I think firefighters are heroes. Anybody who repeatedly, voluntarily charges into burning buildings to try to save others from injury or death... well, I'm getting teary just thinking about it.

And as if that weren't enough, sometimes they pick up a little something on their way back out the door:



Thank you all.

And stay safe.

It looks as though things with Nemo may not be quite as certain as they seemed. When I spoke with the vet Monday evening, she explained that for cats, having a hyperthyroid condition has a protective effect on the kidneys. However, it's bad for the heart and other systems, so we medicate to bring the thyroid down, which removes the protective effect and leaves the kidneys to cope on their own.

We've been having trouble getting his thyroid meds dosage right — started at 1/2 tablet a day, which wasn't enough; moved to 1/2 tablet twice a day, which wasn't enough; moved to 3/4 tablet in the AM and 1/2 tablet in the PM, which was too much; moved back to 1/2 tablet twice a day. Apparently that's still too much; a normal feline thyroid level is .8, she said, and Nemo's measured .2 — far too low. So we're decreasing the meds back to 1/2 tablet a day.

Because his thyroid level is artificially low due to the too-high medication dosage, she isn't sure whether the kidney results they saw are actually there, or are also artificially induced by the meds.

Of course, she stopped far short of saying "it's not a problem" or even "it's probably not a problem", but I'll take "I'm not sure if it's really a problem or not", gladly.

So now I'm off to the vet to drop off the urine sample, which should help give more information. Also going to pick up the new low-protein cat food (poor baby).

Uncertainty — woo hoo!

Like many older cats, Nemo has a hyperthyroid condition, and we've been working with the veterinarian for some months now to get the medication dose worked out. Pirate took him in for a check on Thursday to see how he's doing. A voicemail from the vet came in yesterday while the soporificat had me zonked, so I didn't get around to listening to it until this morning.

His thyroid is still a bit low, the message says, so we're going to decrease the medication dose and see how that goes. Oh, and she's concerned about his kidney function; it looks like he's got renal insufficiency.

I can't tell you how much I didn't want to hear this.

I've been working on paying attention and appreciating every moment I have with him for a long time, especially since Cosmo's death. Nemo's 17 at this point, so the ticking clock in the background has been increasingly in my awareness.

But still, there's a difference (at least for me, at this point in my practice) between an awareness that time passes, everything changes, and death comes to all of us, and reading something like

CRF is a terminal disease. The only questions are how long and how well the patient will live until the end. With proper treatment, the cat may have from months to years of relatively high-quality life. As the cat's caregiver(s), it is up to you to determine when the quality of life has decreased to a point at which prolonging life no longer has value.

Hello, practice opportunity. Right now I'm watching myself be stuck in NO NO NO DO NOT WANT NO NO WANT THINGS TO BE DIFFERENT NO!!!!

Pirate and I were supposed to go down to my dad's today — he's so much busier than we are (with travel and art projects and working with my uncle to repair the hole in the roof of the family cabin from the tree falling on it during the winter and things like that) that we don't see him as often as I'd really like. Part of that is because I'm still working on getting rid of some of the tapes that start autoplaying in my head whenever the prospect of seeing family comes up. You may have similar tapes — I think they're on the Greatest Hits of the Subconscious label: You're Not Good Enough, You Don't Fit In, Why Haven't You Figured Out What You're Doing with Your Life Yet? and the classic There's Just Something... Wrong with You. And knowing that these tapes are entirely in my head, and that my family members aren't actually listening to the same soundtrack I am, only relieves the anxiety a bit.

Dad was loving and understanding when I phoned to say I didn't think I'd be able to come down as planned, but since he's going out of town next Friday, we can't just reschedule. We're going to try to get together before he goes, though.

So I'm all in a swirl of sadness and uncertainty about Nemo and what the near future holds, unresolved pre-family-visit anxiety that's going to have to trickle away on its own, melancholy about not seeing my dad after all, relief at staying home and having time to cut my damn hair so I won't look in the mirror and think "ugh" anymore, low-level anxiety and uncertainty about the layoffs and restructuring going on at work, and a bunch of similar feelings.

I think I'm going to do my E-cises, sit zazen for a bit, and then walk down to the lake with the Monkey and spend some time in the sun watching the wild birds.

Go hug someone you love for me, k?

Well, non-human primates, to be precise. For spiritualmonkey, of course.

Drinking monkey.

Three new mouse lemurs discovered in Madagascar: pocket-sized primate.