Updating. Vision Recovering

Corvallis river cat Vision at twenty years of age, taken in May 2014

Vision is still in my bathroom trying to recover from a badly injured eye.   Whether that eye was injured in the two falls she took, a couple weeks apart, off the cat runs, or some other way, like getting swiped at by another cat, is really not important. I just want her to get better.

 I took her to the vet Saturday, after discovering her with that eye problem, and really got no answers and not even pain relief for the injury and am out $200.   The trip disturbed me so much I could barely function the rest of the day.  I knew I'd not be able to afford another visit to really find out what the prognosis is for recovery.  So I'm giving her awhile, in sick bay, and if she shows no improvement over some time, Heartland will end it all for her.  I won't let her suffer.

I've created an ongoing fundraiser, for Vet visits.  Click here to go there!
If you would share the link, I will love you!

Vet care has become so expensive in the last few years, one visit can be very difficult, financially.  It is rare to walk out from one visit without spending hundreds of dollars.  My older brother says his vet wants to clean his dogs' teeth but the cost, for just teeth cleaning---$700.  This is why I've made the grueling three hour one way drive to the affordable clinic twice now.

Vision is feeling no pain, don't worry.  Heartland has been helping me.  I am grateful to them.

I took this photo of her injured eye on Sunday.  Since then, she's had great improvement.

In the meantime, I have been working to build padded catch shelves, below the cat runs, since she refuses to stay at ground level and padding every corner too on every cat run and shelf with carpet remnants I happened into at Home Depot, in their remnants bin.

The same day I took Vision in, Miss Daisy stopped eating.  Happily, this lasted only a day and a half and was related to hairballs.  But I will not deny I was very worried over Vision and Miss D.   Miss D is prone to severe digestive issues for which I've never been able to get a definitive diagnosis.  At one point, one vet told me to prepare myself, she may have lymphoma.    I got catlax, which she loves, and grated carrots fine from my garden to add to wet food.

As I age, and I'm very close to 60 now, I know some miseries come with age or become worse with age and one of those miseries that can worsen is keeping things moving on through.  Miss Daisy is about 15 years old.    Vision is 20 years old, ancient as the river along whose banks she was born.

So I plug along, with my heart on my sleeve, and do the best I can, alone here as I am, and it is not easy to be alone and have no human family.   But I love having this place to live.  I planted sunflowers this year out front and they've grown and bloomed so that when I lay on my bed and look up out my window there are the flowers, blossoms full of bees, right there.  This makes me happy.

Slinko and Sunflowers

I look out my other window into the night sky, stars shining, moon flickering through a neighbors tree onto my bed and at these times, with Miss Daisy on the pillow beside me,  I am very very content.   All I can do is to enjoy what I have and what I love at this moment.

Yard Stray Number 51, a.k.a. Funny Face, continues to elude me, me intent on his neuter.  He comes through only now and then.  He comes through when he needs help and yowls coarsely at the garage door, staying back, and hissing, but accepting wet food or water, whatever he's come for, noisily.

But the other day, I saw the other cats staring out the front window, and went to look.  There he was, rolling without restraint, in my garden raised bed, on the catnip bush.  His eyes were half closed and he was high as a kite.  I cracked up, but quickly cupped my hand over my mouth, and rushed for my camera.  By the time I found it and returned, he was wobbly, but off the bush on the lawn, raking at it like an unfixed male dog might do.  Then he spray marked the side of the raised bed and was off, without a glance back.  I laughed and laughed.

Funny Face, after he'd trashed my catnip bush

I'm trying to fix my old Canon camera still.  I miss that camera so much.  I love the little Kodak the Texas woman sent me, after the Canon broke, but have yet to purchase a micro usb so I can upload easily to the PC and I have great trouble seeing what I'm shooting due to reflection in the large LCD screen.  I've had trouble finding the micro end in town, that fits this camera.  I'm going to break that battery compartment door if I keep opening it to remove the flashcard for photo upload.  I broke the battery door years ago in this manner on the Canon, then had to rig an unsightly awkward fix. Anyhow, this donated camera's tiny size makes it possible to take easily to places I could not take the larger Canon.  It fits into a Ziploc sandwich bag!

Besides, trying to fix broken things is a hobby of mine and wishful thinking too, because with electronics, I've never had much luck in the fixing department.  Does not stop me from trying!

It's August already.   Summer is almost over.  I went on the one camping trip and was lucky I could go on that one.  We split expenses.  I paid for the campsite two nights ($36) and she drove her car and paid the gas.  We took food we already had, mostly from their frig but also some I had, so that wasn't an expense.  We split the cost for four chunks of ice and a few other things.  I won't be able to afford another trip.  But that was a fun one.

In two months, or is it three, my 12 month deal with comcast expires.  It's a big deal to me, the thought of losing internet access.  So it's on my mind.   I am hoping I can find another affordable deal.