Thread 12 - TalkLair: “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 11).

The days are gradually growing longer, but the worst of the winter weather is not yet behind us. In the TalkLair, we remain hunkered down keeping cosy and warm. The hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Dotellhimpike · Today 15:19

Well, that's an hour down the sharing twatter videos on What's App!

While we’re sharing cat videos, I hope PostmanCat will brighten someone’s day as much as he did mine https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3Ah4zyLXgq/?igsh=NWtraHd0MXFvN285

How did they manage that! If I tried to dress Francis up,* mild as he is I think he might manslaughter me in panic! Very sweet though, and cute and I love him. Ginger postcat. Francis too, obvs, but right now the ginger boy.

• The only dressing up of cats I've ever done was in the past with friends where a tea towel as a scarf on any cats head created an instant Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

I did dress up one little cat we fostered for a month or so but the home he eventually ended up at turned him into a bit of an Instagram cat influencer with different outfits every week.

Don't you hate it when that happens?

My dad and aunt had a cat when they were kids and they used to dress him up in dolly's bonnets and clothes, then take him out in a pram, to be cuddled and cooed over by all the other kids. He loved it, by all accounts.

The only animal I've come close to dressing up was our dog, who I bought a winter coat for when we moved up north for a while. I put it on him but he looked so offended, head and tail drooping as if I'd betrayed him, that I took it straight off again and that was that. It was a really nice coat, waxed cotton with a tartan lining.

There's no way Kasper would tolerate being dressed up. He does love being pushed around though, so a pram has crossed my mind...

I'd love to put Francis in a pram but he'd probably just jump out.

I've realised this cycle that it wasn't the cats who were being kind and letting me sleep last time around. It was Django. Francis is being a little shit. Meowing in my poor tired face if I move in my sleep and it's anything close to 7am or afterwards. I love him very much but I'm not his friend today because he's being an arsehole.

If I get another cat in the future, which will be when Francis is gone and not before, then I'm going to do my best to get hold of a Maine Coon. I want a ridiculously big cat who I can take out for walks and everything. Either that or a reincarnation of my ginger girl Georgiana who was the best cat who ever lived. For me. We were just perfect for each other.

I feel a bit sad about this, but when our 15 year old girls go, I probably won't get another cat. I'm about to turn 74 and DH is 81 and we don't have children living nearby who would just pop in to check on us so if we keeled over we'd end up as cat food.

That's why it's very much an "if" for me, Brit. I'm younger than you but with my health as it is and not knowing what the future holds, Francis may be my last cat. (He's currently being adorable, he obviously read what I'd typed over my shoulder and has decided to make up for it.) One of the things I've thought about in the last few months is the possibility that I'll have to rehome him (it was rehome then when my little Django was still here) and if that was the case at which point would I do it. Age and health and being pet people can be upsetting as age increases and health decreases.

Also, apologies to all for being horrid about Francis. I'm tired and irritable today and he really only slightly deserves it. He can't help being a needy little bumhole at times.

And in many post ment. I don't think I told any of you, because I decided I was going to keep it to myself and pretend all was well for reasons of being a brat, about a month ago my JEJ tube "fell out". It started with the triangle thing that held it all in place coming undone. At that point I thought I'd get on to the GI people and get it sewn back into place but I was feeling a little tender so didn't do it straight away. Then I woke up one morning and the whole tube had dislodged. At that point I knew that the sensible thing was to tell the GI people that I no longer had a tube but I really didn't want an operation to put it back in so I thought I'd just leave it for a while. And a while lasted until today.

A GI person came to have a chat with me while I was waiting to have my portable chemo changed and we got round to "How's the feeding tube going?" Finally, I admitted what had happened and apologised and acknowledged I'd been an arsehole. But no! She was so understanding. She said it was fine, it happens all the time and if we need to do more feeding we'll find another way because unless it's utterly necessary I shouldn't have to have another operation. She checked where it had been - all healed beautifully - and huzzah! The truth is out there and I'm not in trouble. I'm now going to get in touch with the suppliers of all the feeding tube food and gubbins and ask them if they'd like to take all my no longer needed supplies back.

The relief!

I know nothing about how feeding tube insertion works, Mouse, but I had a vague idea that it was inserted through the wall of your stomach, and I am boggling a bit about it all healing up on its own without stomach contents spilling through the hole into your abdomen. Please tell me I have utterly got the wrong idea.

Similar questions went through my mind, @Britinme and I'm wondering how it works.

This one went in through a hole into my jejunum which is the middle part of the small intenstine, so not the stomach. Here's a photo of what it looks like from the outside. His is much higher up than mine was so my guess is that it's not a jej tube at all, but the triangular thing is what was holding it in place. Again, here it isn't so this is a really rubbish photo but you get the basic idea. Yep, there's a hole, but it's small, the size of the tube which isn't wide. When it fell out, nothing came out and the hole healed quickly. I'll post another image which is a diagram which will give you a better idea of how it goes in.

This one is showing you the port outside the stomach. N.b. it looks like it's in the stomach and if it's a g tube (PEG) then it might be, but if it's a j tube (my jej) then it's not. They really aren't big enough for stuff to flop out which when you have one you are aware of so I was never worried that there would be bad things happening if the tube fell out which is handy as falling out is common. I found that out again when I had a call from my dietician this afternoon who also giggled at me hiding the fact that I was tube free and had been for a little while.

I'm now a one-line girl, my PICC. An image you ask? Oh go on.

I think you can see it as your body rejecting something it no longer needed which is fair enough. It’s good that the relevant people know though.

This is all I have attached to me now. The PICC is a peripherally inserted central catheter. They put these in if you're going to have to have a lot of needle work especially the portable chemo that I have every week. If I have to have bloods taken outside of the phlebotomy unit I don't have to have a needle which is rather handy.

Again, it looks like it might be a mare to insert but it isn't. There are no nerves in your veins so you don't feel the tube going through them toward your heart and once it's in you have no idea it's there. It's not even comfortable because that would mean you're aware of it and you're not. It's a bit annoying because when you're putting on any clothing you have to push your portable chemo and tube through your sleeve but I'm pretty sure that when it's finally taken off I'll keep looking for it for a while. Oh and you have two entry points so you can have a blood test while something else is going on. Snazzy!

So there we go. Tubes and lines what I have known in the past couple of months.

Actually, I doubt you can do two things at once because that would be stupid, but you can have a blood test followed immediately by something in the other port, so that works too. I like having them flushed, a moment of cold water running along my veins is nice. I'm a weirdo.

Funnily enough @MouseMinge I have been working with PEG and JEJ tubes for years but have never seen on of those triangular thingummys for keeping them in place, so I guess that's for people who are up and walking around whereas most of the patients I worked with were confined to bed and pretty immobile.

I think it must be, @Dotellhimpike

I just realised that your namesake died last week. Poor old Pike.

And Steve Wright in the afternoon died today which came as a bit of a shock although I'm not sure why. I guess because he was still DJ-ing like a bastard so it didn't seem that he might be ill or owt.

The outer bit of that looks very like the little doohickey they stick in your arm (or sometimes your hand) at A&E (where the nurses are generally very good at it, what with having lots of practice). During The Gall Bladder Years, Mr G was constantly being punctured and on the ward, matters were much more hit and miss (with the emphasis on the miss). Fortunately there was a wonderful Croatian nurse called Miho who would roll his eyes and do it first time, every time. Eventually I asked him what his secret was and he whispered "It's simple - in Croatia we are better trained".

Poor old Steve Wright in the Afternoon. He was shitter than shit but shitter than shit was what Afternoon Radio is all about.

Thanks for the pics @MouseMinge that all looks seriously Modern and 'amazing what they can do now'!

@VictorianBigot what they can do now is amazing. Thankfully for me! @Gonners it's similar to when you get a canula put in but each pointy bit of the triangle is stitched to your skin. It's a tad precarious which is why it eventually fell out I guess!

@Dotellhimpike he was shit. When I was listening to radio one back in the day I thought he was shitter than shit but as I've got older/old I've found that if I'm listening to radio 2 and one of his songs from this year in this decade this week is on I'm quite happy to give it a listen. I think radio 2 was always going to be the right place for him. Even when he was at the height of being one of the up and comings it seemed like he'd been up, came, gone away and come back again without realising that there was anything a bit edgy out there. I'd grown almost fond of him in recent years so I think that's why it shocked me a little.