Aaaand... she's not better.

[cjsmith]

Little Girl has been on antibiotics a day and a half now, and while she's no longer throwing up or having diarrhea (symptoms that started while she was at the vet on Tuesday) she's still not any happier peeing. She's still confined to the bathroom; it's still very difficult to get in and out of that room to feed and medicate her; her appetite is low; the room is still not usable as a bathroom.

[LJ-CUT TEXT="Here there be whining"]
And I'm still on my own weird-ass diet, which means I spend a stunning (to me) amount of my life on food procurement. I go to the grocery store four times as often as I used to. The dishwasher gets loaded and unloaded roughly every other day. I cook multiple times a week and still get caught short of stuff to eat. Even if eating my cooking were enjoyable, which I assure you it is not, this kind of time expenditure is crippling. In the traditional family model, there's a reason a breadwinner needs a wife.

Home is not where I relax. Work is where I relax. Home is where I do chores, morning and evening: medicate the high-blood-pressure cat, medicate the UTI cat, feed everybody separate prescription diets, clean the bathroom, scoop the litterbox to see if there's any improvement, clean up the food they didn't eat. (The morning routine omits the blood pressure pill.) All of this involves a lot of trips up and down the hallway, because UTI-cat's food and medicine come from the fridge; getting in and out of that bathroom is also becoming more challenging every time, because UTI-cat really wants to be out of there. Then I medicate me, whether shots (morning) or pills (morning and evening and in between). After the morning round I pack up a breakfast and a lunch (hopefully I've got them) and go to work; after the evening round, I heat up dinner (hopefully I've got something that will do). I almost gave up on dinner last night. Sleeping is quite difficult, so I go to bed not long after the chores are done. Then I get up in the morning and do it all again. I'm now out of breakfast food; after today's lunch I'll be out of lunches and dinners as well. The main litterboxes are slipping because I just don't get to them. So morning and evening I go in and out of the house through a room that is just as unpleasant to be in as that bathroom, a twice-daily reminder that I am most definitely not up to snuff.[/LJ-CUT]

I figured the worst of this would be a day or two, but she's not better, and the vet said to start her on pain meds (O joy, another errand to pick that up, and another chore twice a day) and hopefully tomorrow they'll have time to take X-rays for stones (O joy, another errand). You can tell how tired I'm feeling when the news that my cat may have kidney stones evokes only a dull annoyance at another drive to the vet's, not, oh, EMPATHY FOR THE CAT WHO IS IN PAIN. And work (where I can relax) is heating up these days, and I'm quite simply running out of cope.

[LJ-CUT TEXT="edit: ideas, some of them even mine, for improving things"]
Edit: Because I am not comfortable whining without brainstorming, here are some things I could do to improve the situation.

1) Cook a LOT MORE each weekend. Plan for the week. Make sure no cooking will be needed on weeknights.
2) (Thanks for the reminder, shoutingboy and amywithani!) Figure out a list, even a short list, of restaurants where I can eat. Fresh Choice works. Find more within easy driving distance. Go to them when exhausted or when work has run late.
3) Go home from work for a short time on lunch break. In the middle of the day I am not scrambling with food and meds, and I'm also not exhausted. I don't take lunch breaks when I eat what I brought in; there's no reason I couldn't take a little time and do, say, those other litterboxes.
3) Last-ditch backup plan: Hospitalize UTI-cat. This is expensive and is also quite annoying for the kitty, but at least it is a possible option. Things aren't that bad yet, though.

Comments

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

::hugs::

Would company cooking be helpful? I wish I'd thought of it earlier, since I'm about to be out of town, but if it would be fun/less annoying to have assistance poring through cookbooks to find appropriate things and making a nice big batch of soup/crustless quiche/whatever you can eat that you can freeze or refrigerate and have handy for meals later, I would be happy to do that.

[shoutingboy.livejournal.com]

Same offer from me! (And, heck, I'm not even going out of town!) I'd love to come by and make inane chatter while you do chores (I might even help with one or two of 'em). Or if you'd like to take a break and go out for a bite, my schedule is pretty open.

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

Whew. That's a lot, indeed.

Dinner at the salad bar place an option? If not, dinner at your place with palecur and I brown bagging it?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That's a good question. Weekday evening time is too chopped-up to use, but weekend cooking time is a possibility. And it would be fun, too! I might even add something new to my limited repertoire.

I think if I could solve the problem of running out of food during the week, I'd be in much better shape. Hard-boil TWO batches of eggs, not one; cook FIVE days' worth of meat, not three, and make sure to run a batch of soup in the crock pot. Buy TWO heads of lettuce, not one, and TWO big bags of spinach leaves. If I could do all that each weekend, my evenings would work. I think (Rob is going to panic here) I need more Tupperware. :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I think one of my tasks this weekend is going to be figuring out where I can go out to eat. Time invested answering that question could pay big dividends.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

The salad bar place works. I *know* I can eat there.

Not tonight, because I'm seriously out of EVERYTHING so I've got to both shop and cook. (Bad planning on my part. Shop and cook on the same day = very unhappy CJ feet.) But tomorrow evening maybe?

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

Yes, you need more Tupperware. That way I'll have some left to use.

[shoutingboy.livejournal.com]

I have to consider myself on-call for chalepa_ta_kala-watching--I told her fella tutordennis that he can call me anytime he needs a break--but I'm pretty sure I can make dinner plans, if you can deal with a small (5-10%) chance of me flaking. Want to make an Expotition of it? If you brief me on your current dietary restrictions, I can come up with suggestions--or we can meet together with a laptop and dig through the local listings.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Naturally, none of the kinds we currently have are sold any more.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hey, how is she doing? All I've seen is the Twitterings, which are not a lot. Is she going to need another round of surgery??

I can TOTALLY deal with a small chance of flakery. Weeknight evenings are best for dinners out, I think; some time next week (except not Tuesday)?

The easiest, most conservative form of my diet (and thus the shortest to say) is: no sugars including fruit, no starches including grain of any kind, no carrots no potatoes no turnips, go easy on beans and on soft cheeses. There are loopholes to this, thank goodness! That's the quick and dirty version. :-) Know a good steak place? :-)

[shoutingboy.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if it's my place to be posting chalepa_ta_kala's health details, but on the other hand, she's not in a great state to do a lot of posting just now, and tutordennis is pretty busy just looking after her. So I'll risk it. In a nutshell (and keep in mind I'm getting it third-hand, largely from a women on Demerol with a wired jaw, so cum grano salis and all that):

1. She turns out not to be suited for this kind of surgery, because her mandible turns out to be extremely dense, which
2. they discovered while performing the surgery, during which process
   1. her mandible broke into three pieces while they were trying to saw it, though
   2. it was a clean break, and easy to screw back together, but
   3. it could have been a lot worse, so they don't want to try that procedure again which means
3. while they weren't actually able to do what they wanted to do, her recovery will be much like what it would be if they had finished the surgery successfully (i.e. she has a broken jaw that needs to heal), but at least
4. when she finishes recovering, she'll be no worse off than she was before, at which point
5. they'll go to alternate approaches, which I gather means a different kind of surgery combined with orthodonture, which
6. isn't as good a solution as the surgery they wanted to do (if it were, it wouldn't be "plan b", after all), but
7. the surgical options have gotten a lot better in the last ten years, so if we can kick the problem down the road another ten years, we may have a lot more options.

Plus, I'm using the first-person-plural about the situation without even thinking about it, so evidently I'm deeply smitten. It happens.

Anyway, she's doing very well, considering (i.e. "considering that they broke a bunch of her face plus she's disappointed that they didn't actually solve the problem"). Monday night she was in good spirits but in a lot of pain; Tuesday night she just seemed exhausted (I don't think she got much sleep); last night she was home, and didn't want visitors; I'm hoping I can come by tonight.

So... steak! You know, I haven't had much steak lately, and I'd certainly be up for it. Max's sells steaks, and they seem like they'd be a good steaky kind of place. Want to give it a try?

[shoutingboy.livejournal.com]

P.S. And some time next week would be great. Currently any evening next week can work--and heck, my wacky religion's custom of not eating steak on Wednesday and Friday is suspended next week, because it's the week after Wacky Oriental Pentecost! So any day would work (except Tuesday, which is bad for you anyway, and with of course the above proviso about flaking for Emilycare).

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh holy moly. What a disappointment: the whole recovery time WITHOUT the benefits.

Pain seems to be awful enough to interrupt sleep the first couple of days out of nearly any surgery. I didn't sleep well after they opened up my feet, either, but a few days out my body finally figured out how to do the sleep thing again. Same with my abdominal. And neither of those were all that major.

Where is Max's?

PS: evidently I'm deeply smitten. It happens. *big grin* and a thumbs up from me! :-)

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. That sounds awful. :(

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

How about Wednesday, then?

[airporter.livejournal.com]

More hopefully helpful handy hints:

1) Shop for foodstuffs in the frozen section that are relatively healthy and nuke-able. For example, frozen spinach (the kind in a box) can be cut while frozen and thrown into ziplocks. Nuked with a bit of tuna or salmon, no sauce, it's still tasty. (Better yet, it's at my skill level for cooking!)
2) Shop the deli for the few things you can eat that are prepped.
3) Shop the veggies for packages of cut-snacks. If you want them cooked, take a handful or two in a bowl with a teaspoon of water, and nuke them for two or three minutes. (Steam 'em for five or so on the stove.)

I don't cook much, as you can tell, but this kind of 'cooking' works for me, even after a twelve hour office day and more work to do later. The less time it takes me to prep food, the more cope I've left for other stuff.

I'll cross my fingers that UTI kitty starts feeling better soon.

[airporter.livejournal.com]

Big! Huge! Dividends! When leatherlion first started to figure out which restaurants were still available to him, his stress levels dropped visibly. If there's an online association, check to see if they've local restaurant listings.

I know if aelfie gets to visit up here with the lovely and talented psi_star_psi I'll be able to take her a number of places! It's worth the effort, believe me.

[shoutingboy.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

And to answer your question--Max's is a chain of mildly-classy American restaurants, with live music in some locations (pianist, singing waiters, the like). There's a Max's in the Stanford mall, which should be reasonably convenient for both of us. But if you have another idea for a steak joint, I'm eager to hear it.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

More frozen things would definitely be a win. Fresh spinach just doesn't last all that long! (Of course, what I have used it for has been salads, so...)

I will bashfully admit that I shop for pre-cut veggies for soup. My bean soup takes maybe three or four celery stalks, and I can make only a half recipe at a time. There is NO WAY I'm buying the whole... whatever you call a unit of celery.

Thanks for the crossed fingers! I should probably stop calling her UTI-kitty if she's not responding to antibiotics. I hope whatEVER she has is something that can and will go away quickly.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's a big difference between "I don't go out to eat very often" and "I can never go out to eat." It's kind of like undergoing dental work. (I get mine done without anesthetic because I hate needles, and my dentist and I agree that if I yip a bunch he'll stop and anesthetize.) Just knowing that you CAN opt out is enormous, even if it turns out you never do.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Stanford is definitely reachable. Birk's, on Great America right by 101, is also quite good, and I've heard good things about the one that's tucked into the corner of Wolfe and 280 (and have thus been meaning to go check it out) but I can't now remember the name of the place. And of course Outback seems to be everywhere.

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

i just cooked up three pounds of taco meat stuff. wasn't any harder than one or two. freezer space is the issue.

the deli rotisserie turkey breast was really good. sugar is listed as an ingredient, but i don't know what impact that'd have on our sugar-feeding nasties. sure kept me from killing someone the other night, though. the Hungries are a very bad thing.

can you have nuts? beef jerky? what about stashing cans of tuna or chicken in your desk?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Freezer space is exactly the issue, as is amount of Tupperware available. Also, my largest skillet holds only a little over a pound, so three pounds have to be done one after the other. :-)

Nuts YES. I have some in my office now. Tuna makes me hurl, but I might be able to stash some kind of canned meat. Hmmmm.

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

I think I've missed a twist in the email/spam debacle of last month. I emailed your bayarea account, but it bounced.

The gist of it is for you, shoutingboy, palecur and me to go to Sweet Tomatoes this evening:

http://www.sweettomatoes.com/locations/restaurant.asp?store_id=24&store_name=Sunnyvale

7pm?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oops, bayarea is dead. (Well, my bayarea account is dead.) My livejournal address forwards, and my livejournal name at my livejournal name dot org should also do it.

Sweet Tomatoes at 7pm sounds lovely! *mwah*!