Janus, the Two-faced God

 As the month of January closes out, I'm reminded of the Roman god, Janus.  Supposedly two-faced, one looked forward and the other backward.  It does seem fitting that this god would guard the end of the old year and the beginning of the new.  

I look forward and backward with the spreadsheets of cat medications.  For each cat I have a sheet to record each dose.  With Paddy, it deals with Prednisone, Cerenia, Cyproheptidine, and Mirtazopine.  The first is for his asthma, the second and third for his pancreatitis, and the last for his thyroid.  We also track his weight on a daily basis even though it's the weekly trends that are more diagnostic of things.  Although Paddy is well trained to sit still during weighing, he's a handful to pill.

Henry, meanwhile, gets eyedrops to manage the pressure in his remaining eye.  Even though it is missing the lens, it still gives him enough vision to get around.  He gets Dorzolamide in the morning and Ketorolac in the evening.  Both must sting a bit, because he always shakes his head vigorously after I administer them.  The tear ducts in cats run directly into the nasal cavities and from there into the back of the mouth.  They taste the eyedrops fairly soon after they're applied.  Henry usually runs for his food bowl to get rid of the bad taste right afterwards.  

In any event, tracking each day's medications is one of the few ways of my telling one day from another.  Time has no meaning during the pandemic.  I'm always amazed at how fast the months go by.  

On an annual basis, I've been tracking the NM Department of Health's COVID-19 numbers since last spring with a spreadsheet as well.  The statewide count, the deaths, the infections for Bernalillo County, and the infections in our zipcode.  

Just recently I highlighted the 300-day mark since the Governor ordered the initial lockdown.  I track any outside contact and, I suppose, if things got serious, we could do a sort of mini-contact tracing with this information.

Friday, you can see on the sheet, I was out and about, restocking the wine supply at Kelly's and dropping a sample off at the vet's office.  Double masks and quick shopping make for lower risk.  I'll watch the days in February tick by one after the other.  For now, my only health issue is juniper allergies, but that discussion will have to wait for another day.

In closing, Happy Birthday to my nephew Peter!