Why so sick this winter, I wonder?

The cold that I kept at home after staff meeting yesterday was quite a bit worse overnight. It started draining into my lungs, and I couldn't lie down without laboring to breathe. Not my favorite feeling. And I had nothing for a cough- I haven't had anything besides sinus problems and arthritis pain in years.

Until this winter, with the Gastro-Intestinal Bug From Hell, and now the terribly mundane but painfully exhausting Cold That Is Kicking My Ass.

And I called off work today, because it's not like I can just go in and sit at a desk now. Having a Rover shift every day means I WILL use my sick leave.

I did drag out this afternoon and buy expectorant. I'm dosed up with Mucinex now, as well as the decongestant I've been taking. The net effect of taking drugs that loosen congestion? Dry, dry, dry I am so very dry. I've been drinking water faithfully, and it has helped get rid of the mucus. It also makes me need to pee often. Very often.

I've spent today sitting at the kitchen table, reading things online on my netbook, because hey, still can't lie down. There's one armchair in the living room, but I have a lot of trouble getting up from it. And, you know, gotta pee means move it NOW.

I'm also waiting for Singer to be dropped off again. I had no luck getting him to eat, and he spit up foam again this morning, so I had to call the vet again. They have him now, and he is supposedly going to be dropped off again... sometime this evening. Because the vet is leaving town tomorrow for a seminar, will be back Thursday. So they were hopefully going to get him stabilized, and give him a long-lasting antibiotic injection, and then hopefully I can get him to take his liquid antibiotic starting Tuesday.

That's a lot of "hopefullys" going on. I'm exhausted thinking about it, and I'm pretty sure that makes me a bad pet mommy.

I probably wouldn't feel so bad if I could sleep. Maybe that will happen tonight. And then I will probably try to go to work tomorrow, Rover-1 and all.

Yikes!

Got the call from the vet's wife, about Singer. Seems they finally shot him full of painkillers, then they were able to actually pull his jaws apart enough to get a good hard look back where he's got the problems.

The jaw fracture is now pretty much ruled out. Instead, they found that he'd somehow managed to get something (hard but organic) jammed in between his molars and his cheek, and it was stuck there long enough to decompose, and the abcess has the root of the molar exposed, along with bone. They cleaned out a LOT of gunk, and thoroughly coated the area with topical analgesic, gave him a timed-release shot of antibiotic, and gave him intravenous fluid, since he was getting dehydrated. She said he'd eaten about half a can of the Fancy Feast gravy-style food.

The good news is that the vet doesn't think we will necessarily have to pull the tooth or do a root canal, he believes the gum will grow back once the abcess is resolved. I sure hope that's the case.

The plan is to get him to eat whatever he wants (chicken noodle soup broth, milk, ANYTHING), and then Tuesday I can start trying to give him the liquid antibiotic. And if that doesn't work, to call her cell phone and she can have their daughter (who works as their vet tech) come by with injections. Plus, they get back Thursday, late, so if he needs more care I can drop him off Thursday after work.

I tell you what, when she set down the carrier and opened the door, he came out all bright-eyed and happy-looking. As soon as she left, I went to the other side of the kitchen and found him on the step stool. He actually tried to climb up on me, was rubbing me and affectionate, it was like a magical transformation. I asked if he was hungry, and oh, my goodness he was. I opened a can of food and just put his bowl right there on the counter by the sink, and he ate more than half a can of the Fancy Feast right then. I could have given him the whole can, but I didn't want him to overload his stomach.

But yeah. Makes a difference when the vet can actually discern the true problem and treat it accordingly. Too bad kitties can't tell us exactly what's wrong, you know?