Month: August 2023

The cat wars

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

After my last post, that evening my 17 year old cat took a turn for the worse. He stopped eating, even after Lexi put dozens of treats down on the floor for him to eat. He stopped responding. His time had undoubtedly come. I didn’t sleep well that evening. I feared what I might find in the morning. But when morning arrived he was still with us. I called the traveling vet’s number first thing in the morning and she came out right away providing the most kind and compassionate end of life care. I wanted to wait until my husband came home from work, but time has a way of not waiting.

Several days later, my husband and I bailed Arabella out of jail after being incarcerated for 5 months. For me it was a day of great anticipation and anxiety. There is a fine line between excitement and anxiety which blurred together for me on that day. I almost felt like I did the day she was born. It was a feeling of excitement but a dread of the pain it would cause me with the scheduled C-section. How many times has she torn my heart out?

It wasn’t all as I expected. I thought she would be happy. I thought she would be someone else. Perhaps leaving behind the last of her teenage years behind bars would change her. I didn’t expect the adjustment to be so hard.

All Arabella wanted was to get her cat back. Her ex kept her cat while she was in jail. He is a rescue cat and has been known to be aggressive towards other cats. I didn’t want him to attack my elderly cat. But now my cat is gone and Will wants to keep the cat. I’ve thought long and hard about the situation. I think it is in the cat’s best interests to stay with Will. Since the cat was previously abused/neglected, I don’t think the cat would respond well to be ripped out of the environment it’s in and be separated from Will who he is currently attached to. My daughter has been known to have a hard time taking care of her pets. She can barely take care of herself. Will provided pretty much all the pet care when they were together.

They got the cat together about six months before Arabella went to jail. So half of the time they have owned the cat she was away from him. I’m not sure I want to take in the cat because if she does not take care of him properly, it would be very unsettling for the cat lovers in my house. Every animal she has had, I’ve ended up taking care of. She wants the cat for her but is incapable of thinking of the best interests of the cat.

Arabella has said her life is not worth living without her cat. She has been crying off and on about it. I told her she needed to find a place of wellbeing independent of others, including an animal. She also mentioned forcefully wanting to take the cat back. I told her if she does something like that she will end up in jail again, maybe prison. She got herself into the situation she was in and doesn’t want to face some of the ramifications.

It’s hard to find compassion towards her when my cat just died. Her cat is living, albeit in a different house, but is loved and is well taken care of. At this point, I’m not really sure what is going to happen. I am prepared to take in her cat now if it heads in that direction. I’m trying to stay out of it somewhat. Every time I lightly suggest maybe her cat is better off where he is, she gets very upset with me. We’ll see what happens…

I’m so thankful they never had any children. I can’t even imagine.

What a week already!

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Where we left off last, I was preparing my house for a Bunco party. It was a successful night and I even won by being the biggest loser. Ha!

Then the next day we were hit with some bad news. Arabella did not make it into mental health treatment court. I’m not even sure why. You would think after 5 inpatient hospital stays, several months in outpatient, several months in residential, multiple mental health issues, a dozen therapists, suicide attempts, and self-harm wounds that will forever scar her body would be enough to qualify someone for mental health treatment. But apparently not!

I am very cynical of the system. A person could threaten to harm themselves or others and still not get the mental health treatment they need even if they do want it. How messed up is that? Arabella will get two years probation and after completion her felonies will be removed from her record. Within the next week, we will be transitioning her home from jail. I’m not sure what this is going to look like. The DA wants her to go to therapy. They can go ahead and court order it then. I’m not sure if my daughter will even have insurance when she gets out since the renewal date happened when she was in jail. Then there is probably a 6 month waiting list just to see a therapist. At this point, I’m not sure if she even has her doctors or can get her medicine. After 5 months in jail, I’m sure it’s going to be a mess.

In other news, our cat took a turn for the worse since his appointment last week. He stopped eating and grooming himself. He spends most of his time sleeping or crying. Today he has been hiding out in the garage. I’ve been checking in on him every couple hours to see if he’s still breathing. I think I’m going to have to make an appointment to put him down this week. It’s a hard decision. I’ve been in denial that it is time. At this point, I don’t think he is going to get better.

For some good news, my son decided to go back to tech school. Classes start this week. He dropped out a couple years back and it was really hard for me because I felt like he wasn’t living up to his potential. Then at 21, he received the rest of the money we saved up for him in his college fund. With that money, he bought a sports car. Now he wants to sell the car and use the money to go back to school. He is finally starting to mature and grow up on his own without me having to nag him to start getting his life together. Through it all, we’ve had a pretty good relationship.

I’m thankful to be close to my kids in their young adult years. Arabella and I don’t always get along, but I think she knows we care about her and are willing to support her through hard times. I’m sure it will be a rocky road, but I’m doing the best I can. I feel like emotionally I’m doing good but physically my body is a wreck. I have a follow up appointment with my doctor this week so we’ll see how that goes.

Halfway through this hectic week

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

I’m glad the week is half over and most of the stressful things are behind me. Paul and I had a nice little anniversary getaway at the Island Resort and Casino in Upper Michigan. We had a great time even though we were losers. We tried our hands at craps and played bingo for the first time. It was fun. We also got a couples massage and went to a nice restaurant for our anniversary.

There was some stress because my mom decided last minute to have her birthday party up north and everyone was texting me to plan everything while I was away. I told everyone I was not home so they would have to figure things out. It wasn’t a total shit show like I was expecting. My mom had a great time and everyone was on their best behavior although I had my guard up. The first stressful event of the week is over.

The second stressful event was taking my cat to the vet on Monday. After I got back home after being gone for awhile, my cat was refusing to eat his dry food. He is 17 years old and I thought it was the end. He was getting rechecked because he had an ear infection with a very swollen ear. I spoke to the vet about my concerns and he decided to recheck his thyroid. His ear infection is gone but his thyroid is out of control. I’m giving him more medication and he seems to be doing better. Crisis averted for now.

Later Monday evening we went to a fundraiser at the local zoo with some new friends and it was a lot of fun. I think this new friendship has a lot of potential as we really seem to get along well. It’s a new connection I made through volunteering. We’ll see what happens.

The third stressor of the week was Arabella’s court date on Tuesday. I should write a what to expect when your child is in jail book. Every single time she appears in front of the judge is incredibly stressful. Nothing was done over the past two months. We are still waiting to see if she will be accepted into mental health treatment court. It looks very promising, but the decision has not been made yet. The next court date has been pushed back until October. However, we got word from the attorney they may make the decision yet this week and she might come back home as early as next week. I’m not sure what that is going to look like but I think I am ready now.

On Tuesday night, Alex, Lexi, and I went to a free pipe organ concert. It was amazing. The pipe organ is by far my favorite instrument. I always joke that I want to add a pipe organ room to my house some day. I totally have my funeral planned out. I would love to have a funeral service in a church with a pipe organ. My daughter Angel can sing and my son can play the saxophone. Too bad I will have to miss it.

The fourth stressor of the week is hosting Bunco tomorrow. That was kind of unpredictable too just like the rest of the stressors because we weren’t sure if we would have enough people to play. Having a party is stressful in and of itself especially since I don’t know a lot of the people coming all that well. I feel like I have to impress them by having a clean house. I can be kind of a clean freak. Today I did 4 hours of weeding and it barely made a dent. I think I need a new sign like the one I saw at the zoo. It says ‘pardon the weeds we are feeding the bees’. Perfect. I’d never have to weed again. To think I thought it was so lovely when we bought the house.

That’s about it around here. I officially made it through the first half of a hectic week.

It’s been awhile

/ Outrunning my demons / 7 Comments

I know it’s been awhile. I’m going to try to get on here at least once a week for now until life settles down a bit. I’ve been doing pretty well considering how chaotic my life tends to be. I no longer wake up every morning with this feeling of overwhelming dread. I actually sleep fairly well at night too. I even dream and most of those dreams are not nightmares. Maybe being medicated isn’t all that bad.

Things have been going well since we last talked. We celebrated Angel’s 25th birthday by going sailing and anchoring out to swim during the day and having a party at our house at night. It was relatively drama free which is a plus. I have been busy helping Paul with work and then we took some friends out for the weekend on the sailboat. Today was my first full day at home in over a week and then tomorrow we are heading out to a resort a couple days for our 26th wedding anniversary. So far it’s been a good week. Tonight I am going with Angel, Lexi, and Alex to watch the Barbie movie. My son’s girlfriend is obsessed with Barbie so he wants to go along too.

The only bad thing that happened was that Paul had an accident on the sailboat when I wasn’t with him. He threw a spinnaker out in front of his sails and a storm popped up out of nowhere. Everything was whipping around in the wind and Paul ran out to grab the spinnaker line without his gloves on. He ended up getting 2nd degree rope burns on his hands. Then one of the lines went into the water and got wrapped in the prop causing the engine to stop. His hands had to be wrapped up like a mummy for awhile but they are healing nicely now. Thankfully everything ended up working out okay in the end.

Other than that, everything has been going well. Who knows, next week might be a different story. In fact, it will probably be. My mom’s 75th birthday is this weekend. She wanted me to throw her a party but couldn’t decide what she wanted to do until a week before her birthday which really doesn’t give me any time to plan things especially since I will not be home. Not a lot of people can go last minute. There is usually a lot of drama with the extended family.

My dad was back to urgent care this past week. He has another bladder infection and then he fell a couple days later. My parents insist on staying in their house and that they don’t need any help. It’s been stressful but at this point they still are competent so I am just waiting for something to happen. My mom has been rather harsh with my dad and my dad because of his own behavior has been ostracized from most of his family which adds another layer of complication to the situation. My parents are also the guardians of my brother Matt. I think everything is going to fall on my shoulders because my other brothers live far away.

Arabella goes back to court again next week. I’m not sure if she will be coming home or not. She has been in jail for 4 months now. Then several months ago I signed up to host Bunco next week. That’s bad timing because Arabella may or may not be going to court that day and in the evening I will be having 16 people over at my house. But my attitude throughout everything is that life goes on as normal, or as much normal as I can muster anyway.

I have come to the point of acceptance towards a lot of difficult situations in my life. Not that I agree with the poor decisions of others but more in the way of it is what it is. The best I can do is to be mindful of that and prepare myself for what is yet to come. I’ve survived a lot of difficult circumstances so right now I’m feeling confident I can handle whatever life throws at me.