Our beloved Tigresse

Saturday evening, after multiple errands altogether (we usually do errands in 2 teams), we came back home. Our daughter found our beloved cat in the backyard, suffering a lot of pain.
When I saw her, I knew she had been poisoned like Lili, our cat that passed away last year.
I still wanted to have hope and we rushed to the vet's office. Unfortunately, the vet couldn't be back until 30 minutes and no one else was on call.
I pet her during all that time and asked her to fight for life. I talked to her and talk to her and talk to her...
When the vets finally arrived, it was too late. Actullay, we arrived home too late.
It's a lot of pain for all of us but what makes it even worse for me (what I shouldn't do, I know) is those "what if...".
What if I hadn't mopped the floor and didn't care about Tigresse going inside the house when we left. What if I made her go inside when we left as I usually do. What if I didn't mind about the comforter being in the Dry cleaner for 3 weeks so I had to go with my husband on that errands'trip instead of staying home...and being able to get her inside or finding her right away when she ate that poison.
What if we didn't stay too long at my daughter scout's meeting when we picked her up. What if the dry cleaner didn't talked to me for 5 minutes about the new dry cleaning customer card.
What if, what if, what if...
It's not one thing, it's all of them piling up that made us leaving her outside and coming back home too late. I know that what happened to her could have happened the next day or the next week. Maybe it could have happened 2 weeks ago or 2 days ago and what I chose to do and not to do at that moment saved her but still, I feel so angry...and so sad. I miss her very much.
We buried her in our land, soon-to-be new home.
My son melted down when we told her goodbye.
We will love her forever.
"You are in our hearts forever Tigresse, tu es dans nos coeurs à jamais".

Doctors & Hospitals

I always hesitated before posting : because I am not sure the subject I picked will interest you or because I am not sure I'd be able to write more than 10 lines. Everytime, I feel like I am being negative about France...
Bottom line, I do not post anymore => Bad !
So I'll try today : I have been very disappointed with French medicine and French doctors since we moved back from the US. Everything that I feel like being normal before, I really dislike them today. It goes from not having a yearly check-up to the way pain is ignored or worse, pain has to be !

Let's start with the obvious, as a women : the OBGYN appointment. Men don't know a lot about it but I can tell, it's not the appointment you want to go every year ! It's pretty much uncomfortable. Well, in France, it's twice uncomfortable because you are naked when you have your exam and you talk with the doctor. Who wants to have a conversation being naked ? I don't. So I decided that next time, I'll bring a long TS and see how it goes.

Then, as a mom, the yearly exam your child has with his pediatrician. Same problem here. My daughter never gets a chance to get dressed after his exam because he doesn't want to wait. So she goes down from the examination table and walks to get her eye exam or her weight taken...
Any problem or small issue is talked in front of the child but without him being asked about. Would you like it as an adult ? No, clearly no. And I am starting to think it's typically French as it's widely the case. I remembered hating that when I was a kid so I talked about it with my daughter and ask her : is this something you noticed ? How do you feel about that ? She did notice and she does hate it ! Same goes with pain. Most of the doctors will kind of deal with your pain. For children, no way, they have like 99% chance of "lying" or over-estimate the pain/ underestimate their resistance to it. My daughter had to get antibiotics through "intraveineuse" 3 times. The first time, at the Children's hospital,they had given her a patch of emlar so she was fine. The second time, the nurse came home and my poor baby started crying and saying it hurt. So I ask the nurse to do something about it. She said that basically that was nothing that could be done. So my poor baby cried for 3 super super long minutes and at the end, was begging me for help "mommy, mommy, mommy...". It was heartbreaking. So I called the Children's hospital to check with them. The nurse should have diluted the antibiotic with saline solution so it wouldn't feel like burning in her veins....so I rushed to the pharmacy (it was Saturday evening, and we don't have any CVS or Walgreens in France). When I explained that to the nurse the following day, she started to tell me that she didn't believe some of her adults patients when they said they were having pain until...she felt herself that very same pain. It was unbelievable !
So next time, I'll get all the infos before having any procedure done to my children...and to myself !
And of course, "le meilleur pour la fin", the dentist. And that'll take me a whole post. The dentist is everything. I even heard a friend saying "My dentist doesn't like to give too much anesthesia so I started feeling pain while he was using the drill on a cavity I had. I told him and he said "don't be childish, you are just fine"......?????!!!!!!