July 2013

July 2013 started out like any other month. Worked. Celebrated the 4 of July with family. Ate more than I should have and gained for the first week in a month. Not happy about that, but knew how it happened. Knew how to make the choices necessary to turn it around.

The second week of the month, I had some weird gastro-intestinal thing that kept me from work on July 10. Which, as much as being sick sucks, was a blessing. That morning, I noticed something not quite right with my adorable Pooka. For reference, here's Pooka...

Pooka the cat

He started to moan, which is not like him. I sat with him and eventually he started to purr. I told him not to do that to me! I was worried. But, a little while later he was doing it again. I called my husband and we tried to get him to walk. He couldn't. We grabbed some treats and he stumbled to the kitchen. It was not pretty. We gave him a piece or two of cat food, then called the vet. They said they were booked, but they would fit us in at 3:30 p.m. after the day's surgeries if need be, though our vet was off and we would have to see the other one. For a while, we didn't think it would be necessary as he started acting like himself again.

Then about 2:45 p.m. he seemed to take a turn for the worse. So, we decided to take him in. Better safe than sorry. We got in and went immediately back to a room. He wasn't doing well. They took his vitals and the doctor came in. He decided to do an x-ray because he thought there might be something wrong with his heart. The second he said it, I knew there was no hope. I had seen too many death certificates at work with the exact cause of death the doctor stated he thought it could be. They took the x-rays and we got our little boy back. We cuddled and loved on him until the x-rays and doctor came back. He brought in the x-ray from February when Pooka's back leg went paralyzed. He pointed out a big difference in the size of his heart and the veins that run through his lungs. The vet believed he had thrown a blood clot in February that went to his back leg area, which caused the paralyzed leg. This made sense as we couldn't figure out what caused it at the time. His theory was this time was that his heart threw another clot and this time it went to his brain causing a small stroke. The x-rays supported this, as well as his actions as he laid on the counter. There was no hope. There was nothing they could do to help him. We had to make the heart wrenching decision to let him go. It took a long time to make the final decision, but our Pooka is too important to us to let live in pain. We stayed with him through the procedure. To me, there is nothing more painful than having to let go of someone you love.

Having gone through such an emotionally draining experience, my body was too overwrought. I spent the next four days fighting off the gastro-intestinal issues. The following Monday, I felt much better, thank heavens! Then Tuesday, I woke up with a sore throat. Which lasted 3 days with no other symptoms. This is fairly unusual, so I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with tonsillitis and given an antibiotic and pain killer. Fun. And since July 16, I have been fighting a cold/sore throat/cough.

Then, you may or may not know, I work at an Archives with the goal of getting a job as an Archivist. I like what I do and I like the people I work with. I took the Archivist test and was told I did not meet the qualifications. I challenged this. Then I got a second letter telling me that my degree did not have the required 6 credits of archival science classes within the degree. They then broke down my work experience saying I didn't have the 6 months professional experience to counteract the lack of classes. I was going to challenge this. Then I spoke to the State Archivist about my chances of winning the challenge and being hired. Apparently, they are not very good. There are 40 people on the test and 10 with scores of over 90. When the position is posted, they can only interview the top 3 people and the top person on the list currently is a veteran, which means they get automatic first dibs on the position. If they turn it down, then they interview the next three people on the list. With my lack of experience, my score on the test (if I would win the challenge) would not get me into the 90s to even be on this list. The State Archivist said he didn't want to be negative, but the chances of me getting on the list and getting an interview is pretty slim.

So, my July was awful.

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