Staycationing with the Girls

Lilith and Ophelia have a collection of wonderful uncles in their lives. My friends have been incredibly helpful to me. I am a single, working pet parent, and although I am able to bring the bulk of my work home with me, sometimes I need to stay at school late for meetings or other events. I work an hour’s drive from home, so I have a friend who lets Lil out for me and feeds her on such days. (Ophelia has access to food and toilet facilities all day long, in case you were wondering). I would be lost without this kind of help. As my pets have gotten older and more high maintenance, I have come to a decision. I will not travel for the remainder of their lives. I'm on Spring Break right now, and therefore, we are enjoying a staycation.

This was a tough decision to make because I have vacationed regularly throughout my time as a pet parent, and I loooooove to travel. I just returned from a trip to visit family back East and scuba dive in the Bahamas this past August. It was a wonderful trip, but I worried about the girls more than I used to. Now, both of them have been diagnosed with kidney disease and have special diets. I think you need to have a degree in chemistry to feed Lil. Here's a glimpse of just what I mean when I say that: kidney-friendly food mixed with a teaspoon of cod liver oil (afternoon only), a chewable glucosamine tablet (morning only), a recovery tablet (morning only), ¼ teaspoon of turmeric, one grind of pepper, a small piece of homemade liver fudge broken into tiny pieces, and 0.15 ml of arthritis medication mixed with peanut butter to kill the taste and then smeared on her food…and you have to ensure that she eats all the peanut butter so that she’s ingested the full dosage…and you have to feed her twice a day...and you have to be nearby because she won't eat if you're in the other room...and she goes on a hunger strike for about 3 days when I'm not around...and sometimes it takes her an hour to eat. Ophelia’s diet is low maintenance in comparison (kidney-friendly wet food twice a day with two glucosamine treats and 4 greenies at night), but you get the idea. It’s a lot to ask of someone, especially when that person already has a job. Oh, and did I mention that Lil sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night to pee? Yup, I often have to take her out in the wee hours of the morning. That’s also a lot to ask of someone. Lil doesn’t like other people pushing her in her stroller, so she has a tendency to try to jump out of it when I’m not the one pushing it. That is beyond dangerous, so you have to hold her harness while pushing the buggy, which is also a lot to ask of someone.And lately, Lil's developed a tendency not to pee before bed, so I've dealt with that problem by chugging a litre of water so that I'll wake up (I wasn't kidding about the walnut bladder, but in this case, it comes in handy). I could go on, but you get the idea. For us, these changes were gradual, so I've had time to get used to them. However, I'm well aware that we are high maintenance in this household, and don't wish to subject my friends or anyone else to such an overwhelming situation.

Oh, and let’s not forget the obvious. My pets are old. Ophelia is the equivalent of 72 human years, and Lilith is 92 according to the chart on the vet’s wall. Sometimes Lil takes a nap and doesn’t move, and I find myself checking to see if her ribs are expanding as she breathes. It’s a lot to ask of someone to look after them when it’s possible that they may die. My friends worry about that possibility, and although they would help me if I needed to go away for family reasons or something, I won’t travel by choice at this stage. I won’t use a professional pet sitter either. I have in the past, but at this point, I don’t want to stress the girls out unnecessarily by subjecting them to a stranger. Besides, my friends are more knowledgeable about their daily care and health issues than any stranger would ever be, and if I wouldn’t leave them with my friends, why on earth would I leave them with a stranger? Thank goodness I love where I live. It makes staycationing easy to take.