A Week of Ups and Downs

A lot has happened in the last week, and most of it very early in the week. I guess I'll just start at the beginning...

Monday at work, the HR department was called into my boss's office. There is some restructuring taking place and the IT department is moving under HR and some office's and hierarchy's are changing. The important part of this (to me) is that I am being moved to IT and I will report to a new boss. I'm also moving buildings. This is a really good move for me. I'm going from a cubicle in HR to my own office in IT. I'll also get to concentrate on IT projects. YEAH! I made it back to my major....finally. But at the same time, I'm not thrilled about moving to a new building. I like where I work and who I work with. And while I know everyone where I am going, it will just be different.

I also took this opportunity to talk with my (current) boss about maternity leave and coming back to work. Yes, I realize I should have done this months ago, but I didn't. I told him I wanted 3 months off for maternity leave. I think a 6 week old baby is just too little to put in daycare! By 12 weeks he should have better head control and I should (let us hope) be getting a better night of sleep (as compared to 6 weeks). I also asked him about the possibility of coming back to work part-time. With Garen's travel schedule, I'll be a "single-parent" on a pretty regular basis. If I work everyday, but for less hours, I think I will be happier and more productive. I also think I will still be able to accomplish my job. No decisions have been made yet, but I should have the loose ends tied down soon.

Monday night Garen and I had some friends over to watch the LSU vs. OHS game. It was a great game! Our friends Shannon and Donal brought their 2 kids (4 and 1) over and it was great watching Garen watch them drop crumbs on the carpet! LSU won, which made the evening even better.

Tuesday on my way home from work I talked to Mom and I could tell something was wrong. JP was sick...very sick. For those of you who don't know who JP is, he is my cat. I got him in college and had him when I lived by myself in Des Moines. He even came with me when I moved to Memphis. When Garen and I moved to TX, I asked my parents to keep him until Garen and I became "stable". When we bought our house last year, I tried to get him back, but Dad wouldn't let me have him. After a year with my JP, Dad became a bit attached and said that JP was his cat now. And JP loved my parents house! So JP stayed in Iowa and Garen and I got Nilla.

Well on Tuesday, Mom played with JP around 10am. Around noon, when Dad came home for lunch, they could here him meowing. He was lying at the bottom of the stairs, not moving. His back half was completely paralyzed! They rushed him to the vet and after several x-rays, said nothing was broken and they had no idea what was wrong. They had 2 guesses...either a herniated disk or a blood clot. Unfortunately the vets office didn't have the equipment to tell definitively. They recommended my parents take him to Ames (Iowa State's vet clinic) for further tests. JP couldn't move or feel anything below mid-back and he lost control of bowel functions. They began treating JP for blood clots immediately. At 11pm that night, when the vet came in for rounds, JP looked sick (up to this point, he didn't actually act sick). While the vet was working on him, he died. The vet called my parents in the middle of the night and requested to do an autopsy, for free. He said he had never seen a perfectly healthy cat (or any animal) die like this.

The autopsy showed several blood clots throughout JP's body. He died from an infection in his intestines that spread very quickly. Apparently JP had a heart problem, although he didn't have any symptoms of heart disease. Mom and Dad (and me) aren't taking this very well. JP was a really good kitty...he even liked Garen!

As of today, I am 29 weeks and 1 day pregnant. The baby is the size of a squash. Garen doesn't think that is very descriptive...as squash come in all sorts of sizes. The baby is about 3 pounds now and moves all of the time. Sometime my stomach just jumps and twitches!