More Worries

What can I say?  There's always something.  My ex seems to have disappeared again, and since his life is in chaos right now I'm more than a little concerned.  We're friends, in case that statement confuses you.  We couldn't get along as a married couple, but as soon as we stopped trying to be a couple we got along just fine.  I won't describe his situation because that's his business and I don't have the right.  I'll just say he's more depressed than usual and for good reason.  Until I hear from him again, I'm going to be worried.  Most likely his phone is down because he went over his limit, but still.

Stimpy goes to the vet today at 3 PM.  I don't have much money, but I have enough that something can be done for him at least.  Maybe just blood tests and antibiotics.  The swelling has gone down on his kidneys, though, so hopefully that's a sign that it's not really serious.  It's difficult to find information on intermittent renomegaly, however.  Renomegaly just means swollen or enlarged kidneys, and it can be caused by any number of conditions.  The only way to figure out the cause is to do testing.

While waiting for lab results, I'm going to ask that she put him on the antibiotics.  He's never been on any in his entire life, so it's not going to hurt him or cause him to develop resistance to them, and they may prevent further damage if that's what he needs.  He's already five years old, which my vet says is old for a ferret in her experience.  Most people I've talked to, however, which are people all over the world, have ferrets that live the expected 6 to 9 years.  Some of them even longer.  Of course, the people I've been in contact with are people that have experience with ferrets, feed them the proper foods, and take them for regular vet care.  People where I actually live are generally broke and their pets aren't as much of a priority as they should be.  Me, I'd rather go without food than see Stimpy continue to suffer.  Proper care and nutrition make all the difference when it comes to the life span of our pets.  People shrug that off, but it's more true than they could possibly guess.

The cat I had to put down just after I got Stimpy (his name was Whiskey), only lived to age 11.  Cats can live 20 years or more, if given the proper food and care.  My other male is about 17 now (hard to say exactly, as he was a stray that we took in, but he was still lanky and looked about a year old at the time), and still has a few playful moments each day.  You can see how much of a difference it makes if they have healthy food.  When I lost Whiskey due to the crappy food I was feeding them, I switched over to better food immediately.  I continued to do my research, which eventually resulted in an article being published on the subject.

It's less than twelve hours before I have some idea what's happening with Stimpy, but who knows how long it'll be before I hear from my ex again.  Communication between us is sporadic.  I don't like talking on the phone, and he doesn't like writing or reading.  Makes it tough.  Still, he reads my work every now and again, which I didn't realize until recently.  Not only has he read some of my articles, but some of my blog posts as well, which is pretty cool.  Well, he did say at one time that he thought I could be a success with my writing.

If I'm ever going to make a living with my writing, though, I really have to get the final draft of my book finished.  Tough to do when I can only write for an hour at a time or whatever, but I'll get there.  When I do work on it, I generally do a few thousand words.  It definitely helps to be able to type really fast.  I actually type faster than I speak, but slightly slower than I read.  At my fastest speed I was typing around 120 words per minute, and if I tried to slow down I would make tons of mistakes.  My one boss actually told me to slow down because he was afraid it would cause mistakes, and then it ended up working the opposite way.

I get into a rhythm, or groove, where I just plow through something, and if I try to alter my habit in any way, it messes things up.  I also generally know when I've made a typo as I write, and correct it before I can move on.  My accuracy is pretty high, even if it's not perfect, and I find most of my errors before I post things, but occasionally I find something later when I go back to it.  I've learned through reading the work of others, however, that I have comparatively few errors and I've gained confidence enough that I can submit my work to people without freaking out about it.

Well, my pills are working again, which means my concentration is shot.  Back to play-time, I guess.  At least with the pills kicking in, I won't be fretting so much about things.  There isn't anything I can do right at the moment, anyway, so worrying is pointless.