January 2024 can go fuck itself.
we released Rose from her suffering on December 30th.
we had gotten a full extra year with her and we savoured every second of it, but as the days ticked on it was becoming increasingly obvious that her health and quality of life were declining as rapidly as her belly was swelling from the fluid accumulating there. so, one last time, i fed her smoked salmon with her gabapentin and took her to the vet where i held her and stroked her softness for the last time as she went to meet up with Amy and mom.
it was the right choice, but i’ll forever miss her and question whether it was either too soon or too late. and, more importantly, if she understood it was because i loved her that i didn’t want her to ever suffer.
then, i experienced an unexpected mind-fuck: relief.
i hadn’t consciously recognized just how much stress i was under from the constant fears and worries about her and her health. would she be alive when i woke up or came home from work? how much pain is she in? was bringing home two other boy cats the thing that made her decline?
the duality of the emotions i was experiencing were intense. i was so sad and grief-stricken at the loss of the last of “my girls” (mom and Amy being the other two) yet… i could feel the weight of that prolonged worry and burden was lifted from my shoulders.
once i reconciled them in my brain a bit, i thought “okay, this is good. i can use this extra energy – direct it towards things i need to work on.”
then i received a phone call from my dad.
dad turned 90 on December 20th! we spent a lovely day together. i took him for a straight razor shave & haircut, then we spent several hours going through old photos and talking about his life and our memories, after which we went out to dinner to his most regular of regular spots. it was a good day. a great day, really. i left with a full heart, thankful to still have him in my life – especially since, for his age & life history, he’s in considerably good shape!
but, that phone call from my dad was him letting me know he was in the hospital and would probably be there for a few days. it wasn’t clear for a day or two after, but he caught Covid (for the second time – probably at Christmas dinner) and it had wreaked havoc on his already compromised heart & lungs. so much so that during his initial treatment after arriving by ambulance (which he called for himself) his heart stopped beating a couple of times i found out from his nurse when i asked about his status & treatment.
luckily, he got there in time. by the time i arrived at the hospital, an hour after i hung up the phone, he was already stable, if still having a lot of difficulty getting oxygen. he spent the week being pumped full of antibiotics, antiarrhythmic drugs and receiving supplemental oxygen. by the time he was released on friday – after our first winter storm of the season – he was feeling great!
he’s made a full recovery, but i think this episode has revealed a couple of things to him:
one – that he’s got fewer days ahead of him than behind. he’s become quite sentimental and reflective in the past couple of years. more expressive of his emotions and communicative of his life regrets.
two – that maybe there are some things he could do to help himself age even more comfortably at home. i’m hoping i won’t have to step in with the legal paperwork he gave me to force him to get some supplemental oxygen for the house, but we’ll see.
so, i no longer worry and fret about the health & happiness of my cat, i now worry and fret about the health & happiness of my father. well, it was a nice week without that weight. sure was.
next, January fucked us with that ice storm followed by a sixteen-inch dump of snow a week later. i couldn’t get to see dad because the roads weren’t in good enough condition and, as is well-documented, i just don’t drive in snow. so brad and i took transit to work for half a week (which fucked my already not-so-good knee, but was otherwise not unpleasant). by the way, serious shout outs to our badass lady bus drivers – they were fucking rock solid and, if i remember to, i’m absolutely going to write commendation letters about them. they deserve huge praise. our bus route is hilly and not well maintained in winter and they navigated it with aplomb.
then… i got Covid.
i’m so mad about it, too. almost four years! i dodged it by doing all the right things. avoiding my friends and public places and wearing masks (bought and made) and washing everything down with lysol. not going to see my mom often enough for the last two years of her life. letting my world get smaller as everyone else seemed to think it was fine to go out and socialize again.
i’m not sure if i got it at the hospital while visiting dad – the timing doesn’t quite line up – but, last wednesday i started getting a sore throat which only got worse as the day progressed, so i took a rapid test when i got home and, yup. there it was.
it’s not been a good time. i feel like i’ve had all the symptoms except loss of taste/smell (which, phew). i’m in that mid-better stage where i would normally go back to regular life a little too early and thereby prolong my healing. but, this is Covid and i’m not fucking with it. i’ve spent more than half of my conscious time wondering what kind of long-term damage this disease is causing in my body and how it’s going to show up later. i keep taking long, slow, deep breaths and doing head-to-toe body scans as if i could pick up on any cellular signals about future vascular impacts.
luckily, Brad is still healthy and testing negative. he’s been sleeping on the couch while i’ve been sequestered in our bedroom when he’s at home. we will both mask up to spend no more than an hour together watching a show in the evening before i go back upstairs for quarantine. it sucks. we miss hanging out. we can’t even eat our meals together.
then, today, on the last day of this cursed month, i woke up from a night full of scary, heartbreaking dreams and an unrelenting headache to my second completely bricked Google Pixel 3XL phone.
my first one lasted 852 days until it bricked itself. but, i loved the phone so much, i bought a new one to replace it and that one lasted 976.
fuuuuuuuuck!
i am absolutely blessed to have amazing friends with extra phones they are willing to lend me so i will have use of another pixel until i figure out what i’m going to do about replacing it. i just need to figure out if it’s currently better to spend the money on having my car disassembled to clean up my epic latte explosion mess (which is getting pretty fucking stinky, honestly) or get a new phone right away (and trying to figure out which one to get).
so, yeah. January 2024 can just sit and spin.