Sunday 2 May 2010

May Day Round Up

So I feel like something of a fraud. There I was promising all sorts of crafts, reviews, family stories, cat related hilarity, randomness and the odd kitchen disaster thrown in for good measure and now, here I am, full time job, parading as some kind of yuppie. Hrm, from hippie to yuppie in one easy step...

I'd like to think we'd have more money from this little experiment, I'd *like* to, but it wouldn't be the case. One, because hubby and I had a brief little plunge into consumerism in an 'ahh, fuck it' way and two - because of the vet. It is also because of the vet that I find myself with so little time even after the job, cooking, shopping, washing, ironing and general miscellanea that fills my once carefree and loosely planned days.

As far as the consumerism goes, well, that's over. Hubby handed over the financial reins to me and I have put us on a strict economic diet. We get our pocket money each month which we can spend as we choose. Anything over that and there'd better be a *damn* good reason why. I sanctioned the bicycle helmet for Hubby who cycles to work, for example, especially with the nutso Coventarian drivers - in the event of a collision I would quite like his brain area protected, at the very least.

As far as the vets, well, that's still ongoing. Bramble decided to get a blocked bladder, cue one post-work trip to the vets, followed by a late night trip to the emergency vets, followed by a return to the regular vets, followed by a holiday home, followed by a Sunday afternoon trip to the vets, followed by an early morning transfer back to normal vets on Monday, followed by emergency transfer to specialist animal hospital in Birmingham on the Tuesday, right in the middle of the day. All in all several disrupted days, many hours of work lost (more of a problem for me than them since I'm on a pay-per-hour casual contract) and many hours of stress. Most especially when, Wednesday morning, Barley presented with the same symptoms: cue hysterical Milla. My mum, Gods bless her, drove straight up and stayed till Saturday, for which I was most grateful, even though Barley turned out to only have a short term virus and not the major drama of an illness Bramble is suffering from.

So far Barley has cost us about £260 and Bramble roughly £5011. Thank everything that exists that we had insurance. Especially thank Karen, the boys' Cats Protection Foster Mother, that we have higher level insurance so he's covered to £7,500 over his lifetime for each condition. What a pity that he's managed to burn through nearly his entire lifetime's cover in one week. At the moment we're still debating whether to go ahead with a potentially preventative operation to remove his penis. It's the 'potentially' that bothers me. We'd spend the rest of his insurance and some of our own money (it could cost as much as £3,500) if we knew that it would definitely help his chances, but that's not guaranteed by any means, so we're waiting until we talk to the vet on Tues.

Right now I am taking the piss out of the cat on a regular basis, and yes, I mean that literally. Every two to three hours I have to use a syringe to draw the urine out of his bladder through a tube sewn into his little pink shaved tummy. He's a very good boy about it, rolling onto his back for me and purring. Such a sweetie. It's weird the things you can get used to. His gentle nature and sweet temperament just reminds me how close we came to losing him and why we're willing to do these things for him. I just hope we can resolve this happily.

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