my 8 month old kitten lottie was put to sleep yesterday evening. she had a disease called feline infectious peritonitis, or FIP. http://www.vetinfo.com/cfip.html#Feline%20Infectious%20Peritonitis%20(FIP)
i brought her into the vet because i thought she was constipated. she had not gone to the bathroom in four days, she was not eating, and she did not want me to pick her up. when the vet looked at her, he noticed that she was breathing funny, and wanted to take an x-ray to look at her lungs. i sat nervously in the waiting room, just staring at the fish tank, until he called me into the room. he showed me the x-ray of her lungs, and they were all cloudy because they were filled with fluid. i immediately started to cry, because i knew what was going to come next. he told me that there was no treatment for FIP, and that they could try to drain her lungs, but it would be painful for her and she still would not live very long. then i had to decide what to do. i could have brought her home that night, but i did not think i'd be able to bring her back for them to put her to sleep, and the longer i kept her, the more pain she would be in. i decided to leave her there and have them put her to sleep tonight. i went in the back with the vet and saw her one last time. she was sitting in a cage, just looking at me with her big green eyes. i told her i loved her and that it was going to be okay, and i petted her one last time, and left the room.
lottie had the disease before i adopted her, she either got it from her mom or one of the other cats that she lived with. she had a complete checkup before i got her, but i guess this disease is not one of the more common ones, so they don't check for it.
i am really depressed right now, but it helps to think of it like this: i was brought into lottie's life so that she didn't have to suffer with this disease. if she was out in the wild, she would live until she couldn't breathe anymore, and she would have a lot of pain. and even if she was at the woman's house where i got her, they had about 40 cats, and would not have noticed the symptoms as soon as i was able to, so she would have suffered for a longer period of time. i hope that she is happy, wherever she is, and i will never forget her.
i had just turned right onto quentin off of northwest highway and i was about a block away from my apartment. i was driving in the left lane, about 30 mph. there was an entrance/exit to a parking lot ahead on the right, and i saw a buick start creeping out into the street. i assumed the car was either going to a) go in reverse back into the parking lot, or b) pull into the right lane, because i was in the left lane. i did not expect c) pull into the left lane right in front of me. but c was what i got. i slammed on the brakes and skidded into the front of the buick. CRASH! i wasn't hurt, but i kind of wanted to throw up. we both pulled into the parking lot, and a man in his 50s or 60s got out of the buick and apologized for hitting me. he said he wasn't looking because "he was so excited to get home". hmm. okay. one of my lights was bashed in, the bumper had a dent, and the hood was kind of folded up and back. i called the police because the accident was his fault, and i wanted to get an official report for my insurance company. ten minutes later, a cop drove past the parking lot but did not stop, and i wondered if that was supposed to be the cop that i had ordered up. a half hour after that, the police still had not arrived, so i called 911 again. the operator said that the cop had been unable to find us, and had given up. that gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. the man who hit me wanted to just exchange information and call it a night, but i didn't trust him, and i told him that i would really feel better if we waited for the police. 15 minutes after that, the cop finally came. i had been standing outside for an hour by then, with the temperature in the low 20s. i didn't want to get in my car in case the cop drove by again so i could flag him down. i sat in my car for another 20 minutes while the cop filled out the accident report, and then he came over to give me my copy. the other driver got a ticket for failure to yield (thank god!). i drove back to my apartment and called my parents to tell them what had happened. i wasn't sure if anything was damaged inside my car. it drove okay, besides the steering being a little off. so my parents drove out to palatine from vp to check it out. my dad determined that it was driveable, which made me feel a little better.
the next day during my lunch at work, i went to two body shops to get estimates for the insurance company. the first estimate i got was $1700, however, the mechanic did not look under the hood of the car, which was kind of strange. the next estimate i got was $3300, and this guy opened the hood and showed me a few things that he had noticed that had been damaged from the crash. but here's the thing: my car isn't worth that much money. it's almost 11 years old and has over 130k miles. my insurance company said it's worth 3500 dollars in their system, although kelley blue book says it's only worth 1,000 as a trade in or 2,500 if i sold it to a private party. but for argument's sake let's go with the 3500. my insurance company decides to total a car if the cost to repair it is 80% of the value of the car or greater. that means, if it costs 2800 dollars to fix my car, then i should just say screw it and take the money. if i do decide to total the car, then i get 3500 plus 500 for salvage, so i would get $4,000. however, let's say i decide to try and fix it, and i go to the body shop that quoted me 1700. they take apart the front of the car and start working on it, and then discover that even more things had been damaged in the crash that they couldn't see earlier when they were estimating the damage, then i will have to pay the extra amount to fix it, and i will end up getting REALLY screwed. i am going to go to one more body shop during lunch today, but then i have to make a decision. i would just go with totaled, but then i have to buy a new car and that means car payments every month. i have never had a car payment, and i REALLY don't want to have one, but i also don't want to end up screwed. crash.
i went to the barenaked ladies' holiday concert last night, with mr. ryan holler. we had pretty amazing seats, in a side balcony. the show opened with the levees (pronunced leevees), who came on the stage and announced "we only play hanukkah music". they were pretty good, and their lyrics were really funny. the first two songs were about latkes. later they sang a song about how no one knows how to spell "hanukkah". (i had to use spell check for that one, lol).
after the levees were done playing, the curtain behind them was lifted to reveal a christmas scene; it looked like the living room of a house, with a fireplace and stockings and the whole deal. then these small children walked on stage, which was kind of unexpected. they sang a few christmas songs and then the barenaked ladies came on stage and sang a few more songs with them. it turns out that the small children were actually the glen ellyn children's chorus. and they were pretty good.
the barenaked ladies played for over 2 hours, but they were really entertaining. they played christmas & hanukkah songs and regular songs, and one of the band members did some breakdancing. i just wish i had known more of their music, because many of the songs i had never heard before.
i had to leave before the concert was over, unfortunately, because i wanted to make it to the 10:30 train so i could be home by 11:45. if i missed that train i'd have to wait for the 12:30 train, then i would get home close to 2am, and i had to work at 8. holler made fun of me, but what can i say? i'm getting old.