Monthly Archives: May 2021

The stray, Mollie in bed, and me in the front

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The stray cat, which, in looking back at some texts, I realize has been around since February, is still visiting our front porch. I managed to shoot him with my phone on Monday.

He, or she, as the case may be, was watching for a chance to eat. Chloe, on the left, didn’t know the stray was there. Dusty was sound asleep.

Here’s an enlarged image.

Cute little kitty, right? But mean little kitty, too. It jumped on Mollie Tuesday afternoon. I saved Mollie by shouting at the cat, which does not stay around if a human appears. Mollie did not seem grateful, or at least any more grateful than any other cat has ever been.

One of our neighbors said the cat has been eating her cats’ food. It certainly looks well fed. Leah had been worried that someone dumped the cat because it was pregnant. We haven’t been able to get a close enough look to tell its sex, but it has been around long enough that if it had been pregnant, it would have already had its litter. So far the stray has not brought a tiny kitten around for us to admire, and we sincerely hope that does not happen.

Speaking of Mollie, which I was doing earlier, she has found a new place to sleep.

This is typical cat behavior; if a cat sees a horizontal surface, it will sleep on it. It’s better if it’s a soft surface, but that’s not necessary.

Mollie has been pulling the curtain around herself so she can pretend that no one knows where she is. Sam pays Mollie no attention.

This is the dogs’ bed. Sam sleeps there, but Zoe does not. Zoe sleeps at the foot of our bed, which does not please Leah.

On the human side of the household, I had my fourth session of physical therapy on Tuesday. I think I’m making reasonable progress with my knee and my shoulder. The real news, though, is that I rode home from PT in the front seat of our car.

For the last five or six weeks I have had to sit sideways in the back seat with my right leg extended across the seat. I had to approach the door backwards, then slide across the seat because I couldn’t bend my right knee far enough to get into the the front. At first I had to let Leah pick up my leg so I could slide into the car. I had reached the point that I could lift my leg all by myself, and pull myself across the seat using the grab handle on the opposite side of the car. I was feeling pretty good about my new skill at entering a car, but I decided to try the front seat on Tuesday. I managed to get my right leg bent far enough to get into the car, and there was plenty of room to stretch my legs out almost fully. I’ll never ride in the back seat again.

The surgeon had let me have 30 degrees of motion on my knee brace last week. That and some new but limited flexibility made the difference in getting into the front seat. I am scheduled to see the surgeon again Wednesday of next week, when he has promised to give me 70 degrees of motion. I can’t actually bend my knee that much right now, but maybe with enough PT I will be able to by then. And that will make getting into the car even easier.

And soon after that, I hope, I will be able to drive again.

Cat tails and a dancing dog

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A few years ago I posted about a problem with out cat Sylvester’s tail. We were worried that it was broken, but our vet thought it might only have been sprained (a sprained tail?). There was a possibility of an amputation, if it was dead.

Liam coincidentally commented on my last post to ask what had happened to Sylvester’s tail. The answer is that he recovered fairly quickly and has had full use of his tail ever since; it’s fluffy, and it sheds, and holds copious quantities of dust and debris, just like a cat’s tail is supposed to. It looks normal and appears to be fully functional.

In the last few months, a new stray has appeared around our house. It started prowling and snooping on the front porch. We didn’t recognize it, and we certainly don’t need another cat, so I chased it away. It’s very careful, so any time it sees me it hightails it down the driveway and then up towards a neighbor’s house. Our neighbors had an outdoor cat that they fed on their porch, so I assumed the new cat was staying up there and eating that cat’s food, only coming down to our house to compare cat food brands.

I used the past tense because our neighbors moved away a couple of weeks ago, taking their cat (we sincerely hope) and its outdoor food. Now the new cat comes up onto our porch fairly often to eat the food we put out for our two outdoor cats. If it sees us, it hightails it back towards out neighbor’s house. It must have found some place to sleep, maybe under a porch or in one of the out buildings.

The cat looks well fed so far. It’s very skittish, so we haven’t been able to get a good look, and certainly not a photograph. Here’s the coincidence — this new cat has a deformed and shortish tail. When I got a good look at it a few nights ago I immediately thought about Sylvester’s tail of woe. I had not thought about that in years.

The cat is mainly gray, with short ears. Its tail is kinked, and about three-quarters the length of a normal cat tail. It seems to be a fighter, which is no surprise; it is, after all, a cat.

We hope it finds a home somewhere away from us. We have talked about trying to trap it and find it a home, but it might be too feral for that. Plus, if we set a trap, we are more likely to catch one of our own cats. I doubt that it will ever let us near.

Now, as to that dancing dog.

When we come home from running an errand, both dogs meet us at the back door. Zoe comes right to the door so she can wipe her nose on our legs, but Sam hangs back at the far side of the kitchen, where he does a little dance until we can get to him to give him some pets.

It turns out he’s a tap dancer.

I’m not sure how well you can hear his tapping, what with all the dog tags jingling and general commotion, but it seems to be clearest at the end of the clip. I think he has real possibilities.

Still hobbling in there

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Although it seems like I have been wearing a sling and a leg brace for months, my knee surgery was only a little less than three weeks ago. I had a post-op appointment with the surgeon last Wednesday. He said I would probably be able to ditch the brace in four weeks. It cannot come too soon.

I start physical therapy this coming Wednesday for my shoulder and my knee. The doctor had recommended that I try to bend my knee a little when I’m lying down without the leg brace. I can bend my knee maybe 15 degrees — not very much — before my thigh gets so tight it becomes a little painful. I wonder what the therapy will be like.

The good news is that they pulled the staples from the knee incision, and I can now take a shower without taping a plastic bag over my knee. I can actually walk around the house and feel stable and relatively safe, but only while wearing the brace. I have even taken the dogs out for a very short constitutional. Our driveway is so steep that I can take only little baby steps on the way down. I took Zoe all the way down, but when it came to Sam, I detoured into the front yard instead. So, I got a good look at the green disaster that is our yard. It needs mowing. A lot.

Leah has been taking the dogs out, of course, but she has been having her own problems. So, since I seem to be fairly steady on my feet, even with a peg leg, I have volunteered to take them out in the last few days. They go out one at a time, because they are too hard to control when they’re out there together. I’m not sure what normal is for my surgeries, but I have had essentially no pain over the last couple of weeks. If I’m careful, I think it’s safe. Of maybe safe-ish.

The bad news is that Leah fell again Sunday night. I was in the living room and heard a bang from the kitchen. I found her lying against one of the cabinets. She was hurting, but not injured. I’m not sure why she fell, and neither is she. All we know now is that she is a falling risk, and needs to be a lot more careful than she is. This was the second time she has fallen in the kitchen. She wasn’t injured either time, but we can’t count on that outcome if she falls again.

We saw Leah’s surgeon last week. His conclusion was that she needs spinal fusion surgery, but it was obvious to him that I’m in no condition to take care of her. It has only been within the last few days that I could even slide myself into the back seat of our car without having Leah hold my bad leg up. I can finally get into the car without help, but I can’t straighten my leg, so there is no way I can drive. My shoulder is probably a bigger problem than my leg. When she fell, I couldn’t help her get up, because that really takes two good legs and two good arms. Or at least one good leg and two good arms.

If I can get out of my leg brace in a month, and if I can get my knee to bend far enough to get into the front seat of the car, I might be able to drive. At that point, it might be almost possible that we can start thinking about getting surgery for Leah.

This has driven home to me, at least, the problem of living so far from friends and family. Neither of us has friends or family within less than a full day’s drive we can call on in an emergency. If Leah had been injured and couldn’t get up, I would have had to call for an ambulance. And I wouldn’t even be able to meet her at the hospital. We have a few neighbors that I might could call on, but it’s iffy.

In the meantime, we are two vulnerable people who are going to have to be very careful doing all the things that most people don’t think twice about.