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jimsjournal

A visit to the vet -- 12/13/09


If you have just wandered in from Holidailies and wonder who's who, there's a brief introduction to various characters at the end of this entry...

Tiger has his annual visit to the veterinarian in December. Tiger does not approve of this. He can see absolutely no reason for this. He does not like to leave his house and ride in a car and go to a place where there are animals. Nevertheless, to his great annoyance, today was the scheduled date.

Using his mental powers to pretend he is not there

He whines and meows most pitifully on the drive there (less than two miles). Once we get inside the office he just sits on Jill's lap and looks away from every person and animal in the lobby. I think he is trying to pretend that he isn't there or. When we first came in the only person waiting was a very pregnant woman with a young puppy who was complaining in a very, very high pitched voice about being there. She was trying to distract him by reading to him from a pet food brochure she picked up from a rack in the waiting room. She was speaking to him by name ("Miles") and pointing at pictures in the brochure and telling him what each kind of animal was called. Miles was not in the least interested, but at least his owner was getting some good practice for her approaching parenthood.

We were in the sunniest examining room, but Tiger was not impressed.

Then it was Tiger's turn to see the veterinarian. He said that since Tiger is a strictly indoor cat, there was no reason for him to have to get a distemper shot. (A rabies shot every two years is required by law, but Tiger got his last year.)

The vet said that Tiger was in very good shape for his age (sixteen and a half) and also that he looked younger than his age.

A disgruntled cat.

Tiger weights 15.4 pounds, scientific proof that despite jokes about his weight and constant desire for food, he has actually lost a pound from his weight two years ago. (I don't recall his weight last year.)

When we got home Jill opened a small can of wet food for him and he promptly gobbled down most of it just to show that he would eventually forgive us.



 Ah, and as for my own personal medical conditions...

I went to see my podiatrist about my right heel pain. He examined my foot, took some x-rays, and determined that I have a bone spur on my heel that has apparently broken off and also have a problem with a tear in my Achilles tendon. He believes in beginning with a conservative approach rather than leaping into surgery, so I am to wear this moon boot for a couple of weeks to see if this rest and support will lead to healing. If not, then probably surgery to fix things.



A brief introduction for those of you wandering in here from Holidailies for the first time: I'm just a middle-aged guy (but somehow I hit 66 on my last birthday) who lives in Rhode Island with my wife Nancy (a middle-school math teacher), daughter Gillian ("Jill" -- 27 yr old college student and baker), son Jeremy (24 yr old restaurant cook and part-time college student), and Tiger (senior citizen cat). Eldest child Adam lives in New York City with his wife Leah and our grandsons Sam and Milo. I'm a former programmer/systems analyst who got involved with software training and instructional design. For the past several years I have been working from home (you can't beat the short commute!) doing quality assurance and editing on course material for both classroom courses and Web-based training courses for a very big computer company. I've been writing this online journal since 1996.




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