Poor Kitty

Poor Sebastian. :( The throwing up does at least seem to have stopped, but he's just not eating. He's lethargic and depressed, too. He needs to start eating by tomorrow or we're going to have to do something about it.

I've decided there's no way Moggie swallowed the q-tip because we would have seen signs by now. Now my fear is that somehow they missed the q-tip during endoscopy and it's in there causing more damage. It's unlikely, but I apparently need something to worry about. If he would just start eating I'd feel a lot better.

Cat Update 08

So...they only found the dime, and no q-tip. We have meds to give Sebastian for 2 weeks to help his mucosa heal.

Now I'm hoping Moggie didn't somehow get ahold of it...

Mamas, don't let your kittens grow up to be q-tip eaters...

So with my summer job I'm always sweating to death by the time I get home early in the afternoon. I always let the cats out, shower, and then do data entry in the afternoon. Today, I dropped a q-tip after my shower and Sebastian pounced on it and started playing. I thought, "Well, I'll finish up in here and take it away from him." Not 30 seconds later I turned around and the q-tip was gone.

I searched every square inch of our floor and it was nowhere. So, I called our vet and they said try to make him throw it up with hydrogen peroxide. I thought it was highly unlikely that would work, given it would have to be perfectly angled into the esophagus to exit the stomach, but I tried 3 times and all he threw up was his breakfast. Bad. Called the clinic back again, and they said he needed radiographs, but they were too busy for him to get in today. Excuse me, but this is an emergency and you guys are too busy to squeeze him in?!

So I called our teaching hospital and took him him. They planned to do radiographs first, but plastic doesn't show up, so unless air was still in the tube they'd have to do endoscopy to find it if it was there and remove it. The estimate was about $600.

They called 15 minutes ago to tell me they couldn't find the q-tip...but they did find a dime! Luckily, it was sitting near the pylorus still in his stomach, so they think they can do endoscopy to remove both the dime and the q-tip (if it's in there), for probably the same price, and we can probably take him home today.

Apparently we need to be much more careful about what we leave lying around...who knows how much shit he's eaten and passed without us even knowing?

I'm just glad he's going to be ok...and now do to my data entry so I don't fall behind...

Die, Research, Die!

I hate my summer job. It is f***ing terrible. It's not anywhere near worth the chunk of money I'm getting to do it. I cannot wait to fill out evaluations at the end of the summer. This has made me hate research to the point that I want to ban all research. It might have actually been better if I was plopped in a lab somewhere than what I'm doing. Maybe I wouldn't want to stab my coordinator if that were the case.

Keep your dog on a leash!

I swear, the people in this neighborhood are the crappiest dog owners. The neighbors in the duplex across the parking lot have a huge (like, monstrously huge) 9 month old male pit bull named Max that really needs to be neutered (only for energy, not attitude). He's like a 90 pound exuberant teddy bear. It's hilarious to watch Kaya play with him because he's unintentionally rough when he swats her and she freaks and jumps like a spider! But anyway, they leave him out on a long lead for a large portion of the day. I go play with him because I feel so bad that he's out there by himself all the time.

The other stupid people live in our building and coincidentally are friends with the pit's owners, and they have this blue merle husky mix (that I used to think was freaky because of his husky eyes) who also is really nice and gets along with Kaya. Not only do they often leave him out on their patio on the first floor on a leash, they often just let him out and he hangs around the area. This morning when I got home from work he was taking a nap in the middle of the parking lot! He's going to end up getting hurt or killed if they keep letting him out like that. It's so irresponsible it makes me grind my teeth.

In other news, on the Today show this morning they unveiled the new "deluxe" Harry Potter book cover. Um, wtf?! What about those of us who pre-ordered months ago? I'm not going to buy the new one too! Bastards...

Hmm...movies I'm excited about. I like Knocked Up, didn't like Pirates, Shrek was ok. New movies coming out that I want to see are Transformers, Stardust (read the book by Neil Gaiman first!!), Eagle Vs. Shark, Evan Almighty (that might be a disappointment), Ratatouille, License to Wed (probably not that great, but I like Robin Williams), that's all I can think of right now.

Kyle and I have decided to pick up languages as a hobby. I chose to start with Spanish because it's my background (in hopes that it's an easier beginning) and Kyle picked German. We ordered the materials from an academic discount place (that Rosetta Stone stuff advertised on TV is like $400!!) for $70. The best part is whenever we feel like it we can switch! I'm excited for it to get here.

Oh what fun it is to write on a gorgeous summer's day

I get to spend the afternoon writing a mini-paper on FIP and reviewing an article...which I have to present to my "journal club" on Friday. I'm so excited.

Also, we met with some survey people this morning and found out that we should have had the required forms in like a month ago for Steph's survey to actually have enough time to do a good job. Kind of like how I should have had the IACUC form in a month ago. Not our fault though, because we're not in charge of this project and have no idea what needs to be done. Have I ever mentioned how much I love a lack of organization in my life? Makes me all warm and squishy inside.

Hallmark Commercial

Have you seen the Hallmark commercial with the singing card for Father's Day where the dad opens it and it starts playing "Can't Touch This" and then the dad imagines himself as MC Hammer in the music video? Hilarious! And now I have to go pick up Steph and drive to Boone.

Which witch is which?

My boss is going to be gone all week in Seattle for a conference. We're finally going to shelters this week to record their standard operating procedure since neither shelter has anything like that in writing. We're also meeting with survey people on main campus to talk about Steph's project. I'm really starting to feel the stress of this unorganized mess.