Well, obviously my failure as a foster can't end quietly. The day finally arrived on which the cats had to be taken to the vet for their check up. I had hatched a whole plan involving breakfast, Kevin, the bathroom and the cats. As if the stress of having the appointment was not enough, I found that I had to take the Doll for a cataract surgery follow up at 8:15, and get back home by 9:30 to get the cats to their appointment by 10. This logistical puzzle would require all the pieces to fall precisely into place.
At 7am, we came downstairs. I began to open the can of food as usual, and the cats milled about on cue. Kevin, though, threw off the dance. He walked into their space, and one bolted. I put her bowl down, and she was suspect but came forward anyway. As I reached for her, she tried to get away, and when I picked her up, she became claws in every direction. Determined not to have borne the brunt for naught, I hoisted her on my hip, and feeling her pounding heart, pushed her into me and sucked it up. Astonishingly, I got her into the bathroom and dropped her bowl in with her.
Next was Lilly, who was making moves to escape Kevin, who was to have been her captor in the same fashion. I guess perhaps he was a little thrown by my outcome, so he just bailed and passed the buck to me. Luckily, Lilly is more passive when she's captured, and I was able to get her into the bathroom as well. At that point I was just dripping blood from a deep gash on the top (thankfully not the bottom) of my wrist.
Brushing off Kevin's belated offerings of assistance, I went upstairs to search for an appropriate dressing and some antibiotic ointment. When I looked at the gash, I felt as if I could feed it, it was so gaping. Suddenly I began to feel queasy and lightheaded, so I grabbed a washcloth and pressed to try to stop the bleeding.
But who has time for these luxuries? I had to get to the Doll's, and I had to pack lunch for Brian. Checking the calendar to make sure that this was his assigned day for yearbook photos, I saw that in fact that day was to have been yesterday. Of course, he missed it. So I told him to just wear his blazer, tell them he thought it was today and see what happened, and off I went.
Once I got hold of the Doll, I dropped her at the surgery office and went to pick up her prescriptions so it wouldn't delay me on my quest to reach the vet on time. I managed to pull off the pickup in no time, and went to the office to wait. The waiting room was deserted when I got off the elevator, so I was relieved that we would get out on time. I sat in the chair and waited. And waited. And waited. Two women came off the elevator and went into the optical store opposite the surgical entrance. They looked at me but said nothing. About 15 minutes later, another followed.
"Can I help you?" she asked.
"I'm waiting for my mother in law. She had surgery yesterday and she's in for her follow-up."
"Fourth floor," she says.
!!!!!
Hurrying to the fourth floor, I discovered she'd already been helped and seen and was nowhere to be found. I hopped on the elevator and there she was - on a bench at the ground level. Where she had been sitting for about 40 minutes - just slightly less than the time I spent in the surgical waiting room on a non-surgery day! Who the heck knew they had two floors? Nobody told me!
Anyway, the day improved slightly from there. I made it home on time and ventured anxiously in to collect the girls from their bathroom prison. Rosie, Grizabella, was hiding IN THE CARRIER! And when she saw me, she backed further in, so all I had to do was close it up. Lilly is more handleable if you can catch her, so I got her in with no problem, and we were to the vet on time and they both were model patients.
However, the painful line on my wrist was still troubling me: what if it got infected? what if I get tetanus? what if it needs stitches? These thoughts plagued me, and the vet's reaction to seeing it didn't help. I decided to run into the urgent care clinic and have it looked at. So that's where it got bad again. I had to get a tetanus shot! She didn't think it needed stitches and she gave me a prophylactic antibiotic but I'm not going to fill it if the gash starts to fill in. But she asked about the tetanus and it's been probably 30 years. Lately every time I cut myself, I wonder if there's tetanus toxoid although I think there have probably been two cases in NJ in the last 20 or so years, according to some study that I saw online. So I agreed to the shot, although I did insist that they get that pertussis component out of it - they tried to sneak that past me and if I hadn't asked, I would have had a three-in-one shot instead of the two-in-one.
Anyway that's the rambling story of my day. I now have one bad arm with cuts and wounds, and a bad arm that's beginning to ache when I touch or lift it. I'm trying not to read about the side effects of the vaccine, but I've read for hours today anyway. And B is in the basement with his friend, they are off from school for the weekend, starting now and ending on Tuesday! Kevin is on his way back from a dinner in NYC with a client.
And in other news, M is back to school, pierced cartilage and all. She is in the throes off housing woes right now, as she and her three would-be roommates aren't likely to be able to find a room in which they can all live; they all four had lottery numbers which didn't allow them to pick until the very last day, which is next Tuesday. So we will see what happens when they go to do that. And good thing it's not tonight because they have no power in their dorm, due to a huge transformer explosion yesterday. And she is lucky - some of the dorms had to be evacuated. Not hers though - I guess because it was built back in the days when there was no electricity anyway!
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