1st Year at the New House: Part 4

If you haven’t checked out the first three parts of this 1st Year at the New House series, makes sure to do so now!

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links.  This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.  As an Amazon Associate I will earn from qualifying purchases.  All opinions remain my own.

I wanted to start a new post since I wanted the stuff about Oxford to be at the top for anyone that comes across this post, searching about issues with cats vomiting and having diarrhea.  We have always had issues with Oxford throwing up and going through spells where it can be 10+ times in one day.  Each time we’ve taken him to the vet only to be told “we can’t find anything wrong.”  We even took him to a internal medicine specialist in February 2019 where he diagnosed it as pancreatitis based on ultrasounds and his exam.  So we started feeding him a low-fat diet to help.  More on this later in the post.

At the end of April this year, the 25th to be exact, we took Oxford to our local vet because he was throwing up again – a lot.  You could tell he didn’t feel good.  They did bloodwork, a urinalysis, and a fecal test.  He was a little dehydrated, so they gave him sub-Q fluids.  He was treated for worms and given an antibiotic injection for his UTI.  They also sent us home with Cerenia to help with the vomiting.  Apparently if cats have a UTI, vomiting can be one of the symptoms.

Problem solved right?  No.  Four days later we took him back because he started having diarrhea issues.

And the diarrhea was bad.  I took pictures to show the vet, but I am not posting them here.  It looked very gelatinous and almost like there was some red in it at times.  Instead of going in the litter box, he would find one of the few areas our house had carpet and do it there.  Every. Single. Time.  Before we moved, Alex was smart and had purchased s spot carpet cleaner, and that thing got a workout during this 2 week period.  He got this Bissell 3624 SpotClean Carpet Cleaner off Amazon.

Alex and I spent a lot of time cleaning his butt (thankfully he just accepted his fate and was still during the process – for the most part), and to prevent him for going all over the carpet, I finally put aluminum foil down.

With this visit, they sent him home with liquid Metronidazole, which is supposed to reset his GI tract.  He hated this medicine.  The vet warned us that it tasted awful, and he would usually drool some afterwards.  I would immediately follow it up with some Easy Cheese to get rid of the taste.  We ended up taking him back two more times (May 11th and 12th).  They said the Metronidazole could take months to completely reset his GI tract, but he’s never had an issue with diarrhea for this long (two weeks in at this point).  They did ultrasounds, lots of X-rays, and more bloodwork.  He went back on the 12th so they could draw blood while he was fasting to send off to Texas A&M GI Lab for an extensive GI panel.  He was still having some issues with vomiting and diarrhea.  That test alone was $445.  But at least we finally got results and knew what was wrong:  he was very low on vitamin B12, and his folate levels were low.  Vomiting and diarrhea are symptoms of B12 deficiency in cats.  So we gave him a B12 injection once a week for 6 weeks.  We noticed a HUGE difference after the first injection, and he got a folate pill every day to help with that.  Sooooo, $1600 later (in just 2 1/2 weeks time), and we FINALLY had an answer!

I wanted to go into a little more detail with this, in case someone else is having issues with their cat doing the same.  Have them check B12 levels when they do the initial bloodwork!

So, as for the rest of April…

There had been rumors on our Facebook community page that a Dollar General might be coming right at the entrance to our community, which would put it literally in our backyard.  In April, a company came out to do soil samples, a company that consults with businesses to determine the best way to build on a property in regards to their findings.  I looked them up, and Dollar General was indeed one of their clients.

This was a huge project-stopper.  Alex swore if a Dollar General was going to open there, we were moving.  We’d only been in the house 9 months, and the idea of packing up all this stuff again was depressing.  I didn’t want to continue with any of my projects and dump money into something I might not be around to enjoy, and knowing I would have to start over again…  😥

Back in mid-March, I had bought my first ‘row’ of landscape bricks to start the tiered hillside.

While I didn’t want to start any major projects until we knew whether Dollar General would actually be moving in next door, I did want to at least get that first row leveled and done.  It would look nicer and a little more ‘finished’ up top.  But there was no way I was about to do one brick at a time, leveling it across the top.  It would also take massive amounts of bricks to do the two tiers, and I just have my Mustang to haul those in.  So I opted for landscape timbers, and yes, those will fit in my Mustang!  😆   I went with 3 across,making it 24 feet in length.  Have I ever mentioned how much I hate leveling stuff?  It’s trial and error for me and takes forever.  I started on this section in April.

I finally finished out the first row/wall in May. {I should have researched this more and did some type of tieback.  We’ll see how well it holds up over the years.  I also should have incorporated drainage and a layer of gravel against the backside of the timbers.}

Fifteen days after the soil testing happened on the property right at our backyard, a real estate agent came to the end of our road (we are in a cul-de-sac), and stuck a “For Sale” sign on the property.  What the actual ****?

The grass on the left side of the picture is our front yard…  It never occurred to us that someone might want to buy – and possible build a house – on this property.  Or that it would ever be for sale.  We bought this house and property because, while we do have a house across the street from us, it offers decent privacy.  And now there is a chance a Dollar General might be in our backyard, and we might have a neighbor in our front yard and to our side.  Alex and I discussed what to do at this point because we both wanted to do stuff that would cost money (inside projects, gardening projects, etc), but not if we might move soon.  We decided we would just suck it up and stay to build equity in the house.  By this time, Covid-19 was running rampant (mid to late April), and upon checking Zillow for possible options, we discovered there were absolutely ZERO houses that fit our needs.

I moved all of those landscape bricks to this area because I was planning on doing a large flower bed for most of the flowers I’d brought with me when we moved.

In April, I had started some seeds in my greenhouse and soon discovered the kitties were getting inside, even with the greenhouse door closed.  I’m guessing they got in through the vented window at one point and couldn’t figure how to get out.  😕

So I covered the window from the inside with wire mesh, cutting out a very small section so the arm can still move up and down as temperatures fluctuate, and I had to make a screen door for the greenhouse.  By the end of May, I was keeping the film-covered door open for air circulation since it was staying pretty toasty in there, so this screen door keeps the kitties out while still allowing air to circulate through.  Cats…  🙄  {I hadn’t attached the screen door with hinges yet when I took the picture below.}

On to the final part of this series, part five!