Making ends meet

Now that the latest crisis is over I can finally write about it here.

Last Friday morning (today is Wednesday) I woke up to the awful discovery that Parsifal (of course, Parsifal) had eaten the soft nylon handle off one of those cardboard carry bags that the posh shops put their goods into when you buy something.

Thinking that I needed some advice as to how to cope with his pica I took him to the vet.  Dr S. thought that an emetic might be a good first aid measure but decided that it might be too late and the cord could already have passed out of the stomach.  A scan?  their scanner was currently being serviced; an emergency ultrasound at the Specialist Clinic?

By this time I was thoroughly spooked, took the faecal softener she gave me and took him home to await events.  He continued eating well, beating up his sister and his 'internal hygiene" seemed to be working OK.  D2 gave me the name of an animal behaviorist but he will be away until December so that was no help.

And lo and behold, this morning he vomited up three pieces of cord which, put together, appear to be all that he ate ... and this time I did put them together.  Such a relief.  Next time I will opt for the emetic but hopefully it will not happen again; I will try to keep the things he likes to chew and swallow well out of his reach.

Anyway, he is very pleased with himself and Dr S. has kindly sent me some journal articles on pica which are interesting but I don't think that frozen rats and turkey chicks are available here and I don't think that I would feed them to him even if I could get them.

I had lunch with D3 and SIL and we discussed our flight to Sydney at the end of October.  I have booked for the both of us and emailed to D2 to ask her to book ASAP because the planes are filling fast and we are having to catch an earlier flight than we originally selected; I am going to have to order a taxi for about 7.00am or a bit later to get to the airport through the peak-hour traffic.

I only have one client for tomorrow and have a free hour before the lesson so I will use it to try to come to some sort of agreement with the new computer at COTA which is sadly lacking in things we need such as Solitaire and Windows Live Mail.  I had hoped to be able to stop taking my own laptop every week but it looks as though it will be a while yet before I can leave it at home.