Bloglite

Extra-light blogging (meaning, none) for the past X weeks because:
1. Crazy Gustav The PsychoKitty bit a hole right through my pinkie;
2. I got sick;
3. I got even sicker right after I finally recovered from getting sick the first time.

You never realize how important a pinkie finger is until you try to use a keyboard with a severely swollen, pustulent, red, stiff, unbendable, weeping, painful finger. Lemme tellya. It was no fun at all. I was reduced to hunt-'n-peck typing at work, which was even worse, because I Had Deadlines. And deadlines, quite frankly, suck.

I was really upset about the whole thing (the Gustav-bitey thing) because Gustav was An Abused Kitten. Badly abused, from what I can gather. My sister rescued him, and then she moved and couldn't take him, so we escorted him on a many-thousand-mile flight to his New Home with us and his mamma. Unfortunately his mamma, despite multiple vet exams between one country and the next, had a hidden heart murmur, which seized her suddenly one morning a few months after they'd arrived here, and before they could actually settle in. She was in terrible pain, and the choice was putting her on expensive medication for life with the chance of more major pain and every possibility of a relapse, or putting her down.

If you've ever heard a cat scream in pain, you'll understand why we chose to do what we did. We could've medicated her. Money is never an object when a life hangs in the balance. But could we take the chance that she would have a relapse while we were away, and suffer excruciatingly, and possibly even die while we were gone? Poor girl. She was very sweet and beautiful, and after listening to her scream and scream and watching her try to drag herself across the floor because her legs didn't work, and rushing her to the emergency clinic at 6 am, we made the decision we thought was best.

Well, Gustav was insanely (and I use the term advisedly) attached to his mamma, and after she died, he went a little more crazy than he already was. He kept attacking the other cats. We had six other indoor cats and two outdoor cats, and the outdoor cats were FIV positive, and we couldn't risk him repeatedly injuring them, so we put him on Valium.

Psychoactive meds are never a good choice for kitties because it's not as if they understand when you tell them what to expect. We had him on it for a year until the others got used to him, and then we took him off. He was fine for quite a while, despite the occasional hiss and bite and scratch, but this time, for whatever reason, he just went totally off. I was petting Gojira, and he suddenly leaped up with his ears flat against his head, screaming, and bit right through the top digit of my pinkie finger, right to the bone. He bit through the little vein, and blood just exploded everywhere. It soaked through the sheets and the covers and my clothes and two paper towels that I wrapped around my finger to stop the bleeding.

The sight of blood makes me feel faint (I'll never make a good killer, I can tell), and I didn't yell at him, or anything, but I did scream, and he freaked. Anywho, it was so painful - the finger swelled up like a balloon - that I went to the doctor the very next morning. One tetanus shot and a prescription for antibiotics later, I returned home to a very interested Gustav - interested in the bloody clothes and sheets, that is. Little creep.

I forgave him a day later, but it's still painful, after three weeks, and the skin is peeling all around the original site of the injury.

The rest of it is the usual human germ exchange - people at work came to a "mandatory" company meeting bringing with them an interesting blend of virii and bacteria, which they generously shared with colleagues during the four hours or so that the many hundred of us were crammed together in a small space. Much coughing, sneezing, nose-blowing, and sore-throating later, I pronounced myself well only to be sneezed on yesterday by yet another (disgusting germbag of a) colleague. Bah, humbug. I wish, at times, the whole damned human race would be wiped out leaving the world to be enjoyed (finally!) by lions and tigers and bears - and kitties and doggies - oh my.

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