Sometimes, life just stinks . . . . .

Do you ever sometimes feel like you will never be able to get it together? To get ahead?

This weekend was one of those weekends.

A little history for those of you that don’t know us, C. and I had 2 cats ever since we started our lives together, their names were Oreo and Mocha. Mocha lived for 15 years, Oreo for 17. After Mocha died, Oreo kept sitting on the steps crying. So, C. and I found a pair of Ragdoll cats that were available. We had always wanted one of those cats, so C. went and picked them up. So, then, we had Oreo, Molasses, and Ginger. This last year, Oreo died and we had just Ginger and Molasses. Well, this weekend, we had to have Molasses put to sleep. What stunk so much about this one was that we had to make the decision. We did not have to do that with our others, they died at home.

Last week, Molasses peed on J.’s bed and then on ours. We assumed that he was just wanting more attention because we had started back to school. We started giving him more attention and he did not do it anymore. What we did not know was that he had a urinary tract infection. On Thursday night, he started crying like he was hurt and hissing when he went into the litter box. We took him to the vet on Friday, thinking he was constipated. They said a UTI and that he was having a hard time going. The pulled some urine and relieved his pain. He got a shot to help as well as some antibiotics. Saturday night, we had to take him to the emergency room because he was crying again and not moving around much. He was blocked again. They cathed him and we took him home. We were back at the vet Sunday afternoon for yet another blockage. He was a completely different looking animal by this point. He was raggedy looking and sad looking. The vet said that they could do surgery but that there was no guarantee that he would survive the surgery, that the surgery would work long term, or that he would not suffer long term permanent damage. This non-guarantee would cost us well over $1000. If we did nothing, his bladder would rupture and he would die in excruciating pain. We decided to euthanize him. However, having to look at my girls hearts break as they told him good bye was devastating.

I will forever wonder if we made the right decision. Will my kids be upset at a later date and think that we thought their pet was not worth spending the money on? Will they be angry that we did not try the surgery?

For someone that struggles with depression at times, this is threatening to pull me in. It seems like every time we start to get it together, something else is thrown into the mix. I know that God is good and that there is a reason for everything. I also know that I am so very strong in some ways and so very weak in others. Things seem to keep finding my weak spot.

In the past 5 years, we have:

- moved into a new house
- had the sale of our old house fall through several times, which put us paying 2 house payments for several months
- C. got laid off
- C. was out of a job for 10 months
- Old house finally sold
- Mortgage co. got mad that our payments would be late periodically during layoff period – depending on if we had money or not – so they decided to make us pay 1 ½ payments a month by money order for a year.
- C . finds another job – a definite pay cut – but a job, nonetheless
- I have a hysterectomy
- C. gets a corporate AMEX to pay for travel expenses and supplies, however, expense checks do not come in as quickly as the bills do. We have to pay for expenses with our own money and then use a credit card to pay our bills, which puts us in debt.
- The siding on our house starts to rot and we have to get replaced
- M. gets diagnosed with ADHD
- We have a different type of health insurance for a year. Of course, during that year, mine and M’s meds are not covered, neither are J’s x-rays, physical therapies, MRI’s, orthopedic appointments, etc.
- Lost 3 cats
- We have (obviously) had to ask for financial help quite a few times, which embarrasses me to no end

Okay, now let me finish by saying that I KNOW that there are others that have had it much, much worse. I also know that in this post that I sound whiny and ungrateful, so there is no need to tell me those things. Please leave comments, but only ones that are positive and encouraging. Or ones that can tell me how to hurry and find money to cover the checks that I wrote for all of the vet visits this weekend.

I really just needed to vent.

Also know that I am working on a post to follow up on this to focus on the other side, that life can be amazing at times too.

Thanks for reading!