Mishaps and Mayhem

Some 40 plus years after female demonstrators protested the 1968 Miss America pageant by throwing their bras, girdles and other constricting clothing in the garbage, I did it.  I burned my bra.  Unlike those women who did not actually burn their bras, however, I did burn mine.  (FYI, the whole thing in the 70’s was blown out of proportion by the media.)

My bra-burning was unintentional, however.  I had a stack of dirty laundry piled too close to the radiator.  Well, it wasn’t really stacked that close to the radiator, but the pile grew to such a height that, when it toppled, some pieces ended up on the radiator.  I smelled something strange, but didn’t really think about it.  By the time I found the pile, it was too late.  The only other item that was burned was a half of a towel and one bra. 

The half towel was no big deal.  I keep those for the cats’ beds or carriers or to clean with.  The bra is another story.  I would have rather had a pair of jeans get burned.  I spend less on a pair of jeans (usually) than I do on my wireless support undergarments!  *sigh*

Last week, I was puttering around late at night getting ready for bed.  I heard what sounded like a small body hitting the floor in my bedroom.  It was.  A small body, that is.  It was Khai.  While I’m not certain, I believe he was going to jump up on my bed.  He had been jumping up on it from the floor and had gotten cocky about his ability.  Poor Khai!  Pride goeth before a fall.  Literally.

Before I could turn around to check on him, I heard a weird meow and then all of a sudden there was hissing and spitting and yowling and the two cats came flying into the kitchen!  Tabitha was all over Khai like shopaholics at a one-hour sale!  I had to pull her off of him—earning a deep gash in the thenar.  With my blood flying all over, I couldn’t tell if either cat was bleeding.  I had to take a moment to calm Tabitha down, because every time I let her go, she would leap at Khai again.  When I finally turned my attention to Khai, I could tell he wasn’t moving his legs.

With my heart in my throat, I gently prodded his back and rear legs.  I didn’t feel any protruding or obvious bone fractures.  I manipulated his back feet and was pleased to see that he could move them, but he didn’t want to.  I spent another hour setting him up in my room with the litter, his food and some water.  I also got out the mattress protector pad that had been my mother’s.  I didn’t know why I kept it, but I put it on the floor and gently settled Khai on it and locked Tabitha out of my room for the night.

I spent the next two days shuffling the litter box between the two cats, helping Khai into the litter and cleaning up after him.  It was painful to just watch him try to walk.  While his back legs started to hold him up a little bit, he couldn’t seem to get them to move properly.  So Monday morning, I called a couple of vets.  I really wanted to take him to the clinic that just handles cats, but they were way too expensive and, more importantly, they could not squeeze him in until the next day.  So I called Lockport Animal Hospital and got him in that afternoon.

The Lockport Animal hospital is about six minutes away, by car.  Khai complained every second of those 12 minutes.  He was good inside, except when the vet manhandled his sore rear end.  He gave a full-fanged hiss right in the vet’s face!  But he had no broken bones.  After a steroid shot and two prescriptions—one for prednisone and one for a muscle relaxant—and advice on making a ramp into the litter box for him, I took him home.  He’s been doing very well, except for one thing.

He stank.  Having wet himself but unable to clean himself, Khai smelled very bad.  I waited until Thursday to give him a bath because I didn’t want to hurt him too much.  I really only gave him a half bath, just from the middle of his tummy down to his tail.  I washed and rinsed as fast as I could.  Then I realized I should have given him his pills before I gave him the bath.  Uh oh.  He was tense and angry when I sat down with him.  The first pill I tried to give him was the prednisone.  After the sixth or seventh time he spit it out, the pill was about a third of its original size, so I figured he must have swallowed some of that. 

I sat with him on my lap for quite a while.  I scratched his neck and he fell asleep.  Then I gave the final blow.  As quick as I could, while he was still sleepy, I grabbed his neck, pressed my fingers on each side of his jaw to open his mouth and popped the muscle relaxant down his throat.  Done!  He wanted nothing to do with me after that.  He did not lay on my lap for five days.  He’s doing much better now.  After another trip to the vet and more prednisone, he’s walking more normally, although slowly.

This past Sunday I decided I better treat the bedroom carpet again with an enzymatic cleaner to make sure the cat pee smell was gone.  I was moving stuff around and putting some of it on the shelf in the closet.  Since I had to take Khai to the vet again the next day, I pulled the cat carrier off the shelf.  Unfortunately, a small, solid oak shelf fell off and landed, corner down, on my right foot.

Holy cow, that sucker hurt!!  I dropped everything on the floor and lunged for my bed.  As I lay there with my foot up, I tried to breathe through the excruciating pain.  I whimpered and moaned, which the cats did not like.  Very sympathetic, they left the bedroom together.  After about a year, the pain started to ease.  I did a quick assessment of the injury.  Can I wiggle my toes?  Check.  Can I move the whole foot?  Check.

Carefully, I sat up on the bed.  As my legs swung over the side, the foot started throbbing.  I clenched my teeth, reminded myself to breathe and waited for the pain to abate.  After a month or so, it did so I tried to stand.  That wasn’t too bad, but then I started to walk.  Leaving the stuff I dropped on the floor, I limped to the kitchen, grabbed a bag of frozen peas and collapsed on my recliner.  I propped my foot up and gently set the bag on my poor abused foot.  I think that putting the bag on my foot so quickly is what helped keep it manageable.  I was able to get my stretchy shoes on Monday morning to take Khai to the vet.  While it would hurt if I stepped a certain way or bent the toes too far, it was okay.

On Tuesday, I did laundry.  I mention this for two reasons.  One, I handwashed my delicates on Monday night and I had opened the new bottle of laundry detergent.  Two, I had to take the rest of my clothes to the Laundromat, which meant carrying the detergent, stain treatment, dryer sheets, etc.  These two things are very closely related because as I was carrying said laundry detergent through the living room to put it in the car, liquid detergent spilled all over the rug.  The same rug—different spot—that I had spilled paint on and, on another occasion, I had spilled Weiman’s Furniture Cream.  In the case of the laundry detergent, I had forgotten to tighten the cap after doing the handwashing the night before.

After blotting it up as well as I could, I stuck my driver’s license in one pocket, my money in another pocket and headed to the Laundromat.  I had $8 in quarters and another $14 in singles.  A full hour and a half later and $15 poorer, I counted my remaining few dollars and headed to Target to get my decongestant.  That’s the one you need an I.D. to buy.  I stuck my hand in my pocket.  No I.D.  I checked all my pockets, the car seats, the car floor.  No driver’s license.  Well, I had to drive home and the Laundromat was on the way, so I stopped there to see if it was there.  Didn’t find it and nobody had seen it.  I had met the owner when I first got there earlier so I asked him to keep an eye out for it.

Remaining hopeful, I went home and unloaded the laundry.  After a cuppa and a brief nap, I took the laundry and sorted and folded it, watching for any sign of my driver’s license.  Nothing.  One of the most annoying things is that it was a brand new license.  I had just gotten it less than two weeks’ prior.  I only paid $5 for it since it was just an address change, but to get a duplicate will cost $10.  I’ll have the $10 soon.  Right now it’s floating around in cyberspace on it’s way from my checking account to my Paypal account.  But it’s not there yet, so I have to wait.  *sigh*  I’ll check the car more thoroughly tomorrow, looking under the seats and between the seats and console, but I’m not very hopeful.

There have been a number of other, more minor incidents, too, but I’d have to turn this into a book to relate all of those.  I’ll just say that I now know why I am so slow at painting.  I’m being careful.  Between being forgetful (I can’t remember any examples right now) and somewhat awkward (I have bruises in some startling places), for most of my problems, I have no one to blame but myself.  So I’ll keep slogging through the rest of the unpacking and sorting, trying to be more careful physically and maybe writing more notes so I don’t forget so many things.

Although who would write themselves a note that they hadn’t screwed the cap on the laundry detergent?  I mean, if I had realized I hadn’t done it, I would just put the cap on properly, not write myself a note about it, right?  Right.

Now I'm wondering if I should even get out of bed tomorrow.  Oh, I have to.  The cable guy is coming.  Well, maybe if I sit very still...