Imagine, if you will, several small, round, somewhat fuzzy monsters standing in a row, holding signs with one or two words each on them, while behind them, a larger fuzzy monster runs around with it’s arms flailing wildly above its head. The signs read “Please excuse us, our artist appears to be on fire”.
I keep trying to write something but then things explode again, so while I have a minute….
So, yeah…last Sunday, Púca had to go to the emergency vet near midnight. The next day, he got admitted to a different ER nearly an hour away (it was the one that had ultrasound availability) for emergency surgery because the little bastard had decided to eat a bunch of hair that was acting like string in his intestines. While they were at it, they also did the surgery for his neutering, because well, it would be wildly inhumane to let him heal up from this, only to have to cut him open again. For those keeping score, that’s two major surgical procedures at the same time. We had to set up a GoFundMe campaign, because I zeroed out my own bank accounts so fast I hit velocity checks, and then hit other sources that I have to repay asap, or run into secondary disasters in the very near future.
Letting him die was not an option.
That was one of the worst days ever. I never want to have to stand at a hospital reception desk, frantically trying to get money transferred into my bank account instantly because they won’t start surgery until they have a minimum payment of many thousands of dollars, and if they don’t operate, my baby will *die* horribly and painfully. On a related note, the fact that a bank can decide that you can’t spend more than a fixed amount of your own damned money is A PROBLEM. (Guess how I found that my bank card has a daily limit? Shout-out to Sapphire the CSR who sat on the phone with me, working to get around that so we could save our dipshit child’s life. She was *amazing* and I appreciate her.)
He came through okay, but ended up having to stay until Wednesday, and then went back a few hours later because he’d started having a horrible cough. Thankfully it was just a side effect of having been intubated, but still… In the meantime, the bill for all of this (plus the side helping of having to last minute call our regular vet to come over and worm Bodach and Oisín, because in the process of everything else, Púca had a roundworm, which means one of the miscreants ate an infected insect at some point, and now everyone had to get that done) climbed into 5 digits and oh gods.
Now he’s home and steadily improving. He’s feeling better enough that he’s getting bored, which is both good and bad. He’s an extremely energetic kitten, and enthusiastic jumper, so keeping him calm and quiet so he doesn’t re-injure himself is A Task. He’s spending a lot of time kenneled in a dog crate that we had to get to keep him confined. The drugs help.
In the meantime, we also finally got word about whether or not our application for the studio was accepted. It was not. They decided to let one of the other artists already in the studio expand their existing space into it, instead. Disappointing, but given that I am no longer going to be able to afford rent until I can recover from feline medical disasters, it’s probably for the best for me. I’m more sad for my friend, who *really* needs the space for her work. She does absolutely stunning silk painting, and is currently stuck using her kitchen table to try and work on, which is really difficult with kids and pets in the house. I really hope she’ll be able to find something better soon.
The day before all of this crashed down I had ordered a set of paper bead rollers, and have things prepped for making beads and other jewelry once this settles down. I also found a box with some jewelry that I’d made, ages ago, that I’ll be going through and checking to make sure they’re in good condition. Things that are in good shape will be listed for sale, and things that aren’t will be disassembled and reused in new pieces.
Apparently Twitter went to hell in a hand basket while I was dealing with all of this, so that’s going to be exciting. Not sure how I’m going to handle that. I mean, I’m sort of stuck there for a while, and will keep on plugging away as long as I can (much like LJ), but hopefully another actually decent alternative will crop up shortly. FB and Instagram are functionally useless, Tumblr isn’t designed for real social, I did my time in the IM mines back in the days of AIM and have no desire to go back (looking at you, Discord), and nothing is really set up well for blogs-as-social medium anymore. I really wish that the useful sites would stop going tit’s up every couple of years. I hate losing touch with people, just because some rich asshole wants a new vanity project.
So, that’s the state of things.
I need to sleep for roughly a month…