My cat isn’t dead! In fact I would cautiously venture to say… she’s getting better. But I can’t get too much hope going. She’s been better and worse and better and even more worse for days. But I am still *cautiously optimistic*. I have decided, groggy or not, it wouldn’t be right to groom her in any way while in this state. That is definitely OCD self control. There is some ear trimming one does on a purebred Siamese.. But I refrain. I do!

All kidding aside, I do hope we are finally healing. I have been sick with worry. This cat is my very first actual pet that has been all my own. Not the family dog. Not the Pre-Existing Cats I moved into with my Richard. I chose her. Or more actually, she chose me. I just chose the breed. The rest was magic. I feel totally responsible. Her surgery hurt me.

And on that note, since I brought it up… What the hell with the Spay-Neuter campaign? I get, *no*, I TOTALLY GET the importance of both procedures. However, they are recommended and tossed about like candy. Like it’s totally natural for your pet. Common even. In most cases it may be all those things! In our case it was not. It was a very real, very major surgery. It had very real and serious complications. I just imagine how it would be handled if it were a woman, instead of my cat. She was sent home with me the same day. Like it was nothing. I didn’t know. I thought it was “nothing” too. Although I had done a bit of online research, I went with the flow. I selfishly wanted my kitten back home. Now that I have been through it, I find it amazingly cruel to send an animal home with untrained, unprepared regular folk to handle the POST MAJOR SURGERY CARE. All I got was a useless e-collar (the lampshade that my cat could both reach around and remove at will) and a painkiller that was hard to administer. No antibiotics, which as it turns out are the magic cure for rejecting sutures. I had little idea of what to expect, and the online info combined with the “discharge instructions” were absolutely useless. It is my belief that an overnight stay would have saved her all this undue suffering. The veterinary hospital has much better “kind confinement” than I can provide at home to speed healing the first day. My cat did some amazing body slams and contortions because she wanted out of the suggested “isolation in one room” as well as repeatedly removing the e-collar (and that took BODY FLIPS people, all with a fresh incision) The symptoms of my cats complications would have probably been noticed had she been overnight. Or had we been given antibiotics to start right away. But the surgery is so common. So many cats have no issues that the rules are based on the majority. So here I am, exhausted from fear and guilt, and 300 dollars poorer (not counting the cost of the spay) for something I feel could have been totally avoidable.

Dude. Learn from me and ask questions. Make sure you and your pet never has to endure what we did due to lack of knowledge. Had I known what to ask for and insist on, we would have had none of this pain and heartache.

tagged: cat kitten advice spay procedures

Five “Web 2.0” ways to break up with your boyfriend (via).

tagged: links web 2.0 advice boyfriend breakup

Can anyone help me out with a technological type piece of shopping advice? I am in the market for a better digital voice recorder. However when I peruse the choices I am easily confused… How do you know which one is better? Here’s what I want. High quality MP3 recordings, USB, portable, 2-3 hours recording time… Preferably with a decent built in mic so that there’s less parts to lug around. Anyone have any recommendations? (Other than the iRiver, because I can’t find those anywhere.)

tagged: shopping mp3 advice iriver digital recording dear internets