Today had gone reasonably well. The new plumbing in the basement worked just fine as I did the laundry, freeing up time for showering and caring for the cats. By 8:15 am, I had the clothes out on the line and the cats fed. Even Columbus.

He ate on his own this morning, though not that much, but I didn't care. At least I didn't have to finger-feed him, which can be very time-consuming. He drank water and peed in the litterbox while I placed clean papers in the carrier and washed the old towel he had slept on. There was a good reason for my doing this, as the papers were peed through and through, as was the towel that he slept on.

Then Columbus began to walk toward my bedroom and tried to open its closed door. I don't know why. I gently guided him away from the door, only to see him high tail toward it yet again. I have a feeling that he may have been confused. Even so, my patience was being tried.

Later on this afternoon, I took him to the vet's office to get the procedure done. The vet asked me how he was doing, and I told her that the cat had eaten yesterday and received his vitamin, alfafa drops, and parseley tea. Her technician advised me that the treatments still needed some time to be effective and how a cat with a similar condition had been revived quite nicely with it. And that cat was in worse shape than Columbus.

When I bought the cat home, I opened up canned fish dinner and fed him a portion of it, and he ate everything! Only a few crumbs of food were left, but what the hey?

So it's going to be like this for a little longer, I suppose. Nothing else is new. But I will bring it up again if there are any new developments.

When Columbus just wanted to sleep at 6 am, I fed the other cats and made some breakfast for myself. Just when I was about to eat another English muffin, I heard Columbus stirring and helped him out of the carrier. He drank some of his distilled water, peed, and ate most of his canned cat food. I didn't have to finger feed him, although I later gave him his vitamin and about a half-hour later, two drops of alfafa tincture. Maybe all of the treatments he's been getting have started to kick in. Finally.

But as you probably know from your own experience, just because one problem is solved doesn't guarantee that you'll enjoy peace and quiet for long.

I didn't.

Just when I had everything cleaned up and was about to finish eating, I heard a loud knocking at the front door. It was one of the tree service men that my next-door neighbor hired. He and my neighbor wanted to know if they could have access to my driveway in order to remove a large tree that a blast of wind had toppled into my neighbor's yard.

I had to move my car before they could begin work.

Only thing was that I still had pajamas on. I threw a coat over them to keep warm and hide most of the pajamas. At this point, I wasn't even sure if my car would start right away, as I had not used it in awhile. But the neighbor offered to move it for me and park it in his driveway, which I accepted. He got the car started immediately.

I could forget about breakfast. The muffins I had intended to eat sat forlornly stone cold in the toaster. I threw them out. Then Maxie had pooped in the sunporch for the umpteenth time and I had to clean the mess.

So much for getting my other work done this morning. About 11 am, I managed to get out to do do two errands, one of which was buying a salad at the supermarket for lunch.

I got through most of today without a hassle without losing it, probably because I just went with the flow and dealt with stuff one step at a time, calmly and confidently. Stuff happened, but it was nothing to get excited about, thank goodness. Columbus has perked up some and is due for a vet visit tomorrow to get the same procedure done. Things are beginning to look up...so far.

It rained most of this afternoon and was raw and cold.

Isn't it interesting that as soon as one problem is handled, another crops up almost immediately? But that's life, I guess.

The newest problem was that Columbus seemed to have lost some ground. After drinking a lot of water and peeing, the first thing he did was head back to the carrier to sit and sleep. But I had to administer his vitamin and give him a teaspoon of parseley tea. In addition, I wanted to finger feed him some cat food. Well, he barely took the vitamin and tea. He basically sat where he was. Seeing him like that tore my heart out. Before leaving the house, however, I did allow him to run back to the carrier, figuring that the house would be quiet and he'd get more sleep, healing faster.

Returning home about two hours later, I tried to coax that poor cat to eat. I cleaned his mouth and chin and spoke to him all the while, adding a kiss or two. I knew that he was constipated and thought I'd give him some time to use the litterbox to poo, which he didn't.

So I bought him to the vet yet again. He yowled during the entire trip to the vet's office, poor thing, but once there, stepped out of his carrier briefly.

The vet examined him and said that she'd get the technicians to administer an enema and a shot. As I explained what had been going on with the cat, Columbus walked towards me and rubbed against my hand and arm as I pet him. He seemed to have grown thinner as well.

The vet explained that the cat had to have the medication administered by placing a small needle under the cat's skin for about 5 minutes. Otherwise, he would soon die. She also said that I could bring the cat back to the office if I felt uncomfortable in performing that procedure.

As a matter of fact, I happen to be very uncomfortable! I can't even imagine doing something like that to myself, much less to an animal. So sometime this Thursday, which is when that procedure is supposed to be done again, I will definitely bring the cat to the vet's office. If I'm charged, then so be it. If done on a steady basis, that procedure will extend the cat's life by so many years, so it's worthwhile. It's recommended in a lot of books on cat care.

I feel a little better today. Columbus ate more without my having to coax him. And for once, I'm eating a balanced diet. I'm also keeping my fingers crossed, hoping that the cat recovers, gains the weight that he lost and starts playing with his string toy again.

With him being so ill, I've had less quality time to spend with the other cats and feel badly about it. I tell them that I will be able to pet and kiss them more once Columbus recovers. They look at me. I wonder if they got the message. I hope so.

The thing is that my sleep quality has suffered lately, as I've awakened rather early, 4 or 5 am and go to bed well after 10 pm.

Part of the problem was that cats like Waffles liked to jump on the bed. Instead of settling down to sleep, they tended to walk around and jump off the bed, only to jump on the dresser and knock stuff down. I can't sleep listening to that racket.

Shooing the cats out of the bedroom didn't work and was rather time consuming anyway. So I've had to be cruel to be kind....that is, firmly closing my bedroom door before going to bed.

The strategy seems to be working. The cats find other places to sleep and remain quiet for most of the night, although at five this morning, Waffles found a way to get in my bedroom and quickly jumped on the bed. So much for my turning around and going back to sleep.

I'm happy to report that the sticker shock regarding my heavy bills is slowly wearing off. I'm going to deal with them one at a time. Naturally, if a given utility bill, like my telephone bill is low enough as my recent one of 29 dollars has been, then it's no sweat. But a bunch of rather hefty bills arriving one after the other is a bit much to deal with at one time. My other strategy is to remain calm, as this too shall pass.

With Columbus, it's different. I've taken a proactive approach by checking out information about his condition online and found some pretty good stuff --- and some hope. His chronic condition is not an automatic death sentence after all. I read about a 19-year-old cat who was in really bad shape, but who received steady, reliable treatments and wound up in the best shape ever.

So on Saturday, I bought some fresh parseley, heated it in boiling water, then chopped it up and allowed it to cool. Then I tried to feed bits of it, or about one-two teaspoons' worth to Columbus. Parseley is especially effective in cleaning out toxins in a cat's blood and kidneys. According to the directions, I'm supposed to continue this treatment for a week. I've designated that as Plan A. Plan B is getting alfafa tincture from a health food store and administering it, twice a day to the cat. Alfafa is also supposed to help clean out the toxins. I've also bought distillat water and put it in the cat's water dish. Columbus drank quite a bit of that water.

Today found me busily preparing and administering a variation of the parseley mix --- parseley "tea." I don't have to struggle as much to get Columbus to take it. The hard part is getting him to open his mouth. But once it's in, it's in, and on its way to the cat's bloodstream.

Cats with that condition will rapidly starve and become worse sick if they do not get enough food. So the advice is to let them eat what they want until they get back their bearings and are on the way to recovery. I'm dealing with that by trying every trick in the book, including "finger feeding" the cat by letting him lick some food off my finger. The whole thing is time-consuming, but if I can nurse him back to health, it will all have been worthwhile. I'm just not ready to lose him yet. Besides, he's got a lot of good years left.