Sick Kitty

Last week went pretty well. It started with a trip out to the NJ/PA border. We went out on Sunday night in the middle of a snow storm. My group left from the office and it took us awhile to get out there due to the weather. We woke up Monday morning to find out our 3rd party site had been closed due to the weather. We talked to the team anyway, and they said we could still get into the building. So my group headed over anyway and did a lot of little tasks we had left, before leaving around 3 pm for a hibachi / beer lunch.

Tuesday was pretty much the same - the site closed again due to weather. This time though the snow was falling pretty heavily (whereas the day before, the roads had been crap but no snow). We ended up taking my group to breakfast and then driving to another NJ site we have - we worked all day long there, and ended up finding a major issue that we had to resolve this weekend - so it was good we made the trip.

Wednesday our site was open - we went in to launch a few small projects, and then the team started leaving. We had planned a fall off in support because we were supposed to get the bulk of our work done on Monday and Tuesday. We moved everything we had planned to Friday instead, and then I split the remainder of the people up on Friday to support the small launches (I got stuck with one on my own which we try to never do). Anyway, on Wednesday night, I rode back to Newark with the group and picked up a car. I ended up driving for the first time in about 8 years this past week. The person that was left with me for Thurs and Fri is a native NY'er and does not have a license. So yeah, it was me.

I hate driving. I was never good at it, and I had a tendency to road rage at everything. I had terror sweats all week when I realized I was going to have to drive. I'll spare you the surprise and tell you that both my colleague and I are still alive, and the car was left in 1 piece.

Thursday was an extremely quiet day - the highlight being an awesome Irish bar we found about 5 minutes from our hotel. Seriously - I had a lamb stew that rocked my world. The lowlight being we got Tigga's test results back. At first it sounded good - everything she could test for with blood, she had tested and all looked good (no thyroid problems, no kidney problems, no diabetes). Then she said that she was pretty sure this was GI lymphoma - he has an elevated liver enzyme, and it turns out that's an indicator of this.

And Friday was insane - in addition to all the small project launches we had, I was still dealing with the fallout from the other NJ site. I had to carve bits of time all day long in order to get on phone calls with the other NJ site to walk them through what we had seen. They ended up having to do a pretty big upgrade on Friday night to resolve the issue.

On our way back to Newark Airport to drop the car off on Friday, I got us turned around and ended up in downtown Newark. On a Friday night. In rush hour. OMG - such a horrible driver. And then we dumped the car and I've never been so happy in my life. I ended up training back to the city and getting home around 6 pm. Blondie and I took it easy on Friday night because I was exhausted.

Saturday was nice - we had yet another massive snowstorm hit the city. We took advantage of it and walked up in the snow to our grocery, and then made a huge egg and vegetable fry up for the morning. I lazed around all day, and talked myself into and out of going to a friend's party at his apartment (simply because the roads were so bad). I did end up going (Blondie had a friend in town so he couldn't join me) and ended up having a total blast. My friend is from my old job, and he got engaged recently so it was their engagement party. I saw a ton of my old coworkers, drank my ass off (they hired a bartender), and before I realized it, it was 2 am and I was heading home.

Today was spent at a specialty vet clinic. We took Tigga in for an ultrasound of his GI tract. They noted a thickening in his intestine and found some spots on his liver that they need to test. Also, he has a heart murmur. He goes in tomorrow all day and is getting an ultrasound of his heart to see how bad his murmur is, as well as they are pulling out some of the cells they spotted on his liver. If this is lymphoma, his time left is not much. This is breaking my heart. He comes home with us tomorrow night regardless - and we'll know either Tues or Wed what his diagnosis is.

Tomorrow for me will be spent in my NJ site all day - but while I'll be physically there, my heart will be with my buddy in NY. The work I have to do is completely manual - which is the best case for having to be at a 3rd party site while I'm worried about my cat. Keep him in your thoughts.

--K