A Crazy Cat's Life

I'm finally done working for the summer.  Both of the schools I teach at ended their last summer sessions this week.  Final grades are in so this means I get to enjoy the whopping three weeks I have off. Now before you sit there and go "well, I'm lucky if I get a week off," let me explain.  Teaching is a very mentally stressing job.  Not only do we have lesson preps but tons of grading.  And trust me, grading these days is not the easiest of tasks.  While I get a few good papers, a majority of them are written poorly with bad grammar and paragraph styling.  On top of that, I always get a handful of students that think "text speak" is appropriate for papers.  This truly hurts your brain when you read them.  On top of that, I taught three classes this previous session which also meant that I went from 8am to 9:40pm on most days.  The time spent between those classes was devoted to school related stuff (i.e., preps and grading).  I g...

One of our cats, Tasha, is a big scaredy cat.  She wasn't always this way.  She had been a lovely-dovey kitty though she's always been a bit skittish.  To be honest, I blame myself for the way she is now.  Back when she was a kitten I had to give her medication to clear up a suspected case of ringworm and I accidentally got the medicine in her mouth.  Ever since then, she will have nothing to do with either me or Bear.  Well, she tolerates Bear but she runs and hides from me constantly. I would really like to do something to help her but I'm not sure where to start or what to give her.  I know there are aromatherapy treatments out there but we can't really get near her to use them on her.  Does anybody have any suggestions?  I'll take any help that we can get.

...that I never get a chance to fully relax.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm finally getting some breathing room today but all of last week and all of this upcoming week are full to the brim.  With what?  Doctors appointments.  Joy.  The summer always seems to be the time when I have to do my annual appointments with the various doctors plus add in all of the health issues I've had in the past few months.  Literally every week day, it seems, is devoted to health care. Some good news: I had the upper GI series last week and that looked pretty clear.  No stricture.  Yay!  The process itself was rather nasty though as I had to drink this gods-awful stuff.  It wasn't barium.  That was the second liquid I had to drink.  This stuff was clear and was designed to show any leaks in my stomach.  Nasty, nasty, nasty.   The barium, in comparison, wasn't so bad and I got to watch it travel down my esophagus into my stomach, ...

When I don't eat I get cranky.  When I don't sleep I get cranky.  Combine those two things and I can be a downright bitch. As you know I definitely haven't been eating well and my new antidepressant is having fun with my sleep patterns.  I found out that I can actually function quite well on two hours of sleep.  I don't recommend it but it is possible. Besides being a typical, crappy Monday, today was also the day I got to see my WLS surgeon for a follow up and boy was I in a mood.  I had a whole list of things to ask him and was ready to basically ream him a new one if he didn't give me some answers.  As you know, he hasn't been very helpful since the surgery.  But today I was prepared.  Oh yes.  So what happens?  The damn bastard actually had a discussion with me, and a productive one at that.  He still seemed baffled by what was wrong with me but this time around he started to mention what could be wrong.  Rare moments...

I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.             -- Terry Pratchett

OK, I think I've kept you in suspense long enough that it's time to continue on with my story... One of the chief complaints from many people who had WLS is the depression for the loss of food.  I was lucky in that regard as I never was addicted to food nor did I turn to food as an emotional crutch.  When I was told of my dietary restrictions with the surgery, I accepted them.  I knew eventually that I would be able to tolerate pretty much anything.  It would just be in a smaller proportion.  Heck, that's the reason why I chose this surgery over the other ones.  I didn't really have to give up a damn thing.  OK, I need to be focused on the whole PROTEIN FIRST thing but if I really, truly want a small piece of something then I wouldn't have to suffer serious physical consequences for it.  From all my years in Weight Watchers I learned that "everything in moderation" is a good mantra. To be quite honest, I was comfortable with things in the begi...

For those of you "not in the know"--most of the population actually probably doesn't know what it means so don't worry--WLS stands for "weight loss surgery."  It's a great gig if you're a doctor as one third of this country is obese and quite a few of those are morbidly obese.  This country has an incredibe obsession with being skinny, and most of that is justified.  Like many in this country, I was clearly morbidly obese.  At the beginning of this year I weighed 334 pounds.  Thankfully I have a bone structure that can hold the weight but still, even I knew that was too heavy. For my entire life with the exception of my college years I was always overweight.  Up until my late 20s it was never more than twenty or so pounds over what was considered "ideal" back then.  Though, to be honest, my doc kept on telling me that I should have been 120 pounds, which I think was physically impossible because of my bone structure.  My dad always told m...

My husband, who I affectionately call Bear, has been encouraging me to start writing again.  It's really not a bad idea as I miss it terribly.  However, as you can tell from the date of my last post, life got in the way.  I am going to give this another shot but at the same time  I'm not promising that I'll be writing everyday.  My life gets too crazy at time, especially at the end of the semester when the thought of even looking at my computer is painful.  Still, I do plan on trying. So welcome back if you've read this blog before.  If not, welcome to my crazy life and my very strange journey.  Enjoy!