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Wednesday 17 February 2016

A mostly expensive start to the year so far

On Friday Millie was booked in at the vets to have dental work done.
We knew she had a build up of plaque and, for a while she has had very smelly breath.
but lately she has not been eating much, and although she has never been a fat cat she was starting to look a bit too thin.  
At almost 12 years old, she is getting to be an old lady, but apart from her teeth her pre-op check showed that she is in good health otherwise, thank goodness.

So I dropped her off at 8.30 am on Friday and at around 1 pm they phoned to say that she was all done.  Unfortunately they had to take the majority of her teeth out, 13 in total, she is just left with a couple at the front now.  Plus to get one of her teeth out they had to cut her gum, so she has a few stitches too.  She was not very happy with me on Friday I can tell you!  I expected her to be off her food for a few days, or at least not to eat much, but no, I opened a tin of pilchards for her, mashed them up and she was right in there, finishing off most of the tin!  


Happily she is now more or less back to her normal self, her face was a little bit swollen but that is mostly gone down now and she is eating more than she has done in months!  She has pain killers once a day and has to go back in 10 days for another check-up, but hopefully we should see a big improvement in her eating and weight gain now.


Of course those of you with pets will know that vet visits don't come cheap and this little visit lightened our bank balance by £318. 
What with Molly's abscess just after Christmas we have forked out almost £1000 so far this year in vet bills, and we are only in month 2!  We have no pet insurance, (I know, I know, not very insightful of me), but as they are getting to be quite 'old ladies' now  the insurance would probably be quite high and of course wouldn't cover what they have already been treated for, so, I have decided that every month I will put a little money away to cover any future vet bills.  
Touch wood, my two cats have always been quite healthy and well, they don't wander out of our garden and they are not hunters, and I think that helps, but there is no getting away from the fact that they are getting older and may need other treatment in the future, at least if I start a fund now at least I will know that some, if not all of the money will be covered.

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I'm still plugging away with the February instalment of the Joyful World SAL.



I have to say that although I love this, I'm not enjoying stitching it, does that make sense?  Plus, I've miscounted somewhere, so there will be a bit of fudging going on.
I will keep on with it because I've got so far, but I think it's fair to say that I will be glad to see the back of it.

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This weekend we went to pick up a little cupboard for the hall.  
Our hallway is not very big and I hate to see shoes cluttering up the space, this has solved the shoe problem perfectly.

(excuse the fuzzy photo, it was taken with my phone at night)

The mirror was a little make-over project last week, It was originally black, (another one of my Home Sense finds a couple of weeks ago), I liked the shape but the black was too stark so out came my trusty Annie Sloan paint and a couple of hours later it was transformed :-)
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I'm just getting over another cold, second one this year, I don't usually have many colds but these two really slowed me down, must be my age, lol.   I'm still a little bunged up but feel tons better than I did last week.  I bought a pack of multivitamins for 50+ when I went shopping this weekend, apparently you need a different set of vitamins when you are 50+, who knew!
Hopefully they will help to put a spring back in my step, ha ha ha, I think in order to do that they will have to transport me back a decade or two as well :-)

I hope you are managing to avoid the Winter cold germs and keeping warm and well :-)

See you soon
Have a great week
-X-

21 comments:

Jo said...

Awwww, poor Millie. Glad she enjoyed her tin of pilchards though. We never had insurance for our cat either, we were stung for a lot of money when we found out he had cancer so the first thing we did when we got a dog was look in to insurance. I do love cats and would love another but Daniel developed an allergy to them after Jake died so we've now got Archie the Cavalier instead. Your Joyful World is looking lovely, I've restarted the January design but I'm a very slow stitcher being new at it so it will be quite some time before I finish it.

cucki said...

OH dear sweet Millie...
Big hugs and love and prayers xx

Chocolates4Breakfast (Terri Malinovich) said...

So glad Millie is recovering nicely. Gracie goes in for a dental cleaning next month and you're not kidding - it is EXPENSIVE! We don't have pet insurance either...
I am also stitching the JW SAL and I am going to be SICK of those borders by the end (already am) although I will not be filling in the corners so that'll help. I think it looks lovely and lacey without the extra color. January I thought was an adorable block and I like March too but I'm not loving February's ducks. Once I get caught up and only have to do one a month, I think it'll be okay.
Love your mirror re-do! I need to find a way to corral shoes, too.
What a mess!

Christina said...

Your hallway is gorgeous, Maggie. I love the checked wallpaper. I'm a big fan of Annie Sloan paint too!

Vickie said...

Our Murphy is 12 1/2 and just had a dental. Two teeth were taken out and his stinky breath is gone. :)
I like your SAL on that fabric.

Mouse said...

awwww bless her cotton paws... but the teeth removal seems to have done the trick ... love the spotty fabric you are doing the sal on .... need to get charts printed off ... way behind in everything ... love mouse xxxxx

Shebafudge said...

Awww...poor Millie! It's a good sign that she was so keen on the pilchards too, bless her! Our 2 aren't insured either and are 8, so we are expecting significant vets bills in the next few years. Hopefully, not higher than what we would have spent on insurance. Millie is absolutely gorgeous, I would love to have a black cat. xx

Barb said...

Sorry to hear about the big vet bills but good news that kitty is doing so much better. I am not doing the SAL but I am enjoying seeing all the progress many of you are making. Yours looks great.

Carolien said...

Hello Maggie,

Your cat is a beauty. Wow, that was quite a 'dentist appointment'!

Love your ducks and I agree. I don't really like to stitch the borders, but I think they're cute with the different colours so I stitch them, BUT ;)

Have a nice day & I hope winters passes quickly for us 50 plussers LOL

Angela said...

Glad Millie is doing better and even Pet Insurance is expensive. I hope you are feeling better.

Von said...

Poor little Millie! So sorry she had to go through all that dental work and the hit your bank account took because of it!!

Your little entry looks so nice. My front closet is full of shoes, so I should pull them all out and see if the kids still want them; or maybe I'll just get rid of them as they obviously don't need them or they would have taken them when they moved out, lol!

Good luck finishing your February. At least the design isn't too big so you can push through, even with the bit of fudging you need to do.

Sarah in Stitches said...

Lovely stitching! I'm sorry you're not enjoying it. It shouldn't take too long to finish, though. Sorry as well that the vet was so expensive - I'm hoping you and Millie feel better soon! :D

Sally said...

Aww bless little Millie. She is so cute.

Love your February piece. I'm saving these to stitch at a later date as I have enough on for now lol.

Julie said...

Millie is a beauty, vets know how to charge!
Love the spotty fabric for your SAL

Desiree Ehleiter said...

Millie is beautiful, so glad she seems to be making such a fast recovery.

Clare-Aimetu said...

Oh my poor Millie and poor pocket :-( your mirror looks great over the cupboard :-)

Carol said...

Oh, Maggie, I can't get over how much your Millie looks like my old cat Shadow--they could be twins! We went through some tough times with vet bills for him, too, but it was worth it to keep him around for a bit longer... Give her a hug for me--I so miss having a kitty around!

Brigitte said...

Good to read that your kitty is recovering so nicely and is already back to her old self. And I hope this also true for you. One always feels so uncomfortable with a cold, you can't do anything because you are always like worn out. Hopefully you feel good again by now.
Nice February project. Yes, sometimes we don't enjoy stitching a project although it's a nice one. Good for you that it's small, lol.

Mary - Lecoeurceltique said...

Vet bills can be very high. You'll just need to remind yourself of all the years you didn't incur many.

Unknown said...

Hope Millie continues to recover well. Our bank balance was greatly reduced by about £,1500 last year with our dog and no pet insurance either! They are worth every penny though.

Love the fabric you are using for the Joyful World SAL.

MysteryKnitter said...

Awwww! Poor M! I hope she recovers soon. (I am writing "from the future", so it may take some time to get "up to date".)