Love, love, LOVE Cats! There is NOTHING cuter than a kitten! Karen it's good that your Momma cat has nice warm, loving home in which to raise her babies. There's a feral female in our neighborhood that has kittens every year. It's heartbreaking. DH and I tried to trap her and her babies last spring. We wanted to get her spayed and eventually let her go again. We are in an apartment and pets are limited here. Anyway, she was too smart for us, but we ended up trapping one of her kittens. We watched in frustration as she sniffed around the trap, then gathered the rest of the litter and disappeared into the greenbelt. Needless to say, we kept the little guy and we love(and spoil)him. We've been beating ourselves up about not getting Mom cat, as she had a fall litter and I assume she's going to have another this spring. But at least we got one Tom off the street. All the authorities will do is transport any strays to the humane society after someone traps them and takes them to the local veterinary for a health check. At least the local humane society is a no-kill shelter. Many are not. Keep those pictures coming...we need those regular 'Awwww' fixes!

I did a lot of trimming and ruminating today. As I was trimming deadened leaves and picking up dropped tomatoes my neighbor came across the swale between our homes and was asking why I bothered so much. He's seen me go through barely walking, 2 hip surgeries and Dennis's issues. He asked what got me out every day to plant, water, trim, deal with life and personal issues then throw it all on the trash heap when nature took a turn. It really made me think, no, not think I spontaneously said to him in a corney kinda way "Cause it's what I do. I love to grow and if it dies I grow it again..." wow, now I really make sense. It's what we DO people. We love it, sometimes we hate it, but mostly WE REALLY LOVE IT! Gardening, no matter what form, large or small, is in our blood. That's why we come here. To brag or cry, to share excitement and promise. It's what we do!! (I now hear Sachmo breaking out in.." I see trees of green, and skys of blue..." it IS a wonderful world, my friends.

Well, my story is sort of complicated. I had a horrible case of influenza and pneumonia back in l995. Then I was on antibiotics for 2 months. I don't know if the antibiotics did me in, or it was the flu/pneumonia, but shortly after that, I developed fibromyalgia and also started going through menopause. I also developed irritable bowel syndrome, GERD and sleep apnea. Its hard to sort it all out, but something seems to cause all of this stuff in me. Are you bowels acting the same? Do you suddenly feel extremely full after eating? Are you on any other meds? When my GI problems were their worst, I was put on a PPI (proton pump inhibitor). That helped the symptoms for awhile. Pepsid (an H2 blocker) does absolutely nothing for me, so you might ask your doc for a prescription for a PPI......oh wait....I think prilosec is otc now. You could buy that and try it. Don't lose hope yet. This might just be a temporary thing you're going through. There is a Ph.D. guy who was on the GERD forum for awhile who wrote a book on how carbohydrates cause alot of GI problems. He believes our systems aren't designed to eat all these carbs and they can't be digested quickly and they ferment, and that causes alot of gas/reflux, etc. So I think you'd do well to lower your carb consumption. The stress echo I had went like this: You go in, and they put you on a heart monitor, and then you get on a treadmill, and they slowly increase the speed and incline, until you reach your target heartrate. Then you immediately lay down and they do an echocardiogram on your heart. It doesn't hurt at all. If they want you to have a nuclear med stress echo, then you will have to have a contrast medium injected into your vein.......but most stress echoes are the first type I talked about. It shows if all your heart muscle and valves are working right. what kind of doctor are you seeing? Once they rule out a heart problem (which I'm sure they will), then I would suggest seeing a good gastroenterologist. I think for some of us, as we age, our parts just don't work as well, and we can't abuse them like we used to. I know that my GI tract does fine, until I start eating too much, and then it starts to fail. You might be able to take care of this problem, just by changing your eating habits. I know how hard that can be! I've struggled with it my whole life. Its much better for me than it used to be, but I think that's because my hormones finally settled down. Men have hormones too, and sometimes they get wacky. I actually think my strange chest sensations are a combination of my GERD and my IBS.

I just found this thread again. Reminded of the pain of losing our sweet Libby, we found ourselves having to say goodbye to another beloved pet just last week. Our precious Boo Boo Kitty made her way to Rainbow Bridge following a year of unexplained weight loss and finally a rare cancer diagnosis 6 months ago. She was a rescue kitty we welcomed to our home in the Fall of 1993. We don't know exactly how old she was when we got her but at least 6 months at the time. She must have been getting close to 17 years old when she passed. We love all our pets and they are each unique in personality and demeanor, but Boo was such a bright, intuitive, affectionate and totally mischievous little soul that there will never be another like her. Always demanding the center of attention, but in such an adorable fashion that no one could deny her. She was the best companion of my husband, who historically was never a pet lover. Yet his heart was won over within the first moments of her arrival to our home, when Boo immediately crawled onto his big chest, wrapped her paws around his neck and began purring her acceptance of her new family. From that moment they were inseparable and shared a lifelong bond of love and affection, mixed with mutual joy as they practiced the art of "play battle". Boo hiding and pouncing on my husband from all possible angles of attack until he would pin her in his arms, smothering her with hugs. As her battle with cancer caused her body to thin, tire more easily and struggle to control normal functions, she still remained our loving, affectionate, ever present companion who continued to insist on being the focus of our attention. She spent long evenings cuddled in our laps, telling us it was ok to just sit and enjoy our time together, the chores and schedules could wait...our time together was limited and thus more precious. We are so grateful to have had the honor and blessing of sharing our lives with our beautiful Boo. The pain of parting is so sharp and intense, we continue to see her in our minds eye around every corner, in her favorite sunny spots and waking us in the mornings with her soft paws upon our cheeks. As much as it hurts now, the years of shared love and memories make it all worthwhile. Someday we will cross that Rainbow Bridge, warmly greeted and surrounded by our precious companions who wait for us there now. Some pics of our little Boo Boo Kitty: Her gorgeous eyes Precious Boo Sleeping Boo Curious Boo Lazy Boo Her Highness Boo