Because She's Part of the Family

Last fall, our sweet old lady cat, BabyCat, was having some control issues. We figured it was probably the end of her and the hubby took her to the vet for the first time in 14 years. She had some fancy tests run, they told him about all the things that needed fixing that we didn't know about and gave the kitty some antibiotics for the infection that was causing her actual issues. Honestly, we spend more money on the cat at that appointment than we had spent on her the entire 9 years she's been with us. But, she wasn't dead or dying so the entire family considered that money well spent.
Saturday morning, I noticed that BabyCat was moving very tentatively. She seemed unable to move her right hind leg. Of course, she'd gotten herself from the floor to the couch without the leg, so maybe nothing was really going on with her. The husband and I took turns watching her throughout the day and decided that she'd probably had a stroke or something since she wasn't able to do anything with that rear leg. Once again, we were worried that this spelled the end of our family's kitty. As we were giving each other the look, our sweet girl came down and asked us what was wrong. Not wanting to alarm her, we explained that we were just watching the cat. She then said something along the lines of "oh, is she still hurt from being pounced on by the puppy?" Suddenly, our beloved cat was not almost dead, but really was possibly injured!
Husband tried to assess the situation by moving the cat and she yowled at him. With our immense knowledge of the cat physique we watched the cat walk around a little more and came to the conclusion that her leg, or maybe her hip, was broken. Off we went to the 24 Hour Vet Clinic, BabyCat loaded into her fancy carrier and puppy admonished for his rough puppy play.
Let me say right here - we do not come from "over spenders" when it comes to our pets. My FIL would have "lost" the cat months ago. He was busy raising five kids and working. Money did not get spent for a vet to give a cat medicine! My parents would have taken the cat to the vet, but only for "reasonable" treatment, which leaves a lot open to interpretation! And maybe, I think, my dad would have told us the cat had been to the vet, when really, he too would have "lost" the cat months ago.
After the vet examined the cat, he told us he needed to do x-rays to determine if there was a break in a bone or a tear in a ligament or muscle. We got the price, cringed a little and agreed. We had already discussed that we could not just let the cat wander around in horrible pain with a broken bone, so we were prepared for this one. The x-rays showed good news. Nothing was broken, the ligaments were still attached. The vet pointed to an area of the cat's leg and said there was a muscle tear. He told us that it could really only be fixed with an MRI and surgery. Apparently, our wide eyed, head shaking convinced him that we weren't going there. He next suggested that we could either keep the cat comfortable or brace her leg (insert my crazed giggles here) since we were opposed to surgery. What an awful way to put things to worried pet owners! If things had been more serious, would that be how you put it? We are "opposed" to treating our pet effectively?
It's not that we are opposed to surgery, guy. You are talking about going in to operate on a geriatric cat who probably won't make it out of the anesthesia. You are speaking to two working people who have teenagers planning to attend college in a couple of years. We love the cat. But, we'll opt for the "keep her comfortable" with kitty morphine over paying off her surgery for the next 10 years!
After multiple doses of her kitty pain meds, BabyCat is moving gently about the house. She is eating, drinking and doing cat stuff, which seems to indicate that she's recovering. We'll continue to love her and we're all going to make sure that she only has to play with the puppy when she wants to. I am happy we were able to help her this weekend. I know that the day is coming when she's going to find a comfortable spot to lay down and she won't be getting up. But, until then, she's going to keep being the queen of the house, happy to grace us with her presence!

Clean eating?

Last week, my sweet husband signed us up for an exciting evening of touring the local grocery store with our Chiropractor. As a modern woman who would love to be very healthy and, of course, look like my 25 year old self, I agreed to go and see if I could learn something new. (Disclaimer here - I've wanted to be healthy and look like my younger self for a while now. I've been reading avidly about this for YEARS!)
A few years ago, I read Wheatbelly and it changed my life! I gave up my gluten laden favorites and started feeling way better. Also, I am sure that I felt better because I dropped about 20 pounds in six months! At the end of that six months, sweet husband was told by his doctor that he needed to try to go vegan so I read some more books. I especially enjoyed It Starts with Food that my general practitioner recommended. The book suggested a lot of things that made sense and like Wheatbelly, I could really buy into the science of it all. Hubby, in his vegan quest, recommended Forks over Knives, which I read and tried to implement for him. Our food bill increased, I got frustrated fixing three separate meals most nights and some of our improvements were dismissed quickly, while others just eventually didn't happen any more.
Over the last few months, life around here has changed drastically. There are only three of us to eat at home together and we spent most of January and February eating out. I have been slack about eating gluten, Hubby has been making less than great decisions about his own food and Baby Girl keeps complaining that there is no food in the house. So, we have arrived at Thursday and our trip to the grocery store with Dr. Joe.
We met in front of the in store Starbucks and I was pretty happy that Dr. Joe didn't comment on my venti hot chocolate. The initial things we talked about where things that I was familiar with - stick to the perimeter, fresh not processed. Moving to the produce section, I was pleased to already know some things, but it was great to learn about different lettuces. It's one thing to read, "Eat darker, more colorful greens." It's way more helpful to learn what the different things taste like, how to prepare them, what you can use them to replace and how to select these "weird" veggies! As we headed to the "Organic/Special Diet/Pricey" section, I had already created a great list of things that we could easily add to our menus!
In the "Health Foods" section, as Kroger calls it, we discussed milk, yogurt, butter and kombucha. I liked learning about different benefits of all the types of milk, but I decided that I'm sticking with my Mayfield. I just won't mention that to Dr. Joe. There was a group of us shopping together. The other women were not as well read as I am about this healthy eating, but they both knew and loved this drink that Dr. Joe was praising. I've heard of kombucha, but only in jokes or comments making fun of foo-foo people. Hubby and I were very willing to try this beverage that everyone was raving about so we picked two bottles from the flavors that were suggested.
The group cruised the perimeter of the store for almost two hours. There were lots of little lessons that Hubby and I took away from the trip. Turns out, we are eating the "good cheeses" more than we're eating the not so good ones, most of the processed stuff that we eat is stuff that we won't miss too much, and most importantly just because it's not "good" doesn't mean it's "BAD"! This is really good because I'm pretty sure I won't be giving up Coke and Chocolate and Hubby won't be cutting out his Diet Dr. Pepper or tuna sandwiches!
After we finished, we were happy with the things we had learned and had some conversation about which changes we'd be implementing first. Since we are both such fans of our carbonated beverages, we decided to share our kombucha drink to start down the path of healthier hydration. Kombucha is disgusting! The stuff we bought had chia seeds in it. The liquid tasted like sweetened vinegar with tadpoles in it. (No, I do not actually know what tadpoles taste like, but I have a GREAT imagination!)
My personal take away from the night was kind of like I had read another fantastic book. I know more than I did. I absolutely know what I need to do to feel better, lose weight and be healthier. I also know what changes I can make initially! I hit the grocery store this weekend and made sure that the fridge is stocked with high quality meat, healthy veggies and no more processed foods. We did NOT purchase any tadpole juice! Maybe some day we will decide that we can try a different flavor. In the meantime, I am going to be making changes for the entire family. Hopefully, we'll start feeling and looking better really fast.