Hello everyone! Once again, it’s Carrie – not Jeff.
I wanted to share an update, because today is a significant day. Today, April 8th, is exactly six months since Jeff was diagnosed with his brain bleed, changing our life completely.
First, a couple of pieces of good news:
Jeff recently had a CT scan with contrast. That test is nearly identical to the test that found the original bleed. This time, the test determined that he is completely stable and has no additional bleeding.
Both of Jeff’s therapists have reported that he is progressing very well. He has improved in both speech and occupational skills. I’ve noticed the same.
Jeff is doing all the physical activities he was doing before the bleed, including puttering in the garden (weather permitting), taking walks, doing his own laundry, and cooking.
Now, onto the continuing challenges (There’s no bad news – just challenges):
It takes Jeff a long time to read the newspaper, because he has to read slowly to understand what’s he’s reading. The same can be said of articles in Science. I’m glad he’s reading.
Jeff still has trouble finding the correct words at times. However, we both have learned how to work through that.
I was so proud of him this past Sunday. It was our 36th wedding anniversary, and he made a dinner reservation without any help from me. He gave great thought to setting the time, because we both wanted to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates’ afternoon game. Normally, there would have been no problem with a 5:15 reservation time after a 1:40 game start. But, this is the Pirates, and they are really good at complicating matters. They managed to blow a 4-1 lead in the top of the ninth. Luckily, they were able to walk it off in the bottom of the 11th, so we made dinner on time.
In the before times (prior to 10/8/24), I would have taken all the above for granted. But it’s now the after times, and small things like this are reasons for rejoicing, because it is real progress.
You hear them before you feel them. The thundering herd of kittens chasing each other up the stairway. If you are lucky, you are not on the landing path of a cat. It is amazing how much like a trampoline you become on some of these jaunts. It is morning, the sky has lightened from full blackness, and the humans need to be awakened to share the day.
It is hard to remember that these cats were small enough to fit on a hand when they came to us in August. They have grown immeasurably since their debut, but still possess the properties of digital cats. When they are in the 1 state, they chase each other endlessly, often ending up in bouts of wrestling that would put the WWE to shame. Yet even though they seem to go after each other in violent battle, the claws are not normally out. Only when you share a morsel from the table do you get real hostility being expressed, mainly from Chessie, the calico. She is the one who is more motivated by food, and is faster to the food bowl when the automated feeder has paid off.
Ah yes, the table. We try to make our kitchen table and counters off-limits, but we seldom are successful. Merry, the tabby cat, seems to regard these spaces as her inalienable property, and though we use a water sprayer in an attempt to extinguish this behavior, it only serves as a deterrent for a second. She will repeat her walk time after time, viewing the spraying as a mere inconvenience. Only when you spray her directly in the face will she get down, and sometimes her table transit is merely interrupted, as she returns almost immediately. I can be at the sink, and feel her jump onto my back, which meant she had to get on the table to take her flying leap. My shoulders are also off-limits while I am standing, but that does not seem to eliminate Merry’s desire to perch in a high spot.
Thank heavens we got them a fantastic cat tree at Christmas time. When they finally power down to a zero state, we can usually find them on the top two perches of this tree. They get to look down on us, which, to a cat, is the way it should be. They should be the most important beings around, with the only exception being seeking a lap for added warmth. The cat tree is also one of the prime spots for battle. If one is on the top perch, and the other decides it should belong to her, the battle takes place at a height that would be dizzying for me. To them, it is only an inconvenience if they cause the cat tree to shake and shimmy. Their sense of balance is so much better than humans, it is like they are from another planet.
My wife used to refer to our sons as the two boy destructo crew. That may have been an exaggeration, but it is no exaggeration to refer to these cats as the two cat destructo crew. We can be up in bed, and hear something fall downstairs, and we will hope that whatever it was, it didn’t break. Sometimes that is not the case, and it is amazing how much fun you can have with a piece of broken glass. It is hard, and makes noise as it scoots across the floor. In fact, you can turn anything into a toy if you wish. That is how you can tell these are still kittens, though they recently underwent the adult cat hysterectomy. We hope they stay kittens for a long time.
Have you ever had a retriever cat? Merry will pick up one of her toys, a fuzzy ball, or a ribbon bow, and deposit it on top of us. We are expected to take it and throw it. Merry then bounds off of us, and grabs it in her mouth, bringing it back to repeat the game. If we are in bed, and the toy happens to be a fuzzy ball, it is even better if it bounces down the stairs, since that is a longer way to run. Chessie will show interest in whatever we throw, but she never brings it back. For Merry though, this is one of her favorite games, and we can repeat the throw and retrieval many times before she tires.
These cats are one of the reasons I have not been active recently on this blog. It is hard to compose when cats are waling all over the keyboard, and chasing the mouse icon across the computer screen. Combine that with the disappearance of an earlier blog post about these kittens, and the general sense of malaise I’ve had recognizing we are running a rerun of the last presidential election, and soon I find it is nearly a month and a half since I’ve written a post. Suffice it to say I still plan to keep on writing posts, since it is now 7 years since I first wrote a post. Every so often, I see that someone has read a post from several years ago, and I am glad.
I just wish that this form of writing was more popular than is currently the case. I am convinced that we are undergoing a devolution in concentration spans. Very few have a desire to read something beyond what you may find on an Instagram post. Concentrating and thinking are becoming lost arts. And if we continue to devolve, human life span will continue to decrease, as it has in the US over the past several years. It is painful to think that it may take evolution to demonstrate that a reliance on science, with its medicines and prescriptions to avoid global calamity, confers a reproductive advantage. That is what appears to be happing in the US. Humanity seems to be engaged in a living trial where we see whether ignorance or comprehension is better for our species. Unfortunately, we are having to live through this period of idiocy where centuries of knowledge is cast away by those who have no belief in vaccines. And that is just one example of the growing influence of the deliberately ignorant.
Even A Broken Clock 