On Monday, November 4th, we left Sun Valley and Rhode Island and headed to Normandy Farms in Foxboro, MA for a few days.  As mentioned in a previous post, we decided to make the move to be closer to Patriot Place for Rob’s follow up appointment with his surgeon and for Chooey’s appointment with his favorite specialist.

I won’t say much about Normandy Farms campground since we wrote about it when we were here after the closing on our house just a few weeks back on September 27th. Suffice it to say that because it was during the week and off season  there weren’t many campers, although on Thursday it was notably busier, most likely due to the upcoming Veteran’s Day holiday weekend.

Although Rob had some discomfort with his knee after the surgery on November 1st, it wasn’t sore enough to keep him down and out, so despite my nagging efforts to keep him quiet he managed to complete a few of the smaller projects on his list and our battle to get more organized.

Each day his knee (and actually his entire leg which was sore) continued to improve.  On Tuesday, November 5th, he was finally able to remove the rather tight ACE bandage covering the two small incisions and compression stockings which were itchy and limited the flexibility of his leg. And the really good news is that once the bandages were off he could take a shower!  Yes, I’m tempted to make some cutesie remark but since we are in small quarters and I have no place to run, I better keep my mouth shut!

On Tuesday night, we met my brother, Paul and his wife, Peggy, for dinner at Tavolino’s Gourmet Pizza at Patriot Place.  Since Rob and I had never been to Tavolino’s before we didn’t know what to expect – it was certainly a lot different than any other pizza joint we’ve ever been to.  Very classy with wonderful ambiance.

They did have quite a selection of gourmet pizzas but the menu also included seafood, steaks and pasta dishes as well. Guess we were all pretty hungry so we decided to split two appetizers – wild boar gnocchi (hmmm wonder if they caught that around here?) and fried calamari with hot cherry peppers and citrus tomato aioli (some of the best we’ve had).

Then for entrees, Peggy and I both had a pork tenderloin dish with an apple cider sauce and sweet potato au gratin while Paul and Rob had chicken piccata with garlic mashed. Everything was yummy (sorry we didn’t think to take pictures until it was gone).  Highly recommended.  Wonderful evening!

On Wednesday morning, it was back to Patriot Place for Rob’s follow up appointment.  After checking his knee and answering a few questions that Rob had, Dr. Gomoll, Rob’s surgeon declared him good to go!   Woohoo! He did say that it would take a few weeks for the discomfort to totally go away but Rob didn’t need to curtail his any of his activities, although any knee abusing projects should be put on hold for a while.

On Thursday morning, Chooey was soundly sleeping when we whisked him into his carrier for the 30 minute ride to the New England Animal Medical Center in West Bridgewater, MA for his last check up before our departure.  Poor ol’ Chooey!  He’s 17-1/2 years old, very cranky, a little unsteady when he walks, sleeps a lot and sometimes just stops in his tracks almost like I do – most likely trying to figure out where he was headed and why he was going there!

I know they say that one year in a dog’s life equates to 7 human years so I was curious about cat years.  When I Googled it, I found it wasn’t a simple calculation according to the cat year’s calculator that I found – he’s over 84!  No wonder he’s cranky and forgetful!

For about a year now, Chooey has been under the wonderful care of his favorite specialist, Dr. Alan Glazer.  Chooey’s never really said that but our assumption is that he must be Chooey’s favorite since he is ours!   We’ve known Dr. G for a number of years now since he treated one of our other cats, Hobie, several years ago who eventually succumbed to pancreatic cancer. So when Chooey first started having symptoms – losing weight and some digestive issues (use your imagination) we immediately made an appointment with Dr. G.

Despite our holding back on invasive testing, Dr. G. nevertheless correctly concluded Chooey had IBD (irritable bowel disease).

Fortunately, putting him on a special hypo-allergenic diet of Royal Canin rabbit food and prednolosone eventually eliminated his symptoms and he’s been doing pretty well.  The entire staff at NEAMC are very caring and understanding including Danielle, Dr’ G’s assistant.

Dr. G, Danielle and the staff always put out a fuzzy grey non-skid mat on the slippery and cold examination table so Chooey will be more comfortable. This time we were told that the mat even had a name – GraysonMcFluffyPants (or something like that!)- too funny although I don’t think Chooey saw any humor in it! He definitely wasn’t happy during his appointment. When they went to take blood, he pulled his head away causing a bruise on his neck.  Then when they went to clip his nails (our request), he squirmed so much that two of his back nails were cut a little too short.  Jeesh, Chooey, it would be so much easier if you would just sit still!

On Friday Dr. G called with the results of his blood work – unfortunately it wasn’t a good report.  His platelet count is low and his 3 kidney values were elevated which happens quite often in elderly kitties.  Several suggestions were made but none sound particularly promising so we don’t know how much longer Chooey will be able to hang in there.

If he starts to fail, it will be tough being on the road and finding someone as knowledgeable and caring as Dr. Glazer.  Guess we’ll have to wait and see how it goes.  Speaking of being on the road, the first real trip of our new life journey was finally about to begin, so on Thursday night we started preparing for our Friday morning departure and our trip to Albany, NY.  More about that and a new (to us) option for overnight boondocking in our next post!