tick, tock, tick, tock...days are passing!

Hey Family!!!

I'm sorry to hear that Scotchy is having a rough week. You might try mushing the pill in something like ice cream, or yogurt, pudding! The other way is to just open the mouth and force it in, and hold the mouth together. There is a few ideas for you!!

Well, I am feeling the inner clock inside my brain, and hearing the time beginning to move faster until this scary surgery at Barnes Jewish Hosp in the fair city of St Louis.

I had an Adenosine Cardiolyte Stress test on Tues at IMMC. Someway a 2 1/2 - 3 hr test actually took from 7:30 to 1:00.

We will come to STL on the 9th. We'll drive late after Steve gets done with work. Probably get to STL around 11 or so. I have to be at the hosp at 7:30 for a lumbar CT myelogram.

At 2:00p We have an appt with Dr. Ostlund - the Endocrinologist, Hopefully, he will be my internist while I'm in the hosp, Otherwise, we will get emergency staff priv. for a pr. of Drs Sidney and Sidney.

Surgery is Tues, the 22nd of Feb. On Monday, we will meet the anesthesiologist--I have already requested Dr Zebala choose his favorite guy or gal for gasses. I plan to share that request again.

We will also have an appt with Dr Zebala that Monday also, to go over the last minute stuff.

I do know that for the first 3 months I must walk with a walker, for my balance, as well as alerting other people to my Slow Moving Nana!!! I am still going to water aerobics 2x/week. Hopefully I will soon be back in that class.

The weather today was wonderful, with the pm temp around 40. So Chloe and I found a reason to take a drive. Saw a bald eagle soaring just above the treetops
of Beaver Creek!

Have a great week--- and wish for spring!!!

Cheryl

January in St. Louis

Hi all,

It was so great to have time together over Christmas, even though it was limited. We had a good start to 2011, although the past couple of weeks have been harder for all of us. Highlights (or lowlights, I suppose): lots of snow and a few snow days (some warranted and some not...I am living in the south now...) and we all three got the stomach flu at the same time a week ago. Ugh. Not something I care to repeat. Quote from 3 a.m. when it hit Andrew and Mike at the same time and I'm going between bathrooms checking on both guys (I had started around dinnertime the night before): "But mommy, you're still sick too and now you have to take care of daddy and me." Pretty thoughful considering how he felt...

For Butterscotch, the rough stuff came earlier this week when we had him front declawed. Sometime around the summer/early fall, he developed a really bad habit of scratching wood in our house. No amount of postive encouragement to scratch in appropriate places--including multiple scratching things that Mike made out of carpet, corrugated cardboard, etc. nor negative consequences of broken rules (can we say spray bottle?!?!?!) seemed to break this habit and it seemed to be worsening. So, we had to do it. Not what I really wanted to do, particularly because he's an adult cat, but we had honestly exhausted all other options aside from just letting him ruin all the wood trim in our house...Surgery was Monday and he came home yesterday. Andrew was SO excited to have the little guy back--there were tears at the vet when he saw 'Scotch! He's still pretty sore today, understandably. Only problem is that he's not really eating which means he's not getting the pain meds that are crushed into his food. I've tried coaxing him to eat, but to no avail. That and he earlier attempted to get into the litter pan and couldn't climb in. Poor guy.

I'll try to post some recent pictures soon, but ought to get to work. Just thought I'd start a new thread on here since we've all been so busy!
Love,
Heather