Not that anyone is asking

If I were you....I'd be calling them about a cancellation. I sure as heck wouldn't be waiting on them.
And, if they didn't....well, then I'd call them again. (y) :cool:

p.s. i usually warn them that i'll be calling again too..lol
 

If I were you....I'd be calling them about a cancellation. I sure as heck wouldn't be waiting on them.
And, if they didn't....well, then I'd call them again. (y) :cool:

p.s. i usually warn them that i'll be calling again too..lol
I'd have to look for another specialist, though. I've been this guy's patient since 2015 or 16 and he's already done a major back surgery on me, so I really wanna stick with him. Plus, he's exceptional.

I hope someone cancels an earlier appointment, but I'm also thinking about calling my guy directly. I have his number.
 

So, before he does back surgery, my doctor wants a bunch of blood work done, a couple cardiac tests, some new images, and he wants me to go in for a colonoscopy. He wants to find out why I’m so tired all the time.

Dude, I’m tired of the pain! I have a ton of it 24/7, and it freaking wears me the-feck out.

But he wants to make sure there isn’t some cancer in here somewhere that’s causing chronic fatigue. And there is that little fatty cyst sitting next to my spine that they found a year or so ago. We want to make sure it’s still just a little fatty sucker not doing anything. (he’s gonna take that out while I’m on the table)

Anyway, this will delay surgery. And this surgeon doesn’t like scheduling procedures during the Christmas season, so by the time all these tests are done and results are in, and he comes up with his game-plan, I might be looking at early next year.

Or maybe I’m just being a pessimist, idk.

Meanwhile….Liz is a friend of me and Michelle’s who used to live at the apartments we lived in before we got this house. About 4 months ago, she moved to another apartment, and she has a cat…well, had a cat that she asked us to take because the new apt doesn’t allow pets. She took the cat with her, but a neighbor saw it sitting in a window and reported her. Mean Karen.

So anyway, Liz brought this cat to us a few months ago. It’s what she called a Classic Orange Marmalade Tabby, which she claims is not just an ordinary orange tabby…I think because it has a distinctive swirl pattern on its sides. Also, she said its eyes are larger and greener than an ordinary orange tabby. They are big and green.

But the only extraordinary thing I could see about this cat is its weight. This girl is one fat cat, a 15-pounder the day she got here, which is about twice what she should weigh. We’ve gotten her down to about 12 pounds just by feeding her twice a day instead of all day, like Liz did. So she’s still plump, but at least she isn’t obese.

The cat’s name is Gabby, which doesn’t fit her, imo, because she’s really quiet. Liz said she’s always been quiet, and Gabby was only about 10 weeks old when Liz got her. She named it Gabby in honor of her red-haired great-grandmother, Gabrielle.

Anyhow, last week we had to take Gabby to another friend of ours until we can find her a permanent home. This friend (Mae) can’t keep Gabby because she already has a couple of cats and her apartments only allow 2 pets per family. Plus, Mae’s only income is social security, so we buy all Gabby’s food, plus we bought a litter-box and we buy the stuff that goes in it, and we’ll cover any vet bills that come up.

The reason we took Gabby to stay with Mae is because she (Gabby) doesn’t get along with my cat, Charlie. She’s never gotten violent with him or anything – Gabby is super-chill – but she hisses and growls at him and swipes her paw at him any time he gets within 6 feet of her, and that actually only makes him more determined.

We’ve given this relationship plenty of time but Gabby just doesn’t like Charlie, period. Seems like that’s because Charlie is super playful and pretty hyper. He just wants to play, but Gabby is just not into it whatsoever.

Gabby likes to be petted and cuddled and talked to. And brushed. She loves having her hair brushed. Which is great, because she sheds a lot when the weather turns warm. She’s a very nice, sweet, plump cat; there’s nothing wrong with Gabby, it’s just obvious she’s never going to get along with Charlie, and he’s not going anywhere.

I posted about her on a couple of pet adoption platforms, and I’m not charging any kind of fee, like some people do, surprisingly, but so far only one person contacted me, and he lives 400 miles away, so he said No Can Do. Reasonably.

Mae said she’s been asking around, too.

So, I’m gonna give it a couple more months, and if I can’t find Gabby a new home, I’ll have to take her to one of the local shelters. Pretty sure Sacramento only has 2 that are taking animals right now, but the others might take her after summer ends…after kitten season. The sad part about it is, these are mostly kill shelters.
 
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I’m wondering if Gabby could just live in a separate bedroom away from your other cat. You could go in there and spend some time with her every day and brush her and hold her. The whole situation is really sad. I don’t know why the owner chose to move into an apartment where she knows she can’t have a pet. That was very irresponsible of her. I’m hoping everything works out well with your surgery.
 
I’m wondering if Gabby could just live in a separate bedroom away from your other cat. You could go in there and spend some time with her every day and brush her and hold her. The whole situation is really sad. I don’t know why the owner chose to move into an apartment where she knows she can’t have a pet. That was very irresponsible of her. I’m hoping everything works out well with your surgery.
Thank you, Teach, but giving Gabby a room isn't practical. We have 3 bedrooms; ours, my wife's office, and a guest bedroom. We also have a sort of rec-room/party room that shoots off the side of the house. It's basically an east-wing, so it's far more separate than the 2 extra bedrooms. But Gabby would get lonely no matter which room we put her in. She loves hanging out with people, loves getting attention, and she likes our other 2 cats, especially Penny, the only other female. They schmooz quite a bit.

Plus, with Michelle's schedule what it is, she and I barely have time for each other. I don't see us giving Gabby the attention she needs. Being real, we'd probably eventually start carving out less and less time for her. I think it would be more sad for Gabby to live with loneliness and isolation for a whole decade or so (she's only 2.3 yrs-old) than to be euthanized within a minute at a shelter.
 
@Murmur..and.if.you can.include/Post your community..so meomone would be more inclined to be interested
Instead.of.miles away
 
My oldest brother is missing. Everybody's looking for him, including his sons and neighbors.

He's 75 and he lives in a mobile home park in a forested area in Colorado. The park is on the edge of a small city, so it isn't remote, but it's surrounded by a lot of trees, and has a lot of hiking trails, a couple of streams and a small lake. He's been missing for almost a week now, so we're certain he's not okay.

He has an old dog that he takes for walks on a couple of the trails every day, usually as far as the stream that's closest to his place. But they can't find the dog, either. His phone isn't in his house, but he isn't answering it. I don't know if cops and rescue knows where it pinged last...I'll ask his son. We've been talking every day.

He also flies kites as a hobby, so they've searched all over the hill where he usually goes to do that. But his car is at the house, and he always drives to that hill. It isn't far from his place, but it's farther than he wants to walk. He has worse than moderate emphysema. And he usually flies his kites at night because he configures all sorts of LED lights on them. He gets a kick out of it when people mistake his kites for UFOs. But they said they did a thorough search there, and they didn't find a kite, either. They're huge kites.

Yesterday his son told me rescue is going to get some divers in the lake this weekend. He said my brother's neighbor already took his boat there and went all around the lake's perimeter.

If they can't find him in that forest, then I suppose he and his dog went into town with someone. They should check all the veterinary clinics! I mean, why else would he take his dog?...that's unusual. I'm gonna call his son and tell him that.
 
It’s the not knowing, that’s hardest.

Does he have any dementia? Or balance issues?

Would the dog run away and he tried to find it? Maybe fell.

Good to the searchers.
 
Grant's body was found at about 9:00 last night. The neighbor with the boat took it out for a second go-around on the pond near their mobile home park. He spotted Grant sort of draped over a thick clump of branches and debris not very far out from the shore. No sign of his dog, yet.

The neighbor said he doesn't think Grant drowned because his face was not in the water and "he didn't look like a drowned person." People are saying he probably jumped in after the dog, got exhausted, then had trouble breathing and maybe had a heart attack while he hung onto those branches. The boat guy told police that's what he thinks happened, and everybody's running with it.

The dog is a 14 or 15 yr-old border collie, and he's chipped, so Grant's son said that if someone found him and took him to a vet clinic, police would have been notified. Not sure about that. I think they would've just tried calling my brother.

Police said the coroner will do an autopsy on Monday morning and if the cause of death wasn't drowning, then rescue divers might go in and look for the dog...for confirmation, I guess. (And I don't know why they call that body of water a pond. It's a small lake, and it's really deep in some spots.)

If the dog fell in, Grant would have gone after him, no question. The dog was one of 2 that Grant owned that were from the same litter, and they looked identical, so he named them K'mere and C'mon. C'mon died about 3 years ago, and Grant was devastated. He'd lost his chow, Misha, only months earlier. She was pretty old, too, and he bought all of them when they were just puppies. So, yeah, Grant definitely would have dived in after K'mere if he fell in...the dog was old and stiff and didn't have a lot of energy. Same could be said about Grant, though.

I'm pretty torn up. Grant was my favorite brother. He was a super intelligent guy and I really looked up to him. The one bright spot is that he loved hanging out at that place, fishing, boating, taking his dogs on the trails all around it. He used to camp there quite a lot when the weather was decent...and he was healthier.
 
It’s the not knowing, that’s hardest.

Does he have any dementia? Or balance issues?

Would the dog run away and he tried to find it? Maybe fell.

Good to the searchers.
Grant had emphysema pretty bad, and used oxygen sometimes. He also had severe pancreatitis, and had trouble keeping weight on. So he was skinny, but he was strong and got around pretty well.
 


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