Favorite Kitty Pic Friday!

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TGIF!  And more snow…  It snowed a lot here on Wednesday, and we had some other accumulating snow a couple times before that.  Nothing has been quite as bad as last year’s snowstorm, but this year hubby has to do all the shoveling himself every time.  I feel bad I can’t help him, and I know there are some pregnant women out there shoveling, but that’s not an activity I really want to risk doing when I have a hubby around and a nearby dad to help if needed.  And if you couldn’t tell my “excitement” above – it’s snowing again this morning…  I really feel bad for hubby since the snow from Wednesday still isn’t completely shoveled away yet.

I know I said I would do this post back on it’s regularly weekly basis starting last week, but we are having some heating vent issues since last winter, and the guy has finally been coming out to figure it out and fix it.  We just have a noisy vent, and it’s still not fixed, but they know what they have to do now, and if it ever stops snowing, we can finally get him back here to do it.  So that’s what happened last Friday – I was waiting for the guy to come, then dealing with him while he was here, and I totally forgot to do this post.  So I’m hoping to get it back on track today, and here is my choice for this week:

Just a simple picture of Dusty, but I thought it was a very good close up of him.  I figured Jasper got the spotlight in 2 recent posts about his foot, so I picked Dusty for this week.  How can you not love that face?   :)

Have a great weekend!  Hopefully no more snow, at least for now (though I’m done with winter now), and maybe I will finally start to get my house cleaned up.  It’s a wreck at the moment from taking Christmas stuff down, since it’s not all quite put away yet, and I can’t do it all by myself either – the snow really needs to stop so I can have some of hubby’s energy and strength for some help with that stuff!

Poor Kitty Update

So, if you remember last Friday’s post about Jasper’s foot/claw, here is the update on him.

You’ll notice this looks very similar to a photo from the last post – but it was taken tonight, and his foot bandage has changed to purple!  Let’s put it this way – Jasper basically declawed one of his own rear toes, and the vet ended up having to help him complete the job.  When he originally lost his claw, we knew the quick/nerve ending was still there, and the tech I spoke with on the phone also knew this.  She had said we didn’t need to bring him in unless he started to look infected.  Well, on Monday I made my daily check, and there was a tiny bit of clear fluid coming from the wound area along with a bad smell.  It didn’t look bad, but I was starting to worry that an infection was beginning.  We decided to wait until Tuesday to call during regular vet hours, after checking him again and seeing no change.  Still leaking a tiny bit and still smelly.  They got him into the office Tuesday afternoon, and the vet I really like there was on duty to check him out.  She said it would have been better if he would have just ripped off the entire claw with the quick right off the bat – it would have bled more at the time, but wouldn’t have been so sore and open to infection.  She didn’t say he had any major infection going on already, but was worried about it getting to that point and progressing to needing his whole toe amputated.  Luckily there was no major infection yet, but he did need a minor surgical procedure to snip that remaining quick off.  I was really only expecting to take him in for a check and some antibiotics!  My poor baby.  :(    They sedated him, snipped off the nerve ending, and gave him an injection of antibiotics.  We were sent home 45 minutes later with a very dopey and wobbly kitty sporting his brand new purple bandage and some pain meds.  With how many times he managed to kick off my bandaging last week, I was sure this wouldn’t last long, but knew it had to stay wrapped until tonight.  They certainly did a good job of it!  He kicked and kicked, but that thing stayed in place!  Now I know why – Jasper now has a little less fur on that leg!  So as of right now, he’s perfectly fine, seems to be walking ok, is back to eating and drinking like his normal self, and wants nothing more than to lick that toe.  We are stopping him as much as possible, and he will have that antibiotic in his system for another day or two, so hopefully he won’t develop an infection now.  We will be keeping a close eye on it though.

In other news, I ended up needing to go to my doctor this evening for an itchy skin issue, so he just made this visit count as my next scheduled visit that I was supposed to have in two weeks (turns out somehow I was not in their schedule for two weeks from now, even though I had the appointment card, so it worked out!).  My quad screen test was negative for Down syndrome, in fact my results put me at lower risk for any issues than the norm.  Yay, good news there!  He gave me my ultrasound order for 2 weeks from now, and I will be able to find out if Bean is growing well and if I’m right or hubby’s right on gender!  I’ll be scheduling that appointment tomorrow, and since we were out and had to go to Target for a prescription cream, even though we don’t know the gender yet, we still had some fun adding some necessities and gender neutral items to our registry!   :) 

Favorite Kitty Pic Friday will be back on track this week.  Have a good week until then!

PS – If you haven’t done it yet, vote on baby Bean’s gender on the right sidebar!  2 weeks to go!

My poor kitty…

Today’s “Favorite Kitty Pic Friday” post is not labeled as such because I wouldn’t call this a favorite picture.  I did, however, want to share with you what my day consisted of yesterday, and since it involved Jasper, I figured it could just replace it this week.  There will be pictures in this post, and Favorite Kitty Pic Friday will resume normally next week.  Just a warning – this post may be a little graphic in my description of things, depending on what bothers you and what you think is graphic.

One of Jasper’s favorite places to be lately is the couch/sofa.  He either is snuggled up on a blanket right next to me or sleeping on the back of the farther end of the sofa.  Yesterday he decided to snooze there…and then the rest of the day began.

He was sleeping away on the back of the sofa while I was sitting here watching TV and browsing the internet, when all of a sudden he jumped, spazzed out, and landed himself on the window sill trapping himself between both layers of curtain.  I was certainly surprised and yelled out.  I didn’t think to check him right away because my kitties have little freak outs all the time.  Hubby came down right away because he heard me yell out, and asked what happened.  As I was telling him, he was checking the sofa for holes and managed to find this:

 His entire claw!  Well, then I began to panic and asked hubby to retrieve him off the window.  I was checking his feet for where the claw came off, and found it right away – he was bleeding very badly… 

I grabbed a tissue right away to try to clean him up, and saw that he had nothing left where his claw should be.  I never dealt with this before, and luckily I had the vets number within arm’s reach.  I covered his toe with the tissue and called the vet immediately.  After explaining what happened to the tech (I think he started to roll off the sofa while he was asleep and woke up scared) and figuring out that he tore off the nail completely, leaving the quick/nerve ending exposed, she said we didn’t have to bring him in because they would only do what she was telling me to do.  I had to quickly grab some cornstarch to apply to the wound to stop the bleeding, then try to bandage him up at least until today or so to keep the area clean and covered so he wouldn’t lick it.  We only have to call them back and bring him in if the toe/foot starts to look infected, otherwise, just keep it clean and let it heal.

So, I bought my first set of baby socks yesterday…for my cat.  Have you ever tried to bandage a cat’s limb before?  Not fun.  And as a former Athletic Trainer, I have some skills bandaging wounds, but a cat – totally different and a lot harder.  Luckily I do have these skills though, because otherwise we would really have had a problem and would have needed to take him to the vet.

Here he is after getting all wrapped up the second time – lounging on his second favorite area of the couch.  After the first time we wrapped him up, we put him in the carrier until I could run out for more bandaging supplies and socks.  When we let him out of there, he had already managed to start to unravel the first wrapping, so we re-did it and put the sock on him all the way up past his joint, hoping it would stay on better that way.  It did for just a little while.  Pretty soon he kicked it straight off his whole foot!  The vet tech said we needed to keep it covered though, so we tried again…and again.  I lost count now how many times we tried until we gave up for overnight since we wouldn’t be able to stop him from flinging it off anyway.

 

 

 

This is him lounging in hubby’s lap after one final try at bandaging.  (And yes – we still have our tree, along with all our other Christmas decorations up.  I was stressed and busy before the holidays, and have been taking it easy since.  Maybe we’ll work on that this weekend…)  He looks so defeated.  He was very unhappy with the whole thing, and every step he took he tried kicking off the bandaging.  I felt so bad for my fur baby, I even bought him a special treat for dinner last night.  Which made me realize I am going to have one spoiled child when he/she is sick!  So, he managed to kick off the sock and bandaging one last time shortly before bedtime, and we gave up at that point because we couldn’t do a lot while we were sleeping anyway.  He did lick at it, we tried to stop him, he slept on the bed with us most of the night, and seems his normal lazy self today.  Other than the fact that he doesn’t like when I touch his foot to try to check on the toe.  I will need hubby’s help for that since we might have to clean it up today.  Hopefully he heals well and fast, and we won’t end up having to make a trip to the vet!

In other news, I ordered a fetal heartbeat doppler earlier this week, and it should arrive today!  We were very torn about ordering it, because we have been so nervous this whole pregnancy to begin with, and not being able to find the baby’s HB with it may make us worry more.  So, hopefully we have luck with it, and it will help us to feel more at ease.  Have a great weekend!

Christmas, New Years, and New Addition

I hope everyone had wonderful holidays, whatever you may celebrate.  I did in the end, even though Christmas didn’t feel quite as Christmas-y this year.  And now I’m going to do this post in complete backwards order from the title because the latter is just more exciting!  It’s kind of lengthy, but please read on, I promise it’s interesting!

If you’re reading this on Google Reader, you won’t see the new addition to my blog.  If you are looking at my blog page and haven’t noticed it yet, look to the right, just below my little about me section – I’ll give you a minute to scroll…

For those of you that aren’t looking there, not only do I have a new little addition to my sidebar, but it’s about the new little addition to our family – I’m expecting my first baby June 23rd!  We have known since mid-October, but I waited so long to post on here because I was nervous, wanted to make sure everything seemed to be going well, and had other people to tell in person first.  I am at exactly 16 weeks today (starting my 17th week, depending on how you like to measure the time).  We told our parents and grandmothers on Thanksgiving, the people in the twirling group the week after, and the rest of my extended family got the announcement in their Christmas cards.  I am sad that my baby will never get to meet my grandmother, but I feel better that she at least knew about it before she passed away.  And before I get into the rest of it, since we don’t know if it’s a boy or girl yet, we have nicknamed the baby “Bean” for now (though I have a feeling that nickname will stick even after he or she is born!).  Now to catch you all up!  My first trimester was surprisingly easy.  I had absolutely no morning sickness at any point in the day.  There was only once or twice I felt the slightest bit nauseous, which cued me into having a snack and made it better.  I did have the fatigue, big time.  I’m not working, and yet I still had no energy to get off the couch.  I did have a couple weeks where I was starving, all the time.  I would eat, and within an hour or so, I felt like my stomach was totally and completely empty again.  The most troublesome issue I’ve had is hair loss.  I have been losing a lot more hair than normal, to the point my hair is A LOT thinner.  It has been very disconcerting, but I have been told that even though it’s not a common issue, it does sometimes happen, and even if there was a different cause other than pregnancy hormones (yes, I did have my thyroid tested when I had my pregnancy blood test and all was fine), there’s not really anything that can be done for it at this point.  Now that I’m in my second trimester, it seems to have lessened a little, but I’m wondering if it’s just because I have less hair overall!  My first appointment was at 8 weeks, and I’m seeing a doctor that my good friend went to since my regular GYN doesn’t do maternity care.  We like him a lot, and though he answers questions quickly, he gives all the right information and I never feel rushed.  I had my first ultrasound the same week of my first appointment, and it was so awesome to see Bean’s little heartbeat, at a racing 171.  Even though I was officially 8 weeks for that scan, I measured 7w5d, so really not too far off!  I tried scanning the printout we got, but it came out too dark and you can’t see anything at all.  My first blood test came back perfect.  By the second visit, around 12 weeks, we thought we would hear the heartbeat.  Unfortunately that did not really happen, though the doctor said he was able to detect it for a second, but couldn’t keep on it.  That made me a nervous wreck!  I just kept telling myself that he didn’t seem concerned, sometimes it’s hard to hear it that early, and if he was concerned he would have sent me for another ultrasound or something.  As the weeks have gone by, the fatigue has started to wear off, I’ve had other not-so-pleasant pregnancy digestive issues, and I’m currently suffering from pregnancy congestion.  I’m not sick, but I got the stuffy nose and slight bleeding after blowing.  My mornings in the winter were already miserable due to sinus drainage – now multiply that by about 8.  I have good nights and bad nights of sleep.  It’s a comfort thing – I’m trying to stay exclusively to sleeping on either side now, even though I end up on my back at some point most nights, and my doctor said I don’t have to worry too much about that quite yet, but some nights I only get up once for the bathroom and sleep the whole night soundly.  Other nights, like last night, I get up multiple times, can’t get comfortable, and feel like crying.  I’m hoping for a really good night’s sleep tonight, because I felt exhausted today.  I did buy the Boppy body pillow, and it has definitely helped, but it’s still not the answer to a perfectly sound night every single night.  I dread that my sleep is only going to get worse as I get bigger and my hips start to really ache since I’m already having so much trouble.  I also have been getting the round ligament pain.  The first time I felt it, it was awful, and a few days before my second appointment.  It didn’t last long, my warm shower seemed to help, and I knew it wasn’t any kind of cramping, so I didn’t call, but my doctor assured me that’s what it was at the appointment.  I still get twangs of it sometimes, but he said it should start to diminish, and at least when I get it I know what it is now and it doesn’t feel as bad anymore.  My cravings have been slightly weird for me.  First I couldn’t seem to get enough oatmeal.  That lasted a week or so.  Then I was on a slight waffle kick, but again, only for a short time.  Then it progressed to pickles, then green olives, and now most recently it was spinach and artichoke dip and tortilla chips.  I used to eat a little of that dip if my in-laws got it, but I never really chose it.  It just wasn’t really my kind of appetizer.  Over the last few weeks I must have eaten it at least 4 or 5 times!  There was one night I wanted it for my dinner, just the whole thing of it all by myself!  I didn’t do it, but I did eat at least half as an appetizer.  So for the most part as of now I have been wanting salty foods.  That would be hubby’s part of Bean because I usually have a sweet tooth myself.  And if you believe in any of the old wives tales, it means I’m carrying a boy.  So my most recent appointment was this past Monday.  He said I definitely got bigger and was measuring where I should be, my blood pressure was good at 126/74, and we were able to get Bean’s heartbeat with the doppler this time!  A wonderful 148 bpm and the best sound I ever heard!  Hubby recorded it but I don’t know the best way to add that sound clip on here, and he just went to bed.  Maybe in the next post or next update.  The next thing I have to go for is the quad screen test, which will show my chance of the baby having Down syndrome and other issues.  If the results come back good, I have my next appointment on the 31st, and I will schedule the regular ultrasound for shortly after that where we can find out the gender!  If the results come back with an increased chance of any issues, I will have to schedule a specialized ultrasound and go from there.  So I hope the results are good, but either way, we can find out if Bean is a boy or girl around the beginning of February!  I’m excited for that, but my gut tells me it’s a boy.  Hubby thinks it’s a girl, especially after a dream he had recently.  Some pregnant women get gut feelings and they are 100% right.  My gut could be wrong, but I think it’s a boy at this point and I also feel like I will go past my due date.  Just my feeling as of now – we’ll see how correct it is as time goes on.  I also got a belly band for my current jeans not long before Christmas, since I was having trouble buttoning them, and it fits great, but at this point I’m starting to notice a definite change in belly size, and I bought my first pair of maternity jeans the other night, along with 2 shirts.  That’s the other thing.  You will not see belly pictures on here until I am either pretty huge, or possibly not at all.  I was heavier to begin with, and I’m not fond of how my belly looks.  Right now I know I’m getting bigger because of baby, but I don’t show like the typical slender pregnant woman.  To the outside world, I just look like I ate way too many Christmas cookies in my time.  So, no pictures until I look distinctly pregnant, possibly none at all.  I’m taking them for my own recording, but that’s as far as they’re going for now.  So at the moment, that’s all I have on that for now.  After Monday’s appointment, I finally felt like I could let it all out, and even started looking at maternity clothes and cribs!  Now I’m excited and extremely happy!  Not that I wasn’t before, but I was totally overwhelmed with nervousness.

My Christmas was nice.  We went out for our usual buffet lunch, and back to my grandmother and uncle’s to exchange gifts and play Wii games.  Hubby and I exchanged in the morning, and his card made me cry.  In a good way, but these hormones really get me sometimes!  (I cried at the jewelry commercial of the couple with their baby up late at night for baby’s first Christmas!  Totally bawled…)  My parents and I chipped in together for a Kindle for him, and I also got him pj’s, and a bottle of 43 (booze).  He got me the Polar Express DVD, soundtrack, and illustrated book (I have been wanting the CD for 3 years now, because I love that movie, and he managed to find all 3 for a great deal on Amazon – the book was also partially for Bean), along with a jigsaw puzzle, a mat for the puzzle (something else I’ve been wanting forever), and a coupon for my choice of one pregnancy luxury item (example, a foot spa or other item for pampering).  My parents gave me/us a double crock pot, a Target gift card (for maternity clothes, but unfortunately Target doesn’t carry clothes for my body, so a new Wii game it will be!), and a camera bag for our new Fugi Film FinePix 1800.  Other gifts were cash and restaurant gift cards.  We bought my dad a tripod for his camera (same one as ours), a BJ’s membership for my mom, and other gifts for everyone else were made up of games, gift cards, clothing, wine, chocolates, and other goodies.  We did get a picture frame for his mom that is carved wood with the saying “Grandma’s Angel” for her first picture of the baby, and I made my aunt some jewelry that she absolutely loved.  I will do a whole separate post on that later, since this one became too long. 

New Year’s was spent at my in-laws.  Yummy food, relaxation, nothing too exciting there.  Overall a good holiday.

I apologize for the long post.  Hopefully everything made sense.  Since I haven’t done any announcing on here about the baby or updates, I had a lot to say!  I will eventually put up a poll for gender guessing, and will leave it up until we find out, but I have to figure out how to do that first!  Look for more updates to come, but I’m not sure how often I will do them yet.  Any advice you have on great baby products, furniture, must-haves, etc., are greatly welcomed since I am starting to look at that stuff now and I feel overwhelmed by it all.

And now it’s time for bed…