Our Odessa came home today in great spirits, next to no coughing--more an
occasional "ahem"--and has already taken her revenge on us b y sneaking out
of the computer room where we'll be keeping her to recover, and getting into
the crawl space. Louie made a mess of himself getting her out; it's dusty in
there. I hope to God the antibiotic will cover it all, it seems to have done
its job...boy, did she cuss us out when we went after her, and how happy I am
to hear foul language from her mouth again! She hadn't even meowed in weeks;
now she's been very chatty after wrangling her back into the computer room.
Now our Dolly's taking a snooze after making me and Louie chase her down, the
witch.

Not to say it's been beer and skittles all day. And what the devil is a
skittle besides some sugary thing that can mess your teeth up? It's the
exhaustion talking.

My boss gave me the day off to take care of Odessa. We knew there would be
medicating and feeding and other instructions, and she would need a
monitoring. I wanted just to have someone here, after leaving her alone all
this time. We had made two payments to the vet...and here is where I was
wishing they had the means to treat jackasses, because my husband was on his
way to needing medical attention. We had been asking each day what the
running tally was, and had not gotten it. Now money was not a big issue, we
had it. But the inexperiened young lady at the desk said the balance due was
after the 900 bucks paid was taken into consideration, so we were left with
an impression of a much lower figure. When we were told today that the figure
owed was 1600 dollars, and not the difference when you subtract 9 from 16,
Louie flew into a god-holy fit that nearly brought the house down. While i
was turning progressivly deeper shdes of red and mouthing
"ImsorryImsosorryImsohumiliatedpleaseforgivehimomigodImsoFREAKINGSORRY," the
administrator had to be called and take Louie into another room far, far away.
I felt like money WAS the issue after all, but turned out we got an
inexperienced desk staff who was uncomfortable discussing the fees in light
of Odessa's condition, for initially she had a seriously crappy prognosis. In
the meantime, God Bless Care Credit, and bless them for giving me a line
because I thought my credit sucked. Making those nice timely checks to Lane
Bryant must have done my score some good. So I took the papers to that little
room and said, "It's all arranged. Now go and apologise to those women. You
can worry about apologising to your wife for this later. Now move your a.s
before they need to call for emergency surgery on it!" And did he move...I
don't like having to get snarky on my husband like that, but I like public
mortification even less. Payback is going to include dinner out and the
Lancome counter...

We were told how to do the antibiotics, both of them, and how to fix the food.
For a while Odessa has to be on a cat-equivalent of a soft-mechanical diet.
The A/D food is already soft but we have to thin it out to a cream-of-
mushroom soup consistency. Seems a big part of the problem, which turned the
prognosis over, was the discovery that the ick in her throat was so thick,
food was getting lodged in it like fruit in Jello and cutting off the pipes.
So she had to have two or three "trache washes" to dislodge the food and the
ick, and there was the breakthrough. I'm told she was making a prodigious
amount of ick that started to decline Sunday, but still caused a food problem.
One culture taken from this trache wash found the bacterial culprit and an
antibiotic that turned her around. Truth was (we learned today) they were not
expecting Odessa to make it. The Sunday night lodged-food incident was a
breakthrough in thaat she was cleared of the stuff that was getting in the
throat, and the antibiotic has been steadily killing off whatever is
remaining. She still has a little gurgly noise and an "ahem" evey now and
again, but the respiration is normal. She's breathing without gulping down
air with a wide open mouth. She's walking about right now, meowing--something
I haven't heard in weeks. I even tagged her, and her tail flipped up for just
a moment. She's always loved playing tag.

I am just grateful to have my little Baby-Doll back home. She's here with us,
antsy at being in  a room, cussing us out, meowing, grooming herself. Her
coat is back to its beautiful silky self. She's a little skinnier, but love
and good feeding along with those drugs will put some meat back on my little
lady. The vet was astounded. They truly did not think she would get out of
the oxygen hutch. That was my "Holy sh*t, God was watching out for her little
butt" moment. We were doing a very bad conga leaving the office, Louie with
the carrrier and me with a case of A/D perched on my head, singing, "Baby's
going home, OY! Dolly's going home, OY!" I'd have thrown in a hora if I could
have remembered how you hokey-pokey to Havah Nagilah. (Better than the
chicken dance.) I'm exhasted, but mucho happy. Happy that our little one is
home, and that we got her out of that nasty crawl space. She just wanted to
chill after her ordeal, but no dice. She's staying put, even though I know
she's planning more b@$tard cat tricks. Thank God she has the strength now to
plot.

And thanks to everyone for your purrs, prayers and support.

Blessed be,
One very relieved Baha who has today seen a miracle