, got rid of her IV on her own, and started breathing easier, but then she stopped eating because of all the oral antibiotics she had to take. Now she's mostly fine and came home Thursday. The cultures from the abscess haven't come back yet, so she's still on multiple antibiotics. I have to give her NINE pills a day - thank god for cream cheese, she takes them like a dream. She's seems almost back to normal, although she's having a bit of difficulty jumping up on the bed. She's very glad to be home and seems to think that even though she's better, she still deserves to have canned tuna everyday to entice her to eat. She hasn't realized that I can see her chowing down on her dry food.
Also, $3200. But what are you going to do, say no, don't treat her?
While we were in Japan, my stepdad had his gall bladder out. It was infected and he needs IV antibiotics for several weeks. Every day he calls either me, my stepsister, or my sister-in-law, telling us he needs us to all come to Tennessee. What the hell they were thinking, sending a 91-year old man home from the hospital with oxygen, and IV port, and his 92-year old girlfriend to take care of him, is beyond me. Well, okay, his caseworker told me that they wanted to send him to a short-term rehab facility for a while to deal with the antibiotics but he said no, because in his head, that's a nursing home and there's no way he's going to a nursing home. But today, after my stepsister spent all yesterday on the phone finding someone besides Dorothy to drive him to his IV appointment everyday, he decided a nursing home might not be such a bad idea, since he called 911 twice last night, once because he couldn't get out of his chair, and once because he fell getting from his bed to the bathroom.
He does fine living by himself when he's healthy, but being sick just throws him for a loop. I'm not sure how much longer we can let him live on his own, but none of us are prepared for that fight yet.
Also, Sebastian has pink eye and couldn't go to daycare this week, so I had him. Which was lovely, except now I'm sick and it's probably a deadly daycare germ and not a bug from the flight home from Tokyo. Daycare germs are the worst.
Speaking of Japan, the wedding was lovely, and we had such a nice time in Japan. Adam said he wanted up to see as much as possible in the week we were there, so I feel like I spent a lot "" of time on trains. We spent two nights in Kyoto at a Japanese guest house, or Ryokan, which was awesome. The bedrolls were comfy, whenever you were in the hotel it was fine to wear the hotel-provided robe, even to dinner, (and the food was beyond fabulous) and the onsen was spring-fed. When they explained that there were two communal baths, one for men and one for women, and stressed the words "naked" and "communal" several times, Larry's 74-year old sister was the first one there. She had such a good time, and lots more energy than her much younger brother.
Flying to Japan was much easier than flying to Europe (because I'm such an international traveler!). I think the 12 hour time difference helps, because both when we got there and when we arrived home, it was time for dinner and bed. There was none of that pretending you'd had a good night sleep when in reality you'd napped for an hour on a trans-Atlantic flight and then arrived at noon with a whole day to kill before you could sleep.
Even the fact the flight was 13 hours long just wasn't that awful. The only bad part was that we flew American Airlines, which sucks so, so bad, but it's not like we didn't know that. Crappy food, cranky flight attendants, broken video screens, what more can you ask for? Obviously we're going to have to make this trip on a regular basis, so it's time to find a better airline. It shouldn't be too difficult.
Kae told me that 90% of Japanese weddings are Western style, with five-course French dinners, and her family was surprised that they had a Japanese style one, with Japanese food. She said that's what Adam wanted. They changed from their kimonos after the bride and groom and both sets of parents broke the top of the sake barrel with a wooden hammer, and wore Western style wedding clothes to cut the cake. It was great fun, although there were things going on the interpreter didn't tell us about, while she was very happy to tell me several times that I was holding my chopsticks wrong. I told her I've been holding them like that for years and it works for me, but she had real issues with it.
Adam seems very happy. We went to the bonsai nursery and bonsai museum where he works, which were really beautiful. The oldest bonsai tree in his nursery is 2000 years old and worth $3m. He still can't believe he's allowed to touch it.
Kae's parents were delightful. They went with us to Kyoto, and even though we couldn't talk much to each other, we all cried when we said goodbye. They're worried that Adam and Kae will come live in the US and thanked me for letting them have Adam. I thanked them for taking care of him for me. I miss him, but he does love it there.
The bride and groom. That kimono Kae's wearing weighed a ton. She could barely lift it up to walk.
Tokyo is very, very big, very dense.
I take terrible pictures, but this one didn't turn out too badly. It's a gold temple in Kyoto. Adam took us to all the places he really loves.
This was my favorite, a very old rock garden.
Larry and his sister in our room at the Ryokan.
Dinner at the Ryokan. I knew I liked Japanese food, but wow, I fell in love with it completely while we were there. Poor Ashley almost starved to death. "It's a texture thing" she kept saying. She didn't complain, though, so that was good.
Breakfast
Can't close without a picture or two of Sebastian. Apparently he's been on a kissing spree at daycare.