Tomorrow will mark the end of my first complete week of teaching. It has been tough (as you may be able to tell from my lack of posts). I received good news today, though, it is likely that I will be teaching the exact same classes--maybe even the exact same schedule. That means that even though I might struggle this semester ("might"? Who am I kidding, "might"?) things should be downhill next semester. I'm already a full lecture behind in both of my classes. I was a fool and scheduled lectures on the first day of classes, when I knew I had to go over the syllabus and give a 30-minute assessment test. (My classes are both 50 minutes.) Today I had to give another assessment in my 200-level course, which meant no lecture again. Well, I gotta get back to it. These six minutes have been the most I've spent "screwing around" since I got here.

My brother reported that he went to a wedding last weekend, in fact, the wedding of a couple that he had invited to my wedding reception, and they had the same crazy judge that we had at our wedding. I won't really believe it until I see pictures, but Rick assures me that it was the same judge. Not only that, he claims that the judge was even more crazy and rambling than he was at our ceremony. I doubt that. In other instances of this being a small world, I've run into at least three people at my new job that I've known in previous lives. I guess that's somewhat to be expected, being back in the area I grew up and all, but imagine my surprise when I'm walking down the hall and I see my aunt coming up the hall. And then I find out that she works there, right in my building. (Mom might have mentioned something!)

It's been another week since I've blogged, and I have a lot of excuses. It was my first week at a new job; I've been trying to furnish a new home; my husband was 800 miles away in Michigan. The hardest thing, hands down, was that Zora Honey got sick and died. We moved here Thursday, and by Sunday Zora was vomitting. I wasn't wholely surprised: she'd been on steroids for 2 years for an "irritated bowel" and I had forgotten the medication in Aurora. She became lethargic and didn't sleep with me Monday night. By Tuesday I began to get worried. Wednesday morning when I woke up, I couldn't find her anywhere. I panicked, thinking she had hidden somewhere and passed away, as she had been sick. I called and called for her (between hysterical sobs), hoping she would move a little and I would hear the tinkle of the bell on her collar. Nothing. Finally, with the aide of my camera phone, I found her behind the dryer. I banged on the metal dryer and she didn't respond. Eventually I was able to determine that she was alive, and after a whole lot of banging on the dryer, I was able to get her to come out. At this point, I still thought that she was lethargic because she wasn't keeping any food down, and if we got her medicaiton and got her to the vet for an IV, she'd be fine. We'd been through that before. Because I had a full day at my new job, Josh made arrangements from Michigan. He picked a wonderful vet not two miles from our new apartment, and got me an appointment for that evening. The vet was more concerned than I expected. She said that Zora was jaundiced, and once she showed me where to look (the skin of her head, the whites of her eyes, the back of her mouth) it was obvious. The vet suggested that Zora had hepatic lipidosis, or "fatty liver." Aparently when cats don't eat, they can develop this affliction and deteriorate very quickly. The treatment was to keep her overnight where she would get IV-fluids and force-fed. I was told that if the diagnosis of hepatic lipidosis was confirmed, we would need to surgically insert an esophogial feeding tube, and we'd have to feed her 4-6 times a day for six weeks or more. The vet was pretty sure of the diagnosis, but wanted to get an ultrasound and perhaps an aspiration biopsy. The vet with the ultrasound wouldn't be available until Friday, so they'd keep her until then and try to get her stabilized. Thursday morning, when I stopped by the vet on my way to work, I expected big improvements from the IV and other treatments. I was surprised to find that she was still very lethargic and yellow. She meowed her "what are you doing to me?" meow at me, which I did take as a good sign. The vet said she'd been fed twice and not vomited, which was also good news. I dropped off Zora's bed, and the bed cover I had embroidered with her name. When I stopped by after work, the bed cover was gone: they were washing it because Zora had bled from the site of subcutaneous vitamin-K injection they'd given her. Zora still looked sick, but while I was there she got up to use the box--another good sign. The vet and I made plans for the ultrasound and the expected esophogeal tube placement. When I visited Friday morning, the vet reported that Zora had vomitted again. She asked me to be there for the ultrasound that afternoon. Luckily, I was able to make it. The findings were not what we expected: no sign of lipidosis, but her gall bladder was riddled with stones, and there was a huge one blocking her biliary duct. We were given two (real) options: surgery to completely remove the biliary duct and connect the gall bladder directly to the intestine, or euthanasia. The vet had never done the surgery before, because apparently, it's very rare for cats to get gall stones. She said that the chance that Zora would survive the surgery was 50%, but that if she did, she'd improve quickly. Zora was only 8 years old. She'd been with me since she was a kitten, and she's the only house pet I've ever had. But the surgery was expensive. We'd incurred charges of about $1000 already, and were looking at up to $2500 more. Having grown up in a farming culture, where animals were seen as expendable, it was hard for me to consider spending that much money on a sick cat, but it was also hard for me to give up on her. Josh wasn't concerned about the money (which in fact made me feel guilty about considering the money) and we decided to go for the surgery. While the staff prepared for the surgery, I sat with Zora. I wanted to hold her, but after a while, she didn't want to be held. She sat on the chair next to me for a while, but then wanted to wander around. It really hit me how ill she was when she tried to jump back into the chair and couldn't do it. A week earlier, she was jumping all over the apartment: onto the counter, onto the fridge, into the dryer (which is stacked on top of the washer--I still haven't figured out how she got in there), and now she couldn't haul herself into a seat 25 inches off the ground. A half-hour later, she couldn't walk. Her back legs were so weak that she'd take a few steps and wobble and fall down. Her nose and tongue were bright orange with the jaundice. She began drooling. I haven't told Josh any of this, because I don't want him to have to know how awful it got. I also don't want him to know that I began to question our decision to go forward with the surgery. A 50-50 is good odds if you're trying to hit a flush on the river, but isn't too optimistic when you're talking chances of survival. And that wasn't considering post-op complications. Of course, if we didn't do the surgery, there was a 0% chance of survival. So we went forward. I drove home to wait for Josh, who by this time was on his way from Michigan, a trip we'd planned before Zora got sick. He got here about 2-1/2 hours into the surgery, which had been estimated at three hours. We were increasingly optimistic: the fact that we didn't get a call meant that Zora was doing okay. At almost exactly three hours, the vet rang. I expected her to say that Zora had made it through the surgery, and give me an outlook. Instead she said that Zora had made it through the toughest parts of the surgery, but that she had stopped breathing as they were closing. They were breathing for her, and her heart was beating, but there was no chance of recovery. They offered to let us come see her. They kept breathing for her, and kept her heart beating until we got there. While I had several hours in the afternoon to say my goodbyes, it was good that Josh got to be with her one last time. I know that if my family reads this, they will wonder over all this fuss for a cat. In fact, I told my mother Zora had died, and her response was, "well, we've never gotten to attached to our cats," and her tone suggested that I was slightly insane because I had. I understand her point of view. I grew up in her house, I was immersed in that point of view. The only pet we ever had was kept outdoors until he was injured and uncerimoniously euthanized. The shop cats (of which there have now been quite a few) don't even get named. If one dies, they just keep a female from the latest litter (there always seems to be a latest litter) or wait until a stray shows up. Still, I was hoping for a little more sympathy. I was even hoping for a bit of empathy. We loved Zora. We love Zora. We're certainly not done loving her. When I started up the hair dryer this morning, I expected her to come running. In the early morning light I see vague shapes and think what an odd place that is for Zora to sleep. I have tons of pictures of her, some as recent as Sunday, which I haven't shared with anyone yet. I'll miss her forever.