So, I finally took my kitty into the ER and found out that not only does he have diabetes, but he now has cataracts, gall stones and heart disease. The vet said that with medication he could probably live like another year or so. I was struggling with the idea of putting him to sleep and they offered to do it right there and then but I just couldn't do it. He has been such a great little companion to me the past 12 years and the idea of just ending his life like that, so suddenly, seems really callous and ... fast.
So, I brought him home and have been giving him lots of love and pandering to his constant begging for food. The thing is he is not really eating his food, he is just licking the gravy off the top and then sitting at the refrigerator door looking soulfully up at me. Since he is a type 1 diabetic, for him to not eat is not good, so I have been opening the same number of cans of cat food daily but he is only eating a fraction of the food and just licking the gravy off the top. I've had to cut his insulin dosage down because I almost killed him a few years ago when he stopped eating, like he is now, but kept giving him his usual dosage of insulin. I came home from work one day to find him basically comatose on my kitchen floor. I rushed him to the hospital and some thousand dollars later he recovered. That's when I decided to buy him the glucometer. Yeah, they have one for cats and dogs. It's called an Alphatrak and works pretty good but considering his size, and my negatively correlated size (I'm a small person), it just isn't practical to poke him once a day to test his blood sugar. So, based on the vet's recommendations, I am to give him only 2 units of insulin if he eats less than half his food.
He's lost a lot of weight and I can feel his back bones which had previously been covered with a layer of fat. I just hope the good Lord takes him home (where ever kitty home is) and I don't have to actually put him to sleep. I think I might have nightmares about that. Especially, since my mother had a not so pleasant experience putting her cat down. I couldn't even listen to her tell me about it because it freaked me out so much.
Ah well, such is trials and tribulations of having pets, I guess. Every day I leave and come home I'm half expecting him to be ... not with us anymore. But so far he is hanging in there.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Post Thanksgiving 2012
I just came back from a three day sleepover at my daughter's house in Perris, California. It was an extended Thanksgiving Day dinner party. Then, I came back to my sick cat. He has been throwing up for a sold week now. He constantly sits at his bowl and cries for more food yet his bowl is full of food. He just licks the wet food until it's basically dry and drinks water. I think he needs to have another ultrasound of his tummy. His digestive system is ... well, something is wrong with it.
So, I wanted to know if he was continuing to throw up because I could have taken him to the vet on Friday. But PetPals text-ed me that he ate and was a "happy guy" with "no barf." So, I thought cool. Then Saturday morning I couldn't get the company to text me back about how Jabez was doing and so I hung out with my daughter and her family. I had a great time but I had forgotten all my medicine at home. So, no thyroid pill, no antidepressants, no anti-inflammatory or pain pill. I felt all out of sorts and nervous. I knew part of it, if not all, was due to my sudden stoppage of the ADs. You're not supposed to cold turkey the anti-depressant medication. There are side effects with sudden withdrawal and I didn't know if I was having that or something was really wrong back at home with Jabez.
Turns out, the big guy is still having problems. He may not have thrown up in the living room, dining room or kitchen, but he puked all over his bed in the office. Plus, he puked at least once in the hall and three times in my bedroom. He keeps getting on my lap, which has gotten considerably smaller of late, and he's kind of overwhelming. If I'm sitting on the couch, he wants to be in my lap.
So, NOW, it's 11:00 pm on Saturday night I know that what he needs, or rather what the vet will say, he needs an ultrasound of his tummy. I can tell his stomach hurts him.
If it's his time to go then I will be very sad and dread making the decision to put him down or have surgery done. I should have had that tumor removed way back in 2010 but I didn't have the money back then. I think it's invaded his digestive tract. So, maybe I need to stop thinking about putting him down and just pay whatever the surgery costs, or at least negotiate the cost.
We've gt a 24-hour veterinary hospital in San Diego. I called and they are really busy right now so let's see how we make it through the night. Poor baby.
Better to wait til morning at home instead of in a cold hospital ER. I don't want him to suffer any more but I'm pretty wasted right now after the long drive and running around with my grand-kids for the past 3 days. I did all the laundry after I got home, including his bedding, and everything he has thrown up on in the past week.
I think I need to get some sleep and call it a day. My bed is calling me now.
Good night.
~godstrongpatty
So, I wanted to know if he was continuing to throw up because I could have taken him to the vet on Friday. But PetPals text-ed me that he ate and was a "happy guy" with "no barf." So, I thought cool. Then Saturday morning I couldn't get the company to text me back about how Jabez was doing and so I hung out with my daughter and her family. I had a great time but I had forgotten all my medicine at home. So, no thyroid pill, no antidepressants, no anti-inflammatory or pain pill. I felt all out of sorts and nervous. I knew part of it, if not all, was due to my sudden stoppage of the ADs. You're not supposed to cold turkey the anti-depressant medication. There are side effects with sudden withdrawal and I didn't know if I was having that or something was really wrong back at home with Jabez.
Turns out, the big guy is still having problems. He may not have thrown up in the living room, dining room or kitchen, but he puked all over his bed in the office. Plus, he puked at least once in the hall and three times in my bedroom. He keeps getting on my lap, which has gotten considerably smaller of late, and he's kind of overwhelming. If I'm sitting on the couch, he wants to be in my lap.
So, NOW, it's 11:00 pm on Saturday night I know that what he needs, or rather what the vet will say, he needs an ultrasound of his tummy. I can tell his stomach hurts him.
If it's his time to go then I will be very sad and dread making the decision to put him down or have surgery done. I should have had that tumor removed way back in 2010 but I didn't have the money back then. I think it's invaded his digestive tract. So, maybe I need to stop thinking about putting him down and just pay whatever the surgery costs, or at least negotiate the cost.
We've gt a 24-hour veterinary hospital in San Diego. I called and they are really busy right now so let's see how we make it through the night. Poor baby.
Better to wait til morning at home instead of in a cold hospital ER. I don't want him to suffer any more but I'm pretty wasted right now after the long drive and running around with my grand-kids for the past 3 days. I did all the laundry after I got home, including his bedding, and everything he has thrown up on in the past week.
I think I need to get some sleep and call it a day. My bed is calling me now.
Good night.
~godstrongpatty
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Thanksgiving 2012
I decided to switch purses for Thanksgiving. It’s part of my “outfit”. It’s funny that I automatically think of what I’m going to wear whenever I know I’m going somewhere. Anyway… I found my old cell phone case and it is PERFECT for my new iPhone. It’s got an outside ID holder for my bus pass, and slots for credit cards and a little pouch where I can put my stamps and coins. It goes with the purse because it’s orange and my purse is a darker orange, like a pumpkin color.
I’m so happy because the little case I bought (from Korea!) didn’t have enough space for all my IDs, credit cards and bus pass. I’m just bummed that I forgot about the orange cell phone purse I have had for at least ten years and bought the case from Korea. I'm not sure what it will cost to return it but really not sure if it's worth the bother. It was less than $20.
So… I didn’t start this piece with the intention of talking about my silly little purse. The point is that I found something, well, a lot of things, while I was switching from one purse to another. I found this little paper that had all these, basically, negative affirmations, but titled “False Beliefs.”
I must meet certain standards to feel good about myself (the Performance Trap).
I must be approved by certain others to feel good about myself (Approval Addict)
Those who fall (including myself) are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished. (Blame Game)
I am what I am I cannot change. I am hopeless. (Shame)
And I thought, “What?” Why was I carrying around these negative phrases? Then I turned the card over. There were positive affirmations on the other side. So, the point of all this is that if I fill my mind with the positive instead of the negative, my thought life will be much more peaceful. Maybe this way I can show the love of God to everyone instead of the uptight, neurotic mess I usually am.
So those “false beliefs” become:
I am therefore completely forgiven by and fully pleasing to the Father. I no longer have to be perfect. Romans 5:1
I am totally accepted by God. I no longer have to fear rejection. Colossians 1:21-22
I am deeply loved by God. I no longer have to fear punishment or punish others.
1 John 4:9-11
I am a new creation in Christ. I have been made brand-new and complete in Him and no longer need to experience the pain of shame. John 3:3-6
Today. I am thankful for my loving, heavenly Father who watches over me and holds me, with all my issues and shortcomings, in His holy hands.
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord!
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
On The Right Path
I've been attending a small home group through my church, Journey Community Church, for about four weeks now. I started this group in an effort to become more connected to members of this church because I have been attending Journey for about four and half years now and know few people. What sparked my interest in this particular group is that they were doing a study on Bill Hybel's book and study guide, "The Power of a Whisper". The sub-title of it is "Having the Guts to Respond." For the past nine years since I had to stop working as a computer programmer I have been trying to figure out what it is that I really want to do when I grow up.
In addition, since I got laid off from the laboratory job in 2009, I have been searching for what my true heart's desire really is in the way of a career or employment. I tried pursing a career in biology, and thus the laboratory job, but my math deficit was a huge barrier to progressing as rapidly as I wanted or needed based on my age. In addition, I really hate math so why would I pursue a career where I had to frequently rely on math skills to do the job properly? No, that career path was more about impressing others with my oft-longed for respect from others for my intelligence. I guess since I always felt that the people in my life didn't think I was intelligent, I wanted to prove that I really was.
What I have discovered is that the problem is not whether I was intelligent or not it is that I had a pride and arrogance problem. The over-the-top arrogance of the scientists at the laboratory job showed me what arrogance and pride is in it's extreme form. It also showed me how I was also prideful and arrogant. I learned a lot about myself and saw how some of my words and actions were not only arrogant but disrespectful, as well.
The point I'm trying to make is that God had to break me down so He could build me up. He had to expose the parts of my personality that were preventing me from obtaining the very things I was striving for. In the years since I was laid off from the laboratory job, (two years, seven months now), I have been diligently seeking God on what I'm really supposed to do with my life. I've asked him to break my heart for what breaks His. The cool thing is that this small group was all about listening to the whisper of God and stepping out to do His will for my life. It was a four week study, one of which I missed because of the wedding in Knoxville, Tennessee. We watched a DVD of Bill Hybel explaining his path of listening to the whisper of God. Then the study guide would ask leading questions to get us to not only listen to the whisper, but to act upon the whispers.
One of the questions was "What reality about our world at large troubles you most these days?" This was a question posed to the group before we watched the fourth session on the DVD. What immediately came to my mind was the abuse and neglect of children, animals, and other individuals without power of their own, like disabled people and elderly people. When the DVD was played and we watched Bill Hybel speak about his own journey of listing to God, he spoke out on helping children and racial reconciliation. It was confirmation for me that I'm on the right path, I've listened to the right voice and God is leading me in the direction He wants me to go.
While He hasn't completely laid out the path and plan He has for me, I am comforted in knowing that I'm on the right path, that my philosophy of putting one foot in front of the other until God shows otherwise, is exactly where God wants me. I also heard Him whisper that my fervent prayers about how I can help these troubled people will be through the healing process, of which I plan on pursuing a career in, dance therapy. Dance therapy was the career I was going to school for in 1979 at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the end of the spring semester in 1979 I had changed my major from dance to psychology. A psychology professor had told me about this "new" field and I thought it was a perfect match for my love of dance and my interest in psychology. I went home after the semester ended and within a month or so I was pregnant with my daughter. So, that career path stalled until my daughter was successfully raised and I had the maturity to deal with difficult emotional and physical issues. The truth is that God needed to do some serious house cleaning in my psyche before I could be any way ready to tackle this challenging new field. Today there is the American Dance Therapy Association and an educational plan to work towards.
So, it's taken me about thirty-one years to get to the point where I can heal enough to actually look at my issues and admit some responsibility for my attitude. I'm encouraged today knowing that I am moving in the right direction and that I am on the right path. The path that God has ordained for me, and trust in Him to let the pieces fall into place and just be open to His healing touch. I serve a Mighty God and trust Him to redeem my life out of the shambles I have made of it in the past thirty-one years.
Praise the Lord!
In addition, since I got laid off from the laboratory job in 2009, I have been searching for what my true heart's desire really is in the way of a career or employment. I tried pursing a career in biology, and thus the laboratory job, but my math deficit was a huge barrier to progressing as rapidly as I wanted or needed based on my age. In addition, I really hate math so why would I pursue a career where I had to frequently rely on math skills to do the job properly? No, that career path was more about impressing others with my oft-longed for respect from others for my intelligence. I guess since I always felt that the people in my life didn't think I was intelligent, I wanted to prove that I really was.
What I have discovered is that the problem is not whether I was intelligent or not it is that I had a pride and arrogance problem. The over-the-top arrogance of the scientists at the laboratory job showed me what arrogance and pride is in it's extreme form. It also showed me how I was also prideful and arrogant. I learned a lot about myself and saw how some of my words and actions were not only arrogant but disrespectful, as well.
The point I'm trying to make is that God had to break me down so He could build me up. He had to expose the parts of my personality that were preventing me from obtaining the very things I was striving for. In the years since I was laid off from the laboratory job, (two years, seven months now), I have been diligently seeking God on what I'm really supposed to do with my life. I've asked him to break my heart for what breaks His. The cool thing is that this small group was all about listening to the whisper of God and stepping out to do His will for my life. It was a four week study, one of which I missed because of the wedding in Knoxville, Tennessee. We watched a DVD of Bill Hybel explaining his path of listening to the whisper of God. Then the study guide would ask leading questions to get us to not only listen to the whisper, but to act upon the whispers.
One of the questions was "What reality about our world at large troubles you most these days?" This was a question posed to the group before we watched the fourth session on the DVD. What immediately came to my mind was the abuse and neglect of children, animals, and other individuals without power of their own, like disabled people and elderly people. When the DVD was played and we watched Bill Hybel speak about his own journey of listing to God, he spoke out on helping children and racial reconciliation. It was confirmation for me that I'm on the right path, I've listened to the right voice and God is leading me in the direction He wants me to go.
While He hasn't completely laid out the path and plan He has for me, I am comforted in knowing that I'm on the right path, that my philosophy of putting one foot in front of the other until God shows otherwise, is exactly where God wants me. I also heard Him whisper that my fervent prayers about how I can help these troubled people will be through the healing process, of which I plan on pursuing a career in, dance therapy. Dance therapy was the career I was going to school for in 1979 at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the end of the spring semester in 1979 I had changed my major from dance to psychology. A psychology professor had told me about this "new" field and I thought it was a perfect match for my love of dance and my interest in psychology. I went home after the semester ended and within a month or so I was pregnant with my daughter. So, that career path stalled until my daughter was successfully raised and I had the maturity to deal with difficult emotional and physical issues. The truth is that God needed to do some serious house cleaning in my psyche before I could be any way ready to tackle this challenging new field. Today there is the American Dance Therapy Association and an educational plan to work towards.
So, it's taken me about thirty-one years to get to the point where I can heal enough to actually look at my issues and admit some responsibility for my attitude. I'm encouraged today knowing that I am moving in the right direction and that I am on the right path. The path that God has ordained for me, and trust in Him to let the pieces fall into place and just be open to His healing touch. I serve a Mighty God and trust Him to redeem my life out of the shambles I have made of it in the past thirty-one years.
Praise the Lord!
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
My New Best Friend
I put my trust in God for the approval of the appeal to the denial of eligibility for financial aid for my course work at San Diego State University. And God came through once more. I was notified of the approval of the appeal while I was in Knoxville, Tennessee last week for my nephew's wedding. So, I guess God really does want me to continue on my path to get a bachelor's degree in psychology and realize my dream of being a dance therapist. Praise the Lord!!
I praise Him again because of the awesome time I had in Knoxville with my sister and her family and my family. It was filled with easy camaraderie and laughter. I had not seen my sister and her family since 2002. Since then all but the one nephew, whose wedding we were there to attend, had gotten married and produced grandchildren for my sister. I had been praying for this nephew to find a wife for many years. He had come to California a couple of years ago and while I had intermittently prayed that he too would find a mate, my prayers became regular after his visit. So, I am amazed, although I don't know why, that God answered my prayers and provided such a compatible mate for my nephew. They even look like they belong together.
And while the days leading up to the trip had been filled with anxiety for me due to past personal issues with some members of the family, it turned out to be just God-blessed in a huge way. First of all, I was able to visit my sister's new apartment and see the fruits of her labor. God has recently blessed her with success in two businesses that she has built. This is a woman who was born deaf, had been married for 29 years, and had never supported herself financially. The past several years had been especially hard for her since she divorced the father of her children and struggled with all the issues of being a single woman, mother and grandmother. My prayers for her have also been answered since I have been praying fervently for her for more than a decade.
Because of our troubled childhood and her deafness,there had been many fights and misunderstandings between us as we grew up. She is the oldest of the four children in my immediate family and I always looked up to her and wanted to be close to her. The age difference between us is four years, so add to that her birth defect, the loss of our father when we were toddlers, and the turmoil of being raised by a single mother in the 60s and 70s and the circumstances did not lend itself to a warm and fuzzy relationship between us. But thankfully, we have finally gotten past all that and are building a brand new relationship. Indeed, my daughter has even begun to build a relationship with her aunt Susie.
I told my sister that she is now my new best friend and am looking forward to many more visits and maybe even vacationing with her. Like the fabled phoenix rising from the ashes of a fire long since burned, I am building a new relationship out of a troubled and painful past.
I praise Him again because of the awesome time I had in Knoxville with my sister and her family and my family. It was filled with easy camaraderie and laughter. I had not seen my sister and her family since 2002. Since then all but the one nephew, whose wedding we were there to attend, had gotten married and produced grandchildren for my sister. I had been praying for this nephew to find a wife for many years. He had come to California a couple of years ago and while I had intermittently prayed that he too would find a mate, my prayers became regular after his visit. So, I am amazed, although I don't know why, that God answered my prayers and provided such a compatible mate for my nephew. They even look like they belong together.
And while the days leading up to the trip had been filled with anxiety for me due to past personal issues with some members of the family, it turned out to be just God-blessed in a huge way. First of all, I was able to visit my sister's new apartment and see the fruits of her labor. God has recently blessed her with success in two businesses that she has built. This is a woman who was born deaf, had been married for 29 years, and had never supported herself financially. The past several years had been especially hard for her since she divorced the father of her children and struggled with all the issues of being a single woman, mother and grandmother. My prayers for her have also been answered since I have been praying fervently for her for more than a decade.
Because of our troubled childhood and her deafness,there had been many fights and misunderstandings between us as we grew up. She is the oldest of the four children in my immediate family and I always looked up to her and wanted to be close to her. The age difference between us is four years, so add to that her birth defect, the loss of our father when we were toddlers, and the turmoil of being raised by a single mother in the 60s and 70s and the circumstances did not lend itself to a warm and fuzzy relationship between us. But thankfully, we have finally gotten past all that and are building a brand new relationship. Indeed, my daughter has even begun to build a relationship with her aunt Susie.
I told my sister that she is now my new best friend and am looking forward to many more visits and maybe even vacationing with her. Like the fabled phoenix rising from the ashes of a fire long since burned, I am building a new relationship out of a troubled and painful past.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Satisfactory Academic Progress
Apparently, just maintaining a good grade point average is not enough for San Diego State University. Despite the two Bs and an A I got this past semester and a cumulative grade point average of 3.17, I have not maintained "satisfactory academic progress." San Diego State University emailed me that I have exceeded the maximum allowed units required for financial aid eligibility.
Because of the thirty plus years I've been taking college credits and the fact that I've changed majors three times (from dance, to computer science, and now psychology) I have earned more than the number of credits one needs to graduate from college. One hundred and forty seven credits I have earned throughout my college career and I guess San Diego State University objects to that. I do have an appeals process I can utilize, which I have done, but I'm really getting sick of college. I used to love school and I still enjoy learning new things but I am so sick of the arrogance of college professors and now this slap in the face. So, basically, what it all means is that I will have to pay out of pocket for the remainder of the time I need to graduate from San Diego State IF my appeal does NOT go through. I expect it to be approved however, since it's very clear that I still need thirty-nine college units to complete my bachelor's degree in psychology.
It's a power struggle between the "professional student" and the college profs who want you to complete a course of study their way and not your own way. Yeah, well, I've always been one to insist on doing things my own way. I managed to graduate from high school without courses like calculus and physics because of the number of credits I had in other courses and I just needed to take a general math course to fulfill the math requirement for a high school diploma. It's been thirty plus years of skirting the math anxiety issue that I have. I actually believe that I have a math learning disorder, which is a real thing documented in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. I've never had the test for learning disorders but I know that it takes me twice as long to grasp mathematical concepts. I eventually can learn them, I'm just really, really slow at it. I mean, I got As in Algebra but never took a Geometry course and College Algebra was way too fast paced for me and I eventually dropped the course before it would show on my transcript. The math issue is one of the reasons why I didn't continue in the computer science degree. Of course the bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome was a big factor as well.
The professor in the college algebra course assigned vast amounts of homework and my grade was partially based on the homework completed. I, physically, could not do all the homework because a)hand writing is painful after five minutes, and b)it was all on computer and clicking a mouse for more than 2 hours sent me over the edge of pain management. So, I was stuck between a hard place and a rock. My brain requires extra time on math problems but my physical body is too broken to accomplish what I need in the proper amount of time.
I had gotten to the place in my education where I had taken all the courses I could before the prerequisites required that I complete a calculus and/or a physics course. I didn't place high enough on a math entrance exam to take a calculus or physics course because I had skipped all that in high school, and the higher level computer courses required calculus and physics to have been completed.
So, I switched to psychology and have been taking the classes required for that degree and here comes SDSU and shuns me for having too many credits. Oh well. The way I look at it is this: if God is really in this decision of mine to get a bachelor's degree in psychology, then He will make a way for it to get done. Whether it is by an approval of the appeal of the "satisfactory academic progress" standing or just financial resources to pay my tuition, I will remain trusting in the Lord and keep putting one foot in front of the other towards the completion of my educational goals.
I remain God Strong.
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