In early May I got a message from my friend Allison wanting to know if I would like a kitten, which was an unnecessary question because when did I ever not want one? It turned out that her friend’s daughter’s cat was having an unexpected litter. She hadn’t wanted her girlie to get pregnant that month but the cats had other plans. And so there was a litter of Scottish Folds and Scottish Straights that would be ready in June. I immediately said yes because, well, cute kittens, then I started crunching numbers and decided it wasn’t financially feasible. So I reluctantly backed out.
Then absolutely everything happened. My friend Jen died so suddenly, leaving all of her friends reeling. And several of my friends developed serious illnesses which I found out about one after another only a few days apart. I felt like I was standing on a slick deck in a storm, each time I got upright I got knocked back down. I felt unnecessarily guilty for my grief. I wasn’t close enough or a good enough friend to mourn that deeply, surely others were more worthy of that sorrow.
Anyone who’s been depressed will recognize the feeling of wading through molasses or, as I’ve often put it, being stuck in inertia. I was barely doing anything yet still had no time (or energy) to do the things I love. I simply felt hopeless. And then serendipity struck. There was one kitten left from the litter and waiting for a new home. I immediately stuck out my grabby hands and the kitten was mine.
I had a list of at least ten potential names for the kitten but Sage was the winner. It’s an ancient Greek word meaning “wise and virtuous”. It doesn’t particularly fit any kitten but I figure he’ll grow into it, maybe? It’s hard to tell with a kitten as they tend to have three brain cells which are devoted to run-run-run, tumble, and pass out. Oh and trying to put anything that might be food into their mouths even if it’s an absolutely horrible idea, like my brownies that he tries to sneak off my side plate or bits of the plastic bag he tore while I was putting away the groceries. Seriously Sage? No, just plain no.
I was putting my socks so I could take a walk. Sage had other plans
His first night was heartbreaking. He spotted Smudge and Lara then hurried over. Every cat in his short life had liked him, except these new cats hissed at him. He then took a quick tour of the perimeter of the living room before climbing onto the top of my scrapbooks. That’s when he began mewing for his Mom. It was pretty obvious who he wanted; his Mom had been the centre of his little life and she’d always been there. Except now he was in a strange place and tired and she wasn’t there to snuggle up against. I couldn’t leave him alone, even if he was staying put. I was exhausted to the point where I was falling asleep where I sat, refusing to leave. He crept out around midnight and soon was curled up on my lap.
He grew more confident with every passing day. He’ll play with a toy, your feet, his own feet, even thin air. Running, tumbling, then running some more before flaking out. In the morning he often snuggles his head between my chin and my ear, purring the whole time. Every once in a while he’ll pull back and look at me before burrowing against me again. While I love this quality time together I also really need to run to the bathroom to pee. Which is difficult because, while he’s so quiet and wanting to snuggle at that moment, I know that the moment I move him even slightly he’s going to turn from half asleep and snuggly to “OMG I think I’m hearing colours! I’m zooming now!” before playing with every toy he can in roughly 5 seconds.
Lara is snuggling Sage while they nap
Smudge is very cautious with Sage, although she has played a couple of chasing games with him. Lara, on the other hand, has taken him in as the kitten she never knew she had. She snuggles with him and grooms him. It’s a poignant moment because, eight years ago, Blackie did the same thing for her. Lara takes her motherly duties seriously, grooming him thoroughly and sometimes pinning him down if he tries to leave too early (for her at least). Sage adores her. Yesterday evening I found him lying beside Lara while rooting for a nipple. Except she’s never had a litter and got spayed as a small kitten; her nipples are close in size to a grain of sand, he wasn’t going to find one. I doubt she knew what he was looking for but she knew tired. She leaned over and started to groom him. He was asleep within moments. Lara is such a good Mom.
Sage is showing his balancing beam act on my mini trampoline
Sage is my one kitten demolition derby. He scratches the walls, climbs the shower curtain, and uses the handle of my mini trampoline as his own personal balancing beam. He pulls my kitchen towel onto the floor every time he walks (or sprints) past it and he flings himself onto Lara’s head several times a day for some wrestling fun. His fun, Lara doesn’t like this at all. Then all at once he runs right out of energy. This is the most accurate description as the little goober literally goes from 100 to 0% in a second (or a femtosecond if you’re Colin) That’s when my whole being relaxes and I say “awww”. Like every other tiny being, he looks so sweet when he’s asleep.
Years ago I proclaimed that kittens are an amazing therapy for depression and I still say it’s true. It’s not a cure but it gives you a focus, a purpose, someone to love, and someone who loves you. It gives you someone who runs to meet you when you come home and someone to snuggle with at night. Sage has provided so much love and laughter in such a small amount of time, not just to me but to everyone who’s met him. He’s a joy, even when he’s scaling the shower curtains right to the top or lying across both my feet while I try to use my mini trampoline. I am honoured to walk through this part of my life with him.
I watched a YouTube video the other day by a sweet young woman who wanted to get a message across about toxic therapists and how to recognize them and recover from them. I’ve added the link because she didn’t have many views and it’s an important topic. Her story stirred up memories of my own toxic therapist and I thought sharing might help others too.
It was shortly after the beginning of Covid-19. I had been struggling and knew I needed someone I could talk to. I could talk to my psychiatrist a bit on the phone but that’s not his primary focus. His job is to assess his clients mental health and devise a treatment plan (then maintain it). I needed someone who would work with me through past trauma. My psychiatrist suggested a therapist who worked in the hospital as a therapist and had for years. That sounded reassuring and reliable so I agreed.
My first phone session was a case history with no mention on what we would focus on. I had a month until my next appointment and felt like I’d been left dangling, with no direction to aim. In the next session he did have ideas for me to focus on, namely my anxiety and agoraphobia. I had another, more pressing concern.
“I think I hate myself,” I admitted. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I figured he’d want to address the root cause and help me improve my self esteem. That makes sense, right? His attitude was, meh, just make a new you. I was to discard the old me then look at the people around me, gather the bits I liked, and connect them together, like I was some sort of depressed jigsaw puzzle. I didn’t know what to think. I was walking the tightrope between major depression and being actively suicidal. I didn’t have a self esteem. My first thought was that he felt I was too broken to even attempt fixing. My second was a faint voice saying that everyone is broken in some way and I most certainly could fix myself without yeeting my whole essence out a proverbial window. Thankfully I listened to the second voice. I’ve learned, over the years, to listen to that voice. Each time I didn’t it’s ended up disastrous.
He moved on to tell me that people prefer pleasure over pain. I did not call him Captain Obvious when he said this. But then he began talking to me about friendship and how a deep friendship included confidences which could be sad. That sadness was painful and would break the friendship apart, leading to more pain on both sides. It was much better to have casual, social friendships like fellow members in a bowling league. All the conversations were superficial so there wouldn’t be any pain. I literally did not know what to say to him. I know now what I didn’t know then, that I’m an aromantic asexual (no spellcheck, I am not a lovely fragrance). I need strong, deep friendships. The session ended with me still trying to figure out what to say.
This time there was to be a two month wait between sessions. I, once again, was left with nothing to work on… unless he seriously meant for me to spend that time with metaphorical glue and scissors, building myself a new me. Then I got a call from his secretary saying that the therapist was ill and, considering his age, wasn’t likely to return. I thanked her and moved on to rediscovering myself and learning to like myself. Then I got another call, over half a year later, saying that he was returning briefly to give closure to a few select people. I was in that group despite having barely worked with him. A former friend of mine also had him for a therapist. She was devastated that he was retiring and desperately wished she could have one last session with him so she could say goodbye. I did not (and have not) let her know that I was getting that last session.
I wasn’t sure what to expect with the appointment, it had been so long and I’d honestly never thought I’d speak to him again. The very first thing he did was to ask me how my homework went. I was speechless for a few moments (which is a long time for me) then I admitted I had completely forgot about any homework. Most people would remind me about the homework was and possibly even work on it together, but not him. He immediately started tell me about one of his clients, by first name, and all her myriad issues before telling me that her only problem was she didn’t want to help herself and, thus, stagnated. Then he started talking about another client… and another. They were all women and all had been his client for at least twenty years. I was absolutely shocked he would tell me so much information about other clients and how he thought of them with such disdain. Then he said, “You’re just like them.”
“No I’m not,” I protested angrily. “I’ve started zoom mental health classes and zoom chair exercises. I made friends with the woman across the hall and found a walking buddy. We walk several times a week including at a conservation area. I’ve even figured out my local bus route.”
He interrupted me. “Those don’t matter, not of that matters.”
“But they do matter! They’re all things I’ve done to improve myself –”
He interrupted me again, “They don’t matter because I didn’t assign them to you. They only matter if I told you to do it.”
I was stunned by his hubris so stayed silent. He then went on to suggest the website he created, which also contained his books. My opinion of his ego ratcheted up even higher and I began wondering how him and his ego fit through doorways.
“I think it would be good if I booked you another session.”
I spluttered, trying frantically to think of a plausible reason to say no. “Oh thanks but it’s okay. I’m getting lots of help through my groups. Thanks for the offer.”
Thankfully he was fine with that and I was done with that short, weird version of therapy.
I have never joined a bowling league and I did not jury rig myself a new me. And all the women who saw him for 20+ years and didn’t know what to do with themselves never knew the disdain he had for them.
There are good therapists and there are bad ones. And there are ones that are good but simply don’t mesh with you. It’s fine to ask for a new therapist and it’s also fine to report their insensitive ass if they breach confidentiality. The only reason I didn’t with him was he was in his 80’s and in the process of retiring. And, honestly, if your therapist is hot garbage and you have no other options for a new one, you could be better off with YouTube while watching professionals like Kati Morton, Dr. Tracey Marks, and Brene Brown. While they can’t replace actual therapy, they’re better than nothing. Your self esteem is fragile enough without having someone grind it into the dirt. I have a good therapist now and have for over a year. I hope you find one too.
It was two weeks ago when I last spoke to my friend Jen. She had been admitted to the hospital due to difficulty breathing thanks to a pneumonia that just wouldn’t clear up. Her x-ray showed suspicious shadows in her lungs and they worried about lung cancer. She was a non-smoker. At the time the two of us chatted, they’d determined that most, if not all, of the marks were blood clots and put her on blood thinners. She was cautiously optimistic that would solve her issues and I was as well. I was busy the following day and didn’t talk to her, one those times where I remembered to connect with her at inopportune times like while I was in a group or on the phone. But I knew I could talk to her in the morning. I will regret that decision for the rest of my life because that was when she stopped breathing and was quickly placed on life support. She never regained consciousness and died 10 days after entering the ICU. Twelve days after we last spoke. At that point she told me she was tired when she exerted herself. I can’t speak for anyone else but, I too, get tired when I exert myself. I was hoping she’d be home soon. Less than two weeks from talking with her to writing my condolences to her family on her Facebook page. I can’t believe she’s gone.
I met Jen at a Women’s Wellness group seven years ago when we realized we took the same bus. We didn’t have much in common but that didn’t stop us from chattering the whole time. We were in the same social recreation group as well. I looked forward to seeing her each time.
I didn’t feel comfortable sharing Jen’s picture. I couldn’t fit wrestling in
Jen loved playing Pokemon Go and had the game open almost always. She was a huge wrestling fan and loved hockey as well. She was a devout pagan and was strongly connected with her community. And she loved her pups, first Zoe and then Bailey. They were her fur babies and she was devoted to them. Regular trips to the local pup cafe, pictures for all the holidays, and getting groomed complete with a bandanna. All of which were posted on Facebook.
Jen came to my Pride party back in 2022, which was held in the party room as there were too many people for my apartment. It wasn’t until after she’d left that we realized she’d never seen my apartment. Next time, she promised. More recently we, along with a mutual friend, wanted to meet for lunch when it got warmer. It’s warmer now.
I’ve lost friends due to a myriad of reasons. Hit by a drunk driver, bone infection after hip transplant, cancer, complications from psoriatic arthritis, and everyone’s favourite, “You’re not sick, you just need to lose weight”. And now I’ve got drug resistant unknown infection.
Every spring and autumn I pull out my almost twenty year old cat sweater and see the pin Jen gave me, a rainbow pin with a cat and the word “Purride”. I pick up my keys and notice the crazy cat lady keychain. And when I sit at my desk, a metal disk with the words “think PAWS-itive” on one side and “live in the meow” on the other, also courtesy of Jen.
I know the common refrain of “life’s not fair” but it really isn’t. She should have had so many more years. Goodbye Jen, seven years wasn’t nearly long enough to know you.
It was ten, maybe fifteen years ago, when I saw the ad in our lobby asking for volunteers to join the community group. I figured it would be a chance to meet my neighbours and to help find ideas to improve our community. The only one anywhere near my age was Christine. In our first meeting, the current president took an instant dislike of her. I have never seen someone hate someone else so fast. He announced it was him or Christine in the group. We both took the attitude of, oh well, his choice. That was definitely a “you problem”. Then he left. Immediately everyone else left too because “it just wouldn’t be the same without him”. Talk about welcome to the group! Christine and I persevered and worked on a bunch of ideas. A newsletter, a blog… we started looking into community gardens and spent an afternoon with an animal enforcement agent looking at dog turds in varying states of decay. The property manager claimed all the dog waste had been picked up the day before. We looked at a piles of waste that were growing mould and called his bluff.
The two of us clicked. Each time we were together we laughed and joked around. Then we added each other on Facebook. It wasn’t Facebook’s fault, I just got a chance to see a different side of her. A side that believed in con-trails, micro-chipping unsuspecting civilians, and poisoning vaccines so “Big Pharma” could sell more medication. Even then I could have probably ignored the posts except she was determined to have me see the light and not be a sheep. So she started tagging me in various articles and wouldn’t stop.
Once she sent me an article that had me raising my eyebrows so much I was surprised they weren’t on my scalp. But every claim it made had a credit, complete with a link. And, well, I always check the links. Then I was just plain sad. Every single link went to a paper that completely disagreed with the shared article.
Every. Single. One. Of. Them
They knew their audience. Those self proclaimed lions who were so much smarter than the sheep who refused to see the truth. They knew those “lions” would never click the links. That they would blindly follow anything the alternate media told them. Spoon fed by people selling them expensive crystals, space mushrooms, and coffee enemas (pro tip, it’s supposed to go in the opposite end).
And misinformation continues to tumble through our lives. From mis-attributed quotes to AI art being passed off as the real deal (sometimes to the point of being sold as real), most of that internet flotsam is easy to research. But many don’t. They trust the person who shared the information with them (who trusted the person they got the information from), or they’ve heard it before so many times that it’s been hammered in as true, or they simply don’t have the time or energy. And most of the time the info doesn’t really matter. I mean Plato is very much past the point of caring if someone else had one of his quotes attributed to them. But sometimes it matters so very much and the consequences can be life threatening.
I can’t remember exactly when it started, a year or so ago(ish), but suddenly everyone who supported transgender children (or any of the rest of the LGBTQIA2S spectrum) was a groomer, which showed that a whole whack of people have no idea what “groomer” actually means. It felt awful having those accusations thrown at me but I’ve dealt with bullies before so didn’t back away. Obviously I wasn’t alone. Their campaign was patently not working so whomever has been sharing the misinformation changed tactics. Suddenly they’re there for the children… watching out for them. They know what’s best for trans and queer children even over and above their parents, which is doubly ironic considering their rallying cry is “it’s my job to raise my children… you can’t teach them age appropriate sex ed and real, quantifiable proven history and science”. And what’s best for the children is absolutely no medical attention regarding transgender issues at all. Besides, all the multiple studies done over the past few decades are apparently wrong.
An article popped into my curated list of news. I guess the AI caught that I’m interested in queer issues and missed that I’m not interested in anti-queer issues. The writer, an Alberta endocrinologist named Dr. Roy Eappen, is another “I know best for the children and much better than their parents” type of guy. He is also pretty damn transphobic although I’m not entirely sure he knows this. Eappen proudly supports the “Do No Harm” organization, right down to placing their contact information at the end of his article. I went and took a peek.
The group, Do No Harm, an organization, as Wikipedia put it, that “group that opposes gender-affirming care and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in medicine and medical education. The group assists state legislatures in attempts to ban gender-affirming care for youth.”
I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise since they started out as “a group [that] was formed to “[protect] patients and physicians from woke healthcare””
Isn’t it funny how racism, sexism, and queerphobia all travel together like the three muskateers. A little bundle of hate all wrapped up in self-righteousness.
Image by Raw Pixel
And Dr. Roy Eappen, is in the thick of it. His article is so smarmy and written in such an unctuous tone that I wanted to reach through my monitor and give him a good shake. He started off by praising his province of Alberta and the premier Danielle Smith for the common sense and science she has shown by protecting children from invasive and irreversible medical procedures. I understand that taking hormones changes the body. But know what else causes irreversible changes? Puberty. For an example of puberty and how the body changes, I give you my son Colin (not literally though, just metaphorically). You’d have to remove him and 18 computers from his apartment and, well, nobody’s got time for that.
When Colin was a child everyone from store clerks to bus drivers to, well, as I said everyone, assumed Colin was female. Even with a crew cut and wearing a Tonka shirt I’d get, “What a sweetie! She’s so pretty! What’s her name?” Which made telling them “Colin” that much more awkward. Now he’s a massive 6ft1in man, complete with a huge, curly beard. I doubt anyone mistakes him for a girl these days. That’s what puberty does and it’s irreversible for the most part, unless you can afford plastic surgery and a lot of electrolysis.
Eappen states that, “Last month the World Health Organization (WHO) declined to issue guidelines for transgender procedures for children on the grounds that “the evidence base… is limited and variable when it comes to longer-term outcomes”. He gleefully announces that “limited and variable” must mean they think there’s no proof that medical intervention helps and that some children suffer. I think that’s a huge stretch and since I have Google I can go to the WHO’s website myself and see what they have to say.
The WHO (and I can’t be the only one whose mind goes to the rock group first) has much to say about transgender children and teens and, as far as I can tell, none of the words were “limited and variable”. For starters, this is what they have to say about transgender (or gender incongruent) children:
Gender incongruence of childhood is characterised by a marked incongruence between an individual’s experienced/expressed gender and the assigned sex in pre-pubertal children. It includes a strong desire to be a different gender than the assigned sex; a strong dislike on the child’s part of his or her sexual anatomy or anticipated secondary sex characteristics and/or a strong desire for the primary and/or anticipated secondary sex characteristics that match the experienced gender; and make-believe or fantasy play, toys, games, or activities and playmates that are typical of the experienced gender rather than the assigned sex. The incongruence must have persisted for about 2 years. Gender variant behaviour and preferences alone are not a basis for assigning the diagnosis.
I also found this quote about how “gender-affirmative health care can include any single or combination of a number of social, psychological, behavioural or medical (including hormonal treatment or surgery) interventions designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity” and this one:
Gender Incongruence of Adolescence and Adulthood is characterised by a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex, which often leads to a desire to ‘transition’, in order to live and be accepted as a person of the experienced gender, through hormonal treatment, surgery or other health care services to make the individual’s body align, as much as desired and to the extent possible, with the experienced gender. The diagnosis cannot be assigned prior the onset of puberty. Gender variant behaviour and preferences alone are not a basis for assigning the diagnosis.
Eappen moves on to other statistics regarding transgender teenagers while claiming that people who support trans teens are, in fact, homophobic, which is so ironic because judging by my friends, a whole swathe of the trans community are gay, lesbian, or bi/pan. I know that isn’t an official double blind study. I also know I’ve seen it mentioned quite a few times (or umpteen dozen if you want numbers). Eappen claims that two thirds of boys who started out as transgender ended up as gay and that clinicians at England’s main treatment centre (which has since been closed) joked that puberty blockers were “transing the gay away”. Sadly the information regarding that study is behind a paywall and one solitary article was the only one reporting on it. He pontificates that “about 80% of all children who believe themselves to be transgender eventually come to terms with their sex without surgical or pharmaceutical attention” following that up with, “the worst thing we could do is prevent them from discovering who they really are by pushing them down the road of irreversible medical interventions”.
I have to wonder how many of those children simply gave up on being heard and eventually said what they knew the adults they’re communicating with want to hear. And how many of those children transitioned as adults. I also want to know where he got that information from. Eighty percent is a really freaking large amount. So I searched some more found this bit of information from the American Academy of Pediatrics:
The overall rate of retransition was 7.3%. An average of 5.37 years (SD = 1.74 years) after their initial binary social transition, most participants were living as binary transgender youth (94.0%; Table 2). Included in this group were 4 individuals (1.3% of the total sample) who retransitioned twice (to nonbinary then back to binary transgender). Some youth (3.5%) were currently living as nonbinary, including one who had retransitioned first to cisgender then to nonbinary. Finally, 2.5% were using pronouns associated with their sex at birth and could be categorized as cisgender at the time of data collection, including one who first retransitioned to live as nonbinary. Similar percentages were observed when examining the 291 youth who were in touch with the research team in the past 2 years (Table 2), when examining only those 280 youth who had not begun puberty blockers at the start of the study (Table 3), or if we examine only the 200 youth who had gone at least 5 years since their initial transition (Table 3).
That’s so far removed from what Eappen said I find it hard to believe they’re in the same galaxy. Eighty percent versus 2.5%. I mean I’m bad at math but not that bad! Unless he got that information via Tavistock, which was closed due to shoddy record keeping among other issues. In case you’re curious about Tavistock I found this bit of information through an article by Hannah Barnes from BBC’s Newsnight:
In March 2022, an independent report commissioned by Britain’s National Health Service found that the type of care provided at Tavistock was, quote, ‘Not safe or viable as a long-term option for the care of young people with gender related distress.’ It also found that the center had not used customary control measures that are typically in place when new treatments are introduced. Nor had the centre collected consistent data on its patients and treatments.
As for the trans girls in his study, how about did that go? Did the two thirds of the teens simply shrug their metaphorical shoulders and say, “Welp, I guess I’m gay.” That’s a huge amount of teenagers simply changing their minds. Where are all the other studies confirming this? And why are those birds chirping? Maybe it’s the chirping heard when everything else is silent. Maybe his confirmation bias study is the only one.
But, seriously, the reason why that study had so many subjects detransion is because every subject that they lost track of were counted as detransitioning. Shoddy paperwork does not mean your subjects are cisgender. And yet people still act like it’s trustworthy, like Eappen. It’s been shown that intelligent people are more likely to believe fake information because they know they’re smart and are positive they can spot the erroneous or misleading information. Here’s a short video about it:
I had almost finished collecting the information for this post when an article popped up in my newsfeed. An article about Nex Benedict. Nex, who used they/them pronouns at home and he/him pronouns at school, was a 16 year old non-binary student. He’s been described as intelligent and a straight A student, a talented artist, and an animal lover (especially his cat Zeus).
Oklahoma is a transphobic state. They’ve currently got 54 bills that try to restrict the LGBTQIA2S community with healthcare, being included at school, and the freedom to express themselves. They’ve already created a bathroom ban, forcing everyone into the washroom of their assigned gender at birth. Which is why Nex and his friend were heading into the women’s washroom. He was in a school disciplinary course (detention) along with three teenage girls he really didn’t know and they were mocking him and his friends for their clothing choices. When the girls entered the washroom, Nex splashed them with his water bottle and they proceeded to dogpile him and beat the shit out of him. Right up to bashing his head several times on the concrete floor. He blanked out for a bit. The school has pointed out that all the students walked to the nurses office under their own power several times, neglecting to mention that Nex walked there like he was inebriated and walking a roadside sobriety test. Then he and his friend were given a two week suspension, the girls received an “undisclosed punishment”.
Nex’s grandmother wanted to press charges against the girls for their unwarranted and brutal attack. She was told not to bother because Nex was the instigator and would be the one blamed. Because a bit of water is equal to beating someone to a pulp. If it was here, she’d be able to press charges on his behalf. There however, it’s like a couple of four year old’s fighting in the living room, crying for their Mom because “he started it”. Sometimes it doesn’t matter a whit who started it. It’s what happened during and after that counts.
A trip to the hospital led to a diagnosis of a possible concussion then he went to bed early with a headache. And then he died in the living room the following morning. And now his family is bereft and little Zeus will never know what happened to his person.
It’s been a month since Nex died and the toxicology results have yet to be released. The Owasso police department is flopping around like a landed fish. Nex’s autopsy showed no signs of the beating being the cause of his death. Then it was too soon to tell and then a flop back. And now they’re waiting for the toxicology because they feel that “something’s going to be there”.
I read about the education superintendent, Ryan Walters, and his long list of transphobic actions. For example, last year, Walters and the rest of the educational department made a YouTube video to help end “radical gender theory” by talking about a “man” who assaulted a cisgender girl in the women’s washroom, complete with images of a crying little girl. Because nothing tugs on the heartstrings more than a stock photo. But it hit closer to home is when he called Nex’s death a tragedy then immediately went on to tell ABC that he wanted to focus on “the basics of education” and would not play “woke gender games” or back down from a “woke mob”. Feeling kind of like a martyr there Walters? People in his community are mourning Nex and Walters is busy using his death as a platform for his political view. That goes far being insensitive and uncaring.
Another example of his insensitivity is that he hired Chaya Raichik to be part of the Oklahoma Schools Library’s media advisory committee. Raichik has never lived in Oklahoma but she’s got one thing going for her, she created the queerphobic “Libs of TikTok”.
Nex had a teacher who he admired. That teacher, Tyler Wrynn, made a Tik-Tok video in support of queer and gender queer youths. Raichik used her platform to showcase him and similar teachers, stirring up a mob who sent him death threats and called him a “groomer”. He ended up resigning… for supporting his students.
Meanwhile Chaya Raichik agreed that Nex’s death was “horrible” but she also misgendered him, claimed he was mentally ill because he was trans, and stated she wanted to “eradicate gender ideology from public life.” And then there’s some walking piece of human excrement by the name of Tom Woods who, when asked about Nex, stated that he and the rest of the LGBTQIA2S community are “filth”. That’s classy, especially when you’re talking about a dead 16 year old.
These people, these politicians, they don’t seem to realize how badly they’re impacting families and children, ratcheting up the number of suicide attempts and leading to more dead children who felt unheard and unsupported. They talk about “woke ideology” and “woke mobs” and “radical gender theory”. They claim they’re there for the children. They aren’t. They claim they want to put the control back with the parents. And again they aren’t. If they were for the children, they’d ensure they never put any bills in that made a swathe of students feel hopeless. They’d realize that the more rights they take away from trans people, the more confident the general population feels in bullying and harassing the trans people in their lives. He’d realize he’s keeping medical treatments away from children which has been approved by their parents.
And I just opened a new tab to verify some information and the main article was Nex Benedict and how he’d committed suicide. The pathologist agreed there were signs of a brutal beating but it was the overdose that did him in. And I’m done, at least until tomorrow afternoon. I mean this post has taken long enough, especially since WordPress ate my entire, complete previous post and I’ve had to go back to the beginning. But now I need some space.
I’ve been suicidal before and well know the feelings of hopelessness and simply not mattering. It hurts to know he felt the same. That he looked around his world and saw more and more angry people who were against him. A school that rubber stamped approval for the other students to bully him. They even scared away his favourite teacher for supporting him and his fellow trans students. Nex had so much light to give the world and now it’s gone.
And here’s a final quote by someone with a pseudonym of Crystal who works for MSN:
With so much misinformation and panicked language floating around, it is reasonable to be concerned. Everyone wants what’s best for children.
But my suggestion would be that if you have concerns or doubts, why not have a conversation with a friend or loved one who is trans.
And if you don’t have a trans person in your life you can speak to, perhaps you’re not in a good position to have an opinion on trans people’s rights.
I was nearing the end of my grocery excursion when I looked at my phone and gave an inward sigh of relief. I had 25 minutes left until my OnDemand vehicle arrived and I only had three items left to pick up and all of them were in the same aisle. Then a message popped up on the screen saying, “We needed to move your ride to a different vehicle. Your new vehicle is MINUTES away: White Toyota Camry, pick up at [not particularly needed]”. Suddenly “me being ahead” was “me being so far behind”. This store is notoriously awful with their number of open tills and amount of people in line and I no longer had that amount of time. I tossed the last item into the cart and hurried to the front.
I usually have to get dragged kicking and screaming to the self serve machine (might be a small amount of hyperbole). An employee could come to me and say, “There’s twenty people in this line and there’s an empty self serve machine available” and my response would be, “That’s okay, I’ve got a book”. My anxiety does not mesh well with UNEXPECTED ITEM IN BAGGAGE AREA. But I what could I do? There were two open tills and both had long lines so I wheeled my cart to the last self serve machine available. The machine behaved and didn’t make a peep through the whole exchange and, soon I was heading to the exit… where there was an OnDemand vehicle outside the doors. As I watched, it cruised over toward the entrance and out of my line of vision. The first bag felt like it had been filled with cement while the second was a smidge lighter (why did I buy that many cans?). The last bag was clipped to the cart and was quietly obstreperous. It did not want to leave. By the time I walked out the door with all three bags the vehicle was turning out of the parking lot. I watched as it drove away then called OnDemand.
Now here’s the fun bit. OnDemand is a service that recommends you reserve your ride the day before. I called at the grocery store once and was told there was a ride available in five hours. Did I still have a ride available in 15 minutes or did I have to re-book and hope for the best. The answer would be… after I got off hold.
I reached the bus stop and looked around at the wet ground. Was it too wet for my fabric bags? There was a grocery cart but it was equally wet and had a potato in the baby seat. Why a potato?
“Excuse me?”
I turned around to see a young, average looking man watching me from about a metre away.
“I was wondering something,” he said as he walked toward me. “Could I buy your socks?”
My socks???
“I’ll pay you $20”
For my $1 Dollarama socks? “Sure, that’s fine,” I replied. That was when he noticed my phone.
“I’m so sorry,” he apologized. “I didn’t know you were on the phone.”
You have no idea how long it took me to get two relatively normal feet (I’m ignoring the baby toes)
I assured him I was on hold and he handed me a twenty before walking to a nearby low wall that doubles as a bench. I sat there with my bags in front of me, phone to my ear, while pulling my feet out of my boots and taking off my socks. Then he wanted to take pictures of my feet. Uhh, I guess. They’re pretty ugly. So he pulled my left foot onto his lap and started taking pictures. That was when dispatch answered. He’s assuring me that the message had been for another person and my ride would be there soon. Meanwhile I’ve got a complete stranger kissing the sole of my foot… and talking baby talk to it???
I tugged my foot away and put my boots on. “My ride will be here shortly”, I informed him.
“Can we do this three times a week?” he asked hopefully.
Oh hell no!
I said the first thing that popped into my mind. “I’d run out of socks pretty quickly.”
“I’ll pay you $500 every five days.”
Wait what??? “I can buy more socks”.
He took my phone number and walked away just as my ride pulled in. It was a challenge to get my feet and the bags into the rear footwell and the seat belt clasp kept hiding on me. Meanwhile my my phone was blowing up with messages. I finally checked my phone and he’s asking where I was and if I was ignoring the phone or had vanished. Yeah buddy, I’m a vampire. I turned into mist.
“I’m still here,” I texted back. Damn, there’s needy and then there’s this.
I was thinking about parameters regarding meeting up to exchange socks and money, albeit between his nearly incessant texts. I know that first of all, there was no way he was getting near my apartment. We could meet outside the convenience store and I could just hand him the bag of socks. This also would stop him from whispering sweet nothings to my feet. And, second, I refused to believe any millennial could afford to pay $2000 every month for some dirty socks. Talk about a horrible reason to skip out on your half of the rent!
Then he texted me again.
“We need to set some boundaries,” I informed him, knowing that we really meant I. I don’t think he has any boundaries. “I am very introverted plus I’m also asexual and on the aromantic spectrum. I can’t handle anywhere near this many texts or romantic stuff.”
He apologized then immediately sent me, not one, but two dick pics. I mean seriously? I get that he’s proud of the thing but nearly half the population has one; it’s not share worthy.
“This aro-ace is out of here,” I texted then went through the menus to find the delete option. The last reply I saw from him was a bewildered, “What does that mean?” I’m not Google, he can find it on his own.
It was all around a weird encounter but I got a twenty out of it so there’s that.
*I started this on Wednesday but my brain made the Windows shut-down sound so I had to finish it on Thursday*
…or, for those of us who are mentally ill, it was Wednesday. We don’t need to recognize a day, we’re aware of our mental health (or lack thereof) every day of the year. We’re in it waist deep, breathing (whether it’s four squared or 7-4-8), using our five senses as a distraction, or discussing which would be better – CBT or DBT.
Bell created this day to improve awareness of mental illness and to provide information to those who need it, although I’m sure the chance to shore up their horribly bad reputation went through their heads a time or two.
The first time I remember experiencing mental illness was sometime in my teens when I begged permission to build an open box from 2x4s in order to grow grass. I needed that tangible bit of proof that spring really would arrive, that I wasn’t going to live my life in constant desolation. I was met with baffled confusion because, of course spring would come, spring always comes. And, besides, grass wouldn’t grow in the basement. So I muddled through, not knowing that what I was experiencing was depression.
I used to love to go to the mall. I’d browse in The It Store. I went there so often and, yet, I don’t think I ever bought a damn thing. It was all novelty items and gag gifts and it grew increasingly more risque the deeper you went into the store. And, since this was pre-Chapters, I would check out the book stores as well. Most of the mall is one level but it turns to two at the south end (thanks to a hill). There were huge open spaces on the top floor, in the centre of the hallway, I’m assuming to let light flow through. They were fenced off with a clear railing. At some time in my teens I’d be blithely walking along the hallway and a thought would suddenly pop out of nowhere, “JUMP OVER THE RAILING!!!” I began to walk right against the store fronts, often brushing against the windows because I was that close to the stores. A few years later another thought came along. I’d be waiting at the bus stop when my brain would suddenly scream, “FALL ONTO THE ROAD!!!” I was so scared I’d do just that, I absolutely always made sure to stand a body length away from the road, just to be safe. These are called “intrusive thoughts” and they’re pretty common. I don’t know why, sometimes our brains are assholes. Here’s a very small video that helps to explain them although she’s a hell of a lot happier about them than anyone I’ve ever met.
And, over the years I gathered more symptoms, from sobbing at every session with my college therapist to several attempts at trying antidepressants. Eventually, the symptoms grew like an avalanche, gaining more and more symptoms until it became life threatening, to me not to anyone else. And now, here I am, with a good sized list of mental illnesses/neurodiverse diagnoses (and a hefty blister pack of meds). My life has settled into a quiet routine. I have chair exercises three times a week and a bevy of zoom groups and classes. They help to keep the depression down to a dull roar. I have a psychiatrist, a therapist, and an entire care team keeping an eye on me. And a cat who loves to snuggle with me for an afternoon nap.
I know I pretty much never clock as “normal” and these days I don’t even try. When I’m wearing makeup I get glittered up enough to be mistaken for a disco ball (note, this has never happened). I’m friendly to everyone and people do like me. It’s just… when Colin was little I used to joke that he wasn’t just marching to his own beat, he was off following a different band. I’m pretty sure I’m playing the xylophone and marching along right beside him. And, yes, our diagnoses are pretty much the same.
Over the years I’ve had people minimize what I’m going through. I’ve been told I’m on a lower level of the Ontario Disability Support Program than people who are physically disabled. There’s no bottom tier, you’re either disabled or you’re not. And I’ve been given the side eye because I went to Canada’s Wonderland for the day, along with Colin.
What they didn’t understand is we went there with PFLAG so there was a single bus ride there and back. They provided us with enough snacks to constitute breakfast plus a meal ticket for dinner, all we needed was to find lunch. We picked up our disability passes so we didn’t have to stand in line. In fact, the staff had no idea what to do with the passes so let us immediately board the next ride. They even let us sit in the front for every single roller coaster. I scouted out a relatively comfortable and quiet spot to nap on one of the small lawns and proceeded to lie down for an hour. It was blazing hot that day and I ended up having a Canada goose (aka Canadian Cobra Chicken) join me. She was so hot she was panting, I could empathize. Eventually we caught the bus and went home where I proceeded to recuperate for several days. I told this story to my therapist and she commented that the comment came from a lack of knowledge. The person didn’t realize how much time and effort I spent planning for the trip and planning at the park. They didn’t know how much energy it took from me. They simply saw pictures of Colin and I smiling and figured my trip was like everyone else.
There is so much misinformation about mental illness and a lot of it is flippant. I dropped a cupcake I was craving so now I’m depressed. No, you’re sad. If you feel the same (or worse) level of sadness for over two weeks then you might be depressed. And you’re not OCD if you wipe crumbs of your counter, that is in no way obsessive compulsive disorder and inviting someone with OCD to your messy house is unlikely to get it clean. A person with OCD has a compulsion (or compulsions) and an obsessive need to complete that compulsion. It could be they need to check their stove three times before they leave, even if they hadn’t used it. Or test the door knob to make sure it’s locked five times. Or washing all the dirt and germs off their hands except they always feel dirty and now their hands are bleeding. Psycho doesn’t mean someone’s running amok with a meat cleaver, no matter what the movie industry claims. The person is in a state of psychosis, which means their version of reality and actual reality are kissing cousins. They’re not any more likely to harm someone, in fact they’re more likely to be harmed. And just because you dislike someone doesn’t mean they’re a narcissist.
When you misuse words and minimize mental illnesses, it’s easy to see those illnesses as less than they really are, and to assume someone is faking, or not nearly as disabled as the “real disabled people”. You don’t see the real challenges people face. This impacts people at work, at school, in relationships, and more. Bell Let’s Talk Day is only one day. Are you ready to listen and support for the other 364?
They haunt me, these children. Their stories have been etched into my mind, jumping out seemingly at random, popping into my thoughts with all their sorrow. They live here inside me and I don’t know how to let them go. I usually keep quiet about them because they’re, quite literally, traumatic but I’m sharing a story of a child with you today, partly because they’re the newest and haunting me the most, but mostly because their story isn’t gory (as so many of them are).
It started with a short video including a transcript and it was shared in a group I belong to. I clicked the link with some trepidation and the video began. The setting was a father (behind the camera) and a young child who looked to be around five. The father starts with, “Can you repeat what you just said?” and so the child obliged.
“Daddy? I’m a girl.”
The father immediately told her she was wrong and, before she could say anything, he grabbed her full glass of water and ice then upended it on her side plate. She looked at him with absolute confusion then asked, “But why?”
Tears stained her cheeks as he asked, “Aren’t you going to drink your water from your cup?”
She started to cry even harder and said, “That’s not a cup”. Poor kid, she shared something of vital importance to her and he responded by dumping her water. Talk about feeling unheard.
Then her Dad responded with, “Yes, it’s a plate and always will be a plate.” He pointed his finger from the cup back to the plate.
“Cup and plate. Cup and plate. They will always be cup and plate.” He must have made a gesture because she chimed in, hopelessly saying, “Cup and plate.”
The man posted the video, obviously, for attention and it worked. He had thousands of people agreeing with him and praising him for being a good father.
A good father
He did not change his daughter into a boy, that isn’t something that can be done through videotaping and humiliating anyone. His daughter is still a girl. But she’s now a girl who knows she cannot trust her father with anything personal or important. He’s not safe. And she’ll grow up from childhood to her teen years (and beyond) feeling unsafe. She’ll end up going through the wrong puberty, watching as her body change in ways she never wanted. Hopefully she won’t follow the footsteps of Leelah Alcorn, who was trapped by her right-wing fundamentalist Christian parents and kept away from anyone supportive. They refused to let Leelah be herself until she got to the point where she felt that the only way she could be free was by stepping in front of a transport truck. No one should feel that desperate and unheard.
This man’s daughter has been born into a world where people feel comfortable enough to share,repeatedly, a ceiling-view sketch of the torso, legs, and feet of someone who has hung themself. The sketch also includes a large transgender flag on the wall. This message is in no way subtle. Another comment is 41% – which is the number of trans youths in a survey who had attempted suicide. Saying “you should be one of the 41%” is blatant to anyone who’s heard of the study, but how many people have heard of it?
This man’s child is facing a future with hatred and discrimination and his first action was to humiliate her across the internet. How many of the thousands of people who agreed with him unknowingly have a transgender child of their own? A child who is waiting for their chance to speak. You’re supposed to support your children, not drive them to the brink of suicide. And to do it for social media likes is appalling.
I don’t know this child’s name or where she lives (other than the US) and I will never know how she fares in the future. All I can do is hope. And so I tuck her in with the rest of the children and hope they rest gently tonight, in real life and inside my mind.
Have you ever found yourself wondering if you actually have money or if you’ve simply forgotten a bunch of bills? That’s the situation I’ve been in lately. It doesn’t help that I’m horrifically bad at math so calculations are always a bit iffy. But I finally realized that between not needing a week of food last month due to being on a family vacation plus getting paid for several months worth of cat sitting, I actually did have some money to play around with. Woo hoo!!! This doesn’t happen often!
My favourite hobby and my favourite place to walk
I’ve already bought 99% of my presents so those purchases were out of the way plus my kitchen is well stocked. So I looked at my life and what lies ahead to figure out what was crucial. I spend every single day in a state of exhaustion so the first and biggest need obviously was sleep. Sleep problems walk hand in hand with mental illness. Nightmares don’t help and getting up to pee 3+ times a night doesn’t help either. The latter wouldn’t be much of an issue except for the whole nightmare thing. It’s hard to go back to sleep when you’ve just drempt that a massive tornado plowed through your childhood home and you’re the only one who made it to the basement. But I’m already on medication for the nightmares; I needed to sort what else I could do. Everyone and their cousin talk about screen time and blue light ad nauseam. We all have to reduce screen time before bed. That’s thrilling. No seriously. My biggest hobby is scrapbooking… digital scrapbooking that is. So am I supposed to give up a soothing and relaxing hobby? Then they suggest reading. I love to read! I have two different apps on my phone and have a bunch of books ready to read between the two of them. Except that’s screen time too. And finally there’s Mah Jong. I found a great app and, well, yeah.
I tried the blue light filter on my phone once and it made my photos look like I’d taken them in the bowels of hell, so that wasn’t an option. But there are anti blue light glasses available. They’re also mega dorky so I don’t have a picture of me wearing them… anywhere. I’ve realized my room is quite bright and I wasn’t able to dim it with any success so I picked up a cute and soft sleep mask from Dollarama. It’s definitely dark while wearing it so that’s one issue dealt with. I’m not sure if either the glasses or the mask are working but I haven’t been trying that long. At the very least they’re doing no harm. Unless I wake up at 3am and attempt to walk to the bathroom with the mask on.
I got covid-19 back in March/April 2020 and it was awful! I couldn’t walk from my bedroom to the living room without stopping to take a break in the kitchen. My apartment is tiny plus all my rooms open into the kitchen so this wasn’t a long walk. I had to sit in the shower as well because I couldn’t stand that long. Energy and balance were definitely in short supply. Finally it was over and done with, or so I thought. Soon balance issues became noticeable. I fall easier now and I struggle with walking downhill. Winter was a nightmare last year. I can’t climb up or down snowbanks. Every sidewalk has a snowbank at the end and there’s a snowbank for the first day or two after a snow storm at every bus stop. I couldn’t go for walks anymore, at least not safely, and I couldn’t use the rebounder (aka mini trampoline) I’d bought several years earlier, I didn’t have the balance and it didn’t have the handlebar. But there was a nice one on sale through Amazon last week and it had a handle. It’s now set up in my room and my old one is going to Colin.
This winter I’m going to walk the hallways in my building, doing a loop down the south stairwell then along the hall to the north stairwell then up and and back down my hall. I’ll need some music, which I have on my iPhone, and headphones (also bought), and now the armband to hold my phone is on it’s way and should arrive by Christmas.
The last thing I wanted was a fitness band. I had a Fit-bit when I moved here but the company was having issues with their new band material. It was creating raw, sore burn-like marks on quite a few people’s wrists and I was one of them. My phone counted steps but I wasn’t always holding it so it wasn’t accurate. Then I found the bling-i-est smart watch imaginable. We’re talking glitter, silver, rhinestones, and mother of pearl. It arrived this morning and looks so pretty! Now to get it sized small enough. Luckily Cat Dad is going to help in the morning.
Tomorrow’s a new day and I’m looking forward to making a fresh and fit start!
It happened in a group I belong to. I’m not going to tell you which one as I belong to several through several different organizations. I’m not going to say when either, keeping in mind I regularly have posts in the draft section for weeks at a time. I will, however, tell you the rest.
It was the beginning of the group and we all had all been sharing recent news about ourselves. Then someone said that her friend’s son had moved in with her after an altercation between him and his father. And then she commented that he said he was non-binary and that he wanted them to use them/their pronouns for him. So I was explaining to her that she needed to use they/them pronouns all the time; in her thoughts and when they weren’t even around. She was in the middle of explaining that she always tries to use his pronouns when the facilitator spoke up asking what sex he’s interested in. Talk about a jaw dropping moment.
She sounded baffled and said he was apparently interested in all genders. So I’m trying to explain to her what pansexual means and the facilitator announces that he really loves language and just couldn’t bring himself to use “they” in singular form and she chimed in agreeing with him. No wonder she couldn’t get their pronouns right if she didn’t even believe in them to begin with. And then it happened. One of the other group members piped up.
“I don’t get into that stuff,” she stated, ignoring the fact that by joining the conversation (or interrogation) she was, indeed, getting “into that stuff”. Then she continued with, “Tits and dick, that’s it. There’s nothing else, you’re either a man or a woman who have tits or a dick.”
I tried to explain to her that biologists know gender is a spectrum and that cultures around the world have celebrated more than two genders for millennia when she announced she was done and leaving. This would have been the perfect time for someone in authority should have addressed the blatant transphobia and explained why it shouldn’t have happened and that people of all genders, races, and sexual orientations are welcome but there was radio silence regarding the prejudice. Instead the woman announced that she was leaving because she didn’t like to talk about “those things”. This was quickly followed with a clamour of people assuring her that she was a valued member of the community and should stay; they were going to change the subject. So she stayed.
I barely said anything after that. I just sat looking down at my hands. The facilitator started going around the group asking everyone to rate their mood from one to ten and say something brief about their life. I was one of the last people. I took a deep breath and I told everyone I’d been at a four before the group but I was now a three.
“But why?” the facilitator asked in confusion. “This has always been a safe place for me,” I explained. “But as a queer person I no longer feel safe here.”
Cue questions from several people about why I’d say such a thing. I said it was due to the transphobia, repeating, “as a queer person I no longer feel safe here”. Then everyone, except the one who actually spouted the transphobic words, clamoured to assure me that there was absolutely no transphobia in the group and no one said anything remotely transphobic. It just didn’t happen. But don’t worry you’re safe here, even as a queer person. It’s okay. But it wasn’t. If they couldn’t recognize transphobia then how am I to trust they’d recognize acephobia or homophobia. As a welcoming group, the transphobia should have been dealt with immediately but it wasn’t and I doubt it ever will.
This was my group, the one I looked forward to every week but now what? I felt unheard and invalidated during the group and even now. This group was supposed to to be a safe and supportive but it doesn’t feel safe to me now. I don’t know if it ever will.
His mother was a barn cat and he was placed, with his siblings, in a free box in our lobby. He went home with my neighbour, and then friend, who picked him because he looked like Angel. Then I found out the woman who brought his cat mother to our building lived diagonally across the hall from me. A triangle of people all connected by one small kitten.
He had been named Oreo. I wanted to rename him Harlequin because he was such a clown and the black and white markings on his face reminded me of them. But there were three small children living across the hall who thought of him as theirs. I could not bring myself to rename him when he was so obviously missed. And, by the time they moved, his name had stuck.
Oreo was the quirkiest cat I ever owned. I joked that he was an down cat and not a up cat. He couldn’t stand being held in your arms or on your lap. He preferred being at your feet instead, either on my footstool or directly on my feet. He wouldn’t even sleep at the top of my bed even though all the other cats slept there (Angel and Lara even sleeping on my pillow). Instead he nestled at the bottom corner of the bed. In later years I placed a folded fake fur blanket there which he, thankfully, would sleep on.
He got along with all the other cats, except for Angel, who thought she was a person, but his favourite cat to be around was Lara. Not that he had much choice in the matter. Lara’s the extrovert of the lot who thinks that everyone is there to pet her and every cat wants to be with her all the time. While she spent more time with Blackie than Oreo, after Blackie died Lara pretty much crazy glued herself to him. He didn’t mind at first and they would snuggle together in various configurations after Lara groomed him for a while. Sometimes they’d lazy play fight, lying down head to head and softly pat their paws against each other.
When I first registered my cats at the vet clinic across the street in 2019, the receptionist looked at the three oldest cats’ ages and said, “Wow! You’re looking at a lot of heartbreak in your future, with them being so close together in age.” I was ticked at the time seeing as all three cats were healthy but then Angel died suddenly from cardiac arrest/congestive heart failure on May 31, 2022 and Blackie quickly followed her on August 29, 2022, only three months later. Considering how she rapidly lost the ability to walk my best guess is it was something brain related. And then, out of my trio of cats, only Oreo remained.
He was already on one capsule of gabapentin a day for arthritis and could no longer get onto my bed, so I’d lift him up each night and several times a day. Luckily he could still get down by jumping onto my mini trampoline so I didn’t need to worry about him falling off the bed while I slept or made dinner. Then he refused to let Lara go anywhere near him, not even to groom him. I upped the gabapentin to two capsules but his rejection of Lara continued and he began crying mournfully whenever he lost sight of me. And he started sneezing so forcefully I expected his head to spin around like the girl from The Exorcist. Then there was blood, little droplets of blood that sprayed across the wall and his favourite blanket and the kitchen mat. And he started having seizures.
I booked a vet appointment for him the next day (a Friday) and Colin arranged to have his visit extended to cover the appointment. The results were diametrically opposite of each other; he either had a cold or a tumour in his nose. We headed back to my place with antibiotics (which Oreo hated) and a phone appointment with the vet in ten more days. He never made it that far. I had a psychiatrist appointment on Wednesday and asked Cat Dad if Oreo could stay at his place seeing as I’d be gone for the whole afternoon. He agreed then, upon my return, commented on Oreo sneezing blood and having to mop the floor. I was confused but thanked him then, shortly after we got home, Oreo sneezed and the blood was definitely more than droplets. Sadly it was too late call to the vet but I had plans to call first thing in the morning.
I woke at dawn on Thursday, September 14th because Oreo’s breathing sounded funny. I hurried to him and carried him to my swing chair to watch the sunrise. He immediately struggled to get down and limped as fast as he could to his kitchen mat, he was a “down cat” right to the end. I lay beside him for hours, watching his nictitating membrane rise and his pupils stay fully dilated. The vet opened at 8am and I was on the phone that minute setting an appointment. It was made for Friday, September 15th, Oreo’s 16th birthday. Colin immediately made plans to be there.
Oreo had been on antibiotics for almost a full week and he’d only gotten worse. By the time Thursday rolled around he was no longer eating or drinking. Not with his food warmed. Not with is favourite treats. Nothing. I called the vet clinic that afternoon to ask if I could stop giving him the antibiotics seeing as he hated them and wasn’t consuming anything and was asked to come in right away. It was very obviously his time to go and I put Colin on video chat so he could be there in some way. And, like always, the end was instantaneous. One moment he was looking up and the next his head dropped to his paws. Colin thought he was sleeping, he looked so peaceful.
It was so hard walking home empty handed. It seemed like my apartment was that much emptier. Then again, just over a year ago I had five cats. Now there were two. Smudge sniffed intently around the area Oreo favoured then walked away. Lara started crying for me every time I was out of sight. And I washed Oreo’s kitchen mat and gave it to Colin. I couldn’t bear seeing it without Oreo curled upon it.
Ironically I had three cats offered to me around the day of Oreo’s passing. I turned them all down. I think it’s time for just Smudge, Lara, and myself. I hope they live long and happy lives.
Because I'm Fabulous 