New Year's Eve 2014

Wow!  I'm not sure how it can possibly be the last day of 2014, and the last few hours of that day.  2014 has sped past faster than light.  I'm not really sure where it's gone.  

Such a difference a year has made though.  After struggling with health and house in 2013, 2014 was much better.  I think I'll start out by skimming the major points of the last year.  

I guess the most notable thing about the year was losing Zoe.  Even when you know your pet-kids are old, losing them is not something you can really prepare yourself for and having to put Zoe to sleep hit me very hard.  I'm recovering slowly, but I'm recovering.  I think I'll be able to remember her without so much heartache in the not too distant future.  I'm not going to dwell on her tonight because I've been thinking about her a lot for the last couple of months.  One of my toasts this evening will be in memory of my sweet Zoe girl though.

The other big news for the year is that I won my election to office with my national professional organization.  In 2015 (tomorrow!) I'll be President-elect, and then in 2016 I'll be President.  To say I'm delighted would be a mild understatement.  I'm thrilled to death.  Especially because my opponent was tough.  This will mean a bunch more work the next two years, but I'm actually looking forward to it quite a bit.  It should also mean a decent number of cool trips too.

Most of the rest of the things that have occurred this year are not very exciting.  Health-wise, I finished the TB drugs in June.  I've had 2 mild colds over the course of the year and 5 migraines.  That's a high number of migraines for me in a year.  I usually average 1-2 per year, but one year of having 5 doesn't really mean anything, so I'll just keep an eye on that.  I've back-slid a bit on healthy eating, so my cholesterol has come up to around 200 again, but I'm maintaining my weight around 133 so I'm happy about that.

Once I got the house repairs finished in January, I've had no other house issues, except replacing the AC/heat system in July.  Compared to all the work I had done on the house in 2013, replacing the central heat/air seemed minor this year.  And wasn't unexpected given that it was the original system in a house the age this one is.

One really fun thing I did this year was the trip to Istanbul.  I'm glad I had the chance to take that trip.  And I had a great vacation to Utah and Colorado this year, despite more rain than I like.

So I guess I'd have to say that 2014 was good to me, even with losing Zoe.  I'm grateful to still have Addy, especially since she'll be 19 in February. I imagine I'll spend 2015 being an over-reactive and over-protective Mom with Addy.

Let's see.  Resolutions for 2015.  Pretty much the same as the last several years, I guess. Maintain my Health: maintain current weight, eat healthier and exercise.  And MONEY:  STOP SHOPPING!!!!!   Actually, the health thing is going well, it's the finances I need to crack down on in 2015.  They are way out of control.  It's now time to once again do what I did before I bought each of my current houses - get rid of my debt. I hate to admit though that the payoff is significantly more than it's ever been before.  Thus my resolution to get my act together and get my finances under control.  It's also going to be a tough resolution not to break because I simply love to shop. Oh well.  I've done it before, I can do it again.

So I guess that's the short and sweet of it.  I'll leave you with pictures of my Christmas tree and other various Holiday decorations, and Addy of course. Here's to Zoe and to 2015.

Happy New Year!  

Zoe 2

It’s slowly getting easier to see Zoe’s things around the house but I’m still not ready to post about all the good times with Zoe.  I’m still working through a bunch of regrets and times when I seriously miss her.  This post is another one to help me work through some of those feelings.  And to start posting some of the old pictures, including this picture of the first Christmas I had them. 

Regrets.   Where to start?

That Saturday I took her to the vet, I was sitting in the exam room at the vet, holding and stroking Zoe, and getting impatient wondering how long it would take for them to see us.  And all of a sudden I thought: ‘What if this is it?  What if this is all the time I have left with Zoe? Would I be impatient?’ Only I didn’t believe it.  I immediately shoved it out of my mind.  Impossible!  Only it was.  It was essentially all the time we had left in the world together while she was almost normal and I could really hold her.  Once the vet came in and took her to run tests, I never had her again.  Not like she was.  Oh, we had that last 24 hours, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. But she was so ill and frail by then.  I couldn’t hold her like I used to.  It really was all the time we had.  

So now of course I seriously regret all the thousands of times she wanted attention, and I was too busy.   Too busy to take some time and brush her or stoke her or play with her or just pay attention to her.   It hurts to think of all the times I said, “Not now, Zoe.  I’m busy.’ And ignored her.

I know it’s normal to regret the missed opportunities.  I know that.  But it’s so hard.  Zoe asked so little from me and gave me so much.  And, God, I miss her.  So much sometimes that it doubles me over from the pain of it.  Just seeing someplace that she loved to be – looking and without thinking, expect to see her there.  Expect to see her drinking from the birdbath, or laying on the bathroom rug, or reach to stroke her in her regular spot on the bed right before dropping to sleep at night.

And I regret all the signs of ill health I missed.  How could I not have noticed that she never went outside any more – when she used to love to stalk the birds for hours on end.  How could I have missed that she rarely left the bedroom any more, only venturing out to eat, and sometimes not wanting to do that?  Zoe.  Not wanting to eat.  I know, I know.  I didn’t see it because I didn’t want to accept that she was getting ill.   And truly, at her regular vet visit in July she had a clean bill of health except for the borderline iffy kidney function.  Three and a half months later I had to put her to sleep with heart and kidney failure.   And so I wonder, if it happened that fast, how could I have ignored it?  I suppose in the end, I was afraid that what happened would happen.  So I pretended she was fine – until I couldn’t any more.

There’s no way to know if I had done something sooner, if it would have made any difference.  And that’s both a curse and a blessing.  A curse because I’ll never know if something could have been done if I had acted sooner, and a blessing because it would be hard to forgive myself if I knew for sure that acting earlier could have helped.  I can’t know.  All I can know is that we all did everything possible once we started.  And I’m still struggling hard to forget those images of her suffering through it all.

I suppose I did see the signs.  Of course I noticed, but I rationalized it.  She’s getting old and slowing down.  She doesn’t like this food any more.  She has off days, she’ll be fine.  And underneath, I knew that when the health is precariously balanced and something upsets the balance, like a vet visit, it may be hard to achieve a re-balance.  I suppose I just didn’t think she could go from old-age healthy to put to sleep that fast.  So I do regret not taking her to the vet sooner.  That one I will always regret.

At the end, when I knew it was no good and took her back for them to put her to sleep, I got caught in two traffic jams on the way to the vet.  Inching forward in the car, stroking Zoe as she fought to breathe, wanting to get there so she could stop suffering, and at the same time grateful for the inching traffic that was giving me just a few minutes more with her.

I still haven’t put away her things. Her favorite toys and fleeces and places to sleep, cat bed and bathroom rug.   I miss her so much still, still expecting to see her waiting for her share of morning strokes, or waiting to be fed.  Eating the cat grass.  Sleeping on her scratching post or favorite chair.  I still expect her to come and get strokes like she always did when I first sit down on the toilet in the morning.  To come up and plop her big self in the middle of me when I’m reading on the couch, demanding some strokes.  Nobody turns the laundry basket over anymore, sleeping in the dirty clothes.  So her things are still all around the house.  I need to have her things around for a while longer – and that includes her urn. 

I managed to work my way through scanning in the pictures of her, and I do think I’m going to be able to remember her and all the great times without hurting so much one of these days.   I just have to tackle these things a little at a time, including these regrets.  When I stop expecting her to be there when I turn around in the house – I think that will be the point that I can start remembering her without crying.  Because I don’t want to forget her.  I want to remember how sweet and loving and undemanding she was.  My sweet big Zoe girl.  And then I can write that ‘good times’ post.