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Yesterday was a day of downs and ups.

( TLDR, we had to let Cece go yesterday. )

So the morning kind of sucked. Once we got home, I cooked my breakfast and hopped online, getting to work only 15 minutes late.

On my first break, I mentioned that after having a kitty again, I hated being without, and we agreed to do some preliminary browsing on Petfinder. In the meantime, I reactivated our application with Cocoa Kitties in Hershey. They called me right back. Unfortunately, the kitten we'd been looking at was taken, but they have a ton of other cats and kittens.

We browsed the kittens and found a few possibilities, but the we looked at the cats and found one named "Thin Lizzy," after the band. She is a year old, and just finished weaning her kittens and was getting spayed today. She's a rather small cat, so I don't know how she managed to have so many kittens (like 6). Most of them have already gone, but no one wanted a momma cat.



She's described as sweet and gentle and a snuggle bug. Our application has already been approved from before Cece, and we just kind of fell in love with her little face. The rescue was so happy when we said that she was the one. They just kept saying that we made their day, because she's such a sweet cat, and after getting pregnant on the streets, she deserved a good home.

Jess immediately began cleaning the room. Even though the FELV virus can only live for 3 minutes outside the body, we're going to give it a good clean, and disenfect the areas Cece was, like the closet and our bed. We had actually gotten a new comforter, so we stripped the bed and put the new comforter on. I've got some veterinary strength disenfectant to wipe everything else down with, and we're going to throw the pad from the cat tree (where she sat for 15 seconds) into the wash and dryer.

We threw out the litter box and the drinking fountain, as that would be hard to sterilize. The bowls can be washed and run through the dishwasher on nuclear to take care of them. We'll vacuum under the bed and maybe spritz the carpet with the disenfectant. One bed, that she laid behind is gone and a replacement ordered. We also ordered a new cat carrier, which will be here tomorrow.

More cat toys were just delivered. We're throwing away all Cece's toys to be safe, and I've gotten a bunch of springs, and a laser pointer and a ribbon dancer. We also have some still boxed toy mice with catnip that she can have.

Basically, she can have anything she wants. Once we get her, I'll make an appointment with the new vet and we'll take her for her checkup and an FELV vaccine.

It looks like the new vet does some in-house testing, unlike the one we have currently, who always has to send out the blood. I'd like answers in real time from here on out, thank you.

I'm waiting for her foster to reach out to me, so that we can make sure she's comfortable with us, and hopefully set up a time for us to get her. I'm thinking Saturday morning (assuming she's recovering from her spaying okay, that is).

We do have a game Saturday, but it's not til 2, so if we leave at 8, get to Hershey by 10, and then head home, we'll probably get home about 12:30-1pm. That gives time for decompression and preparation, and I'll be good to run the game. That'll mean Jess will be sitting in the bedroom for 3 hours to help get her used to us.

I have so many questions about the little girl and what she'll like and what she'll want to do. They said she's a snuggler, so I'm hoping she'll sleep with us, and maybe even lay on us sometimes. Will she sit next to Jess while we game? What does her meow sound like? Is it tiny and polite like Cece or is she more like Boodle where she screams loudly when she needs something. These are things I must know!

Work took forever and a day, and I was not entirely focused. I still managed to get a few things done between surfing cats on Petfinder. Today will be better.

My boss put out a note reminding people that their screens are always recording, and that we could see when they go into aftercall and their mouse doesn't move for 5 minutes. Surprisingly, after that, people actually worked. The calls weren't bad for most of the day, and they kept mostly on top of them. I think the max number of people holding at once time was 10, which is a far cry from the 69 (nice) of the day before.

I feel bad for her. As the big boss, she always gets to play the heavy while the deputy manager and team managers skate by. The PAS 3's tend to get some shit, too, as we're the ones going to people and being like "Is everything okay? You've been in aftercall for 5 minutes."

That'll be me on Monday. I'm sure I'll be popular. I need to double check what my schedule will be for the two days I'm working for them. I know on Monday it's probably a 10 hour day, which will be exhausting. But I'm not sure about the 25th. I'll mention that to my manager today so I can prepare accordingly.

Last night we had steak, and it just did not taste good to me. It was like being back right after I had covid with "this steak tastes rotten." My sister and Jess' steaks tasted fine, so it was definitely a me thing. I had a slice of pizza instead. Tonight, I shall bake those lobsters. I wanted to give Cece some, but I didn't get around to it, and they need to be used tonight or tomorrow, so I can't wait for Lizzy. I'll just have to get another pack once she's here.

I hope the lobster tastes right for me. That would suck otherwise. Seafood was usually good, even when I was in the land of Covid, so I think it'll be okay.

I don't know whether to bother making baked potatoes with the lobster. I just don't know if people would have room to eat it. We've got enough for two tails each with two left over, so people may not have room for them. Then again, the lobster tails are pretty small, so I think I'll give it a try.

Aside from that, I'll just be jumping on any calls today with a number I don't recognize, hoping it's the foster. I want to assure her that they're making the right decision in letting us adopt, though after the glowing reference that poisontaster wrote, they probably already think we're the modern equivalent of St Francis of Asisi!

I feel like she got us this cat. I hope she likes us.

And on that note, I believe I shall go forth and get myself ready for work. Everyone have the very best Thursday!

I am thoroughly wiped this morning. Despite the antinausea meds, Cece still refused to eat, so we took her up to the emergency vet last night. It was a long night, and she is such a good cat. She's mildly-moderately anemic, but not enough to jump in and transfuse, but since she hasn't been eating, they decided that they'd keep her overnight to keep an eye on her and see if they could better manage her nausea and also to give her some antibiotics. FELV cats are prone to infection, so we're going to see if that's part of what's causing the nausea. Also a shot of some B Vitamins to help her perk a bit. Once the labs come in this morning, the ER will get them sent over and then we'll figure out more about her situation. We dragged in at about 10:15 and almost immediately crashed as that is a long way from my 4am wakeup call.

The little room they had us in had an AC set at 74. That's a little high for yours truly, who was honestly wilting. All in all, we got there at 4:45, and we walked out about 5 hours later, and I was exhausted. The chairs also are not particularly comfy.

Fortunately, I seem to have slept a lot of the pains I had when I crawled into bed have eased up.

But through it all, Cece was a rockstar. It may be the anemia or not feeling well, but even the tech was appreciative of her overall chill nature. She was exceptionally good and calm while they took blood and checked her over.

Today, we'll see what the day brings. Maybe, if we're lucky, we can go get her early-ish, Best case, the rest of her labs are okay, they start her on steroids and that and the antibiotics and anti nausea meds help her to eat more, and the anemia fixes itself, or improves some. Second possible is that she needs a blood transfusion to help stabilize her.

Worst case, there's something else wrong with her and we need to euthanize. It's all about what's best for Cece. If treatment will buy us some quality time, we'll go for it. If her quality of life will be shit, then we need to consider things more fully.

It's hard. On one hand, I don't want to piss off the rescue if we have to euth. They fought so hard for her, and it's not their fault that this was bubbling under the surface. Cats are notoriously good at hiding how they're feeling. Honestly, if we weren't so laser focused on her, we might not either. We might have chalked it up to being new. The foster offered to send us money because she feels so bad. On the other hand, I already love her so much. She's such a dainty lady that it's impossible not to love her. I fell with the videos her foster sent before we ever met her. And now that I have met her and petted her head, I love her even more. I really want to see what her personality is like when she's not sick. So, if we can get another little while with her, my tendency is to try.

This is so unfair. She's such a good little cat, she deserves to have a long and happy life. But I'm not sure that's in the cards for Cece. We'll have to wait and see if we can get her over this hurtle.

Today, I will work, and try not to think about Ms Cece. Hopefully the vet calls early and I can maybe pick her up on lunch.

The vet was very hesitant to suggest keeping her overnight due to the lack of knowledge, but she seemed to think that they could do some good, so we went with it. Hopefully she had a good night.

Jess has therapy today. This should be fun. At least they won't have to come up with a topic to discuss!

I really need to get to the pharmacy, since I used my last lisinopril this morning. I meant to go at lunch yesterday, but I was so worried about Cece that I forgot to. If we don't pick up Cece at lunch, I'll go then.

The phones at work have been insane lately. Pretty much since we switched to the new phone system, our calls have been out of control, to the point that at times yesterday, we had 69 (nice) calls in queue. I haven't taken the brunt, though I have been taking calls when I can to try to help.

I'm on the brand new recognition committee and we're struggling on how to reward the team. We're going to set up a meeting when we can take an hour and hammer out what we've got to work with. I think they're going to be doing extra break time and maybe hour lunches. It'll impact the call volume, but one person isn't going to make or break things when we're 50+ calls deep.

I'm getting trained on how to use other tools ahead of me subbing for the other PAS IIIs in the next two weeks. It could be bit hectic, but I'm up to it. The dude who got me on the site we use to document errors forgot to put me on the email list for those errors, so that needed to be fixed. Also, I don't have the capability to check on coworkers who have been idle for a while. I don't know if I'll get that in time or not. I might have to ask the first tier managers to do it if I encounter someone in aftercall for a while.

When I sub, half my day will be on Teams answering questions, and half will be on all the admin stuff like errors and other admin stuff. None of it seems particularly difficult, just time consuming. It will not be a day when I get to check my phone much.

The first day that I'm subbing is on Monday, June 15th, so that's coming up fast. I need to double check what people's schedules are so that I can come in at the appropriate time. I think the other is Thursday, June 25th.

Hopefully, Cece will have settled down by then so I can actually focus.

Also, I had not realized how lazy some of my coworkers are. I assumed, since they started before me and knew their shit that they were good. But now that I have access, I know that a lot of them are not that good. They're hanging out in aftercall for minutes upon minutes on end, fucking around and just not acting like adults with a job. I mean, I get it, the queue sucks, the patients are irritated about waiting and then we don't have appointments in the near future and they don't like that, either, but that's the job..

Also newly finding out how shitty some of the specialist's offices are. Yesterday, one removed a behavioral advisory from a chart hoping that the scheduler would schedule at one of our outpatient sites instead of needing to be scheduled at the hospital. She wasn't even stealth about it. She just removed it in the middle of the call and thought that would get her way. Those alerts are there when the patient is a danger to others and/or themselves. I hope that gets addressed, because that is just shitty to do to the site that she's trying to schedule at and the patient. The hospital based site can provide security and an RN with sedation if need be, where as the other sites might have one aging security guard and no access to meds.

Tomorrow, Cece depending, Yoda has a grooming appt. We'll see how things are going as to whether I reschedule.

I have games every day this weekend. Two that I DM and one that I play in. I need to do a little bit of work on the ones I'm DMing. The one, I just need to read the module, and look at the notes. It's been long enough that I barely remember what happened. The other, I just need to source some maps, and prep the next few encounters. One is ready, but I kind of expect them to make it to another one or two, so I better have it ready just in case. So far the campaign has been going pretty well, with good player engagement, so that's always fun to get to work with.

The other has engagement, but it's also an incredibly complex module, and not very well coded. I'm frequently scrambling to find character sheets and what not. The module itself is very good, but it's also one that requires the DM to do some heavy lifting. Due to schedules, we're still in the early part of the module, and things are still kicking off. It's also a large party, which slows things down a bit.

For now, though, I'm going to drink some coffee and relax and in a bit, I'll call to check on the Princess Cece and see how her night went. Everyone have a stupendous day!