In my earlier post I mentioned that when I learned about "learned helplessness" it stirred up memories of my childhood and adolescent years. In one of this semester's classes, Developmental Psychopathology, I'm getting similar flash backs, especially when we study mood disorders such as major depressive disorder (MDD). I'm not sure when my depression first started but I can tell you it seems like I have been depressed my whole life. As I read the material in the texbook for this class I see clearly how I was displaying symptoms of MDD as an adolescent. I have also read that the medical or academic community once thought that children could not have depression or mood disorders. Depression was viewed as a result of hostility and anger towards oneself because of a loss, whether actual or perceived. This was a typically "psychoanalytic" theory, based on Sigmund Freud and others like him in that era. Because children were thought not to have enough development in their superego to be able to direct anger and hostility to themselves, depression was seen as something children had no capacity to experience. Also, the very symptoms of depression were considered a normal part of development (mood swings, irritability, etc). Indeed, I remember hearing that point of view as I grew up. To me, it was an invalidation of the very essence of myself. In fact, I remember my mother telling one of the many psychologists I have seen in my life, that "everyone gets depressed" so I just needed to get over it.
I heard so many times the words, "there is nothing wrong with you" alternatively with "what's the matter with you?" I was discouraged from projecting any kind of pain or discomfort because it would cause my mother trouble and stress. I was to sit quietly in a corner and deal with whatever pain I had and not bother anyone. What this effectively did to me was to teach me how to hide my feelings from the world. It's why I believe that I developed the chronic carpal tunnel syndrome that never seems to resolve or go away. I remember "pushing through" the pain in my arms while at work because for years I had been taught not to express the discomfort, to deal with it privately, and "put up with it." It's why whenever I cry out unexpectedly in pain I am immediately embarrassed. I think it is also why I get so angry when I accidentally hurt myself, like bumping my knee, running into a corner, or pinching myself on something. Like many people I cry out with some choice curse word or phrase.
So, as I read the chapter in my textbook on Mood Disorders, I find myself flashing back to different occasions where I felt particularly invalidated or unheard. It started with the very first page of the chapter and has caused me to put down the book and write this post. I think the only way I can effectively deal with my history and move on from it is to be heard, which is what this blog is about. I know that this blog has never really had a point and most of it is just my rambling psyche expressing itself, but I am now channeling all those memories, looking at them from a different perspective and beginning to finally heal from what can be accurately described as emotional abuse.
I was never really "heard" growing up. A common thing my mother would often say is "I don't want to talk about it" or "Just go to your room." Those phrases muted the very normal desire and need to express one's self but that was my reality when growing up. I grew up with a single mother who was very overwhelmed with her responsibilities but instead of turning to drugs or alcohol, she internalized her own anguish (like losing her beloved husband at 25 years of age and being left with three small children), basically taught her children to do the same. To this day, I believe she feels it is not only unnecessary to talk about sad and hurtful memories, she sees it as a kind of etiquette that must be followed. Put on a happy face and shut up. That was the big message I received.
So, I'm intentionally breaking out of that and writing this stuff in my blog as a type of therapy and healing. Bad memories, conflicted emotions must not be shoved down, pushed down or repressed because the result will be a very troubled psyche. The more I read and learn about psychology the more I understand myself and give myself the freedom to move on. This is why I chose psychology as my major. I may never actually get a job where I am a counselor, researcher or technician in the field of psychology, but I will be informed of the reality of what makes me tick and hopefully, I can break free from some very old bad habits of relating to people.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Understanding My Psychology
One of the reasons why I decided to study psychology is to figure out what makes me tick and why. The more I learn about myself and understand the motives behind my behavior the more peace I have in my soul. I always just had the nagging feeling that I was weird and unlikeable. So, as I sit and hear lectures and watch videos I can identify similar feelings within myself. One thing that keeps popping up is social anxiety. I remember literally shaking - physically - when under a great deal of stress. Today I learned that early post traumatic stress, once present, follows you through your whole life.
When I was approximately one and half years old, my older brother fed me a whole bottle of baby aspirin. I remember being held down in the emergency room and vomiting up the contents of that bottle. Flash forward just a few years and the tip of my little finger got chopped by the leg of a folding card table. I remember being in the emergency room and trying to lean my head away from the nurses and probably screaming at the top of my lungs and they somehow figured out that I was afraid they were going to put a tube down my throat again. I think they gave me a lollipop while they sewed up my finger.
Those early traumatic experiences have altered the way I perceive my environment. I read in a paper "traumatic experiences may alter the growing child's ways of perceiving her world and learning to deal with it and herself effectively, so as to impede the natural maturation of coping."
While I have healed from both events physically, the trauma of those events I have felt since then has been pretty much present ever since. Hence the impeded coping maturation. I have known that my coping skills were off and that others seemed to cope more effectively during stressful events. One stressful event for me is hardly a blip on the radar of a person who has mature coping skills.
All this was pretty much repressed until I started learning about different disorders of the neural system of our brains. I had physical responses to the memories that first crept up when I took Learning and Behavior at Mesa College. It first came when I learned about "learned helplessness."
I believe it was Pavlov, experimenting with his dogs, put them in a metal cage with two compartments. The cage was wired with electrodes to deliver shocks through the floor on both sides. The researchers had the ability to turn the shocks off by one side or both so that when ever the dog stepped on that side of the cage he had the ability to escape the shocks by jumping to the other side of the cage. It took the dogs a while to catch on to the fact that they could jump across the short divider of one side of the cage to get to the other side.
This went on for a while and then Pavlov decided to test to see what would happen when they activated the whole floor so that both sides of the cage were electrified. After a while of jumping back and forth over the divider, the dogs just huddled in a corner and whined. He termed this behavior "learned helplessness." Psychologists have identified learned helplessness in domestic violence victims. Women often don't leave their abuser because of real or perceived threats and this phenomena of learned helplessness.
As I've taken more psychology classes like abnormal psychology, social psychology, and developmental psychology, I see a clear pattern when looking back over my life growing up. i always wondered why I shied away from competitions, or arguments, as my general behavior can be pretty aggressive and gregarious at times. It's paradoxical. But then I thought about all the teasing i got from certain individuals. I remember my mother laughing at me on a number of occasions for being upset that I was being teased. I usually was told that I did something to bring it on myself. So, I learned to suck it up and push it down, and more importantly, to try harder to be better.
Why the lesson on learned helplessness brought this up was because I always felt helpless and frustrated when I was teased, which was on a daily basis, either by kids at school or in my home with family members. I was always being told that stupid erroneous saying, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me." ?? What the fuck is that?? Of course words harm. Harming words are at the core of bullying and emotional abuse. I had to remind my mother about this fact just a year or so ago when she told me to "don't pay attention to what someone else says about you." Really? Easy to say if you're a narcissist. To most people I know, harmful words hurt, demean and make us feel insecure, at least at the time it is happening. No wonder why I have so much anger inside. I have realized that there are a lot of times when I simply don't stand up for myself because I feel like it won't make a difference and could make the situation worse. It's learned helplessness. Of course I have swung the other way and became a raging bull and try to destroy anyone in my path. This served me well in that it kept people away from me and made them wary of me, probably questioning my sanity.
The problem is the isolation that it produced is hard to overcome. Because now I find I don't have many friends because at some point they have hurt me and I have either blown them off, they blow me off or there is a big confrontation that ends with permanent separation from the relationship. I just don't trust myself when it comes to making friends. When I look back at my life I see myself hanging with people who did little to encourage me, people who had very different morals and beliefs from my own. So, now I am wary of making new friends because I don't trust myself to make good choices with friends. I've had a number of friends basically "break-up with" me by flat out telling me not to call or contact them. What makes that so infuriating is that I have often swallowed my own misgivings at remaining in relationship with the person in question. So, it's like they did what I should have done long ago but I don't get the satisfaction.
I am letting God bring the right friends into my life now. I will not force friendships, I will not go against my initial, instinctive thoughts about any caution I might feel in relationships. I will listen to God about his promptings when it comes to striking up a friendship with someone or continuing a relationship when the person is critical or unsupportive of me. I will be ok alone until I can have friends in my life who will encourage me, support me, and generally make me feel accepted and loved. I will do this because I deserve to be happy and I deserve to have friends and people in my life who are supportive and not critical. I deserve to have friends who don't get their jollies from teasing me.
When I was approximately one and half years old, my older brother fed me a whole bottle of baby aspirin. I remember being held down in the emergency room and vomiting up the contents of that bottle. Flash forward just a few years and the tip of my little finger got chopped by the leg of a folding card table. I remember being in the emergency room and trying to lean my head away from the nurses and probably screaming at the top of my lungs and they somehow figured out that I was afraid they were going to put a tube down my throat again. I think they gave me a lollipop while they sewed up my finger.
Those early traumatic experiences have altered the way I perceive my environment. I read in a paper "traumatic experiences may alter the growing child's ways of perceiving her world and learning to deal with it and herself effectively, so as to impede the natural maturation of coping."
While I have healed from both events physically, the trauma of those events I have felt since then has been pretty much present ever since. Hence the impeded coping maturation. I have known that my coping skills were off and that others seemed to cope more effectively during stressful events. One stressful event for me is hardly a blip on the radar of a person who has mature coping skills.
All this was pretty much repressed until I started learning about different disorders of the neural system of our brains. I had physical responses to the memories that first crept up when I took Learning and Behavior at Mesa College. It first came when I learned about "learned helplessness."
I believe it was Pavlov, experimenting with his dogs, put them in a metal cage with two compartments. The cage was wired with electrodes to deliver shocks through the floor on both sides. The researchers had the ability to turn the shocks off by one side or both so that when ever the dog stepped on that side of the cage he had the ability to escape the shocks by jumping to the other side of the cage. It took the dogs a while to catch on to the fact that they could jump across the short divider of one side of the cage to get to the other side.
This went on for a while and then Pavlov decided to test to see what would happen when they activated the whole floor so that both sides of the cage were electrified. After a while of jumping back and forth over the divider, the dogs just huddled in a corner and whined. He termed this behavior "learned helplessness." Psychologists have identified learned helplessness in domestic violence victims. Women often don't leave their abuser because of real or perceived threats and this phenomena of learned helplessness.
As I've taken more psychology classes like abnormal psychology, social psychology, and developmental psychology, I see a clear pattern when looking back over my life growing up. i always wondered why I shied away from competitions, or arguments, as my general behavior can be pretty aggressive and gregarious at times. It's paradoxical. But then I thought about all the teasing i got from certain individuals. I remember my mother laughing at me on a number of occasions for being upset that I was being teased. I usually was told that I did something to bring it on myself. So, I learned to suck it up and push it down, and more importantly, to try harder to be better.
Why the lesson on learned helplessness brought this up was because I always felt helpless and frustrated when I was teased, which was on a daily basis, either by kids at school or in my home with family members. I was always being told that stupid erroneous saying, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me." ?? What the fuck is that?? Of course words harm. Harming words are at the core of bullying and emotional abuse. I had to remind my mother about this fact just a year or so ago when she told me to "don't pay attention to what someone else says about you." Really? Easy to say if you're a narcissist. To most people I know, harmful words hurt, demean and make us feel insecure, at least at the time it is happening. No wonder why I have so much anger inside. I have realized that there are a lot of times when I simply don't stand up for myself because I feel like it won't make a difference and could make the situation worse. It's learned helplessness. Of course I have swung the other way and became a raging bull and try to destroy anyone in my path. This served me well in that it kept people away from me and made them wary of me, probably questioning my sanity.
The problem is the isolation that it produced is hard to overcome. Because now I find I don't have many friends because at some point they have hurt me and I have either blown them off, they blow me off or there is a big confrontation that ends with permanent separation from the relationship. I just don't trust myself when it comes to making friends. When I look back at my life I see myself hanging with people who did little to encourage me, people who had very different morals and beliefs from my own. So, now I am wary of making new friends because I don't trust myself to make good choices with friends. I've had a number of friends basically "break-up with" me by flat out telling me not to call or contact them. What makes that so infuriating is that I have often swallowed my own misgivings at remaining in relationship with the person in question. So, it's like they did what I should have done long ago but I don't get the satisfaction.
I am letting God bring the right friends into my life now. I will not force friendships, I will not go against my initial, instinctive thoughts about any caution I might feel in relationships. I will listen to God about his promptings when it comes to striking up a friendship with someone or continuing a relationship when the person is critical or unsupportive of me. I will be ok alone until I can have friends in my life who will encourage me, support me, and generally make me feel accepted and loved. I will do this because I deserve to be happy and I deserve to have friends and people in my life who are supportive and not critical. I deserve to have friends who don't get their jollies from teasing me.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
The Silence is Deafening
As the fifth day of the new year rounds the afternoon hour, the silence in my home is loud. I do not turn on the television in fear of being sucked into its time-wasting, motivation-killing abyss. I've spent time with God and tried to be productive in the new year by finishing the card I made for the nice staff at the animal hospital where my Jabez died. It's all done now and ready to accompany the remaining unopened cans of cat food I purchased before he died. The animal hospital will refund my money and buy back the cans of cat food and I wanted to give them a card with his picture on it and just a little note to say thank you for helping him, and me, in this phase of life.
My heart still feels the hole that he left, the hole that he had filled after my husband died fourteen years ago. I was a widow of two years and an empty-nester and sought some kind of bond and decided that it should be with a pet, and so, Jabez came into my life. He was with me twelve and a half years and had grown to be my best and ever present friend. But now he is gone and what I have left is this blaring silence.
Silence that was once filled my one-sided conversation with Jabez. Although there were times where he would seem to answer my prattle with his little mews and meows, it was a comfort to me to be able to talk to him even if he didn't understand a word I said and to watch him as he slept. Now, I just have my silent thoughts and the soft tapping of the keys on my laptop. Even the noise from my neighbors seems to be non-existant today.
The silence seems to scream, "you are all alone". I need to take down the Christmas decorations but feel reluctant to make the change from holiday to a new year. I've been beaten down by the circumstances and failures of my life to rebound from the economic disaster that struck in 2009, I've got a new semester to look forward to but one that will include a repeat of the statistics class that is required before I can enroll in the research methods class, which I'm so looking forward to taking. Unfortunately, a C- does not get me into that class. It must be a grade of C or higher. So, for the first time in my educational career I must retake a class to move forward. I've got many more credits to fulfill besides that class but it is ego bruising at best and disheartening at most. Another bump in the road.
But I cried out to my God and went up for prayer at the service last night. I know, even if I don't feel, that He is walking right beside me, holding my hand, and sometimes carrying me, in the silence. I press into Him because He is all that I have and from Him is where my healing and restoration come. I submit to His Holy Spirit and let tears fall when they come and lay face down pouring out my grief and heartache. In the clanging silence I get up and put one foot in front of the other and take one task at a time to attempt, and then complete. I unplug the Christmas tree lights so they will cool down as I begin the gut wrenching process of surrendering the holidays to the new year and moving on to the next phase of my life.
Will new friends come into my life this year? Will I finally let go of the hurts of the past and smile to the world? Smile. That is the word that resounded so loudly in my head when the guy was praying over me last night. I don't smile a lot. It's something I have heard all my life, from random strangers too. "Why don't you smile?" Because I don't feel like it. I pray that I will feel like smiling more in this new year of 2013.
So, I smile at the silence and put some music on the stereo and continue to be God Strong Patty.
My heart still feels the hole that he left, the hole that he had filled after my husband died fourteen years ago. I was a widow of two years and an empty-nester and sought some kind of bond and decided that it should be with a pet, and so, Jabez came into my life. He was with me twelve and a half years and had grown to be my best and ever present friend. But now he is gone and what I have left is this blaring silence.
Silence that was once filled my one-sided conversation with Jabez. Although there were times where he would seem to answer my prattle with his little mews and meows, it was a comfort to me to be able to talk to him even if he didn't understand a word I said and to watch him as he slept. Now, I just have my silent thoughts and the soft tapping of the keys on my laptop. Even the noise from my neighbors seems to be non-existant today.
The silence seems to scream, "you are all alone". I need to take down the Christmas decorations but feel reluctant to make the change from holiday to a new year. I've been beaten down by the circumstances and failures of my life to rebound from the economic disaster that struck in 2009, I've got a new semester to look forward to but one that will include a repeat of the statistics class that is required before I can enroll in the research methods class, which I'm so looking forward to taking. Unfortunately, a C- does not get me into that class. It must be a grade of C or higher. So, for the first time in my educational career I must retake a class to move forward. I've got many more credits to fulfill besides that class but it is ego bruising at best and disheartening at most. Another bump in the road.
But I cried out to my God and went up for prayer at the service last night. I know, even if I don't feel, that He is walking right beside me, holding my hand, and sometimes carrying me, in the silence. I press into Him because He is all that I have and from Him is where my healing and restoration come. I submit to His Holy Spirit and let tears fall when they come and lay face down pouring out my grief and heartache. In the clanging silence I get up and put one foot in front of the other and take one task at a time to attempt, and then complete. I unplug the Christmas tree lights so they will cool down as I begin the gut wrenching process of surrendering the holidays to the new year and moving on to the next phase of my life.
Will new friends come into my life this year? Will I finally let go of the hurts of the past and smile to the world? Smile. That is the word that resounded so loudly in my head when the guy was praying over me last night. I don't smile a lot. It's something I have heard all my life, from random strangers too. "Why don't you smile?" Because I don't feel like it. I pray that I will feel like smiling more in this new year of 2013.
So, I smile at the silence and put some music on the stereo and continue to be God Strong Patty.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
My First Christmas without the boo (Jabez)
.JPG)
Jabez, the cat, was born on March 20, 2000. That year I bought my annual Christmas tree ornament at a little shop in Seaport Village, San Diego, California. This is a picture of it, front and back.
.jpg)
The Story of Jabez, the Cat
My daughter was still living at home when I first brought Jabez home and she knew that I was going to get a new cat that day. When she came home after school, or work, she asked me, "Well, did you get it?" She didn't see Jabez at my feet. So, I bent down and picked him up and said, "Jennifer, meet Jabez." To which Jabez replied with a big "MEOW." Jennifer was astonished at how beautiful and cute he was. I think she even commented on the size of his paws. It became like a game to see which one of us he would come to first. One time she came home and he was sleeping peacefully next to me as I talked to an old friend on the phone. As soon as she saw him, she quietly called him to come to her, and he got up and came right to her with me scowling at her for making him move. It was all in good spirits though, we both loved him so much.
That first night he came to my bedside and meowed and I put my hand down to grab him to pull him into bed with me but he leaped with such power and grace that I said, out loud, "Wow!" For a two month old kitten he was remarkable in his prowess. My bed is pretty high off the ground and for a kitten that age to jump that height was uncommon.
I took him to the local vet and she told me that based on this teeth he was just two months old but was going to be a very big cat. And how big did Jabez get? He grew to eighteen inches tall, with ears that were two inches long and a tail that was twelve inches long. At one point, he weighed over thirty pounds but I put him on a diet after finding out that he was diabetic. He had Type I Diabetes and required twice daily shots of insulin which I administered to him until the day he died. I even purchased a Glucometer to test his blood sugar. He was a high maintenance kitty but he earned his keep in sweetness of spirit and companionship to me.
In a time of recovery from the death of my husband, Jabez was a comfort to my soul and a source of great pride. He was a beautiful feline and gentle spirit. When he was a kitten he would play a game with me when I would come home from a long day at work. After I shut the door behind me, he would jump onto one of the dining room chairs and hide until I played what I called the "boo game." I would play peek-a-boo with him and he would bat my face with soft paws when I would peek around the back of the chair. This became a routine for us until I moved out of that apartment. I lived there for five years and Jabez was four when I moved out. I came to call him Boo in that apartment and while I had registered him as "Jabez", he knew that "Boo" also meant himself.
He wasn't very happy about the first move either. Part of it, I'm sure, was due to the fact that my living room had been left in relative upheaval. A couch was left standing on its side when found it wasn't going to fit into the tiny one bedroom apartment I had moved into. Jabez kept vigil by sleeping atop the upended couch making sure he could see me sleeping in my bed. As soon as I awoke the next morning he was all mews and meows vocalizing his discontent at the disorganization of his new home. We settled in though and he finally got used to living in a smaller space than he was first brought into. He also survived a move eighty miles northeast to my daughter's house. He was in heaven in that house. He had a big three bedroom house with a front and back yard to roam around in. It was a struggle to keep him out of her kitchen cabinets and off her counters. He was used to a full reign of his living quarters and like any other feline, he was curious. He became accustomed to moving but I could tell he really liked the condo I moved into in 2008. It was as big as the first apartment I had when I first brought him home.
In that home he would regularly get on the desk when I was on the computer and basically want to sit on the keyboard in front of me. As if to say, "Hey, you should be paying attention to me not that silly screen." He would try to bat at the mouse on the screen but eventually learned that it was not something he could actually touch and I'm sure he never understood why he couldn't catch that little pointer. So, in our new home I purchased in 2008, I was working at the computer and he jumped up and laid across the desk like the way he did in his first apartment and I knew he felt at home.
One thing he was good about was the litter box. I didn't have to worry about this guy squirting around the home, he always used the litter box. While he had numerous incidents around his litter box at the end he was still a cat you could depend on to not just go piss in a corner somewhere, or in your laundry basket. It was only toward the end of his days that I had to start cleaning up messes outside of the litter box and that was usually vomit and never urine. He was really sick by then. His diabetes was still a prominent issue and he had acquired cataracts, heart disease and gall stones.
I bought him a big dog bed to sleep on and it took him a while to get used to it but the very first time I saw him sleeping on it I took a picture because he looked so sweet:
I nursed him back to health on a number of occasions but the heart disease, cataracts and gall stones were not something that would go away without some serious medical intervention. I spent over one thousand dollars one time when I overdosed him on his insulin. After that incident, I bought the Glucometer and monitored his blood sugar before giving him his insulin. If I would be late on giving him his shot, he would come and sit by me (I was usually on the computer) and meow up at me, as if to say, hey, you forgot something. Then I would remember, uh-oh, I forgot to give you your shot and he would lead me to the kitchen where he would wait patiently in front of the refrigerator until I administered his shot. Then he would go back to one of his many spots he chose to chill out in or wait by the front door for me to let him out.
So, while I miss him dearly, I know that his suffering has ended and if our pets really go to heaven, I will see him again. He is in a better place now. I will never forget the special bond we had as owner and cat. He will always be remembered as "my boo" because even though I named him Jabez, everyone in the family called him Boo too. There will never be another cat like Jabez. He would often roll onto his back and chill out for a while. A sure sign he was content.
You may wonder where I got his name. In the Bible, 1 Corinthians 4:9-10, states:
Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name
Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying,
“Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your
hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause
pain!” So God granted him what he requested.
I kept running into sermons and women's meetings where the story of Jabez was recounted as a lesson on prayer, contentment, and/or obedience during the period of time from 1998 until after 2000. When people would ask where I got the name Jabez from, I took delight in being able to tell them I got the name from the Bible. So, he was kind of like a ministry tool. However, no one could pronounce his name right. I pronounced his name like JAY-Bez, but people had all kinds of ways they would pronounce it.
To me, Jabez was a gift from God to assuage my hurting heart in the aftermath of the loss of my husband, Alfredo, and my impending empty-nest era. He was always waiting for me when I came home and soon established himself as the king of the roost, which he basically ruled until he died on December 8, 2012.
I will never forget him and will always miss him. He was my constant companion at my home.
I got a couple of sympathy cards from the vet and the hospital and the following poem was included in one of the cards.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
The Continuing Saga of Jabez, my boo
So, Jabez has stopped eating - again. It's been almost two hours since I got up and all he has done is drink a bunch of water. Instead of forcing two pills down his throat, I decided to crush them up, add a little water and fill a syringe with the mixture and squirt it in his mouth. Well, he doesn't like that any better but at least I don't have to struggle to keep his mouth closed and at the same time stroke his throat to get him to swallow. He's such a big cat and it's really difficult for me with my carpal tunnel syndrome and the pinched nerve problem I have with my neck. I got the job done but he has absolutely no interest in food. He has just been looking out the window and now that I'm on the computer he is laying about 2 feet away from where I sit.
Yesterday, I broke down a couple of boxes that the food and the syringes came in, and put them down on the floor, because I know he likes to lay on cardboard and papers. So, he is laying on top of those sleeping at the moment. The vet wanted me to measure his respiration so, yesterday, it was 48 when he was awake and about 32 when he is sleeping, and that's pretty much what it is today. Normal respiration for a cat is 24-40, so it's a little elevated when he's awake. Forty-eight was what it was in the ER and that's why they want me to monitor it.
I tried calling a pet sitter to get the Christmas holiday set up so I could go spend some time with my daughter and her family. One sitter was already booked and the other hasn't returned my call as yet. It'll cost me a couple of hundred of dollars to pay the pet sitter and I wonder if he'll make it until then. He probably will because I'm taking such good care of him. I tested his blood sugar and it's 384, which is high, so at least he is not going into diabetic shock, which is what happens when your blood sugar is too low.
There is a condition called "ketoacidosis" which is what happens when your blood sugar is too high. This can also cause a diabetic coma but is usually referred to as a ketoacidosis coma. Left untreated, ketoacidosis is fatal. So, I'm back to questioning Jabez's quality of life. If he won't eat and I can't give him his regular dose of insulin ketones may stay in his blood and cause ketoacidosis. If I give him too much insulin, like giving him his regular dose of insulin, I could cause the same thing that happened back on 2007, which nearly killed him.
He had been not eating, much like he is now, but I was continuing to give him his regular dose of insulin, and this went on for two or three days. So, one day when I came home from work (yes, I actually had a job then), I found him basically comatose on my kitchen floor. He was vocalizing, which sounded like screeching, when I pulled up in the driveway and I could hear it and wondered what the sound was. So, I found him nearly dead on my kitchen floor and picked him up (he was very cold) and he seemed to rouse a little, and put him in his carrier and hustled him off the to ER. They saved his life and I purchased the glucometer at that time.
So, having been through all that I am really careful not to overdose his insulin injections. I don't check his blood sugar daily because I hate it as much as he does, except he is the one who is getting stuck with the lancet. Plus, sometimes I am unsuccessful at getting enough of a blood droplet to form so I can test it. This really pisses him off and if I try to poke him again he is SO done with me that he usually really fights me if I don't get it the second time. So, I never poke him more than twice, therefore, sometimes I am unable to test his sugar levels. Today, however, I was successful and got the aforementioned reading of 384.
He is basically exhibiting all the signs and symptoms of ketoacidosis, drinking lots of water, urinating a lot, lethargic and I believe his stomach does hurt him based on the way he lays down. So... I'm back to the question of euthanasia.
Please pray...
Yesterday, I broke down a couple of boxes that the food and the syringes came in, and put them down on the floor, because I know he likes to lay on cardboard and papers. So, he is laying on top of those sleeping at the moment. The vet wanted me to measure his respiration so, yesterday, it was 48 when he was awake and about 32 when he is sleeping, and that's pretty much what it is today. Normal respiration for a cat is 24-40, so it's a little elevated when he's awake. Forty-eight was what it was in the ER and that's why they want me to monitor it.
I tried calling a pet sitter to get the Christmas holiday set up so I could go spend some time with my daughter and her family. One sitter was already booked and the other hasn't returned my call as yet. It'll cost me a couple of hundred of dollars to pay the pet sitter and I wonder if he'll make it until then. He probably will because I'm taking such good care of him. I tested his blood sugar and it's 384, which is high, so at least he is not going into diabetic shock, which is what happens when your blood sugar is too low.
There is a condition called "ketoacidosis" which is what happens when your blood sugar is too high. This can also cause a diabetic coma but is usually referred to as a ketoacidosis coma. Left untreated, ketoacidosis is fatal. So, I'm back to questioning Jabez's quality of life. If he won't eat and I can't give him his regular dose of insulin ketones may stay in his blood and cause ketoacidosis. If I give him too much insulin, like giving him his regular dose of insulin, I could cause the same thing that happened back on 2007, which nearly killed him.
He had been not eating, much like he is now, but I was continuing to give him his regular dose of insulin, and this went on for two or three days. So, one day when I came home from work (yes, I actually had a job then), I found him basically comatose on my kitchen floor. He was vocalizing, which sounded like screeching, when I pulled up in the driveway and I could hear it and wondered what the sound was. So, I found him nearly dead on my kitchen floor and picked him up (he was very cold) and he seemed to rouse a little, and put him in his carrier and hustled him off the to ER. They saved his life and I purchased the glucometer at that time.
So, having been through all that I am really careful not to overdose his insulin injections. I don't check his blood sugar daily because I hate it as much as he does, except he is the one who is getting stuck with the lancet. Plus, sometimes I am unsuccessful at getting enough of a blood droplet to form so I can test it. This really pisses him off and if I try to poke him again he is SO done with me that he usually really fights me if I don't get it the second time. So, I never poke him more than twice, therefore, sometimes I am unable to test his sugar levels. Today, however, I was successful and got the aforementioned reading of 384.
He is basically exhibiting all the signs and symptoms of ketoacidosis, drinking lots of water, urinating a lot, lethargic and I believe his stomach does hurt him based on the way he lays down. So... I'm back to the question of euthanasia.
Please pray...
Friday, December 7, 2012
Jabez, my boo. Part 3
So, I guess that idea I had was from God because I got a can of the wet MD diabetic cat food that he used to love and he ate! I just put a little bit in his bowl and he was very interested and actually ate most of it, so I gave him a little bit more and he "ate" it. He's still really not eating but just licking all the juice off of it but that is still more than he has done in the past two days.
So, I might go back tomorrow and get a few more cans if he continues to eat it. I didn't want to buy a lot of it in case he refused it and I'm not adverse to going back to the vet to get more. It's just a shame I can't get it at a regular supermarket. Oh well, for now, I'm happy and he is now sleeping a few feet away from me.
Praise the Lord!
So, I might go back tomorrow and get a few more cans if he continues to eat it. I didn't want to buy a lot of it in case he refused it and I'm not adverse to going back to the vet to get more. It's just a shame I can't get it at a regular supermarket. Oh well, for now, I'm happy and he is now sleeping a few feet away from me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)