M's at work again today as he's back to 6-day weeks, and squeezing in apt repairs at night and rather tired. The boys are alternately playing quietly and tearing the house to shreds in their antsiness, it's cold and rainy out. We were out twice this morning, to the vet and farmers market, and neither got to run free in any way so it didn't really help the energy issues!
You should have seen the vet trip ... I couldn't get the cat carrier out of the front room in time as R (out subletter in the front room) was still asleep, and M was off at work already, so I had to take the boys, and the cat, sans carrier. I put him in a cardboard box w/a lid, in fynn's larger stroller, tied down with a bungee cord. (time out just taken to remove fynn's hands, and the paint roller, from the tin of quick-drying spack he got open. joy. all the tools are out from under the bed as M's still in the middle of the upstairs patching project. there are days that living in a small apt. does me in!).
back to the cat. D pushed fynn in the small stroller, i pushed dominic in the big one, having to stop every half block and shove his head back down in the box as he could push up the bungee cording no matter how i wrapped it. still has some fight in him despite being weaker! we get to the vets and thankfully there was a fish tank in the lobby. a few minutes of relative peace.
then they put us (and, barely, the 2 strollers) into an exam room, asked a few questions, and told us to wait for the doctor. one lady brought in crayons and coloring pages, which helped for about 90 seconds and then became a source of strife. crayons broken, lost, thrown in the trash and denied retrieval (I'd seen her throw in a bird-poop-kleenex, who knows what else was in there!) fynn darting behind the exam table and heading for the giant ... uncovered ... bin of used syringes under the table. over and over. dominic trying to escape the room, with the back door having been left ajar. the large container of raisins/cranberries i'd brought to distract fynn being accidentally dumped all over the floor. one floor that i would NOT let them be eaten from (there aren't many to be honest, but the vets office is one of them ...) so many tears as they were dumped in the trash.
vet finally came in, examined dominic on top of the coloring pages, with the remaining broken crayons skittering off the table. i danced between holding him for the vet and soothing him, grabbing fynn and stopping him from pushing the stroller and tangling it up in the 2nd one, and trying not to think about dominic's actual condition. the vet said it could be kidneys, diabetes, or a couple other things, and wanted bloodwork run.
i called M about it while she was out of the room, swallowed tears that it wasn't going to be done but felt it was the right decision, loaded cat into now-wet-from-pee box, wadded up the wet towel in the end, strapped him in, strapped a fussing fynn in, and eventually manoevered both strollers back into the waiting room to pay for the exam and hairball creme we ended up with ... wondering how much of the chaos in the exam room had been highly audible, thru the flimsy door, to the now-full waiting area. decided i didn't much care. accepted help getting the strollers out the door, and breathed a sigh of relief that it was, for now, over.
would feel guilty if i hadn't had him checked out, and will see how the week goes. might take him next weekend (or after the marathon) to get the bloodwork done. will see.
originally written to my folks in an email, repurposed here.