The vet called yesterday and said that Sol's diarrhea was bloody and thin again... just one day after she called and said it was the best she'd seen since he was brought in. So, if he's not better by Thursday, she'd like to do an exploratory surgery to find out what's going on in there... apparently she said something could be growing together... it's some semi-common problem, but I forget the name of it. At least he's strong and active so she said he'd handle everything just fine. Plus, she's being good about the price too knowing everything we've been through lately, so that helps.
Made me feel better the other day though talking to another IT guy on campus we go to lunch with occasionally... apparently we're not the only ones... he got a puppy about a year ago and said he had about $1,000 into the dog in the first month before he shook everything off and he was fine after that. He decided also to get Pet Insurance after that... though he dropped it because his first two claims were denied... sounds like any other rip off insurance industry to me.
Anyway, I just laughed and told him we're just about that much into the kitten ourselves. Hope Sol's outcome is the same as his puppy's was... full recovery. It's a difficult thing to think about though... how does someone come up with a number and draw a line when it comes to saving a life?
Anyway, we'll see how everything goes and we'll know more by the end of the week.
In other news, we're having some people over this weekend for an outdoor tailgate-style game night. I'm borrowing the projector and screen from work again and we're going to set it up in the yard for the game Saturday. I've told everyone to bring what they're drinking that night and their tailgating chairs. Hopefully it'll end up being a pretty good sized group. I've invited about 20 people, though not all of them will show I'm sure. I'll make sure to post some pictures of the setup here afterwards. It's a shame to go to such lengths for a game that won't probably be the best Carolina game ever. We're on the road against Auburn this Saturday on ESPN2HD. But, having a decent sized group over to watch the game should make it fun.
The real emergency room isn't as speedy and fast-paced as the TV show would lead you to believe. We spent 8 and a half hours there last night.
Christina was sick, so she wasn't going to the game. I sold our tickets because I was going to be on the sidelines with Brian again shooting the game. Christina calls me at the tailgate and says she has some pain to go with her having internal issues for the last 6 days and she wants to go to the emergency room.
Well, luckily, everything came back fine in the tests... he told her to take Pepto and gave her an antibiotic for a few days and that should do it.
Also, we won the game 45-20 over Troy. The game was PPV here in SC, so I just watched other games at the ER since her exam room had a TV in it.
Well, I wasn't needed on the jury today. Also found out the results of Sol's fecal pathogen test... negative for everything. So, all he has is coccidia. Sadly, the medication that normally beats it in 2-3 days hasn't had an effect, so she's going to give him something else to stop it's reproduction and something to boost his immune system since cats can fight it off naturally and hopefully that'll be the silver bullet that gets him well.
We may go visit him again tonight since it'll be Thursday at the earliest when we pick him up.
What a long couple of weeks... times like this can really try someone's patience.
Friday we had an offer of $100/ticket for our pair of Alabama tickets. Since we've been broker than broke lately, we sold the tickets. Though at that kind of price for them (they're $30/each face value) it would have been hard to say no regardless.
After we had met up with the person buying them, I called Brian to see if he'd do me a favor and bring our Kentucky tickets to our tailgate location... we're going to Dallas that weekend for Christy's wedding so I'm selling those tickets to a guy we tailgate with. Well, Brian said his wife Debra wasn't going to use his second sideline pass, so I got to shoot the game. Shame the game sucked beyond belief... one of the worst football games I've ever watched. By the end I was so bored I started shooting Alabama plays since they were the only ones doing anything. It's amazing how different the result can be from year to year since we won big at their stadium last season.
I did end up on television VERY briefly twice, but you'd really have to know what to look for to see me in the clips.
Anyway, click on the image or the link for a gallery of images I took from the game:
However, before I could go down to the tailgate, we had to run to the vet to pick up Ashley. She spent the night there because she threw up 8 times in 6 hours on Friday. They took X-rays and such and she just had a bad hairball, she hadn't swallowed anything thankfully. Still, $145 is one expensive hairball... especially considering everything we've spent on Sol lately.
And speaking of Sol, he's currently residing at the vet himself. His diarrhea was thinner and mostly mucous and blood Saturday night and Sunday morning, so we dropped him off Sunday morning and they're keeping him until he's better.
So we're stinking up the football field, the cats keep getting sick, work has been slammed for over a month (25.06 requests/day average) since the semester began, and for the icing Christina's car is having major electrical problems.
Oh yeah... and I have Jury Duty this week... will the fun never end?
Well, yesterday was a pretty crappy day, that's for sure.
Michigan lost, Clemson won, and Carolina lost. About as bad as it could get.
Michigan looked awful in probably the only game I'll get to watch living down here because the game was on ABC nationwide instead of our ABC showing the local JP game in the ACC like they normally do.
Clemson came back and won a game that quite honestly they should have lost. Credit to them for coming back in a game on the road in conference. It wasn't pretty, but a W is a W.
Our game on the other hand left us only to blame ourselves. Four dropped sure interceptions and a missed PAT certainly didn't help our cause yesterday. It's so much more frustrating when you beat yourself in a game you should have and could have won.
The bright side is we have a LOT better team this year than many of the "experts" thought after week one. Of course I've re-watched our first game a few times and knew that already... small mistakes kept us from scoring 40-50 on UCF last week. Things that can easily be corrected and most of which were for this week's game.
One good thing about the game is I borrowed a projector and huge portable screen from work and brought them and my satellite tailgating setup over to Brian and Debra's house to watch the game on a 70" High Definition projection screen. Looked great! Below are a couple of pictures:
Panorama of the setup
Shot darker to show the screen
And after the game we came home and found Sol in worse shape than before... watery diarrhea with a lot of blood. So, we ended up at the Emergency Vet last night until 1:30am. He got more fluids under the skin and some antibiotics and we got him a new vitamin and good bacteria supplement to put in his food.
The good news... woke up this morning and he hadn't gone all over the bathroom like usual. Just in the box and he looked much better.
The vet there last night said everything he has is fixable. Which is good, since we're into this for $450 already and he's still got his second regular vet appointment and neutering to go.
All I can say is he better get well and soon!
On a side note, Christina's picks are done since she didn't choose any of today's NFL games in our Pick 'Em... she finished with 1206 total points... a very good score. Don't know how everyone else did yet and won't until Tuesday or Wednesday probably, but that many points usually lands you a prize. I'd have to average 30.125 points per game in my 8 NFL games today that I picked in order to tie her.
Made some decent picks last week in my Football Pick'em I do online. Came in 3rd with 1072 points behind two people who had 1080 points. I missed a game here and there, but for the most part picked all the winners. Thought I was going to take first place... the other two players must have really done well. Anyway, I won a $20 gift card to the local Gamecock store that sponsors the contest. Pretty decent since it's free again this year like it was last season. Christina even signed up this week to make some picks of her own.
I'll update the blog to let you guys know how we do each week. I think I won 4 times last year for a total of something over $100 if I remember correctly.
Yesterday we brought Sol back to the vet because he still had diarrhea after a couple days of eating and drinking right. Turns out he has something called coccidia. It's an organism in the intestines that multiply and multiply and gives cats problems. Their immune system can fight it off, but medication stops the replication of the virus and gives the cat an easier time getting well.
We boarded him overnight, he got some meds and some fluids... seems like he's doing better... we'll see over the long weekend how he does.
It worked out boarding him though because our first game of the season was last night. We beat UCF 24-15. Game was great in the first quarter, but we got complacent and let UCF stick around. Hopefully we'll get the killer instinct as the season goes on and start putting away teams when we have the chance. Still, while we were rough around the edges on some things, many others were looking good. When the players that were suspended for the first game because of the brawl at Clemson last year return next week it'll really help some of the areas that had the problems last night.
The game was a lot of fun though... our new tailgating location isn't very picturesque, but it's nice having electricity, indoor bathrooms, paved lot instead of mud and ants, etc...
Here's a few pictures from the tailgate... I didn't take the camera to the game though. Instead of setting up the satellite dish and watching TV on a Thursday when there are no other football games to watch, I brought my Xbox out there and we played a few games of EA's NCAA 2006 college football.
We didn't get back from the game until around 12:45am because it was a 7:52 kickoff with ESPN in town and then there are TV timeouts and the fact that Spurrier's offense with a lot of passing stops the clock a lot on each first down and/or incomplete pass. Our games will last a lot longer this season with his system.
Given a whole new offense and a whole new defense and very few returning starters, I'd say they looked okay. This season is going to be hit and miss I think. Most of the experts say it'll take 3 years before Spurrier has the program in shape to compete for titles. This season the immediate goal he has laid out is just to be a winning program (meaning 6 wins) and get to a bowl game. That would be a good start considering everyone we lost and how we have a whole new system being put in place. Still, we'll have fun this season going to the games... the offense should be fun to watch if nothing else.
