this weekend marked the entrance into 22 weeks and lovely things have been happening to the body. it looks like by belly button is considering popping out any week now and i’ve started to notice “the leaking” as well as the swelling. seems there is a new surprise around every corner. i guess i would know to expect these things if i actually read the pregnancy books, but the pregnancy books scare me, so i tend to only read them when a symptom occurs to make sure i’m on track.

sometimes, the pregnancy books go into things that i just really shouldn’t be reading about and then i get all petrified and grossed out only to find out after extensive consults with dr. google, that those things only happen to 1 in 10,000 women. since typically i’m not that lucky to be the 1 out of 10,000, i figure they shouldn’t happen to me. so why bother even knowing about them right?? right. 

saturday started out as a typical day, complete with a scheduled visit to dr. o’malley’s office for a follie check. turns out there was one follie on each side, measuring at 11mm or so, which clearly wasn’t enough to be mature. we thought we were going to trigger this weekend, but apparently that wasn’t on the schedule. i’ll admit, i cried about it as soon as dr. o’malley left the room (damn pregnancy hormones). i felt really bad for TL and i feel like her road to pregnancy is getting longer and longer.

i never in a million years pictured us with expensive injectable meds, and now, we have them. so she’s going to take those for three nights and then go back for another check on tuesday to see if they helped the little follies grow. i think our main concern is that the egg would be too old to be fertilized by that point, but dr. o’malley assured us that given TL’s age, she can trigger as late as cd18, so we still have time. i’m trying to learn to trust him. 

at the pharmacy, we both had another cry about it. we didn’t intend on spending extra money this month for injectable drugs, but luckily, we had some money left in the budget to cover them. we are in the process of trying to get rid of all our credit card debt in preparation for our big move and ttc is becoming more and more expensive each month. we don’t want to work backwards and start charging up cards we have already paid off, but at the same time, i know how important this is to TL. we decided that we would buy the injectables this month, go ahead with our insemination, and if it works, awesome, and if it doesn’t, she is going to take a break. on paper, it seems like that conclusion rolled out so quickly, but in reality there was a lot of discussion leading up to it. we both feel comfortable with the plan, so that it is. 

when we got home from the RE’s office, we had to take hiker to the vet. seems he has come down with a bit of a kitty sinus infection. it’s times like these that make me wish that we had pet insurance because no visit to the vet can ever be cheap. turns out he also had an infection in his ears, so they had to be irrigated and he was not a happy camper at all. an hour later, we were off with two different antibiotics, ear drops, and a bill for $200. we have to give him the antibiotics twice a day for 14 days which literally spells hell for me since i’m the resident pill pusher and shot giver. i asked them if there was a shot, but they said no, so for the next two weeks i will start my mornings off and end my days fighting with edward-scissor-hands-the-cat. awesome. 

so we carried hiker back home (he screamed the whole way) and then were off again window shopping for baby. we went to about 4 different stores just to see who had what, and we got a few stroller demos, so all was well. we left realizing that shopping for baby has so many things to consider, but we can’t wait to actually start bringing things home. 

when we got back home, we discovered that scooter had decided to eat an entire box of packing peanuts in our absence. i swear, if he was a human, he would need over-eaters anonymous bad. i saw visions of us back at the vets office for the second time that day for scooter to get his stomach pumped and a host of other medicines. if the price tag for a little respiratory infection for hiker was $200, can you imagine how much scooter was going to fetch us? yeah, not pretty. after another quick consultation with dr. google, it was clear that eating the packing peanuts wasn’t going to kill him and that they are in fact a beloved snack for dogs. whew. 

and so we concluded the night with me administering the injectables to TL because i’m an awesome shot giver, and wrangling hiker for his meds. 13 days to go.

      

sleeping in Js pants

Today has been eventful indeed. It was time to take our kitties to the vet for their next set of shots, and to see about Santosh’s leg.

We put the cats in the carrier box (do they ever hate it!) and took them over. Onni behaved well through his physical exam and got his shot. Meanwhile, Santosh was in another room having his splint removed and his leg x-rayed.

While Santosh was there (putting up a hassle, apparently) and the vet was out, about 5min after the shot, Onni started vomiting violently. Everything came out of his stomach, little by little. Quite disgusting, I would say… But thankfully he vomited there, not in the carrier box or at home…

Santosh’s leg looked good. It had not healed 100%, though, and so the vet decided to wrap it up for one more week. It’s a softer splint this time, just to support the leg a little when the kitties tumble around. If Santosh was our only cat and a calm, quiet one, he could have got the splint off today. However, since he is energetic fellow who likes to wrestle with his brother, better safe than sorry… We wouldn’t want to go back in two days with a re-broken leg.

Because of Onni’s vomiting the vet decided to keep our kitties at the clinic for the afternoon. He wanted to make sure that everything was OK. Apparently these shots usually make the kitties a little sleepy and feverish.

We went about our business until afternoon. J. picked the kitties up and brought them home around 4pm. And Santosh has been sleeping ever since; it’s now 9pm. He got up to use the litter box at 8 but otherwise he’s just been sleeping! When he first came home he looked feverish; he was all puffy and shivering like crazy. He’s better now, all that sleep has been good for him.

Onni has been really quiet too, sleeping a lot and cuddling. It’s been quite nice, actually. I’m in the middle of a sewing project, and it was nice to cut out fabrics without a kitten who wants to “help” and play with the scissors…

It was an expensive day, though. The vet visit was another $450. The x-rays were $130!!!!! That’s insane… Today we were also told about some pet insurance possibilities that could save us some money if there is another accident some day. We’ll have to take a look; Santosh’s leg has cost us at least $800 by now, and that’s a lot of money!!!!

We also got some freebies, cat toys and stuff. And I’ve decided to make some cat nip toys for sale – why not? There seems to be a market for that kind of things!!! We looked at this website, http://www.fatcatinc.com/html_site/cats.shtml, and these things are like $7-15 in the pet store nearby!!!

I guess I could use some of this cats’ sleeping mode for sewing cat nip toys!!! The other way to make money seems to be having a vet clinic… You could charge $55 to shove a thermometer up a cat’s “where the sun doesn’t shine”…

      

The folks at VPI Pet Insurance have combed through their piles of data to come up with a list of the most unusual dog and cat names in the country. The ten most unusual cat names, in order, are:

Edward Scissorpaws
Sir Lix-a-lot
Optimus Prrrime
Buddah Pest
Snoop Kitty Kitty
Miss Fuzzbutt
80 Bucks
Sparklemonkey
Rosie Posie Prozac
Toot Uncommon

Pretty much the only name on this list that I find at all unusual is 80 Bucks. Is there really only one (or maybe just a few) Edward Scissorpaws in the world? It just seems like it doesn’t take that much ingenuity to come up with a name like that. Some of the rest of the top 50, however, were truly bizarre. Flashlight. Tacklebox. Absolutely Not. Now those are weird names. But the one thing that most of the names on the list have in common is that they’re all pretty dumb. Yeah, I’m looking at you, Senator Sassafras.

      

October 22, 2008

After years of tracking the most popular names for pets, Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI) set out to find the most unusual cat and dog names from among its more than 465,000 pets insured nationwide.

VPI employees selected 50 unusual dog names and 50 unusual cat names, and then voted for the 10 most unusual names in each category. Check out these winners, listed in order, with the most unusual at the top.

Now sit. And read.

Dogs

1. Rush Limbark (enjoys listening to the conservative radio talk show host) →

2. Sirius Lee Handsome

3. Rafikikadiki

4. Low Jack (a corgi mix with very short legs)

5. Meatwad

6. Peanut Wigglebutt (a dachshund puppy who shakes her tail so hard she falls over)

7. Scuddles Unterfuss

8. Sophie Touch & Pee (an excitable golden retriever with an unfortunate habit)

9. Admiral Toot

10. Spatula

Cats

1. Edward Scissorpaws (a playful paw leaves a scratch right under the owner’s eye)

2. Sir Lix-a-lot

3. Optimus Prrrime

4. Buddah Pest

5. Snoop Kitty Kitty

6. Miss Fuzzbutt

7. 80 Bucks

8. Sparklemonkey

9. Rosie Posie Prozac (an ex-boyfriend spots neurotic tendencies)

10. Toot Uncommon (perfect for the Egyptian mau breed) ↑

View the complete list of 50 unusual dog names and 50 unusual cat names at wackypetnames.com

      

There are quite a few companies that offer pet health insurance (ペット保険, petto hoken) these days, but it can be difficult to choose the right one. I recently read an article in a local magazine that recommended finding out about the following before signing up for any pet insurance plans.

1. What animals are covered?
2. How old must the animal be to start receiving coverage? Is there an age beyond which the animal is not eligible?
3. Will you receive a set amount (e.g. per day or per illness) or will the insurance cover the full amount of the treatment?
4. Are any limits placed on the amount that you can receive?
4. Is there a limit on the number of consecutive days an animal can receive treatment or be treated as an in-patient in a clinic?
5. Does the insurance cover cancer and operations?
6. Do you need to produce receipts or death certificates?
7. Are there any discounts based on having multiple pets, the age of the pet, or the owner having a disability?

Here is a good article about knowing what you are getting into when dealing with pet insurance.

I had a pet insurance plan when I lived in Canada, but I have not found a suitable one here in Japan yet. I did some research a few years back and couldn’t settle on one, but the pet boom has since exploded, so perhaps there are more options out there now. If anyone has any recommendations about pet insurance plans in Japan, please let us know in the comments!

Posted in Pet Insurance      

Today’s populace believes in leading a pragmatic lifestyle, where all efficient arrangements have been made to stand against any kind of unexpected trouble and incident and the most suitable example of such precautionary measures is insurance policy. Nowadays, almost every human being is securing the advantages of life insurance and medical insurance policies so that in future, they can easily deal with the unfortunate moments in a more planned way. Similarly, for pet owners, their pet is no less than a family member and as it is extremely painful to see your loved ones in pains, most of the intelligent pet owners are now opting for fruitful pet insurance schemes to secure a happy life for their pets.

It is true that pet insurance plans are designed for ensuring a healthy and comfortable life of your pets but you are the one who will gain maximum financial benefits from it. Right from the elementary requirements of your pet such as routine check ups, vaccinations and nutritious diet to extra, expensive needs like proper grooming and etc come at a cost. Hence, even if you maintain a separate monthly budget for your pets, it is not always feasible to estimate the exact expenditure for unforeseen problems. At such circumstances only, pet insurance will offer your considerable monetary support that will allow you to make no compromises with your budget as well as with your pet’s requirements. Decent insurance plan for pets from any good and reliable company offers the mandatory coverage for each and every conceivable incident that you may have to encounter because of your pets and in return, you just have to pay a nominal premium which will be easy on your pocket.

Nowadays, several good, reliable and affordable pet insurance plans are available in the market. These plans cover all the expenses of regular check ups and vaccinations, treatment for diseases of your pet which at times may be complicated as well as expensive, accident related injuries along with illness care. On the other hand, many times it happens that your pet gets lost or stolen. In such cases also, the insurance will cover the charges of putting pamphlets and advertisements in the newspaper and television. Moreover, these policies also offer various levels of expenses depending upon the cost. So whatever may be the need of your pet, you can stay assured that you will find a plan that suits you.

It is important for all the pet owners to consult their vets before taking any insurance plans for their pets. Even your friends who have already taken such kind of plans can offer qualitative information about the various insurance policies and their procedures. Basically, any pet insurance plan is recommended to an individual only after analyzing the breed, age, gender and medical condition of his or her pet. Hence, once you get worthy options in your bag, try to opt for the best insurance service that suits all your requirements and offer good premiums and coverage for various needs of your beloved pet. Hence, with just little of efforts, you can actually make your pet’s life healthier where finances will stand as a problem in providing the best care for your pet.