Thursday, August 20, 2009

Beyond stressed

I seemed to have found a new thing to stress me out. Trust me, it's not by choice. It's my cat, Jasmine. I adopted Jasmine 4 years ago from a rescue cat shelter. She was 9 years old, a beautiful Ragdoll with the prettiest blue eyes. Her original name was "Boobies" (I don't make this shit up) but I quickly changed that, even when the adoption coordinator suggested I just call her Boo for short. Jasmine was my cat. She lived with me in my tiny 500 square foot apartment for a year before Brandon and I saved up enough money for me to move across the US to be with him. But somehow after he and I moved in together, she became "his" cat. I think it's because he has such a long lap (he's 6'3") and because he gives off so much body heat, he's like her personal heating pad. But Brandon deploys a lot. He is now gone on his third deployment. Each time he leaves she gets stressed out. She starts puking on the floor and marking my clothes with her pee. I have to shut her out of our bedroom so she won't climb up in the laundry basket and piss on my stuff. Now that we have a two-bedroom house we put her litter box in the second bedroom. She sleeps on the futon in there and get her hair all over it. I don't bother cleaning it off, she'll just get it hairy again a week later. So we threw a crappy blanket over the sheets and let her lay all over it. Today I was sifting through the spare room for some stuff to donate to a rummage sale. It smelled funny in the room but I knew it wasn't the litter box. I walked over to the bed and pull back the comforter. She had been crawling underneath the comforter and peeing on the sheets!! The thick blanket had masked the smell but when I uncovered it the stench filled the whole room. I was beyond pissed (pardon the pun). I had to throw out the crappy blanket and now I'm washing the comforter and sheets. I'll probably need to do it twice. I'll also need to steam clean the Futon to get the smell out. I'm at my wits end. If I lock her out of that room she'll just find another place to pee, probably downstairs on our nice couch. I don't want to get rid of her, I've never given up on a pet and gotten rid of them because they inconvenience me. But we're trying to start and family and if we're successful it's only going to get worse, not better. She's only going to have to deal with more chaos and noise. She's 13 years old. I'm not sure if she's just old or if she's stressed. Her teeth are bad, she can't really chew her dry food anymore. She leaves crumbs everywhere because she can't chew it all so now I have to supplement with wet cat food. I got an estimate to fix her teeth 2 years ago and the doctor told me $600. For an 11 year old cat! Forget it. I love animals but I am not going to spend thousands of dollars on surgery and tests just to prolong their life by a year or two. It doesn't make sense. Am I being cruel? Am I overreacting from a little pee? Perhaps I should clean her litter box more, or crate her while I'm at work, I don't know. I wish Brandon were here so we could discuss it. But for now, I'll have to figure things out on my own. This sucks

5 comments:

  1. My cats have had peeing problems sporadically over the years. So, my advice, first is to get her tested for any urinary tract problems. One of my 3 just had a bladder infection and I only caught it because he proudly jumped up on our family room couch, looked me dead in the eye, and started squatting. The other thing that has worked for me is to shut the cat in our bathroom with a litter box for awhile--in order for this to work, though, you have to catch them doing it. Then, you immediately grab them and shut them in the bathroom. Cats are social animals and being shut away is a big punishment to them. But if they don't connect the action with the isolation, it won't do anything. You should give it a try--she is a beautiful cat.

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  2. Hi! I found you through Stirrup Queens "lush" session :) It seems we both have PCOS and I'm soon switching to Tricare as well. I heard the military benefits via Tricare don't help much with fertility treatments. Am I wrong (HOPEFULLY). Right now with private insurance nothing is covered.

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  3. Hi Christa!

    Like the PP, I found you through the Lushary on Mel's page. Hope you don't mind me stopping by! :)

    I, too am a cat owner...our pets are our kids since we don't have any. As poster "Me" says, you might check out the UTI/Bladder Infection angle. I have a cat that gets them regularly due to stress and they are pretty easily treatable. If it's not a UTI issue, you might see if they'll prescribe some sort of anti-anxiety med...kitty prozac works wonders for one of mine that gets anxious with new stuff (moving, vacation, etc). And is pretty cheap! Hope it gets worked out soon. :)

    I was reading about your PCOS, too. I'm dealing with the same crappy hormones and issues and am using weight-loss as a kind of fertility tool, too. With my PCOS I am also insulin resistant, so my doc recommended a low-carb diet for me. It is working great, even when I'm too lazy to exercise...which is more often than I'd like to admit! :) If your current plan doesn't end up working the way you'd like it to, you might give some thought to LC. There are some details about it all on my blog if you'd like to stop by.

    Wishing you all the best! I'll be popping in to see how things are going if that's okay with you. We could all use another friend in this crazy land of IF. :)

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  4. Well right now I have kitty locked in the bathroom while I'm gone. Yesterday was her first day in "jail" and when I came home she had thrown up. So I think I'm going to make an appointment for the vet this week.

    As for my PCOS, I'm not insulin resistant and my new RE told me that the metformin I was taking was really of no use since I have no insulin problems. I usually count calories because I find it so hard to cut out one particular food group. My acupuncturist wants me to cut out dairy but that's sooo hard to do. So I eat extra veggies and fruit and get my carbs through whole wheat bread, etc and just try to slim down on the bad foods. It's slowly but surely working for me.

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  5. WOW! You're so blessed that IR isn't part of your PCOS. IT STINKS! ;) Giving up specific food groups IS hard to do...but it's a small thing comparitively in my journey to (hopeful) parenthood. Much easier than I thought, too, once I got the hang of it. Glad to hear that your new way of eating is working. Keep up the good work! :)

    Hope you get some answers from the vet, too...

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