01/28/2022 - 3:32 p.m.

I got, like, four hours of sleep last night. We're in that weird phase now where it feels like I had a stroke or something -- where I can't focus, and have trouble remembering things.

Although part of that could be stress. The cat is clearly having some major health issues. And I don't have a handle on it. We were in the "try a new food!" phase -- and that wasn't working, and in fact made things worse, so we went back to the last good cat food. But it was so hard to even make contact with the vet to have the conversation. She ended up just leaving a voicemail saying it was okay to change back to the old cat food. We never, ever got to have a live conversation.

Which is a shame because there's so many other questions that we also have. After many rounds of phone calls, we got a live call with a backup vet today -- but they recommended something that was too expensive, and then something we'd already tried. And then the conversation moved on! So I don't feel like I ever got a definitive answer to the question, "Is there any other way to tell if my cat has THIS major condition or not?"

But we did get to ask the major question -- and I should probably celebrate this win. My girlfriend thought the cat was in pain, and that was creating a pressure/stress to talk about worst-case scenarios. So at least in the live call I got the vet to address that, to say it doesn't sound like our cat is in pain.

And after the call, my girlfriend admitted I was right.

But the call with the vet also created a new problem. They wanted the cat to swallow a pill every day, which is stupid because that's not going to happen. There was also a liquid -- so they phoned in an order, but it's only going to be available in a city 25 miles away, and they don't know when. So now I have to trust my girlfriend to pick up this crucial medicine that the cat will actually take for its major medical condition. Because the vet that's three blocks away can't do it themselves. That is just really frustrating. But, also, I didn't get more than four hours of sleep last night.

So I really can't process any of this.

So yeah, maybe just take the win. My girlfriend was assured, by a vet, that the cat's not in pain. And within a day or two or three the cat will be on some kind of medicine that's supposed to help make her better, whatever condition she may have. And we did also get her back on the good catfood.

I guess the other thing the vet said is that the other drastic intervention we could try isn't as bad as thought. And that is good news, so take that as a win too. It's still not clear if my girlfriend believes that, so she might still fight me on that. But at least that's a conversation for another day.