Let’s Get This Thing Started
Ok, so I’ve had this software installed for what, 5 months now. I guess it’s time to start using it. Lots of significant (to me) things have been happening this year, and I feel compelled to write about them. Please excuse the style and design of the blog — yes, it is the default WordPress template. I’m no graphic designer. I may take a stab at changing it at some point in the future, when I’m sufficiently motivated — but not now. I have a list of things nearly (it seems) a mile long, and updating my blog theme has been shoved down toward the bottom just past “pulling the weeds”. Heck, I can’t even think of a better name than “No title given”
So, as I mentioned, lots of significant things have been happening this year. It’s been one of my worst years in my nearly 42 years on this Earth. It started off before I’d even become accustomed to dating my checks for 2006 with the sudden, unexpected passing of my father in late January. He was 66. It was either a heart attack or a stroke. There was no autopsy, so we don’t know for sure. My mother was killed in an auto accident in 1983, so the passing of my father meant that I was now the senior member of our part of the family tree.
More recently (last Wednesday night to be exact), one of our two cats died in the animal hospital. It was like losing a best friend I had known for 13 years, and I took it pretty hard. She had been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism about 2.5 months earlier, but we had that under control. We even thought that at one point, she might have even had chronic renal failure, but that wasn’t what took her. She had developed a condition where her own immune system was causing the destruction of her red blood cells. She became anemic very rapidly. We admitted her to the animal hospital for a transfusion and to start a treatment to stop her immune system from destroying her red blood cells, but we didn’t catch it soon enough. The Vet called later that evening to inform me that even though she received the transfusion, she didn’t make it.
If you’re a lover of irony (or coincidence, perhaps), Kelsey died 6 months to the day after my dad. She loved to curl up on our laps, so I like to think that she’s curled up on my dad’s lap waiting for when I can be with them again. Rest in peace, Dad. Rest in peace, Kelsey.