A look back at the first week of 2006

2006 started out relatively quietly and somewhat inauspiciously for me, I was a little under the weather with an upper respiratory infection but figured - ok, I actually have time to be sick this weekend.... bring it on. So the URI progressed into a little laryngytis, a little cough... nothing unmanageable until Tuesday evening when.... I vomited 6 times per hour for 8 and 1/2 hours. Yup, do the math... at least 48 times. How's that for a killer ab workout to start the New Year? Oh and FYI - vomit is hell on the nonstick surface of pots, so don't use them to puke in. The voice was still gone and I was too bored to stay home from work on Thursday so I come into work and of course, the phones are ringing off the hook, and when I talk almost no sound comes out. But I sound sultry as hell when sound does come out. Come home Thursday night and I had anticipated a quiet night of recovery and doing some high speed nothing. Came home, ate my soup, got rid of junk mail, went up to read email, noticed Stripe (my middle child cat) splayed out spread eagle with his whup (generic term for genitalia - male or female) hanging out like a large buddha cat stuck on his back. From previous (read: expensive) experience knew that we had to go to the cat ER. Attempted to capture and crate Stripe for 25 minutes, up the stairs, down the stairs, up the stairs, down the stairs after no less than 7 rounds of that, I finally get hip and close the door to my bedroom once i trap his shiny, shifty ass in there. 10 minutes more of upending the bed and such, I successfully crate him and we toddle off to the cat ER. (which is also a dog er and I follow the dog blood into the joint but i digress). So the triage nurse whirls out, I tell him the problem as much as I can since oh, yeah, I still cannot speak audibly. He takes the Stripe in the back and returns in about 20 with Stripe in the crate and a syringe full of Stripe pee on top of the crate. Stripe's ureter is not blocked, he peed a good stream but his penis is prolapsed so I should stick around and see a doctor, it will be about an hour. (this is about 10:20PM) Meanwhile, there's this cracker trash fool who came in with bleeding dogs, warring with the girlfriend, blah, blah, blah, trying to phone anyone he can think of to bring him money to get his dogs stitched up. Unreal! So I'm sitting by this giant fish tank that I'm thinking Stripe would like to eye the snacks contained therein but I just figure it's best not to rile him up if the doc's gotta look at him and his whup. So about 1120 the doc comes out, talks to me looks at stripe, takes him to the back to xray his bladder to see rocks and catheterize him to see if he's got little rocks in his whup. To make this very long story short, no sign of any more rocks, he pees some more for them. She gives him subcutaneous fluids and I take him home and lock him in the powder room with water, food, a litter box and my shirt to sleep on... this was at 12:22. I'm stupefied. And no longer recall the point of all this.

So this morning, I spring him from lock up to see that he has peed at least 4 times and thankfully since he was isolated I don't have to play a rousing game of ID the pee by dawn's early light.

I will be infinitely grateful to the powers of the universe if this is my worse week all year...