ice water and ocicats

Costa Rica, but then also Hypercube

Mon, 13 Nov 2023 00:39:59 GMT

Sigh. I spent all last week in Costa Rica -- getting away from my troubles, soaking in physicality (and humidity.. and a pool), and training handstands 5 hrs/day. And I wanted to post from Costa Rica, wanted to capture the languidness of only having limited wifi and a very short to-do list. But it's hard for me to get my thoughts to flow properly when tapping away on the phone, and so instead I spent a whole lot of time just being in the present, figuring I could sort out my thoughts when I got back. I was woken up by howler monkeys, and bitten by a lot of bugs, and felt appreciative of the many plants whose leaves were bigger than I was. The resort had a dog named Destiny and an orange cat named Thunder, who graced me with a lap-sit at one point.

There was handstand progress -- certainly nothing like a press, because these teachers are brutally finicky about how pressing is to be done. But I held a freestanding hs for 10 seconds with my eyes closed, and did tuck-to-pike transitions on my own, and probably my best one-arms (with spotter), and spent my time comfortably in the top half of the class overall (a bit lower for jump-ups, a bit higher for one-arms and crocs). I was also a very comfortable age for the class, which was interesting. I guess the price of a destination training skews the demographics? Our youngest was 24 and the oldest couple were definitely upper 60s.

Did some good reading of books on my Kindle, made friends, wondered how to blend this stuff with my existing distance training, stared blankly into the tropical night, drank a lot of coffee but not alcohol.

So then I came back... and while I was on the third airplane of the day, the bug was taking Hypercube to the nearby emergency vet. I found out when I landed. It was for the "usual" breathing issues -- gurgling, sputtering, general fluid sounds in the lungs, and when she coughed it was worse than usual. She'd also been resisting her inhaler and had finished a course of antibiotics earlier in the week, so I'd been expecting a downturn but maybe not that specific timing. The squirrel drove me home, while we all determined that Hypercube would stay overnight in an oxygen cage and then go to her specialist in the morning for a possible CT scan for something new in her left lung. My job. So I slept for four hours (2:30 to 6:30), took a MUCH needed shower and Lyfted over to the cat and then Lyfted us to the specialist's where all her previous records resided.

Checked her in through the ER there. And the vet came in and led with "I'm sorry about Hypercube, she is so sick" and went on with "This is going to be a hard conversation" and then kept saying things but I bet you know where this is going now, don't you. Because it didn't really matter what the CT scan might have said; Hypercube wasn't a candidate for surgery, she was already on all the asthma medications and her little lungs were just failing. The vet said she was using every muscle in her body just to breathe, in long, rippling breaths that would make a yoga teacher proud. She also said "end of the road". So I called home, and also asked a few questions of the vet. In the end, Hypercube was already at a great hospital and with a catheter in her front leg, so we decided not to prolong her efforts or make her go off oxygen or mess with her poor leg any more. The bug came up to be with her, and we had her put to sleep in their cozy "goodbye room", which she insisted on circumnavigating a couple of times before she settled down. She purred for us, and I have no idea whether she would have liked to stay with us longer or if she would have liked to die sooner, but I know she died purring. Or at least fell asleep purring, and then died. It was fast.

They let us have a few minutes with her body, and it was hard not to look for -- even to see -- her breathing. I petted her, I picked her up (she was so limp) and the bug kind of gasped when her head lolled a bit. A minute later we resettled her -- still curled "comfortably" -- in the vet's blanket on his lap, and she let out a sigh as some air escaped her lungs and I think we both reacted to that. I said "She's not--" as if we didn't both know already. Of course we knew. But it was not possible to treat her body without care, regardless, after so many years of caring for it. We pressed the button in the room one last time, and a vet tech came to take away her body, and she also treated it very carefully and held it in a comfortable fashion, and I arranged the blanket to not cover the face because again it was impossible not to.

The squirrel and Perse were just waking up, and they had us over for brunch and hugs which was very, very, very sweet of them. Then we came back home and I went back to getting the funky jungle-rot smells out of my mildewy Costa Rica laundry. Baking soda with the detergent and vinegar in the fabric softener turns out to be the winning combination.

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Cat updates and a bunch of random flailing

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 04:11:31 GMT

So, the cat. I skipped out on work Monday to take her to the emergency vet, because she was having labored breathing (and it was markedly worse than it had been on Sunday). This time I was fully prepared for her to be admitted, and I went up there with extra food and all her medications including a fresh refill, only to be sent back home and told to keep my already-set Friday appointment. I don't think I was wrong to go in, but it trashed any chance of productivity that day... and, thus, for the week, as the next three days were All Meetings and then Friday I was out of office for a previously scheduled vet appointment (the vet gave me a price break on that, since there was already so much data in the system from Monday). Apparently, behind the snuffly nose, her little lungs are doing better. It's true that she hasn't been coughing and that's very nice. (Annnnd I shouldn't have said that, as she coughed on Sunday morning for the first time in weeks.)

The state of me? Man, I don't know. I had two extra-long nights of sleep, and drank a little more than usual over the course of the week, and have been fighting some sort of mental malaise that was only somewhat lightened by the Indian lander & rover making it to the moon on Wednesday. Just didn't feel good about myself, and did some bad handstands, and didn't see the squirrel much or get much work done... yech. Bad combinations.

I spent the weekend trying to make progress on all my current personal projects, trying both to get some of them finished and maybe feel some kind of lift from the productivity. Of everything, and there were lots, these were probably the most successful at raising my mood:

I made this vegan alfredo sauce and it was, IMHO, really good! I have a giant 4lb can of cashews that I want to turn into food, so I've been looking up cashew recipes and this one's excellent.

I got my Pixel 3 back together with a new screen, and it actually turns on and mostly works. A win. I did mess up the SIM card reader but, since I haven't glued the back on yet and I guess this sort of tinkering is growing on me a bit, I ordered a new SIM card reader and next I'll try to replace that too. It's pretty ugly to me how much the phone depends on adhesive and simply being glued/taped together on the inside though. I wish it were made to be more easily reparable.

Did some helpfulness. I unexpectedly kept the squirrel company on a trip to rescue a backpack on Saturday, which meant finally getting to see his company's office (which is pretty cool). And I spent a couple of hours today, along with the bug, helping a deeply unprepared friend move IKEA stuff and boxes between houses. I think I feel good about that. Such a tangible thing to have helped with.

I was probably exposed to covid on Thursday morning but I don't seem to have picked it up. That's more a relief thing than an actual feel-good thing, but I'll take it. And, lastly, reading Aspiration by Agnes Callard is soporific and dense but also pretty peaceful? Just example after example of hypothetical people who want to be better hypothetical people, and talking about the ways we can (or cannot) cogently think about that weird project of self-improvement.

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Cat asthma, time scarcity

Sat, 12 Aug 2023 15:09:23 GMT

On Monday I did indeed keep up the work momentum, staying home and slamming out a LOT. On Tuesday I slogged in to the office (through actual flooding) to have lunch with a visitor to the office and have some meetings.

And then... that was nearly it for the week, because Hypercube had started whuffing through her nose in a disturbing way and was really resisting her medications (unusual for her). On Wednesday I had a massage scheduled in the morning which I went to; then I bought an extra-nice lunch, and even let Pokeworks charge me extra for lobster, because I just had a feeling. I put that into my face before calling the vet, and getting sent straight to the emergency vet; and then sent from the nearest emergency vet onward to a different referral hospital where Hypercube is already a patient, since she was considered stable enough for further car rides. (I am, at this point, VERY grateful for the medium-term loan of Quarte's car.) Those people ended up admitting her and putting her in an oxygen cage for a night, and doing a tracheal wash in the morning for more data while also beginning to treat a probable upper respiratory infection. I drove up to bring her medicine and visit her on Thursday, then I drove up with the bug on Friday to see if she would eat for us (barely) and whether she should come home. She voted YES on the latter and now here she is, with a huge array of medications.

The week's only other news is also medical: I get to stop taping my toe, which is "healing beautifully". Once I've logged a solid week of normal walking with no pain, I can try running or jumping (insert lecture here about "99% healed is not the same as 100% healed"), and after a month I can start picking up objects with my toes. That's good. Baby steps, as they say.

But also, ugh, this is why I often feel such time scarcity. You never know when something will come along and sideswipe all your plans.

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