Frustration

I need to be on my own again.  It's just been too long living here.  My mother is constantly on my case about my cat's litter smelling.  What she doesn't get is how bad the odor is from the dog.  The dog is elderly and has a condition that causes incontinence.  This is treatable but our wonderful vet retired and his wonderful associate is on maternity leave.  This leaves his idiot associate (who almost killed my elderly cat at least once and maybe twice; I won't be going there anymore with the only choice being her).  The idiot associate gave us medicine but didn't prescribe per the instructions from the pharmaceutical company and then refused to let us increase to what should be the starting dose.  Then we had to wait another 5 days for another medicine which will take 5 more days to know if we adjust the dose or not.  We're controlling it pretty well with taking her out over and over and over and giving her dry bedding every night but it's still here.  My mother knows this, she's just coping by blaming the cats.  Who admittedly don't have great smelling pee but nobody in kidney failure does and these are 2 cats used to 3 litter pans now stuck using one.  That's tough.

There's other stuff and a lot of it I need to let go because she hurt her back and the medicine they gave her caused some crazy mood swings plus she's been hurting all week.  It's not been easy.  And some of it is that I feel trapped as it becomes obvious that I'm going to be here at least a few weeks longer than we thought.  The construction went at a great pace and we thought it would be great up until we had to wait for plumbing and electric to work us in. Instead we had about a week's delay for the right siding and now over a week for windows which have to go in before any more siding can go on.  Electric is nearly done until there are actual walls and plumbing may be at about the same point.  They are insulting the walls inside but there's just not a lot they can do to make things speed along until the windows and doors come.  The windows are custom sizes which is probably making it even more slow.  And I just want to live there.

I am also just annoyed with the world sometimes.  I am a bit more mood swingy this week which is to be expected but it was nice to have a break.  I was thinking about Geraldine's medical situation tonight as she is going to go for important appointments at the children's hospital this week and next and remembered how uneasy I felt in the hospital when I met her.  It's easy to see why now looking at pictures; her color was terrible.  She looked sick.  Nobody else saw it but that medical training kicks in sometimes still.  While I was there holding her all this green stuff came out of her nose and mouth.  My sister couldn't clear it and the baby was having trouble breathing so she sent me for a nurse.  The nurse suctioned her a lot with the bulb syringe and passed it off as common after a c-section.  My sister had 2 of those with preparation both times and hadn't heard of this.  I just looked it up.  I can't find anything about this being common.  I have another theory.  We have no idea how big the tumor was at birth.  It can grow fast.  At 3 weeks it was golf ball sized.  She had 3 markers for a tumor (ie they knew something bad was going on because 3 means something is wrong and one of those was a palpable "cyst").  I have trouble believing the drs. couldn't feel it.  Further, when she was born they said she was "cold and her blood sugar was low" and whisked her away to an incubator.  But they hadn't taken her temperature or blood sugar at that time.  I think they were aware of something from the first moments when they suction the baby and do whatever they do before giving her to the parents.  Geraldine didn't go with her parents, she went with the doctors.  And while I suspect this I'm certainly not telling them or anyone because in the grand picture it doesn't matter.  I just think that a more forthright approach should be an expectation of medical staff.  I learned early in my career that it was better to tell patients the truth.  When they learned that I was going to be (sometimes brutally) honest they often came to me requesting that. 

Tomorrow I'll wake up and half of this won't matter.  At least 25% of it is probably directly related to spending a long time at Walmart, which is always overwhelming. For tonight though I just want to take my pillows and cats and sleep in my own home.  Except without doors or windows it probably wouldn't work.