between the rock and the cold, cold sea

Thanks, guys. I owe you. I'd answer your comments individually, but I've only got fifteen minutes before I have to be on site, and I probably won't get internet again til Friday.

The cat is dead. Mum told me on Thursday he'd gone too far, hadn't eaten for over a week, hadn't so much as piddled in days. So she arranged to have him sent to his rest yesterday. Poor boy.

I keep finding his white hairs in my stuff, and I miss him dreadfully.

I'm going to be leaving here two Thursdays from now. I will most certainly not miss either the earwigs or the damp.

Books 2009: 50-51


51. Anthony Price, October Men.

The fourth 1970s spy novel I've read by Price. This one involves the adventures of David Audley in Italy, North Sea oil, Soviets (of course), and government bureaucracy. Quite good.

It's a little odd to read these, really. They're a window into a very different world. I've never lived when Russia was The Enemy (111!!) of freedom and democracy (such as they are), despite Ireland's pathological screwed-up neutrality. They're just another (sort of European sort of Asian sort of in-between) nation, albeit one a bit more bellicose, corrupt and repressive than one might wish (though much the same might be said for the US). So it's rather fascinating to watch Cold War era paranoia in fiction.


non-fiction:

52. Josef Wiesehofer, Ancient Persia, London and New York, 1996.

One of the standard introductory works to the topic. Arranged broadly chronological, with each different dynasty divided thematically into discussions of military, social conditions, evidence, etc. Rather dry, and perhaps a little pedestrian. But I know a bit more about Achaemenids, Parthians, and Sassanians than I did before.

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The physiotherapist says the only thing wrong with my shoulder is the fact that the muscles were tight as twisted wire and knotted to boot. After a half-hour of torture, she gave me some stretches and instuctions to try to drop my shoulders, not hunch them. I'm cleared to exercise and climb again, though I'm leaving any restart of the training plan until tomorrow.

The cat should come home on Friday. By then we should know whether he'll last out the next few weeks.

I also need to start seriously thinking about packing my rucksack for my month-long Archaeological Adventure. See if everything fits.

The cat is with the vet. X-rays revealed that the hard mass down his jaw is a very serious infection, and not anything else. But we do not know if much can be done for him: we should know by tomorrow night whether we'll be able to manage his condition for any longer, or whether we'll have to say goodbye. If he responds to antibiotics and pain meds, we might have another few weeks.

I can't say I'm hopeful. Especially since financial considerations place their own limits.

About me: the shoulder still hurts, and I'm discovering for myself all over again the terrible boredom of pain, if I may be permitted to borrow a phrase. It's somewhat less intrusive than it was last night, but it's certainly not anything I'm happy with: tightness across the back of my neck and left shoulderblade, and a nagging muscle ache, intensifying to sharpness in the left side of the neck and in the muscle lying across the shoulderblade when I tilt my head too far back or forward or make sudden movements. It's not interfering with my ability to move about, and I daresay I could run and climb if I had to, but I believe that'd be a rather bad idea. Going to go see if I can get the college physio to see me tomorrow, or at least during the week. Don't want to go to Silchester with a muscle problem: that's just the sort of thing that lying in a tent probably wouldn't help in the least.

It's seriously shortened my temper and my ability to concentrate. So I'm not having fun today. If this is what it feels like to get old and crochety, no wonder persons of advanced age are frequently surly. I'll have to remember this.

The saga of the cat continues.

He came home this morning, and we took him to the vet. Finally, we had a useful vet, but alas, cat has a hard mass down the line of his jaw. He must go for x-rays.

Vet had I-don't-really-want-to-say face, but body languages inclines me to think that doom is more likely than not.

My day is not full of joy. Less so, because I woke up with a really nasty pain from my neck down to the bottom of my left shoulderblade, occasionally reaching clawed tendrils down my left arm. I've spent the afternoon lying flat, but, dammit, I was fine yesterday. Even after climbing.

Since his veterinary adventure, the Cat has been a Cat of greatly improved appetite, although not energy: he's as sleepy-headed as ever, if slightly more alert on those occasions when he deigns to walk around.

That's not the weirdness, though. He has a towel to lie on on the couch. Sunday night, he started grooming the towel, working at it with his teeth as though it were fur with knots to be got rid of, making the fabric creak.

Yesterday, the same thing again. More than once. And today, yet again.

Creak.

Cree-eeeak.

Creak-eek mrrrrrrrrrrr.

No to Lisbon!

There's one for democracy, citizen participation, enfranchisement, and the democratic process, all things for which the Lisbon Treaty did not exactly stand in support.

In other news, sick cat is home. And needy. And at last, finally, washed clean of the shit he got over him at the vet's (either vomit or shit, I couldn't tell which, but god did it stink). It's his own: when I went to collect him, it was all over the newspapers on the floor of the little metal kennel thing. Poor boy.

So Unhelpful!Vet remained inadequate with the explanations, but apparently the boy's teeth are mostly okay, but he has mouth ulcers. Vet still says Virus! and muttered something about immune problems. I am there with the parent, so I restrain myself from getting in his face and demanding he tell me precisely what he means.

So yeah, the boy's on antibiotics for a week and steroids for three, and apparently we should expect this mouth problem to recurr.

Um. What do you guys know about viruses of the mouth which affect cats?

We took the boy to the vet today, because his gums are red rather than pink and look swollen, he's been drooling more and smellier than usual (also yellower), and he's been only picking at his hard food. Although wet food still equals nom nom nom, apparently.

It's been what, three years since this cat saw a vet? Yeah, bad human, I know. But vets are expensive, and I'm a student, and it never seemed particularly urgent.

So the vet, who's an unpersonable country bloke in his mid-forties, pokes around in the boy's mouth for half a minute, and says, mouth virus, recurring, needs steroids and antibiotics to treat, also cleaning of the mouth and removal of any loose teeth. And oh, since it's most likely a recurring thing, maybe you want to think about having him put down if it comes back again.

This is a cat who's, admittedly, never been very energetic, and gets bullied by every other creature in the neighbourhood, most of the time. We got him as a rescue cat, and he's always had a bit of a limp, too.

But, um. Vets recommend putting down cats who have treatable mouth viruses? Who are still eating and purring and otherwise much as they've always been?

The boy's only about four, four and half years old, and hell, if it is a recurring thing it's going to be a hell of an expense and an annoyance, what with the whole mouth-cleaning and steroids costing hundred forty euro and needing to feed him pills. But if it's an expense that only happens once or twice a year I'm damn well up for it.

The vet, who I started out disliking and now rather distrust, since I'm really rather opposed to euthanising animals unless they're beyond help (I figure if you take home an animal, you ought to front up and not euthanise them unless they're in the same kind of straits where you could see the merits for euthanising a human, because sentience is one of those tricky ethical propositions where I do not buy your average humans are the only sentient species on the planet crap. Although I own to hypocrisy, since I do eat meat.) - the vet now suggests that we should leave the cat in tomorrow night for the mouth-cleaning operation the following morning, and oh, if it turns out he has cancer of the mouth or something, said vet will call us.

Which we're doing. Although I really wish I'd gone alone, and not had the parent with me (the parent has a car, which is necessary for cat transport) since that meant the vet talked at the parent, and not to me, and the parent will get the call, not me.

Well, to the extent said vet spoke clearly to us as people, rather than as annoyances getting in the way of his (possibly I project, but he was definitely not a personable person) bottom line, he spoke at the parent.

(Which is probably all to the good, since I have lately discovered within me a boundless rage for specialists who fail to explain themselves clearly or talk down to people. They have joined politicians and missionaries among the category of people I would rather punch than talk to.)

But, mouth viruses. Can any knowledgeable sort point me at more information, please?