Is it Friday yet?

When it rains it POURS! I am purposefully taking my time getting ready this morning so that I will be an hour late for work because I'm trying to catch my breath after this whirlwind last couple of weeks. First Helen, then the apartment fire, then our car broke down, our electricity went out, then another stressful visit to the vet on Saturday! Allie has a heart murmur and her lab results showed that she also has some kidney abnormality, likely indicative of kidney disease which is very common in older cats. She has a cardiac ultrasound scheduled for Monday - $400 (!) - to determine the severity of the heart murmur so that she can then proceed to get dental work done that she desperately needs because she has an abcessed tooth. If the heart murmur is mild then she needs to go ahead and get the dental. If it is more serious then I don't know what happens. Needless to say, mom is very worried! The tooth could be connected to the kidney abnormality somehow too - not sure how that works. They are also drawing a urine sample from her bladder on Monday. Sigh. I suppose these things can be expected with a 19 year old cat.

I've also been busy with school and work. I've had student clinic the last couple of weeks, which seems to be going well. Today we start the "Tree House Group" at C4. I'm taking clients to Tree House to volunteer with the cats. I'm pretty excited about that. The group will be held every Friday and we seem to have a nice group of clients going. Yay! Two weeks from Monday I go to Tinley Park Mental Health Center every day for work because I'm volunteering to help Katrina victims that have re-located to Illinois and are staying at TPMHC because the hospital has been closed down and is vacant. I'm excited about this too. I finally get to do something to help. I'll basically be doing case management with them - linking them to needed resources and whatnot.

This weekend I'm going to RELAX and not do much of anything! I need a break from all of the chaos! I suppose I'll be glued to the tv watching Rita coverage unfortunately, but I'm hopeful that the storm won't be as devastating as Katrina was, and I heard that they are also allowing animals to stay in temporary shelters with the humans so that is GREAT news!

My little Harrison is vying for my attention as I type this and he's being very cute this morning so I'll close for now.