My dad sent out an email yesterday that he had attended his very last physical therapy session, and that the surgeon who did the operation on his neck says it looks like it's healing fine. And with that, the whole saga has ended. I am still wrestling with the fact that this whole thing started less than two months ago, and yet, aside from the slowly disappearing scar on his neck, you would not guess to look at him what we all have gone through. Before we all know it, he will be back to work, flying off on another assignment. Come this time next year it is going to feel as if it was a million years ago. At least that's what I'm hoping.

We have taken a new tactic in dealing with Checkers. Normally, for a skitterish cat like her, I would go slowly, and let her come out to us, but we've learned that this doesn't work. I started dragging her out of her little cave in the computer room (she's living in a corner shelf, by choice, and seems quite happy there) and putting her on my lap for pets and attention, and that seemed to make her more willing to come out when she saw me enter the room. But she'd still shy away from Richard, so I recommended he start doing the same thing. And what an amazing difference. Now that she's not dashing away from us when we walk in the room, she is spending more and more time out of her cave, bouncing around on the cat tree (where she has decided that the second shelf is the place where we are to come and give her attention immediately, or else she will holler at us repeatedly until we do). And even better yet, as she's gotten more comfortable, she's been standing up to the few remaining 'bullies'. Sebastian still comes in and growls at her, but she ignores him completely, and he's starting to give it up. And Zucchini will come in and stare intently at her, but now that she is mostly ignoring him, he is far less likely to try to chase her. The situation between her and Rosie still remains tense, but even that seems to have been reduced to an uneasy truce. Maybe in a year or so they can be in the same room with each other without one or both of them growling, and I will feel as if all this angst and drama was a million years ago. At least that's what I'm hoping.

This is a NaBloPoMo entry