Sunday, January 15, 2012

Snow in the Valley!

Last night, I waited and waited, hoping to see the predicted snow begin to fall. I gave up and went to bed. This morning nothing, until suddenly this began!

It's been so far a long dry winter here in Oregon. Ski resorts are suffering as is the summer water outlook without a winter snowpack in the mountains. However, the snow isn't supposed to last very long.
Sugar, before I returned him yesterday to the Lebanon very old woman colony.


I returned both Sugar and Spotty to their colonies yesterday. Spotty is of Spicer Origins. The man who feeds them had given me his number and told me he wanted all of them fixed. However, since the night I trapped Spotty, I have been unable to get ahold of him and the number he gave me now has a female voice and name on its message. I left a note on their door, when I returned Spotty, but have not heard from them. That is one frustrating area! Not only do I have the old man, moving my traps, or closing them, but now this man, whom I'm not hearing back from, whom I thought really wanted those cats fixed.

However, I realize how often cell phones die or don't work, so I am holding out hope I will hear from him and we can get them all done.

In other news, a Brownsville woman suggested maybe Snickerdoodle has an ear infection, which would affect her lower jaw, which will vibrate at times and cause drooling.

I have some basic antibiotics, until she can be seen by a vet and started her on those. I had then remembered not liking the looks of the inside of her ears, with visible liquid inside that was yellowish tinged. I didn't know if it was run off from the ear damaage, but maybe she damaged her own ears because they hurt, clawinf at them. Her owners have no money. They called this a.m. to ask how she was and vowed to pay me back for anything I put out in caring for her, which was sweet. She needs to go see a vet, so I have to make that happen.

My niece is again in the hospital in Portland with anorexia, bp so low it's hard to believe she could be alive. I don't know that niece very well, but she started having trouble with anorexia just before high school, in middle school. She's an adult now, but cannot get a handle on it. Every small stress she encounters triggers this self harm, of not eating or drinking, until over Christmas the low number on bp was 35, due to dehydration. She seems incapable of connecting the dots, that this results in that. She hates being under forced hospital bed rest, due to the heart problems caused by her chronic anorexia, but once out, she repeats the same behaviors that got her there.

She won't live long if she doesn't take care of herself. She's been through every anorexia program out there, including two or three times at some ranch with high success rates at behavior modification for anorexics, all without success so far.

I knew an elderly anorexic once. I knew this old man, from along the river, in Corvallis. He was a character, once an OSU researcher, borderline alcoholic. He fed the river cats way before I knew them, but never got them fixed, despite chidings from an old woman who fed cats farther down, along the Marys, who even offered to pay for them to be fixed, if he'd catch them. He was a lazy man though and never lifted a finger, so I did, even though I had no car and lived in slum hotel.

Old Ray would talk about a wife. I never saw her, so I thought her a figment of his imagination. However, she was very much real, and I met her when they were forced to move. He refused some major young guy help, actually the OSU footbal team, when moving, and instead, asked me, and my bus driver friend to help.

But neither he nor his severely mental wife even packed a single box before the designated moving day. Their place was disgusting, mold so thick in the bathroom, I had to have a bandana around my face. Mold was everywhere, as were the typical boxes of age old stuff piled in every room. This was the house of a stuff hoarder.

His wife was both anorexic and agoraphobic. She controlled and weighed every bit of food she ate, which was mainly gruel. She eventually died of heart related problems, probably from the chronic anorexia. She was in her late 60's or 70's. I then had no idea older people could also be anorexics. I don't know how long she'd been one, since mid 50's I think her husband said.

I didn't have much respect for that old guy. He'd turn down help from guys, depend on people like me and my bus driver friend, and other women, but only rave about guys and what they have done or done for him. A total chauvinist. After he refused to help a cat he'd fed since she was a kitten, when she was sick, along the river, Captain Courageous, and she died, I shunned that old man like the plague of lazy apathy he was.

I think anorexia is a form of OCD. One might not be able to cure it, but they might be able to manage it. When a person feels totally out of control, the one thing they can control is food intake. The old woman's did not include limiting fluid intake, like my niece, which is far more dangerous.

You can kill yourself quickly by not drinking enough fluids. That's the danger of my niece's addiction. My brother calls it an addiction to harmful behaviors, just like drug addiction. She gets something out of it, don't know what, but she gets something from limiting fluids, or she wouldn't do it. The trick is figuring out what she gets from it, and replacing that with something healthier, I'd guess. And making her realize only she can make herself better, so she can live a long life. I hope for her sake and my brother's sake they can figure it all out. Otherwise, she won't live long.

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