This has not been one of our more productive weeks. My husband is on a business trip, which never helps, and Monday I took my very favorite cat, Twink, into the vet. He hasn't been feeling well. He's lost weight over the last two years, and at his checkup in December, was diagnosed with kidney "issues." He started taking some probiotics, which seemed to be helping, and I went back to pretending he was fine.
Last week, I noticed that his normally pink nose and lips were white. That's not a good sign. So, Monday afternoon we were off to the vet's office to see what was going on. They repeated his bloodwork to find that the numbers (which I can't list for you, or explain well) had doubled or tripled into a much worse range - in just a month. The doctor could fee that one kidney was larger than the other, and told me that Twink had lost another 3/4 lb - we were trying to get him to gain weight. We decided that he would spend 3 days at the vet's office receiving IV fluids in an attempt to flush the toxins from his system that his kidneys aren't processing. If that helps, we will start him on another medication and see where to go from there. I left the office feeling like he'd get better, but I have to say, thinking on how quickly he's gone downhill since December, I have my doubts.
Then, Tuesday morning, Emma woke me to tell me that her cat, Thomas, was limping. This was no slight limp; he didn't want to put weight on his front foot and was holding it up while she held him. Off to the vet we went again, to discover that he had a wound on his foot and was running a fever, so he got to stay and have his foot operated on, cleaned out and stitched up. This is not turning out to be an inexpensive week, can you tell?
To make things even more interesting, Isaac is on quite a tear these days. He throws a LOT of tantrums, for reasons I do not understand. He seems to be tired most of the time, even when he's had a nap (which he tries so hard to refuse, even when he desperately needs the extra sleep). I can only surmise that he must be growing again, this 5 year old who is already the size of your average 8-9 year old boy. Good thing I bought his clothes big (so when he agrees to wear them, they will fit).
How do we homeschool during weeks like this? Well, to be honest, it's not been my best teaching week. I've been letting the girls do what they can independently. Monday, we did manage to read our poem and some of Robin Hood, I think. I can't recall if we read the Hobbit. Today, I did school with Isaac while the girls were upstairs reading. I've been avoiding thinking about the cats by reading my own book. At about 11:45 pm I remembered to make the Jell-o for making our cells tomorrow, and even made an extra one for Isaac. I got the kitchen mostly cleaned up and the dishwasher is running, so we won't have a mess to face in the morning. Now, I'm sitting here typing, because I do hate to go to bed by myself. No worries though - pretty soon Isaac will join me! Ha!
All right. I'm mostly just complaining, and I do apologize. I wanted to let you know, in case you're in need of encouragement, that not every day goes as planned, and somehow, my children still learn things. :-)
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