Isis' countdown

My oldest cat, Isis, is nearly 14 years old. I've been with her longer than I've been with Monkey. Last May we had a benign lump on her forehead removed. Last month we found another lump under her left shoulder and had it checked. I really didn't think anything of it. I thought it would be like the one on her forehead. It was bigger and growing faster but she isn't bothered by it at all. Well, it turns out to be a kind of connective tissue tumor that grows fast, sends out tendrils and difficult/impossible to get it all out. To take it out would mean cutting and digging out a large amount tissue from a relatively slender, small cat.  To top it off she has developed a quiet heart murmur that, in cats, is associated with heart disease. I had to make a decision. Do I put my elderly cat, who likely only has a year or so left on average, through an invasive surgery to remove a tumor that likely will return in about six months? Yeah, that is pretty much a no-brainer if you focus on quality of life rather than length. She will not be getting another surgery. The tumor will grow. Eventually it will make her shoulder uncomfortable. When she starts showing signs of pain or extreme discomfort I'll talk to the vet about ending her life.

I knew that she was nearing the end of her life. Indoor, well-cared for cats average 12-15 years. I've heard of much older cats but those aren't the average and I'm realistic about these things. But knowing now that I will likely have to euthanize her in the next six months to a year makes it a bit more on my mind.

Isis isn't our only geriatric pet, just the oldest. I know this is just the beginning of the next few years of our pet population decreasing in the house. I'm very much a realist when it comes to life and death of pets but I'm still feeling a little sad.

Under the blanket

I'm deep in my depression while I wait for my new meds to prove effective...or not. I'm spending good portions of my day under a fluffy red blanket on my couch. I'm doing my best. I am surviving.

Rather than blather on in a less than entertaining way about my pointless sadness I shall direct you to one of the best, yet entertaining, blog posts on depression I have ever seen. Enjoy.

Hyperbole and a Half : Adventures in Depression

After that I suggest you wander around her backlog of posts. They are hilarious and wonderful.

It is illogical.

I am a very logical person. I like to think things through. I like steps, processes and formulas. I often write notes and to-do lists in outline format. (I don't speak in a logical way but that is a whole other story.) Even my creative endeavors, baking and knitting, are ones that follow logical steps along with a bit of instinctive direction. I am very proud and very attached to my ability to logically think things through.

I think it is because of this trait that I suffer more than necessary with my mental illnesses. There is nothing logical about what is happening in my mind. I'm sure that deep in the biochemical level there is a logically explainable dysfunction that will someday be discovered but that is my "brain" not my "mind". I have two minds, almost like two identities, during a depressive and/or anxious episode. One is the logical and reasonable mind that sees all the illogical feelings and reactions. It says "I am depressed and crying yet my life is very good. I have loving partners, good health care, all my basic needs are met, and I have a wonderful amount of extra comforts. This makes no sense whatsoever." My logical mind, however, is locked in a glass box by the raving emotional nut ball that is my depressive mind. I'm not even going to try to articulate what that part of my mind sounds like. My logical mind sees all the crazy spilling out but can do nothing to stop it. The medications, when they work, help quiet the crazy part of my mind and let my logical side take most of the control.

Right now, while I change and adjust my new medications, the crazy mind is more often in control. With therapy and a lot of self-care, I can get the logical mind in control for small parts of the day. I can be functional but only in short bursts and at great cost. The rest of the time crazy-mind is running the show. I'm trying to accept that. If I manage to accept that, during those times, logic will not be likely perhaps I would suffer less?

The house guest

I could see it coming. I've gotten very good at spotting it lurking around the edges of my brain. Oozing into the folds of thought. Depression has claimed me once again. The "house guest", as my household calls it, has moved back in. 

I white-knuckled my rational brain through Monkey's surgery knowing that he needed me to be present and able. Thankfully, his recovery has been so uneventful and rapid that I wasn't needed for very long. As soon as he didn't need me I crumbled. Monkey and Author could see it coming too so they were ready for it, though hoping for the best. 

I used to be almost paralyzed with fear when I saw the darkness coming to swallow me. Now I feel like a person preparing for a bad weather. Put up the storm windows and check the flashlights. I can't stop it once it has begun to build but at least now I'm able to lessen the impact while I weather the storm. 

I've started on yet another new medication. Will this one help? More importantly, will it keep working for more than a year or so? There is no way to know. Psychiatry is full of very educated guesses. No one knows exactly how or why these medications work or don't work for some people. It is like juggling when some balls are invisible and you don't know how many there are. But I have try because the other option is to live in this darkness and I just can't accept that. 

Post-Op Rundown

Well, let's start with the fact that Monkey is doing great. Everything on his end went perfectly. Our household ran like precision clockwork getting him prepped and deposited in the care of the pre-op team. We even managed to get them to let both Author and myself in the pre-op room. Monkey was dosed to high heaven on Versed (a sedative) to get him to relax a bit in prep. I've been on one dose before my polyp removal and I was quite relaxed. Monkey, who is much smaller than me, took three doses! He was rather tense. Then they wheeled him away to the OR and Author and I turned back to wait.

Not three steps past the waiting room door I burst into tears. I'm rather proud of myself for lasting that long. Author and I went to sit with family to wait the predicted two hours. And then it was two hours...no word. Two and a half hours...nothing. Three hours and Author and I are fidgeting and staring intently at the beeper the receptionist gave us. Him and I both are telling each other "it is just an estimated time" "he was a bit late getting out of pre-op anyway" and so on. We are watching minutes by now and at 3hrs and ten minutes our buzzer goes off and we dash to the desk. The receptionist tells us that they are closing Monkey up and ushers us into a "consult" room. 

If you've ever had bad news at a hospital you will know about the consult rooms. Bad news isn't the only reason for them. Patient privacy is the primary use for them but you can't help but panic a little when you don't expect to be sent to one. It is a closet-like room with a few chairs, a phone on an end-table and a door. Nothing else. Seriously, not even a coat hook. Author, sheet-white and stone-faced, and me, tears already streaming, shuffle into the tiny room clutching hands. Horrible complications are running through our heads but we don't talk about them. What a terrified pair we must have looked like. Dr. M pops in, takes one look at us while shutting the door, and quickly says "He is doing great." Turns out that Monkey also has some endometriosis messing about and Dr M decided to remove as much as he could find to prevent any future issues. That is what took a little longer. I thought Author was going to pass out from relief....or maybe that was me. That last hour of waiting and the 10 minutes waiting in the consult room was one of the worse experience in my life. I hope I won't be repeating it any time soon.

Wrapping up Monkey's surgery, there was one night spent at the hospital then the released him back home. It is now five days since the surgery and he is already decreasing pain medication and walking around often. Another couple days and he will be ready to go out for a cup of tea or something. The healing is going faster than any of us could have hoped for. 

I am so glad this is behind us!

Preparing for the waiting room.

Monkey is having surgery this Saturday.

I believe I've mentioned it before but I'll give a quick background just in case. Monkey has been dealing with some serious menstrual issues for over a year. A few months ago we found out it was all due to a rather large fibroid making his uterus go wonky. His Doc decided that getting a complete hysterectomy (that is just the uterus and cervix but not the ovaries) was the best option for him. Monkey was thrilled. He hated having a period and the fibroid was making it 10 times worse. I was happy for him. He had a solution to his problems and he wouldn't be bothered with monthly bleeding anymore.

Surgery day is fast approaching and, though I know this is a common operation, it is still major. I've been with Monkey for nearing 13 years and this is the first surgery we have experienced. Monkey is a surgery superstar. He had several surgeries as a kid and young adult. Some of them were pretty big deals. But they were all before I met him. I've never had to sit in a room holding his wedding ring waiting for some one to tell me he made it through fine. I am terrified. I know it is a very small chance that anything could go wrong. I know the statistics. The surgeon is actually the one who did my polyp removal so I know how kind and careful he is. Still, they will wheel away the love of my life, put him under, and cut things out of him. And I can't do anything but wait. I am scared to bits of losing him, no matter how astronomically rare the chance of that happening is.

My brain knows it will be okay. My brain is in control of being sure that I have what I need (Xanax, knitting, tissues), that Monkey has what he needs (distractions) and that everything goes smoothly. My brain knows that it will be a heart-thumping couple hours and a few weeks of careful recovery and then our world will go back to normal.

Kink hoopla & real life

I make a big deal about starting to post more about my kink and D/s part of my life and immediately go on to post about marriage rights and medical maneuvering. Ha! Well, I believe I did mention that it was only part of my life and, quite honestly, it gets pushed to the background when other life stuff gets heavy. This fact, this "real world D/s" kind of situation, is one of the reasons I decided to keep my blogging integrated. Many kink blogs out there are purely kink-oriented so you don't get to see how the power dynamic naturally ebbs and flows around things like tax bills, the car breaking down and the dominate partner needing emotional support while preparing for a surgery. That is real life and real 24/7 D/s. It isn't like the books.

Even when life gets hectic the D/s is still there and we have little ways of keeping things centered. It took us years to find these little things that keep us going during those "ebbing" times. There is one thing in particular that never stops. I wait to eat at dinner until Monkey says I can. It seems such an unlikely ritual for me. Having an eating disorder makes me very triggery around any thing involving food. I have a hard limit about controlling my food because my feelings about food can change in an eye blink. Somehow this works for us though. It is a ritual that takes all of 3 seconds and makes us both reconnect almost every day. As a household we eat dinner at the table together almost every night so it is wrapped up in a household, non-D/s, ritual that we have all committed to.

Other rituals come and go in our life but this one stuck even in the most distracting life situations. Sometimes this ritual is the only overt D/s we have months at a time. It is our touchstone to the other, more complicated, aspect of our relationship.