This is Dental Implant Week for me, as long as my recent bloodwork reveals I’m in good shape to have oral surgery. I’m waiting to find that out today. I have a call in to my PCP. (11:00 a.m. Update: I’m good to go for the oral surgery. My labs came back, no red flags at all.)

 

Tomorrow I go to the coumadin clinic to be sure my INR level is low enough for oral surgery. It doesn’t have to be super low because bleeding will be minimal, but they want it to be near 2.0. It’s usually at 2.2 so I didn’t have to reduce the dosage much to bring it lower. If it isn’t low enough tomorrow when I get tested, I can just skip a dose entirely that night and get re-tested the next  morning to be sure I’m at a safe level.

 

The surgeon will be taking out the rest of the #8 tooth before they place the implant. The tissue around the implant will have to heal for two or three months before they can make a crown for the implant. I should still be able to wear my fake tooth during that time after the first few days. I’m glad we just did EVER NEW this past Saturday so I won’t have to appear again until my flipper is back in place. I’m not used to looking like a cast member of Li’l Abner! Until I got my flipper (fake tooth denture) a few months ago, I was doubly happy to have a mask mandate in place!

 

CRITTER UPDATE

 

This past week, I’ve lost several fish, one African dwarf frog,  and one of my rats. I tested the water and the parameters in the aquarium and everything came back fine, but one of the canister filters wasn’t pulling its usual weight, so I got another one and put it in. Everyone else in the tank looks good.

 

I haven’t lost very many fish to date, and I’ve had this 55-gallon aquarium for about two years now. It’s possible that some of the fish who died were aging out, but it was quite a shock to see dead fish in my tank several days in a row!

 

I don’t know what happened to the rat. She came out of the maze one day with a bloody ear and swollen eye, but she didn’t appear to be in distress or much the worse for wear.

 

I flushed her ear using a syringe with hydrogen peroxide in it and swabbed out the resulting residue with a Q tip; the ear foamed, so it was likely infected.  As the next two days passed, she got worse. Her breathing became labored, and she stayed outside the maze box, as if knowing she wasn’t going to be around for much longer.  I hated losing her, but I know a rat’s average life span is just two years, so I have to prepare myself to start losing the others during the next year or so. I have had them about a year. Two of them were moms; the rest were six to eight week old babies. I don’t know if the one who died recently was a mom, but she may have been…

 

In her glory days, months back…

 

 

 

My four goats and three cats remain fine, but I know Patches (at age 17+) is doing less well as the months pass. She is still happy and the vet is keeping an eye on her (she had bloodwork done recently), so we’ll keep her perking along as long as she continues to enjoy life.  (NOT having her on my pillow or on my tummy or hip at night is NOT an option until absolutely necessary!)  My other two cats, Charli and Bobby, are still young’uns… under two years, both of them.

 

Patches

 

Charli     

Bobby

 

Pets never live as long as we do. That’s the sad part about having pets.  I wrote a poem about cats I’ve had and (at the end) about their eventual leave-taking. I’ll republish it here. (It’s one of the poems in my book LET NO DAY DAWN THAT THE ANIMALS CANNOT SHARE.)

 

ODE TO MY CATS

What makes him Turkey
and not a copy-cat?
What makes Bish-Bish different
From every other cat?

A walk of walking,

of talking,

of sharing,

A way of purring,

of running,

of daring.

They are not alike,

and no cat is:

Sebastian, Nero,

Bursties, Ms.

All are their own,

all are requite rare.

each its last type—

and each made me care:

Timothy was first. He let him in,
into his life, the thick and the thin.
He gently taught me what I need to know
About cats and their ways — and how to let go.

You need to know how to let go.

None of them share your whole life through;
They live a few years, and all of them go much too soon.

But the love and the memories they ultimately leave
Soon make you forget your aptness to grieve.

Soon there’s another, no copycat he:

He cannot replace, he can only BE.

And somehow—thankfully—that is enough…