Humbug

Unknown – 19/09/24

This little chap joined me August 2023. He was senior, unknown provenance, but thought to be at least 8yo then, maybe twice as old.

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Backstory

So in July ’21 I went into work one Saturday and found a cockatiel in cat ward. He (assumed by colour of cheek) was a stray. He was grumpy. So obviously I took him home. He had some kind of neuro deficit on left hand side. The left wing didn’t work and his left leg was weak. And he was cross.

But I got him home. A nice safe fall-proof home (because when he fell he grabbed the nearest things for support which meant he grabbed his own wings and shackled himself and had to be rescued).

His name choosing was perfect. Historical documents follow:

Thanks J.

Lucifer

So, the little neurological angry stray cockatiel (ring suggested 5yo) was Lucifer. Louie hated everything. Apart from my necklace. He liked that. He played with it. He died with no warning about a year after joining us.

His section is very short. This doesn’t reflect his impact on my life. He was a huge influence. The first cockatiel. The first psittacine. I took him to see my friend exotic vets to see if they could tell why he was lame and generally cross. They couldn’t without further investigation and I decided to ‘see how he goes’. He may have married one of the nurses during the exam though. She made an impression and male cockatiels are easily impressed.

He was a lovely bird. He liked me. He liked my necklace. He died suddenly with no fanfare.

I was birdless. And I’d discovered I’d liked having a cockatiel. Some time later a friend, Foxy, heard of a cockatiel at her old training collage that needed a retirement home. I applied, and I got it.

Humbug

Enter, Humbug.

This senior citizen of unknown age had been working at the animal care college but a) hated all other birds so was living with the chipmunks and b) hated the building works that were ongoing. So was looking for a retirement home. So July 2023 Humbug joined the clan.

He took a few weeks to gain confidence. First person he sang to was my Dad, even though the college had said he hates males, and even though I’d been trying to bond for all that time but whatever, I’m not bitter. We worked on and on, very gently, and got to the point where I could handle him very easily and with no stress. He’d ask to come out by sitting on a specific branch in the cage, I’d airlift him to the perch next to my computer, he’d greet the ghosts behind my monitor (I didn’t ask for details on this) and then he’d chirp along with whatever I was watching or playing. Sometimes he’d fly over to perch on my leg.

We had a great relationship. He’d do a cat call whistle at me sometimes and I’d thank him. I played him Disney Whistle Stop as he loved it. He also liked the Doctor Who theme tune. He came knowing the first line of When All the Saints but that faded. He flirted with Trip who frankly wanted to eat him. He flirted with my Dad and with Dingbat. He’d shout when he felt his food bowl was uninspiring and when I re-filled his bowl he’d do a chirp that sounded like ‘thank you’.

I have some videos somewhere of him singing nicely.

I appreciated and respected that he’d rather I didn’t maul him with my ape hands but in the last couple of weeks we’d just upgraded to him letting me scritch his head (I wasn’t allowed to actually scritch, I was allowed to tap his head if he bowed).

Then I went away for 5 nights. He was fine. Maybe he’d been less inclined to come out the last day I was home but he’s allowed to decide that so I didn’t think anything of it. My friend came in to feed him and he was appropriately shy but fine. Nothing suggesting he was squiffy. And then on the last day she was due to check, he was dead.

I feel terrible for her as it’s horrible to be on pet care when a pet buggers off. I wasn’t surprised though as for some reason I thought he would die this week. I had no reason to think this but I thought it. He showed no signs. So when she texted me (I was seeing a show so her calls to me failed) I was sad but not surprised.

I’m still away. I get home tomoz. She’s put him in my freezer as she knows me well.

Farewell sweet Humbug and Lucifer. I hope I gave you both a good last innings. I’ll see your kind again though planing a break, unless the universe dumps a cockatiel in my lap again.

I meant to follow the previous up with a post on my new exciting Stone Age hobbies but I need to post this first.

My darling Spockie has gone. Born around 10/07/06, died 13/07/24, aged 18. He had his 18th birthday a few days previous but after a year long battle against sarcoma, suspected fibrosarcoma, he got too tired and I had to help him pass at 00:30 on 13/07/2024.

And I’m not ok. I’m safe, but I’m not ok.

I noticed a lump on his sternum (breast bone) in summer 2023. Initially I tried to dismiss it as normal older cat boniness as it was very firm so I did my best to believe e it was just a bit of arthritis but after a few weeks I realised it wasn’t innocent and I sampled it. On microscopy I suspected fibrosarcoma, so I referred him to my local referral centre. He had a CT which showed a probable related mass in his lung and possible involvement of his left elbow which had been thickened for a couple of years but had come back on previous samples I’d done as either lipoma and or synovial cyst. They repeated my samples but the mass was not generous and all they could say is that it was some kind of sarcoma on the sternum, with probably spread to the lung and maybe elbow involvement as well. (I suspect now that the elbow was the primary but it defied diagnosis as it caused a synovial cyst which masked the primary tumour). Spock had no signs – the affected elbow was less lame than his other elbow (which was osteoarthritic) and he had no breathing issues.

He had surgery to remove the sternal mass. They couldn’t get margins as it was too close to the rib cage and removing everything would have been too disruptive. He started chemotherapy at the referral. This was metronomic treatment which meant a pattern of thalidomide (I didn’t even know this was anti-cancer) and cyclophosphamide on alternate days. He did well on this until Jan ’24 when I went away for a week and stopped treatment for 10 days. The sternal tumour grew back. Although he restarted treatment it failed to respond over the next weeks so he had one dose of doxyrubicin as stage two chemotherapy. This shrunk the tumour to tiny levels but it grew back aggressively before the next dose was planned, so was classed as a fail. Around his time I also re-x-rayed his chest and the lung mass had grown. I can’t remember the exact timings for all of this but spring ’24 is a good estimate.

He then switched to Palladia which is a new treatment form. Initially he did ok on it for the first 2 weeks then in the second 2 weeks started to decline.

This is where my remembering gets woolly. A period of trying to get him to eat well, appetite stimulates, anti-emetics, NSAIDs, chemo… But it culminated when I took him for a check up on 9th July. He had been off, a little inappetent, a gradual decrease in body weight since Jan. A cat that was 6.5kg at his overweight peak, 5kg at his ideal weight, 3.4kg at diagnosis was 2.8kg and falling. I was struggling to get him to eat well. He ate half a packet of dreamies while waiting for his last apt. Normally he’d eat the contents of a sandwich (ham, the bacon from a BLT, the chicken from a chicken mayo) but they had none that day. His bloods, as ever, looked fine. He did so well with all the interventions.

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Spockie didn’t like going to any vets. At first he was happy going to work with me, but for some reason, can’t think why, when I castrated him at 5 months old he decided he wasn’t so keen on going to work with me. 🤔 The same referral service saw him for diarrhoea when he was 10 or so and it’s the only time I’ve seen someone actually go pale – he’d let them blood sample him, ultrasound him and even get a poop sample from his bum but when she went to go put him in his carrier to go home he’d lost the plot and thrown all the toys out of the pram. She came back palid. I helpfully said in the manner of all bad owners since the start of time ‘oh yeah, sorry. He does that. 😬’ 99% altruistic, 1% psychopathic, that was Spock.

When he was first ill we tried using gabapentin to chill him out a bit but very quickly it became apparent all this did was turn him into a belligerent drunk. He was still cross but his aim was off. Eventually we gave up on gaba and the lovely referral peeps just worked with what they got. And it worked.

It helped that he really liked their sandwiches. £2.50-£3.00 got us a sandwich with meat in and by the time we got seen (can wait a good hour) he’d eaten all the B from a BLT. Fact – an LT sandwich is a useless sandwich, fyi.

He punched a nurse once (not slapped, not scratched – punched. Cats don’t punch.) She still liked him. Initially they had to get all blood samples via cephalic stick, by the end he’d allow jugular stick, which was probably a warning he was waning.

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So we had a checkup at referral 9th July. His referral aunt Filipa was happy with is progress. I smiled and agreed but I think I knew I was not. On 10th July, his 18th birthday I bought him fish and chips and got the last photos and videos of him.

The card is from my niece who loves him dearly. I have a video of him purring obscenely while eating fish that was far too hot for him. I’m so glad I got that.

He declined further over the following days. I stopped the palladia after the apt. I asked my vet friend to come over Saturday afternoon to help me place an iv line (which I ended up aborting as not needed) so I could put him to sleep over the weekend without needing any further needles. As the days progressed I realised he was so tired. I cancelled my work shifts Saturday and Monday as I knew I wouldn’t be ok. Although it screwed them over both sites were supportive and for that alone I love the field I work in and the people I work with. He was spending all of his time either in his hammock (baby bouncer) or on the floor next to it. Eating was an effort.

Late Friday night I called my parents. I showed them how he was as I needed someone else to see how sad and tired he was as I needed to justify calling it a day. At one point while I was FaceTiming them he needed a wee and walked into to the cat litter room but while on FaceTime with my parents he just flopped into his side on the floor, giving up on getting to the litter tray two feet away. He just gave up, he was so tired. I helped him obviously but this collapse helped them to help me to know the time had come to let him go.

I let him settle back on my study chair. Spoke to mum and dad a bit. Then ended the call to spend some time with just me and Spock. I played him his song, which is Remember Me from Coco. I can’t remember what I said to him but I’m sure he knows how much I loved him. He probably thinks I’m over emotional. After playing the song twice I called M+D back and set them up so they could be there and injected him via his kidney. He did raise his head to see what I was doing but swiftly passed peacefully. Spoke to mum and dad a bit more but then ended the call.

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I kept him with me for another 24-36 hrs, in my bed, talking to him and reminiscing, until I needed to put him in the fridge as the bacteria we all live all our lives with that don’t care that life has ended make their prescence felt. Got him out to make a video of all the bits of him I loved – the grey hairs he never had as a youngster, his feet and toe beans, his pretty face I thought was so awkward when he was young – I never understood until now the desire some owners have to record images of their pets after their passing. I thought they were weird. Now I totally get it. While the cats were very much not bothered by Spock being in my bed for a day after passing (they just stepped over him carelessly) Kizzy was mildly perturbed to me removing him from the fridge for the final video. More perturbed I think that he was in the fridge than he had passed. Ironic as he got stuck in the fridge as a baby kitten once because he insisted on trying to eat my smoked salmon so I shut the door. Opened it quickly after to find him unperturbed still eating my salmon.

On 16th July we went out for lunch for Dad’s birthday. A bittersweet affair as Spock was in my car boot and afterwards me and Mum took him to SF, a private crem everyone from Peanut in 2007 onwards has been to. They suit my psyche – a little bit inappropriately juvenile. J, the husband of the family run crem, wanted to title the c&p poems they give with ashes as ‘dear mum’ and I was very much ‘nope!’. I was not Spock’s mum. He was my companion, my heart, my love. He wasn’t my child. Alfie and Trip are my (rather dysfunctional) children. Kizzy is my friend who is trying her utmost to support me after the loss of Spock even though it’s a massive learning curve for her. She’s doing so well though. But Spock wasn’t just my friend and he wasn’t my child. He was my companion, my life partner. And I don’t care how that sounds.

I picked up his ashes on 19th which I did on my own. Mum came up with an idea to put his ashes inside Mini Spock, a cuddly toy she’d got me a year or more ago.

Which I did eventually on 4th August.

It kinda works. He’s a bit … firm. Might need to move some ashes into his head or feet to spread them out. But until then I’m cuddling with him whenever I would have usually cuddled Spock.

I’m not great. I have nights when I cry. I have entire days lost to grief. Kizzy is doing her best to support and I feel like an arse saying that’s not enough. She’s trying so hard. But I just want my Spock back. I feel guilty for putting him down, could I have tried harder? A few more days? I didn’t try steroids, should I have tried steroids? Should I have given him more time off palladia?

My logical brain says that no matter what I did I’d be mourning him now. He was not long for the world and six weeks on it probably doesn’t matter. Better we decided together late one Saturday night it was time than I do it alone. Better he had his Nan and grandad on FaceTime. Better to spare him anything worse.

But I just want my friend back.

Gosh… that’s probably the longest break between updates. To be honest, I was surprised to find my blog still exists and hasn’t succumbed to neglect and the passage of time. Suffice to say, there are a few updates. Reading over past posts I realise what a valuable resource for me this blog is – I take a fair amount of photos but without text to order things and remind me of details that I would have forgotten if not for this blog. I’ll try to cover the last few years in as much detail as possible – perhaps I should split it into several posts? I’m not sure – let’s see how things play out. EDIT it’s going to be multiple posts, lol. It’s nearly 3 years after all…

Work

When we last spoke it was September 2021. I was employed, having returned to employment after the first lockdown and elected to work at my favourite site, W. However the pay wasn’t really suitable and certainly wasn’t enough to keep the cats fed. Plus I suffer from itchy feet. After 1-2 years in a place I start to get bogged down by local politics – I tend to emotionally invest in places if I stay there too long, which is fine except I then get frustrated when the ‘totally obvious’ changes I think need to be made aren’t made. W did allow me to locum on the side which kept me there longer than I’d usually manage, and they gave me new opportunities, though eventually I did have to move on. It was an amicable parting – I told the boss as I left that he was the only person I’d consider being employed by going forward (such a wonderful human), which is absolutely true, and I continue to locum for them as needed (though this is rare as they are so lovely they rarely suffer with staff shortages).

An opportunity came up at W to set up an emergency night service from October 2021 and I jumped straight on board, as did two colleagues (the minimum number of vets required to run a proper night service is three, working an average of 7 nights every 21 days). This left the day shifts understaffed so we also did a fair amount of day shifts when not working a week of nights as well. I loved nights, and working extra days too meant I was earning enough to keep the cats fed and save a little, which helped when the night service had to close in April 2022 (financially unsustainable sadly – busy and popular as they are, there was just not enough demand from one rural independent site to warrant it).

I took redundancy as I did not want to return to days, and returned instead to locumming, the world having stabilised again after the pandemic. I’ve been locuming since, and it suits me well. I do a fair amount of night and emergency day shifts (AKA out-of-hours – OOH) which are what I enjoy most, with some GP day shifts as top up when demand is low for OOH work. OOH shifts are long but they are variable between busy as hell and twiddling thumbs – animals don’t plan ahead well when it comes to getting ill or having accidents. I’ve walked into shifts with nothing waiting and nothing to do, and other shifts where I have 9+ in-patients, more on the way, and animals that require constant supervision. These shifts are usually sole charge (busier city centre sites can have multiple vets but I live near the coast so half our catchment is decidedly watery, thankfully – though watery means you get seals to treat occasionally) with one or maybe two support staff i.e. nurses, animal care assistants or receptionists. Most OOH shifts I do are me and one nurse, with 2-4 phone lines to manage plus in-patients, operations, whatever walks through our doors. I love it.

I like locuming – I get to see lots of different places and see how different people do things, and have a huge range of friends and acquaintances via work, people are generally happy to see me as I’m filling a need and am easy to work with (I think!), and hopscotching between different practices means I keep my itchy feet happy and generally don’t get mired down in practice politics or overly upset by the governance of higher ups, if they exist (I work for independent practices and two different corporates so I can’t get too hett up about any particular business model).

Most important to me is the autonomy – I am utterly in charge of when I work, and being both a valued relief worker in a recruitment crisis and an experienced vet (just hit 18 years qualified and 28 years since I first walked into a vet practice for work experience and got an after-school/holiday job there before I’d finished the week), I have enough confidence and legitimacy to, to some extent, dictate how I work also. If they don’t like that I have opinions, standards and protocols/policies of my own, or if I don’t like their opinions, standards or protocols/policies, I don’t work there again.

The veterinary profession is in flux. Corporate ownership has sky-rocketed since I first walked into my first local practice (ironically one of the first corporates) in 1996. The pendulum is currently swinging back with multiple independents opening up locally in the last five years, vets finally having access to Unite (union membership) a couple of years ago, and the first ever strike action occuring at a corporate vet practice in Wales last month. Stress within the profession continues to be so high that veterinary staff still have a four times higher than average risk of suicide. This risk isn’t new – Donald Sinclair, the vet immortalised in the character of Siegfried Farnon in the James Herriot novels, died of suicide. However the rates aren’t improving – we all know someone who is no longer with us due to suicide. We know many many more who left the profession to pursue something else. This constant loss from the profession means that no matter how many new vet and vet nurse schools open there is a constant need for new staff, but with the added issue that there are fewer and fewer experienced staff around to support these newcomers. Without support, they continue to leave. It’s a bit dire in places, whilst also meaning 100% job security for an experienced vet who can find a way to work through it.

I’ll try to leave this post on a positive ending. There are a lot of problems. However I love working with people who have exactly the same opinions as me re: animals. After suffering a recent loss (more on that later) it’s really hit home to me how supportive and caring all my colleagues in various sites, corp or indi, working with currently or not worked with since 2008 etc. are. They are amazing. We may have minor differences of opinions on whether birds are scary, hedgehogs are smelly, horses are sensible or mysterious creatures, whether cows, sheep and pigs smell bad or good, or whether dogs or cats are better, but how nice is it to turn up at work and know you’ll get a positive response to shoving your phone in front of a colleague and going ‘LOOK AT THIS PHOTO OF MY CAT, HE’S SO CUTE’. I bet people with kids don’t have that kind of surety.

“Boy”

~ July 2016 – 10th September 2021

Not bad, old chap – five years, and three harems (eight girlfriends in total). And briefly a pigeon (she didn’t really fit in, did she…)

All my photos of you seem to be photos of the girls with you glaring judgementally in the background. Did manage to get videos of you dust bathing with sweet Bella though, and crowing like the tiny dinosaur you were.

Off you go mate. Brownie, Speckle, Heart, Cara, Bella and Donna are waiting for you. You were a good egg.

No.

If I could encapsulate my learnings from 2020 it would be the use of the word ‘no’. Not that I haven’t used it before, but previously I’ve followed it with ‘I’m afraid I can’t…’ or ‘I’m sorry but…’.

Lockdown has taught me the word ‘no’ not only doesn’t need excusing, but is better not excused.

‘Can I come in with fluffy?’ ‘No.’

‘Can we register with you?’ ‘No.’

Such responses utterly derail trains of thought.

It’s like it’s given us back ownership of our professional space. This is my space. I decide whether you can enter it. And lolz, you cannot, little potential plague victim. It’s a weird reinstatement of authority.

A complete lie. It’s long. It’s sometimes broad but mostly it’s just long.

I’m away with AnM and AnM v1.1 (who is small but has excellent taste – main goal in life is an optimistically phrased ‘ice cream?’). We shall call AnM v1.1 ‘JP’ from here on.

Trying to work through my mindfulness challenges from mum. Today’s was ‘be mindful for 5 breaths, five times today’. I think I did ok. I stared at trees and tried to be in the present. Ironically I just found out that tomorrow is as follows:

We hired a boat and as AnM was engrossed in making sure JP didn’t throw himself off boat in utter glee at my driving skills, I was skipper. Previously I’ve been no good at boat driving. Canal boats, fine – they are rear steering and you are in the rear while steering. Even as a kid my brain understood those physics. Broad boats however are more like planes I realised today. Steering is in the rear but you are midships and this mucks up the brain. I discovered today, you set the curve, follow it without moving steering wheel and when you like direction bow is pointing you move steering wheel back to centre. To clarify – centre isn’t marked. It’s a lottery to pick the right rotation of the wheel.

On previous trips I kept over compensating – zig zagging everywhere. Today I moored twice successfully. Once to get an ice cream from the ice cream boat and once to moor at the end. I actually really enjoyed it – first time I really understood how to drive boat and I got it right. Plus motor loud enough that much of the time I was restricted to gazing at nature and trying to breathe mindfully. Hope AnM and JP enjoyed it also (who am I kidding, JP had a great time).

Nibbles for dinner as we are that rock and roll. I’m expecting AnM and JP will be up earlier due to JP. I however will not. I have forwarned AnM of this.

I love this weather. In the evening that is. Not during the working day of course where I’m walking about constantly wiping the sweat off my brow before adjusting my mask and sanitising my hands. Long hard working day at work, 11 hours of running about in bad boots with a blister.

My work boots spectacularly combusted at work on Saturday (M&S boots aren’t what they were), got a massive blister trying out new boots at Shuttleworth air show on Sunday, so wore my very old boots that literally have full thickness holes in the soles today. Got things I should do. So many chores. Haven’t eaten since noon and it’s 20 past ten pm. Should ideally get an early night.

Instead I’m in my hammock, G&T in hand, listening to music, watching as the first stars come out.

Forbes: 20 Most Dangerous Places For Gay Travelers (And The 5 Safest)

I just read this. Felt weird; I fully know that Britain had a chequered history (we aren’t taught that Britain is ‘The Best TM’ – Britain’s errors are pointed out to us from age 7 onwards*). We know we were colonialists, invaders, slavers, warmongers, fought with others, fought amongst ourselves, fought with our own left foot, whatever. So I was taught all of that as a child. It’s no surprise.

So I just read this article and went ‘…oh crap…’. Interesting academically as it’s a new ‘thing to apologise for’ to me – wasn’t aware of it before. But also ‘goddamit… add it to the shame list’.

*Even when taught about the Romans we are basically told ‘the Romans came over and brought amazing advances with them. Straight roads! Organisation! Underfloor heating! Then the Roman Empire folded and we forgot all the good shit they’d introduced for 500+ years – we entered the dark ages, so named because we didn’t record shit. Forget underfloor heating, we didn’t even blog.’

So, about 12 months ago I spent a couple of months unemployed. Let go from my last placement (locum) 4th April 2020 when practices didn’t need me any more and only worked again June onwards iirc. I wasn’t sad tbh as I was a bit worried about the whole pandemic thing and happy to hide in my hovel for a couple of months. My unintentional time off (hurrah for the self-employed in covid!) coincided with a heat wave. So, I treated myself to a hammock (paid in instalments, no money coming in). I spent many an evening in that hammock in April and May as the light faded and the temperature dropped, firing up the chiminea to digest the fruits of my gardening labour while keeping me warm as the stars came out.

Fast forward to now. I’m now employed, no longer self employed as job security suddenly more important than getting paid my worth, plus tax law changed (or rather didn’t but certain companies are using it as an excuse) this March and I’m letting them lie in the beds they’ve made. I’m earning less but also spending less, just about staying solvent.

And today, as for the last few days when not working, I’m in my hammock, watching the light fade, listening to the birds, waiting for the stars to come out.

I was talking to a friend about school and describing how when I was about 12-13 I fell out with my best friends. And being an awkward loner I was walking in the woods (yes, my school had woods. It also had a mock Greek amphitheatre, get over it) alone afterwards, and this group of five or so girls from my year approached me. I was wary as – see previous – geeky and awkward so often automatically on the defensive. Plus they literally had the high ground – I was halfway down a hill at the time and I was literally looking up to them. They said ‘You broke up with your best friends. We will be your friends until you guys make up.’ I think I uselessly went ‘oh, ok’ or something. I did eventually make up with one of my friends and we remain close, but those girls also remain my friends to this day. They were 12-13yo and I was wandering in a wood and they actively found me and decided to befriend me – talk about random act of kindness.

They don’t remember this at all of course. I know because I just checked. I was telling another friend this story and realised that I never thanked them for that. So 26 years late I sent them a thank you. They didn’t remember the event. But then we started chatting. And lots of other memories came up. And we reminisced.

And then somehow I volunteered to try and get a group going for our entire year. I’m not sure how this happened.

Memo: don’t thank people. You get jobs.