Valentine girl
Tag Archives: Katie
Reporting in
Katie here.
I’ve heard through the grapevine (OK, from mama) that some of you are wondering how I’m doing. I guess mama gets worried and writes stuff and then you guys get all worried too. Mama says it helps to share her worry, cause sometimes she gets overwhelmed by all the ‘what ifs.’
Mama says sometimes she looks at me and wonders if I’m still happy, or if I’m hurting but not telling her. Or maybe she’s just too blind to see. But I have to ask you all….do I LOOK like there’s something wrong?
I thought not.
But of course you all know there is. I’m in stage 4 of kidney disease. I’m eating the special food and taking all my meds like a good girl, but you can’t change the fact that I’ve got an incurable disease.
But let me remind you that I’m fifteen now, and that’s a good old age for any sheltie-girl, even a princess like me. Of course I’d love to live to be 17 or 18 like mama sees sometimes on Facebook, but honestly? Only if I still felt like a puppy, and I don’t think that’s possible.
As it is I sleep a lot, and I have some trouble getting up and down because my hips are stiff. Mama and daddy have talked about this with the vet and I’ve got some meds for that, but the meds seem to make me unsteady and sometimes I can’t get up off the floor at all!
Mama says I look like a beached seal, flapping all my legs trying to get them under me. But she’s not laughing when she rushes to pick me up. Once I get my feet back under me I’m just fine and I usually ask her for some lunch. Or at least a snack.
They took me back off the meds and will discuss all of this at my vet appointment next week. Mama and Daddy are really hoping my numbers aren’t getting worse. I hope they’re getting better, but mama says that isn’t likely. Well. A girl can dream, right?
Meanwhile I’m pretty happy most of the time, so don’t worry about me. Mama and daddy are taking real good care of me, and in return I’m being my normal annoying demanding self. I figure it’s my responsibility to uphold the princess job description.
Royalty always carries on, and I’m definitely the one most royal in my family. I’ll have my staff keep you up to date on my progress.
And thank you all for the kind thoughts and notes that mama gets. They help a lot especially when she’s having a bad day. She should learn from me to take each day as it comes.
You’d think after fifteen years she’d know to follow my lead. Silly mama.
Randomness
I was looking for something specific in my old blog posts and came across this one, when husband and I visited the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) on a cold January day back in 2014. It doesn’t seem like it’s been 8 years since we were there. We need to go again.
Time is flying by, and standing still at the same time as we shiver through another January. Today is the last day of the month, finally, and I’ve always said February is short, and then it’s kinda almost sorta spring.
We’ll see.
This day last year I had just arrived in Alabama for a few weeks respite from the cold. I wish I could be there now, but I promised Katie I’d stick around. And I can’t take her so far away from her vet these days. I know she’s missing adventure just like I am.
I went to the post office this morning to complain about shoddy mail delivery. All I got was rolled eyes and a statement that they couldn’t do anything about my lost mail. I didn’t expect they could, but I did expect an apology. What happened to customer service?
Katie is feeling better today than the other night when I thought maybe it was time to let her go. I’m sure she’ll post more about how she’s doing soon. She’s getting her nails done this afternoon, but I doubt she’ll feel that’s much of an adventure at all.
We’re still being safe here, I’m ordering my groceries online and picking them up with no contact from anyone. I miss browsing at the grocery store, but I don’t miss the frustration of empty shelves, the lack of checkout lanes open, or pushing a cart through a slushy parking lot in a blizzard. I may stick with this online thing even after covid.
Do you think there will be an ‘after covid?”
I was going to write a post about the word game Wordle. But randomness flowed instead. If I think about it there’s a connection there. But that’s for another post.
Sharpie
I’m washing dishes this early morning, pots and pans left from last night’s dinner. Katie observes me and, deciding I’m going to be there awhile, settles down on her rug in the breakfast room, in front of the door to her deck. She loves to survey her yard from that vantage point, but this morning she’s sleepy, tummy full of breakfast.
Her mind wants to keep an eye on the birds, keep watch for squirrels, but her body is determined to take a nap. I watch her eyes slowly close, then blink open, then close again. Her head starts to bob.
I stop washing dishes and stand there memorizing her.
As if she feels me watching, her eyes pop open and she gives me a side-eyed glance, checking to see if I noticed her dereliction of duty. I stay motionless. She relaxes and her eyes slide closed again, head still held high.
I tiptoe away, back to the living room to get the camera. Taking the lens cap off and turning back to the kitchen I am surprised by a little fuzzy girl standing right behind me, head tilted, watching.
“Whatcha doing mama?”
Sharp as a tack, this one.
My old girl.
Fun, interesting, or stupendous things that may or may not have gotten done these past two years.
Back in 2019, instead of making a list of resolutions, I made a list of stuff I thought would be fun to do. I even ended up doing quite a few some of them.
So in 2020 I moved a few of the not done 2019 things to a new and improved list, and added a few more fun ideas, thinking about all sorts of exciting adventures and explorations.
And then covid.
2020 was brutal and I rarely looked at the list, though I did manage to do a couple of the fun things. But at the end of 2020, with the loss of my brother-in-law to covid, and so much overwhelming bad stuff happening, I never even made a 2021 list.
The 2020 list has been on my bulletin board ever since, reminding me that there are still interesting, fun and stupendous things to do, I just needed to figure out how to do them.
Here’s what was on that list, hanging on the bulletin board for the past two years and how it all turned out:
*Camping in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. — DONE the summer of 2021, two separate trips!
*Travel to Florida to meet the baby sheltie boys.–Not done, and they aren’t babies anymore.
*Purchase a set of extension tubes for my camera and explore macro photography. –DONE in 2020
*Make more vegetarian or vegan meals, goal being a least one per week. — Fizzled out
*Take a drawing class. — Not done.
*Spend several weeks in Alabama and invite friends to join me. –Well, I spent a couple weeks in 2021 there, but covid prohibited inviting anyone to come along.
*Walk in at least 3 5K races. — I think I did a total of 2 over the past two years. Both were virtual but fun.
*Improve my night photography skills. — I had an awesome time this past August shooting a meteour shower. I still have lots to learn.
*Spend a week in the Southwest.. –We were there in February of 2020, before we knew about covid.
*Ride my bike on some rails-to-trails around here. — Not done, and I have no idea why not.
*Take Katie camping at least twice this summer. — I tried once, in 2020, but she wasn’t having fun. We are probably limited to camping in the back yard these days.
So. Which of these should I include in my list of stupendous things to do in 2022? Or…should I abandon all of them and come up with some wonderful but wildly different fun stuff to do?
I feel like most of this can be done even in times of covid. But some of it feels stale too.
What would you keep, what would you add? What would you toss?
Inquiring minds (mine) want to know!
When Katie smiles
We’re on a roller-coaster around here. Katie has mostly good days, but even during those I can sometimes detect, if I’m observant, her underlying kidney disease.
When I took her to a park to celebrate her 15th birthday a couple weeks ago, I thought we were both having fun. She was walking through the woods with me, sniffing things like always. But our walk was much shorter than normal, and when I looked at the photos after, I didn’t see the usual joy in her eyes. She wasn’t smiling in any of the images.
That made me stop and really think about the quality of her life, and whether or not she would let me know when she was done. It’s hard to consider end of life procedures when she’s still excited about her meals, still wants to go outside. Still wags her whole behind when you walk in the door.
Is still so beautiful.
And then we had a day like today, sunshine and 30 degree temperatures. Perfect sheltie weather. We went on multiple walks around the neighborhood, none of which she wanted to end.
We went to her park — I was thinking we’d just walk around the pond, sure that she wouldn’t have the stamina to walk all the way around the park.
But once we were there I let her make the decisions and she never once sat down or asked me to pick her up. We took it slow, but we walked all the way around her park’s perimeter, just about a mile.
That, on top of all the walks in the neighborhood should have exhausted her, but she’s been asking for her (numerous) meals right on schedule. And we’ve been on another walk around the neighborhood this evening.
I’ve looked at the images I took during our park adventure today. I’m pretty sure she was smiling. I guess it’s not time yet. Not today anyway, probably not tomorrow or the day after that either.
My girl. She and I are lucky we have more time together.
No place like home
We’re hunkered down again, staying away from indoor groups of people, hoping to get through this latest surge in covid.
But actually hunkering down here isn’t that bad. I have a beautiful yard to explore with my girl…
…and lots of birds visiting daily.
And yesterday it snowed which made everything so much prettier.
Funny how fun snow is now that I’m retired.
Yep, there’s no place like home for the holidays.
Change Is Hard 