A Day at Home

My mom fell and broke her left hip back in December. She had a partial hip replacement, did the rehab thing and came home. She needed help with lots of things she hadn't needed help with before. After she was home for about two weeks, she somehow managed to fall again. "On the driver's side" as my brother Jack put it. On top of the walker.

Back to the hospital. Nothing broken, but there was muscle damage and lots of bruising. She needed rehab again. Without going into a lot of personal detail, she has been in the rehab hospital for about 2 months and we are now looking for a long-term placement for her. She needs round-the-clock care.

We had a special outing with her today. Jack brought her home for lunch. There were challenges, but she was able to sit in her comfy chair, spend some time with Ricochet (her kitty)

enjoy most of a cup of peppermint tea in her special "Mom" mug

and just not be a patient for a few hours. I sat with her at her computer, got on Facebook, showed her some of my brother David's artwork that he has posted, pictures of my cats and reminded her of a funny misunderstanding she and I had several years ago.

I had made this jester as part of a challenge on Joggles.com. I won an Honorable Mention and was really tickled. I brought him in to the dance studio where my sweetie and I were taking lessons (ballroom) and one of the owners offered me $150. SOLD!!

I called my mom all excited that I had sold my jester. She sounded positively appalled! "You sold him?" I said "For $150? You bet I did!". She sounded really upset. After a couple of minutes she said "Tell me again". I said "I sold my jester for $150". She burst out laughing. She originally thought I said I sold my Jasper!

He is NOT for sale! We've laughed about that several times and it was fun showing her both photos again today.

She was home for almost 6 hours and while I know it was difficult to go back, she does understand that she needs more care than we can provide. I'm sure we'll have more days at home.

Gross but important

Chippie (16-year-old male kitty) had a problem with projectile sneezing (truly disgusting!) a little bit ago and I foolishly believed what I had heard from other people and had read on the internet. It's a feline form of the herpes virus and there is no cure. Ryan had it and Chippie apparently got it from Ryan. In fact, I called it Ryan-itis. (I lost Ryan a few months ago from something totally unrelated). We tried L-Lysine (an amino acid) which is supposed to help feline herpes virus, but I really saw no change. Still really icky and messy. Poor Chipper. Poor house. I finally got smart and took him to the vet last month. Dr. Feldman said it seemed more like an upper respiratory infection than feline herpes. He put him on Clavamox for 10 days. Cleared him right up!!

He was great for a few weeks and then a few days ago, he started sneezing again. Brought him back to the vet today. Poor guy had an "accident" on the way there, so they also gave him a bath and washed out his carrier for me - no extra charge! They said he didn't complain once during the bath. He is the most easy-going critter I've ever had. Really easy to pill, too. I figure he was traumatized enough for one day; we'll start round 2 of the Clavamox tomorrow. Two full weeks this time. Hopefully, this'll do it. My poor guy.

The lesson here is don't be foolish like me. Take your critter to the vet. My Chippie suffered needlessly because I thought I knew what was wrong and how to treat it. I'm so glad I wised up.

Art to the Rescue

My friend Kecia (Lemoncholy's Flight of Fancy) has a friend who was recently diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. As an artist, Kecia decided to make a banner depicting life and health affirming images and words. She put the call out on FaceBook asking if any of her friends would like to contribute. She sent out specifications (measurements, color scheme, etc) and I made mine today:

The piece is 7 1/2 by 9 inches, not including the beaded fringe at the bottom. The top inch will be folded over and sewn onto the banner. The background fabric has a very slight gold sparkle. The image and the word "Strength" are printed on fabric and I added lace, buttons and beaded fringe.

I fell in love with the image of the hands when I saw it. She is not in this struggle alone. She has the love and support of friends and family who will add to her strength.

The buttons are pink flowers with petals and I sewed them on using pale green raffia. Adds just a tiny touch of color. A small spot of glue on the back just to make sure they stay put.

I hope my addition to Kecia's gift will help her friend find strength.