Poor Puddy and Nurse Christy

Our eldest cat Saturn is 14 years old.  Some might say that's old for a cat, but boy is this cat spry.  Especially when food is involved.

I've never met a cat with an appetite like Saturn's.  When I first came into Rob's life, she was a somewhat overindulged puddy with a porky belly to show for it.  Far from worrying about her waistline, as many a female reasonably would, Saturn gave the appearance of being rather proud of her figure and the constant flow of tidbits coming her way from the 'Alpha Cat' (as Rob likes to call himself).  Her smug attitude seemed to announce: 'Hey, I'm the woman in this man's life.  I ain't going anywhere, lady.  I've seen off women before you and I'll be here to wave off any woman after you.  Get used to it - and don't even THINK about trying to change him.  Or... you'll have me to deal with!'

Unfortunately for her, I'm not a woman who is overly-threatened by the machinations of would-be rivals.  Unfortunately for me, I did have to realise pretty quickly that if I wanted to maintain my top female position in Rob's life, I'd have to learn to quietly accommodate Saturn's dominance in the household and come up with a way to get her into shape without getting my eyes scratched out.

Cue regular meal times, higher quality cat food but smaller portions.  Luckily, the entrance of an additional cat in our household meant that treats had to be divided amongst three demanding felines.  Soon enough, Saturn's sleek round belly was reduced to more reasonable proportions.  And, as the chief cat feeder in our home, she too had to learn that if she wanted to be fed, she had better be nice to me.  An uneasy, workable rivalry was formed.

Her begging-for-food meow (it sounds like 'meh' and is the most pathetic, desperate sound you'll ever hear) drives me nuts.  As soon as someone even thinks about the kitchen, she'll dash between your legs and start begging for something to eat.  As far as I've witnessed, there's very little she won't beg for and hoover down her sleek little throat.  Asparagus and Hollandaise Sauce?  No problem.  Ice-cream?  Mmmm.  Creamed corn?  Bring it on!  Bloody fat pig. 

And, when she's not eating, she's sleeping - no doubt recovering her energy after so much guzzling.  Bloody fat lazy pig.

Not so long ago, I woke up early as per usual to our youngest cat pouncing on my head.  This is his way of waking me up so they can be fed and let outside.  I'm pretty sure Saturn taught him this trick, but the sly 'Chief Lady Cat' (as a German friend calls her) is usually well out of visual range when I'm spluttering over being awoken this way.

On this particular day, I stumbled downstairs and prepared the three bowls as per usual.  Only, no Saturn was to be seen.  Now, this was so unusual that I instantly knew something was wrong.  Heading back into the living room (and ignoring the outraged meows of Jack and Shika), I found Satty in her usual cat bed by the fire.  Unusually, she didn't react when I called out 'Breakfast!'.  After inspecting her for a few seconds, I gently picked her up.  She was completely listless and unresponsive.  Immediately, I began to fear the worst. I was equally worried about Rob's reaction, as well as what was to be done.

We sat with her for a few minutes, with her head lolled weakly on my shoulder.  With tears in my eyes, I looked over at Rob and we urgently discussed what to do.  With Saturn in this state and with the nearest vet being a good 20-minute drive away, we were reluctant to put her through the car journey unless it was unavoidable.  We found that she would take a few licks of cream off my finger and so, braced by this positive sign, we decided to treat her ourselves, and to take her to the vet immediately if she didn't improve or took a turn for the worse.

Thus began my campaign to get her to eat.  The novelty of the reversal was not lost on either of us.  Every hour or two, I spoon-fed her cream, cat food and any other tidbit we could get her to eat.  She couldn't muster the energy to chew, so I invented delicious gravy mixes to conceal mashed food.  Sometimes she ate off my fingers, at other times she licked the spoon.

Despite her lack of real appetite, I kept on encouraging her to take little bits at a time (''Come on Satty.  Oh, I'll never get mad at you ever again for annoying me with your begging!  Never!'').  Rob raced out and bought the most expensive, vitamin-enriched senior food he could find. Anything we could do to get her to continue eating and drinking, we did it.

After 4 or 5 days of this, we began to notice that she was slowly getting better.  Slowly, slowly, we encouraged her to eat more and more.  And, on day 6, I was ecstatic to find her waiting in the kitchen, begging to be fed.

Over the course of her mystery illness, she lost a little more weight.  She also developed quite a liking for being spoon-fed, and I'm pretty sure she was none-too-pleased at no longer being spoiled with cream and expensive food.  However, she's back to guzzling her own food and any remnants of Jack and Shika's meals if I don't remember to put the bowls out of her ravenous reach.

Whenever I'm wildly irritated by her begging campaigns, and her nearly killing me as she gallops towards the kitchen, I take a deep breath and remember how I felt when she was ill.  Then I pat her fondly on the head and chase her out of the kitchen.

By Christy

A Rich Family Quilt of History

A fantastically fascinating thing about living where we live is the rich concentration of family history in the relatively small area which makes up our new community.

I say relatively small, because the local area encompasses Bridgewater to the LaHave Islands, a distance of approximately 30km from one to the other.

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Long before the Hahns came along, Oikles (don't you just love that name?!) and Zwickers and Zincks and Reinhardts and Richards and Oakleys and Corkums and Balkoms and Publicovers and Whynots and Himmelmans and Pentzes were setting up shop along the banks of the LaHave River and spreading their genealogical wings, giving their names to roads, beaches, townships, buildings and institutions (not to mention requiring very few varying headings in the phone directory!).  As their names reveal, a lot of the original immigrants came out from Germany, although a sizeable number hailed from Ireland and England, and other parts of mother Europe.

A stroll through the numerous local graveyards reveals a lot about their triumphs and struggles to establish themselves in a new land, far away from the nearest city (Halifax, which is now an hour's drive, would have taken considerably longer back in the day).  The rich multicultural mix of family names is fascinating and says a lot about the willingness of people to start afresh and create one single culture together in their new adopted land.

Naturally, being so near the Atlantic, many of them were either of farming or fishing bent.  Life could be and often was short, especially for the children.  Plenty of graves are dedicated to some very little ones - ivory, tender, sombre, time-caressed stones marking the bitter shortness of life's travail.

Nowadays, these same families dominate practically everything in the area.  They've intermarried and inter-intermarried so often over time that virtually everyone is related or connected somehow.  The same names pop up in Halifax, Mahone Bay and places around and in between, following the trail of family members who branched out and moved on over time.

Living amongst homes built by settlers and still inhabited by their descendants (whose names have sometimes changed as they intermarried) gives our area such a settled, time-proven feeling.  Although we're only a mere snippet of its story, it's comforting to think of  the bedrock of history behind us and to know that our home was loved by so many people, most of whom were in all likelihood linked somehow by history and blood.

By Christy

I've Got an Itchy Trigger Finger

A few of weeks ago I woke up to this: 

Needless to say, I was a little freaked out. 

My finger was completely immobile, locked in the above position. After a few hours it loosened up and I could use it without any impediment.

What could it be, I thought. Christy and I started searching the Internet and in her trusty 'The Nature Doctor' book by A. Vogel (The founder of Bioforce). At the time we didn't know what it was so we entered 'claw hand' into Google but that is a completely different ailment, and not one that I would want, even worse than this. 

So what had changed in the past weeks, well other than uprooting ourselves across the Atlantic? We thought about my diet. I am a big sugar eater (I love my coffee sweet) and in Germany Christy convinced me to eat only organic raw sugar as the white stuff isn't really all that good for you, and I'd been eating spoonfuls of white sugar since we arrived. Perhaps that was it and we promptly went to Bulk Barn, about the only place to find reasonably-priced organic sugar in town. We had also been doing a lot of yard work since we arrived, so perhaps it was just overwork; we were not too far off with that suspicion.

About a week later I decided it was time to go see a doctor. I'm not to keen on seeing doctors but when you gotta go, you gotta go. Unfortunately, in rural Canada there is a shortage of doctors and after visiting and calling a few doctors' offices in town looking for an appointment to no avail, we were directed to call the hospital, as they have a list of available doctors. The good news was, they did, in fact, have the name of a doctor who was accepting new patients; the bad news was, the doctor was in Hubbards, a little over 70km away. Annoyed and deterred, I decided to give my finger a little more time to possibly work itself out.

As the week progressed, my useless finger was taking longer and longer to unclench itself, so we headed off to the local emergency room, which was an interesting experience in itself. They have an unique system at the local hospital's emergency room. We walked in and went to reception and I expected them, as every other time I have ever been to an emergency room in my life, to take my information, but no. We were directed to the emergency room and had to take a number, not unlike going to a deli. So I took a number and knocked on the door as directed by the tattered laminated piece of paper stuck to the wall, and waited, and waited, and waited. 

A lady who had arrived just prior to us was also a little perplexed as to what should happen next, so I suggested knocking again. Nothing. Finally, after being there for about 40 minutes the door slid open and a nurse took the lady to get her info. Bloody hell, I thought to myself, what if I, or the lady, had something serious, would anyone have noticed? After another 20 minutes or so the door slid open again and my number was called, number 8 if I remember correctly, and my info was taken and I was returned to the waiting room, wrist band in tow.

After the hour's wait just to get registered, we had no illusions of seeing a doctor quickly. Luckily, there was a TV with a David Attenborough show on, so at least we'd be entertained while we waited. Thankfully, I only had to wait another 45 minutes before my name was called and I was ushered into an examination room. The doctor was nice enough, a young guy, well about my age anyway, but he had no clue what the problem might be and advised me to see my family doctor. I explained that I had just moved here and the only one I could see was in Hubbards. He kind of chuckled and said that his doctor was even farther away. He prescribed some anti-inflammatory / pain killers, told me to see 'my doctor', and sent me on my way, no wiser as to what my problem was.

The next day I woke up with my left hand also getting in on the action - or lack of - with both my index and middle fingers curled up, but thankfully not to the degree as my original problem finger.

I figured that now was the time and I made an appointment with the doctor. I can't remember his name, but that's not a problem as I don't intend to see him again after the less than stellar consultation I had with him. I got my appointment for only a few days later and was at least happy I didn't have to wait for weeks to go.

Since the doctor was close to Halifax, we booked a meeting with a company which was interested in forming a partnership with us, and planned out some trips to some antique shops as not to 'waste' the trip and gas that went along with it.

After filling out some forms we saw our new doctor; Christy figured she might as well get registered at the same time as me. He was nice enough, but not what I was looking for in a doctor, as you will soon read. Upon seeing my hand, he instantly diagnosed it as 'trigger finger' with no further investigation and only told me to 'do some exercises' and gave me the option, if I wanted, to have surgery if it doesn't improve. We got into a discussion about diet and he asked ChristyChristy was a unthinking consumer of bad food. 

Now, Christy is about the most health conscious person I've ever had the pleasure to meet. Everything we eat is fresh, all pre-packaged food ingredients are thoroughly checked and if we see anything that doesn't look good (i.e. MSG or other chemical goodness) we pass on it. She uses a minimum amount of oil when cooking and all our meals have at least two veg, which sometimes annoys me. He then asked what I had for dinner the night before. 'Chicken and veg', I replied. 'Why chicken?', he then said. 'Because I like it', was the only reply I could think of under his increasingly critical eye. 'Why do you cook?', was his next question. I was starting to think that he was a fruitarian (not that there's anything wrong with that) and pictured him collecting fallen apples off the ground.

We left his office feeling like we had just been in some sort of health inquisition and other than finally knowing what I had, I didn't know what to do about it other than 'exercise' it. So, as all modern people do, we looked to the Internet for guidance and found a physiotherapist on YouTube who demonstrated three simple and effective exercises I could do to treat my condition. He was using this cool, fancy physio glove that I may buy if I'm not better in another month or so. 

Although I was thrilled to find something I could do myself to treat my trigger finger, I was annoyed that my doctor had simply said 'Do some exercises', with no further instruction as to what exercises I should do. I began my new exercise regiment in earnest and after a few days my finger started to improve a little, but I was still waking up with my fingers clenched and useless for hours afterwards.

I got a call from my mother and the final piece of my recovery regiment fell into place. She suggested wearing gloves to bed to keep my fingers warm. I wasn't sure I could fall asleep wearing gloves, but tried it. The next day I woke up, and presto, my fingers weren't clenched. They hurt a little but I could use them. It's been three days since my mother gave me her sage advice, and three days with no useless fingers to greet me at the start of my day.

Thanks Mom!

Post by Rob