Suspended Grief

So I have been in sort of an overwhelming place. Work is a lot, but mostly the tiny old cat is a lot. He has health problems for a while, but we hit a new low in the past few weeks. Last weekend, I slept about 8 hours from Friday to Monday, simply because I didn’t want him to have to die alone. Eventually, we got into see our regular vet for what is called a quality of life check to figure out what are the best next steps that are in the cat’s best interest.

Though we get some more time together, we got some bad news. Happy (the cat) is in borderline congestive heart failure. We might have up a year left, but his heart might stop tomorrow. Having our vet finally take things seriously was a relief, but I was not thrilled at where we ended. Our current status is unclear and waiting. The only goal of Team Happy is to keep him as strong and as comfortable as possible. He is getting medication to reduce pain, reduce vomiting, increase appetite, and ease digestion on the back end. The medications aren’t too expensive and he genuinely seems to still have a lot of spirit and energy, when he is strong enough to use it.

We are essentially waiting for him to die, officially. We know he has less than a year left, that has been confirmed. We are just waiting for the shoe to drop. Standing on the edge waiting to go over. It is really hard process knowing the end is coming while having to make the judgement call on when the end comes.

Was I Right?: Sweet Magnolias Season 2 (spoilers)

Sweet Magnolias Season Two premiered last week, before it did I made some predictions. I wanted check-in about how right or wrong I was. I was pretty wrong about a couple things. There will be spoilers in the rest of this post, so read with caution. I think this season worked, but tried for too many twists. The season was packed full and I think started more storylines than it finished. I hope the wait for season 3 isn’t as long, considering the sheer number of cliffhangers. Were you surprised by this season?

  • Annie was the other passenger in the car, but she wasn’t badly hurt.
    • This twist of it being Nellie was exciting and promising, but then it didn’t go anywhere, so ultimately it felt disappointing.
  • Dana Sue reconnects with her ex-husband but they don’t get back together.
    • I was happy to be wrong about this. I think that this was really realistic. I loved the portrayal of counseling, accountability, and anger. It ended up being one of my favorite storylines of the season.
  • Helen and Erik go on an actual date and Helen gets some
    • AMEN!
  • Erik and Helen have an very tense conversation about kids.
    • This was not as tense as I was hoping. It was actually a couple really lovely moments throughout the season.
  • Noreen and the baby leave Serenity for good.
    • This was so well set up. There was a farewell to Noreen and a perfect shove out the door for JLS. AND THEN THEY DIDN”T GO THROUGH WITH IT!
  • Maddie and Cal get engaged
    • …I did not see the end of this season coming. I actually don’t know how they are going to recover from this
  • CeCe breaks up with Ty.
    • My girl! I was so proud of her. I was so impressed by CeCe’s character development throughout both seasons. I am glad they let her stand up for herself and say she deserved to be someone’s first choice and relationship that was worth fixing. Also CeCe saying Ty likes Annie made me scream with glee.
  • Kyle and Ty bond over hating Annie’s new love interest (my money is on Jackson).
    • I am going to count this as correct because we got a lot of Kyle and Tyler bonding and fixing their relationship. As well as, a Jackson and Annie’s new romance, which ended up being quite sweet.
  • Mary Vaughn is Isaac’s mom, but we do not find out who his father is this season.
    • This wasn’t correct. Isaac’s mom reveal made sense, the dad reveal didn’t. In general, the father reveal just compounded into the writing problems. They took Bill and the Vaughns and instead of making them developed characters every bad or slightly negative thing got made their fault. I actually don’t think Bill did anything super wrong considering he had no idea that a pregnancy even occurred and reacted better than Peggy, but he was already the “villian”.
  • Trotter gets the screen time he deserves, including a double date with him, Ashley, Cal, and Maddie.
    • Trotter did get more screen time, but the star of this season was Dr. Howie. I am glad that Trotter and Ashley both got a solid screen time and are now the model, stable couple of the series.

The vet is making me feel crazy

So I have a an old cat and an anxious brain. However, because I have had my cat for so long (6 years old to now 25), I feel that I know what behaviors are normal and abnormal. I still call our primary vet every time something major happens to see if I should take him to the emergency room or not. This has started happening more and more though sometimes they tell me no it’s fine. When we get to the vet emergency room, you also have to justify your visit explain to the triage techs why you are there. Then Happy and I are admitted.

Due to the pandemic, I have to spend the visit out in the car in the parking lot and they will call if they have questions or to give updates. The ER vet then calls to tell me everything is fine. After preparing for the end of my cat’s life, checking with the tech’s and are home vet. They tell me “everything is fine/he’s super healthy/you have some options, but there isn’t a lot to take action on/etc.” It is making me feel nuts, it doesn’t seem possible in the maybe 20 minutes it took to drive there that everything is fixed. It makes me feel like I am overreacting when they don’t offer to let the cat stay for observation, run extra tests, or like even say I am sure it was scary but everything is fine now.

How do I make the vet that we don’t see regularly take my concerns more seriously or should I just be taking as face-value like there is nothing wrong?