Morning Update on Piper (Wednesday)

Piper made it through the night. She's stayed rather stationary. She did get up to tour the place soon after we arrived home. Her right front paw is majorly swollen. I mean it's huge! Bigger than Simon's paw and he has big feet considering his size. Because her paw is so swollen she walks with it bent under. If you hold up a dog or cat's front leg and notice there's a bend much like the wrist bend in a human. Well that's how Piper is walking. With her paw(hand) bent underneath and using her "wrist" to stand and walk on. It's strange. I called vet to question why paw is swollen. I was told it was normal and that she will need heat packs to help with swelling. They also apologized for not informing us of the paw issue before we left. Cats go inside carriers unlike dog's that are usually on a leash. So sometimes you don't truly get to see your cat until you get home and take her out of her carrier. That's why it was a surprise to us to see her paw so enormous after arriving home.

We had a family slumber party in the living room last night. There were no bed rules. Generally in our household the "kids" have their daytime beds which never leave the living room. They also have nighttime beds which are kept in the closet during the day and only brought out at bedtime. That gives the trio a little change up and a definite "bedtime" ritual. Plus it makes beds last a little longer in this house. Anyway, last night no bed rules. The nighttime beds were set up in the usual "pet sleeping quarters" just in case they wanted to sleep in their normal areas. Simon chose to sleep in his usual bedtime area. He is the most schedule oriented and rigid one of the trio, he can't handle venturing off coarse. Cody chose to sleep next to Piper. They slept exactly as the pic from last night demonstrates. At least that's how it was until about 4:30 in the morning. That's when Piper decided to go to her nighttime bed in the pet sleeping quarters. Cody then moved to a bed that happened to be closer to me, so he stayed in the living room with Brad and I. We were encouraged that she made her way all the way to the closet area where she usually sleeps. She's still asleep so far this morning. Well I briefly woke her to check on her. Brad has stayed home from work for the day. He's still asleep too. I am so tired! I think some of it is likely the stress of this situation. I'm not sleeping soundly and last night I basically "napped", I wasn't able to fall asleep for more than 60-90 minutes at a time.

Before we all bedded down in the living room for the night, Brad tried to convince me to go to bed in our room. In his opinion, no reason for both of us to get a bad night's sleep. I get his point but....Um, has he met me? That is not my style AT ALL! No way buddy! We are in this together and I'm going to be right out here with you, Piper, Cody, and maybe Simon. Simon was the only one that didn't participate in the slumber party! Party pooper! Besides I wouldn't have slept any better in our room. The worry and restlessness would be the same!

Slightly amusing side story:  Here's the difference between a Texan and a born & raised Zonie...I got blankets out of our trunk for us to use for the night in the living room. I set the "blue" blanket on the couch where Brad was sleeping. I then unfolded the "pink" blanket and quickly got under it as I laid down in our huge overstuffed practically a loveseat chair. Brad arrived in the living room and instantly looks at the blue blanket then checks it over and over and over. I glance up to see what he's doing. He's continuing to check it over. He then looks at me all curled up in my pink blanket and asks if I checked it for spiders. He could instantly tell by my facial expression I didn't check my blanket. He then reminds me, this is Texas and adds, "do you know how many spiders live in Texas?" The Zonie doesn't think about spiders. He then asks, "why I didn't check my blanket first before crawling under it?" My response, "In AZ we have coyotes and diamondbacks, I had no fear one of those was lurking inside this blanket."