How My Week Went

To say this week has been horrible is like saying the ocean has some water in it. A total understatement. And every time I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. Maybe I should’ve stopped thinking it couldn’t get worse. (Honestly, I’m aware that it could always be worse, but you know what I mean.)

First of all, about a week ago, while showering, I noticed a smell. No, not me. After all, I was in the shower. It smelled, I don’t know, bad. I thought it was the drain. The next time I showered, same thing only slightly worse. Then, I noticed as I brushed my teeth that I smelled it at the sink too. So now the cogs were turning (nothing gets by me, does it?) and I started to think that maybe – just maybe – it was the water that smelled. So I went through the house, turning on faucets and sticking my nose to the running water. It definitely smelled. So I told my husband, ‘Hey, the water stinks.’ As usual, his response came swiftly, ‘I don’t smell nothing.’ (Yeah, he’s good with words.) Well I can’t take his word for it because he never smells any of the stinky things my super-sniffer smells. So I ignore him and tell him something’s wrong. A day or two later, I went to get a drink of water and the water tasted exactly how it smelled. Nasty. We’re water drinkers. We drink a lot of water between the 3 of us. So now we had a problem.

In the days since I had to spit out the nasty tasting water, I’ve had our water tested twice, we’ve poured bleach into our well and flushed our pipes, and we’ve gone through a lot of bottled water. On the bright side, our water smells like chlorine now. The first test showed E.Coli in the water, but 8 out of 10 wells contain E.Coli so that isn’t surprising. The 2nd test results haven’t came in yet. Tomorrow, I have to buy more bottled water and hopefully I can do some laundry without it bleaching my clothes.

Meanwhile, as we’re struggling to figure out the water situation, the night before last my son suddenly says, “Laya’s limping.” I jump up and go take a look at my Himalayan cat, who turns 8 years old in a couple of weeks. She’s just woken from a nap, and what my son called limping wasn’t right. Her leg simply wasn’t working. At all. She tried to walk on it, but the top of her paw hit the floor and slid back behind her. Poor kitty. She was crying loudly and becoming more and more agitated. Then she did something she’s never, ever done before. She pooped in the floor.

I called the vet. Now keep in mind that I live in a small town (population 996) in the country. I’m an hour away from anywhere. There was a vet 2 miles from my house, but he recently shut down. So it’s 5 minutes till 7 pm. I call the vet. They say they’re closing in 5 minutes. It’s an extra $98 to have them stay or I can choose to wait until morning to bring her. One look at my kitty and I said, ‘Wait for me.’ We rushed my beloved fur face the hour to the vet, scared to death of what could be wrong with her and that we weren’t going to make it in time. After an examination, a pain shot, and some x-rays, the diagnosis was in. My little Laya Louise had had a stroke. Who knew cats had strokes, right? And furthermore, she has fluid built up around her lungs and heart. She’d thrown out a blood clot which was why her leg went lame.

That was Tuesday. It’s now Thursday evening, and my cat is still at the vet’s office. I absolutely hate her being there without me, but what can I do? I call twice a day and ask about her. I’m told she’s doing better. Her leg is still lame and her heart rate and breathing accelerates when they let her walk around. The pain has passed, but just like in humans, it takes time to get over a stroke. We’re hoping she’ll get to come home tomorrow, but I don’t think it’ll happen. I’m going to call in the morning and see how she’s doing. I’ll go see her tomorrow or Saturday if I’m not going to be able to bring her home. I’d love to spend every minute there with her, but I’m aware that that’s not feasible.

And on top of all of that, I had a job to do last Saturday night. I had to record a band’s performance and make it into a movie. Then I had to burn 18 dvds of it, and a cd of photos. THEN I had to cut it down to specific songs and upload them to youtube. A simple enough job, right? Wrong. My computer has been slow for the past week (the week I needed it to not be) and it took 4 days to get all that done. Not too mention that on Sunday I had to prepare a guest blog post, and Monday had to put it up and pimp it. AND Monday was the deadline for an anthology submission, so Sunday evening I prepared and sent that. All this in the midst of the water and cat problems.

I’m a realist. I realize that though these things are horrible for me, they’re not that bad. I know it could be worse and I’m happy that it’s not. But it’s just so much all at once. But that’s how life goes. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. BAM! Everything. Anyway, this was my week. Maybe next week will be better.