The roller coaster life

[monkey5s]

So today I was feeling better, though still a bit weak and tired. I had to go shopping, there were too many things I was out of. Well, I made it halfway through the store before my knees gave out and I just pushed my cart up to the checkout and left. I can get the other half of the groceries some other time.

Came home and got most of the stuff into the house (the other tub of kitty litter and the toilet paper can wait in the trunk) and then collapsed to rest. I finally got up to make dinner- hey, opening a can of soup totally counts as making dinner!- and sat on the stool by the stove to drink my mug of tomato soup. I hadn't let it get very hot, and was just sitting there, feeling like I was getting steadily better.

That's when Pansy decided it was time to jump up and cross the stove to get to the ledge beside it.

It wasn't that she dug into my leg to get up there. It was more that she stumbled and ended up STEPPING IN THE PAN OF SOUP AS SHE CROSSED THE STOVE. Tomato soup. On a white leg. And the splatters were... everywhere. Of course she leaped down and ran around to the other side of the kitchen, and got up on the table.

I had a flash of losing my mind, and I will admit that I screamed a little bit that I can't DO THIS RIGHT NOW, but it passed. I got the cleaner and the paper towel. But of course, the worst mess was Miss Pansy herself. I caught her on the table, but trying to get her paw clean with wet paper towel was not working. So I had to lug her over to the sink.

There are many things that are nearly impossible to do when you have to use a walker. Pretty close to the top of that list would be "wrangle a wildly struggling, 17-lb. cat over to the kitchen sink." Neither of us made the journey easily. And the sink had dishes in it, of course, and orange peels. She was fighting madly the whole time, and I didn't get any soap out (nothing mild enough in reach) so all I did was rinse the worst of it out. I haven't seen her since, to see how the orange stain on her white fur is holding up.

I know I didn't get all the soup off the floor from her trip around the kitchen, but I got the worst, most obvious splatter from the immediate aftermath of her misstep.

And I was sad to pour out the rest of the soup.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Comments

[monkey5s]

Poor scared kitty. I've had stressy kitties before, it's not easy. Yay, indeed, for biological cleaners like the Nature's Miracle line.

I think Pansy is so miserable over the endless fleas (I am failing to find a way to get rid of them, and the endless failing health issues I'm having isn't making it easier) that she's not quite in her right mind most of the time now.

But yes. Stepped in the soup. Fortunately, with just the hind paw, because she was kind of flailing from stumbling. Today there is just the slightest tinge of orange on her fur, so she's been working on it.

[lavendertook]

*hugs*

Have you tried Frontline or Advantage on her for the fleas or are those treatments above your means?

[monkey5s]

Heh. I used Advantage for a few years, but it was losing effectiveness. Then they brought out Advantage II, and I read the scientific evaluations. Turns out it was actually less effective than original Advantage, as well as less effective than Frontline.

I found some original Advantage last spring, online, and dosed them twice, but the second time it had almost no effect. So I tried Frontline, and it was not any better. Plus, it made everyone's fur fall out at the application site. Not a good sign.

Apparently it's a tossup between the fleas developing resistance, and the fact that we had a very warm winter last year, so the fleas were swarming, horrendously, this year.

I'm hoping I can get back to vacuuming daily, since sweeping does kill the fleas, the eggs, and the larvae. The only thing it doesn't kill is the... uh, chrysalis form? Pupae? And if I can kill the fleas around the house, eventually there will be fewer on the cats.

But it's tiring us all out. Five cats scratching and biting their fur out isn't pleasant for any of us.

[lavendertook]

Oysh!!!! You're a good cat momma, hon. I asked because I was thinking if it were the cost of those products, I'd offer to do a doll picfic fundraiser for you (because I don't have any money to help), not that you weren't doing everything that you could. I'm sorry not even those work. Hopefully we'll get a good and long enough frost to kill some of them off this winter, so they wont' increase what's inside.

*hugs, scritches, and wishes of strength all round to you and your brood*

[monkey5s]

Oh, thank you, but it was... wellll, not easy, but you do what you have to, right? I'm just bummed that the easier, spot-on treatments don't work anymore, despite the cost.