She looks at me and she goes have you ever tried gabapentin? Just yeah, you know this isn't my first rodeo. Welcome to the Only Child Diaries podcast. I'm your host, tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life, that you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting, while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries podcast.

Today I'm going to talk about my birthday week, which was this weekend, this past weekend, and all the things that took place Now last week. If you listened to last week's episode, you know that I had a pretty tough weekend. It was the one-year anniversary of my horse, dallas's, passing and as much as I tried to push it away, forget it, push it down, distract myself, it was a really tough day. The universe seemed to just be telling me to grieve, that I had to grieve. It was going to force me one way or another to grieve and it pushed a lot of things on me from different avenues that made that just any person would break through those occurrences. So, anyway, that was that, and the next day I spent time in the garden and that helped. That always helps me, but something that I enjoy. But this week included a visit to the emergency room for my cat. It included a very early morning wake up drive to work for a meeting which, if you know me, you know I'm totally not a morning person. It included another day off for my pre-birthday day. It included a fight with my husband, which should be what is it? Marriage part two discussion. I had marriage part one that was the most recent episode that I did and various conversations with friends and just trying to get things done with my job.

So, yes, wednesday I got up way before the sun started rising and I was out getting ready to drive. I drive about an hour. I work remotely but I drive about an hour. I left at 6.15 to get to the meeting. It was going to start at 7.30, but I wanted to get there at 7.15. I wanted to kind of settle in prep. It was a big group thing and a lot of people had arrived when I got there at 715.

Do people not have lives? Do they not want to sleep? No, I guess not. Um, it's amazing to me how many people are on the freeway that early? Uh, where are they going? What did they do?

Anyway, and because I'm, you know, I'm an animal friendly person and I can do this, what I, what I do every morning, not at 615., but once I get up and I kind of am fully, almost awake, I go out in my front yard and I spread some bird seed for the birds I love the morning doves and the little sparrows or whatever wants to come and eat. I spread bird seed. I leave a handful of walnuts for the squirrels. Yes, I know a lot of people leave peanuts, but if you look it up, peanuts are actually bad for squirrels. So you know, try to leave some healthy snacks for the squirrels, and so leave some walnuts for the squirrels. They also eat the bird seed, but you know we won't talk about that. And then we have some feral cats in the neighborhood that roam around and I have a bowl on the side where the cats go and some of the birds eat the dry cat food as well.

So anyway, I realized the night before that when I left in the morning the sun was not going to be up yet and I was going to be out there in the dark it was pretty cold feeding everyone. And then after I put everything out, I realized that the gardener was going to come in about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and probably clean everything up. But hopefully some of the animals got to eat before he came and blew everything or swept everything up Not the cat food, but anyway I did the best I could and I fed them kind of again when I got back in the afternoon. So that was kind of funny because I'm sure people were driving by or looking out their window. They were like what is she doing? I was saying that to myself what am I doing? I'm leaving before the you know my pets were like what hello, what are you doing? Anyway, so, yeah, I got to, I got to work and then so so I'm going to talk about taking my cat to the ER.

Taking my cat to the ER this used to happen when we had our horse as well, and I think the universe knows when either you get a windfall of money, like you are possibly at your limit in terms of physical capabilities, like you're too tired. So generally what would happen is if I had a very busy work day or an extraordinary day, like getting up at five o'clock to go to work, or I had saved some extra money, or just gotten paid extra, got a bonus or something the the universe would break my car. I'd have to take my car and it would just be covered by the extra money. Or I would hear from the barn that my horse was sick at a strange time and I'd have to go when I was super tired and I'd be like, ah no. Or you know when, these days, when my cat gets sick and I had to take him to the ER at you know 11 o'clock at night and sit there, uh, till five in the morning or whatever.

So I had gotten back from my meeting, I stayed around the office, did some stuff, talked to some people, and I got back around one o'clock in the afternoon and I was pretty tired, but I still had some work to do. So I logged back in and I got you know, got a snack. I logged back in and then he started, you know, doing what he does when he can't pee, but this time he threw up first and because he's diabetic, I know that that's kind of a warning sign that he could be having a diabetic crisis, shall we say? Maybe his blood was super high or something, the glucose was high, so so kind of watched him for a while and I called the emergency vet and they said, well, just watch him. And I was like, you know, it'd be easier to just watch him, but he wasn't necessarily getting any better. I had some old pain meds that we gave him, but after I don't know three hours he just wasn't any better and I didn't want to wait until I mean I was already pretty much at my fatigue max but I didn't want to wait till again 11 o'clock at night, so it was about 7 PM I took him in and I tried to calm him down and and he is not into the vet I mean most pets are not into going to the vet but he's got his little kitty claws and his kitty teeth and he's kind of got a bad attitude when he's around strangers.

So he's not a very compliant patient and it stresses him out too and I don't really want to stress him out. So we went through that and they're really good and they know what to do for him, but still, anyway, we got him back home and he's a pretty big boy, let's just face it, and he's a chonk and the carrier that I have is a rolling carrier. And Well, the zipper on the screen broke. So I was terrified that he was going to get out. We covered it.

The woman that rolled him out to the car said and he gets gabapentin when he's going to the vet. He won't take it as a pill I have to give it. There's a little transdermal thing and I put it on his ear but it doesn't do a lot of good for him. So she rolled him out and she looked at me and she said just, I had to laugh. I mean, and you're granted, this has been a really long day and I'm stressed out and I just spent twelve hundred dollars on.

You know, bubby needed fluids. He was, they said he was a little dehydrated. They did get blood, they got urine. Um, they gave us some pain meds for him, some new pain meds for him. So she rolls him out and I know bubby is not the most compliant patient, and she looks at me and she goes have you ever tried gabapentin?

Just, yeah, you know this isn't my first rodeo, but yeah, what can I say? I mean, it's sweet when you know I'm not old. I'm not old, old, right, but I'm I don't. I'm not old. I'm not old old, right, but I'm not young either, and I've lived. I've lived through a lot and I can appreciate that people have advice for me, but a lot of the times I've already experienced what you know.

They think that they think they think they're telling me something that I don't know. Right, does that ever happen to you? You go somewhere and people are younger maybe, or they're really young, and they think that they're telling you something that you don't know and they think that they're telling you something that you don't know. Now, granted, there are times when people will tell me things and I won't know it. I admit I don't know everything, okay, but gabapentin, we have tried that and Bubby is a tough customer. I mean, I've also given it to my dog. I started off giving it to the cat that we were fostering, walter. If you heard those episodes about Walter, who we lost a year and a half ago, walter was a barn cat, walter was a great cat, walter was a great cat. But yeah, I'm very familiar with gabapent anyway.

But yeah, it's funny when people give you advice for things that you've already experienced and you've run down. So how do you react to that? Do you pretend like they're giving you new information and just say thanks? Or or do you just say thanks or do you say, yeah, we've tried that. Or do you just one of my favorite phrases do you just not engage and just say, okay, you know not, not tell them the 14 million different ways how you've tried it and it just doesn't work on him, or it? Maybe it's. Maybe it slowed him down, you know, maybe that's what I should have said. Well, I did give it to him and he's only at 80 of his usual, his usual grumpy self. I mean, I don't know what else to say.

It was funny because, you know, I met somebody recently who is, well, she's a coworker, she's a new coworker and she's very young, she's 20. I don't mind telling you, I'm 63. And um, and I love being around people in their 20s. I find it, um, you know, interesting. I can still learn from people in their 20s. I like the energy. I'm not going to try to compete with somebody in their 20s, um, I'm not going to pretend to be a parent, I can just be a friend.

But it was funny because she was talking about her aches and pains and I just kind of had to laugh, because no matter what your aches and pains are when you're 20, I guarantee that they're probably not what they are when you're in your 60s, that they're probably not what they are when you're in your 60s, even if you've had a lot of injuries. I'm sure you've probably recovered a little bit easier than I have. Not to say that that's true for everybody, because there are conditions where it would be difficult or you'd have physical issues, granted, but she looks pretty physically able to do things Anyway, um, but, but listening to a 20 year old talk about being old is a little bit of a, you know, my eyes start kind of darting around in my head and I don't really know what to say to that. So I don't want to, I don't want to say anything and I don't want to laugh either. I'm not trying to laugh, but if you're older you can appreciate that. If you're younger maybe you can't, and I apologize in advance, anyway.

So that was Wednesday. So by the time I went to bed on Wednesday I was slightly Well, I was exhausted, but I was also worried about Bubby. And then the next day, thursday, he still wasn't quite himself. He would eat, but then he wouldn't really go use his litter boxes.

Here's the other one the doctor's assistant gave me. They give you these discharge instructions like you're leaving the hospital with a person, and so she went over this three or four page document and she said, well, okay, here's the information about the litter boxes. And I had told her that Bubby has three litter boxes and she said, okay, you already get that because litter boxes. And she said okay, you already get that because when your cat has issues peeing, they say you should have if you have one cat, you should have two litter boxes. If you have two cats, you should have three litter boxes. You should have one more litter box than you have number of cats. So, okay, so I told her we have three litter boxes for him and I cleaned them out at least once a day. And so she said, okay, you already have the litter box thing down.

She said read this about hydration, and it's a whole page about how to get your cat better hydrated. And granted, he was dehydrated. That's not all my fault, because I can't give him a cup of water and ask him to drink it. I mean, I do the best I can, but Bubby has a water fountain he had. You know cause cats have water fountains Now, they love water fountains and he has, uh, three water bowls of his own, and then he also drinks out of the dog's water bowl, which the dog only has one, uh, and she drinks out of stuff outside too water bowl, which the dog only has one, and she drinks out of stuff outside too, which she shouldn't. But so I was reading over all the tips to better hydrate your cat and you know pretty much done all of them, like add water to the food and make sure that they. You know, okay, I've done that, done that, done that, yes, I've done that. Yes, I've done that too. Anyway, okay, thank you. Um, so here I am. He's feeling better.

Uh, we did give him the oral pain meds several times, uh, which involves me picking him up, him meowing grumpily, putting him on my lap. Bill comes up with the oral syringe and tries to get it into his mouth and, if I'm lucky, neither one of us gets swiped at or scratched. I have multiple bandages on my hands now. Because we weren't very successful, I asked Bill to put the towel on me, put the towel over my hands, and he didn't know what I was talking about. You have to move very fast with the cat. You cannot go, okay. Well, what are we going to do now that I'm holding the cat? I'm holding this 18-pound ball of dynamite and you can't sit there and debate about where the towel is going. You have to move quickly because otherwise he's going to kill you, so it's going to scratch the hell out of you.

We did get into an argument over that, which was stupid, but I was pretty much at the end of my rope and I guess so was he. So anyway, it just happens. It happens. It doesn't mean that you hate each other, you're just totally stressed out. Something's got to give right. And then the other night, which was the last night that we gave it to him, he scratched me while I was holding. We were just starting and I felt him stick his claw into my finger but I'm not going to let him go. And then we got the pain med in his mouth and I let him off my lap. And then Bill said what is all this blood? We looked down and my finger was bleeding, like I don't. I mean, I'm not on blood thinners or anything, but it was like the blood was just flowing out of my hand and there was blood all over the floor and don't be squeamish and so I had to put pressure on it and put a big bandage on it and it's fine now it's fine, but it was just. I just it was. It was a mess, let me just say that. So. But you know, I took one for the team, right. So, but you know I took one for the team, right. So, anyway, onto better things.

So I did take the day off before my birthday. I was hoping that I was going to clean up inside. I did a little cleanup inside, but I ended up outside again. I always find things to do and I cleaned up some of the stuff outside and did some of the other things that I've been wanting to do. And my yard is really, you know, we've been here almost four years and finally I can say that things are starting to look like it's a real garden. There's still a lot of work to do, but it's finally getting to the point where it really looks like somebody's yard front and back. And spring is here, so things are sprouting and happy and green and with all the rain, it's great. So I feel accomplished in my sweet peas. I got the first bloom on my sweet peas on Saturday. So that's really exciting because they smell so nice, they're so beautiful and my camellias are lovely.

And so then we went to Knott's Berry Farm on my birthday. I got my happy birthday button I'm such a kid at heart and we took my brother-in-law with us. Usually it's just Bill and me that go, but we took our brother-in-law. It was his birthday on the 10th and he had to put his dog down that day, so that sucked. Our birthdays just suck.

But we went and I talked him into going on the Grizzly Bear Rapids ride, which is like a water ride where you float through like a rapid water thing, and it was so much fun it was. I think we waited in line for over an hour but it was totally worth it. And he said you know I'm not a ride person, but I got him to go but anyway, and we ate some good food and walked around and saw some stuff and there's a lot of driving involved. And I went up and saw Gina's mother who baked me a cake, a big cake, more cake than I can eat. And yeah, so tired, had a good weekend, got some sleep, had some fun.

One year older try not to think about that, but anyway, that's what I've got. I hope that everybody celebrates their birthday, at least in whatever fashion they want to. That's what's important about a birthday, and not to think about how old you are, but how you feel. Anyway, folks, that's all I've got for today. Next week we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts. I hope you'll join me. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page Only Child Diaries or Facebook Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace and these are the Only Child Diaries.