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Today I took Siri back to the vet, with meds, to get blood and urine tested. He's been drinking a lot and if his food intake is disrupted he gets diarrhea, so I knew something was up.
I'd been overextending myself so I made no plans other than a quick trip in to the vet, stopping at the grocery for a pickup order they'd bring out to the truck, and going home.
I got out of the vet earlier than expected -- I've learned to put padding between things in town, so the pickup order was going to be a bit. I decided to pick up some sushi, then I got to the grocery store. As I pulled in to the pickup spot I got a call from the vet: Siri has diabetes, she wanted to catch me while I was still in town, there were 3 options:
-Put him down, she knew he was a stray I'd just found and this was going to take some commitment to deal with
-Insulin shots, which would require him to go into the clinic for a full day, then once every couple days for a couple weeks, then once a week for awhile, then once a month. He'd get the shots twice a day. The vet is a 5 hour round trip from me if nothing goes badly.
-A new drug she doesn't have much experience with, which he would take by mouth once a day, along with diabetic food. It would still require monitoring but some of that could be done by phone maybe. The drug isn't cheap but the vial should last a couple months.
I had pulled my truck really awkwardly into the parking space -- it's too long to super comfortably go into most of them, and I was trying to answer the phone. I'm sitting there on the phone in the row of 12 pickup spaces with someone pulled into the one space beside me that I was partially cutting off, while all but 1 of the other spaces were empty, sorting through this in my mind. The person in the other car, also on the phone, was glaring at me.
I went with the last option, the once a day drug that probably didn't require as much monitoring. This is why I can't keep my credit card empty, I guess.
I had ordered a bunch of frozen food because the plan was to go straight home. Even though I'd brought a kinda cooler thing running up to the vet was going to add an hour to me getting home, but so be it. I loaded my groceries into the truck, covered them with blankets and jackets, and drove the half hour back up to the vet, then back down again in pre-long-weekend-rush-hour (which, to be fair, is probably less in Prince George than nearly anywhere else people might live).
Got onto the highway, air conditioner blasting -- it had somehow gone from 19C to 27C -- and slowed down because the car in front of me had their flashers on. They were part of a line that stretched to the horizon, which at this point wasn't too far because of a hill. No one was moving.
After about twenty minutes the line of cars started creeping forward. Nothing on facebook about what was going on. Cars had been coming the other way intermittently, so I knew it wasn't a logging truck fully jackknifed or anything. Why weren't they alternating traffic past the blockage? Why were we creeping so slooooooooowly? At this point the cars stretched to the horizon behind me too.
Crested the hill finally and could see the long stretch to the next hill a little over a kilometer away. There were police lights flashing but it was too far to see what was going on. Creep, creep, creep--- never really stopping enough to leave the truck in park.
Turns out the police were worried about a suspect in the area (?) ahead and wanted to stop each car, make us roll down our windows, and say, "don't pick anyone up or stop for anyone in the next bit". They weren't screening cars on the way out of the area, just letting us know on the way in, and this was the way they decided to do it during the busiest time on that highway. When I got past the area, the line in the opposite lane was over a mile long.
I was in the line for about an hour, so that added another hour to my freezer groceries timer and "I'll eat this sushi I picked up when I get home" lunchtime delay. Between emotional stuff about Siri, stress from running all over and waiting in that line without knowing what was up (they had phone blockers deployed, so no internet, unless it's just that so many people were using all the signal), heat stress, and being already tired I'm impressed that I managed to get the truck into my driveway without ending up in the ditch. Most of the groceries were even still frozen, yay survival blanket supplies.
This is the kind of situation where, even if I'm figuratively crashing, there's not too much to do -- I can't really stop the car by the side of the highway in 27C with $300 of frozen groceries and a cat and nap or rest. The trip itself is pushing my resiliency, so then when enough events occur it's really not great.
Also someone should tell the cops around here about things like writing and signs. They could have slowed us to 50 and flashed a sign without having us stop drive-through style and have that poor guy repeat the same message to what must have been a couple miles worth of cars in the end.
Anyhow, Siri is home and recovered from the trip. Thank goodness he's such a good car and carrier cat. The other cats are loved on. I'm in bed, contemplating ability and a new symptom (random pinprick feelings, yay! I didn't notice a wasp had stung me earlier because I've just been getting that sensation kinda randomly throughout my skin).
We will see what tomorrow brings, but at least it will bring me a still-alive cat and some time in bed.
I'd been overextending myself so I made no plans other than a quick trip in to the vet, stopping at the grocery for a pickup order they'd bring out to the truck, and going home.
I got out of the vet earlier than expected -- I've learned to put padding between things in town, so the pickup order was going to be a bit. I decided to pick up some sushi, then I got to the grocery store. As I pulled in to the pickup spot I got a call from the vet: Siri has diabetes, she wanted to catch me while I was still in town, there were 3 options:
-Put him down, she knew he was a stray I'd just found and this was going to take some commitment to deal with
-Insulin shots, which would require him to go into the clinic for a full day, then once every couple days for a couple weeks, then once a week for awhile, then once a month. He'd get the shots twice a day. The vet is a 5 hour round trip from me if nothing goes badly.
-A new drug she doesn't have much experience with, which he would take by mouth once a day, along with diabetic food. It would still require monitoring but some of that could be done by phone maybe. The drug isn't cheap but the vial should last a couple months.
I had pulled my truck really awkwardly into the parking space -- it's too long to super comfortably go into most of them, and I was trying to answer the phone. I'm sitting there on the phone in the row of 12 pickup spaces with someone pulled into the one space beside me that I was partially cutting off, while all but 1 of the other spaces were empty, sorting through this in my mind. The person in the other car, also on the phone, was glaring at me.
I went with the last option, the once a day drug that probably didn't require as much monitoring. This is why I can't keep my credit card empty, I guess.
I had ordered a bunch of frozen food because the plan was to go straight home. Even though I'd brought a kinda cooler thing running up to the vet was going to add an hour to me getting home, but so be it. I loaded my groceries into the truck, covered them with blankets and jackets, and drove the half hour back up to the vet, then back down again in pre-long-weekend-rush-hour (which, to be fair, is probably less in Prince George than nearly anywhere else people might live).
Got onto the highway, air conditioner blasting -- it had somehow gone from 19C to 27C -- and slowed down because the car in front of me had their flashers on. They were part of a line that stretched to the horizon, which at this point wasn't too far because of a hill. No one was moving.
After about twenty minutes the line of cars started creeping forward. Nothing on facebook about what was going on. Cars had been coming the other way intermittently, so I knew it wasn't a logging truck fully jackknifed or anything. Why weren't they alternating traffic past the blockage? Why were we creeping so slooooooooowly? At this point the cars stretched to the horizon behind me too.
Crested the hill finally and could see the long stretch to the next hill a little over a kilometer away. There were police lights flashing but it was too far to see what was going on. Creep, creep, creep--- never really stopping enough to leave the truck in park.
Turns out the police were worried about a suspect in the area (?) ahead and wanted to stop each car, make us roll down our windows, and say, "don't pick anyone up or stop for anyone in the next bit". They weren't screening cars on the way out of the area, just letting us know on the way in, and this was the way they decided to do it during the busiest time on that highway. When I got past the area, the line in the opposite lane was over a mile long.
I was in the line for about an hour, so that added another hour to my freezer groceries timer and "I'll eat this sushi I picked up when I get home" lunchtime delay. Between emotional stuff about Siri, stress from running all over and waiting in that line without knowing what was up (they had phone blockers deployed, so no internet, unless it's just that so many people were using all the signal), heat stress, and being already tired I'm impressed that I managed to get the truck into my driveway without ending up in the ditch. Most of the groceries were even still frozen, yay survival blanket supplies.
This is the kind of situation where, even if I'm figuratively crashing, there's not too much to do -- I can't really stop the car by the side of the highway in 27C with $300 of frozen groceries and a cat and nap or rest. The trip itself is pushing my resiliency, so then when enough events occur it's really not great.
Also someone should tell the cops around here about things like writing and signs. They could have slowed us to 50 and flashed a sign without having us stop drive-through style and have that poor guy repeat the same message to what must have been a couple miles worth of cars in the end.
Anyhow, Siri is home and recovered from the trip. Thank goodness he's such a good car and carrier cat. The other cats are loved on. I'm in bed, contemplating ability and a new symptom (random pinprick feelings, yay! I didn't notice a wasp had stung me earlier because I've just been getting that sensation kinda randomly throughout my skin).
We will see what tomorrow brings, but at least it will bring me a still-alive cat and some time in bed.
