A couple weeks ago, Coconut had a vet-recommended echocardiogram. Even though he’s living a healthier life than ever before, his heart murmur—which we’ve known about since we adopted him years ago—has gotten worse with age. Heart murmurs are rated on a scale of 1 to 6, and he’s currently sitting at a 4, which means the murmur is audible from both sides of his chest.

Of course, when I heard this news, I was devastated. Coconut is my whole heart. I was obsessed with him when we got him the summer after high school and even during my college years when he lived at home with my parents—trust me, my college roommates can attest to the fact that I would not stop showing them photos freshman year. And when I moved to Boston post-grad, his arrival 3 weeks later brought so much joy to my life.

Especially now, quarantining throughout the pandemic without roommates or family nearby, Coconut has been instrumental to my emotional and physical wellbeing. In short, he is the goodest boy.

Anyways, back to the echocardiogram! I’d expected to hear the worst—that Coconut was in heart failure, that nothing could be done, etc.—but was instead pleasantly surprised when my vet told me that that was not the case.

He does have mitral valve disease, which means his valves have trouble preventing blood from flowing back into his heart, but he is not in heart failure. My vet’s words were: “It’s not the best heart I’ve seen, but it’s also not the worst.” When I heard that statement, a wave of relief washed over me.

It was recommended that he start taking a pill called Vetmedin twice a day. The price was worrisome at first—I was initially told his medication would cost around $60 a month—but my vet was kind enough to write me a prescription that would allow me to get it from Chewy’s online pharmacy instead, which is much less expensive than the clinic’s. Choosing to buy the bigger pills (and cutting them into the recommended dosage) also helped me save money. And finally, setting up auto-ship shaved off a few extra dollars. All in all, it’s now about $27 a month instead, which I’m definitely willing to pay for Coconut’s health.

The pills came last week, and they were HUGE. The recommended dosage for Coconut is 1.25 mg twice daily, which means I need to cut the 5 mg pills I received into quarters. Even so, the amount still feels ginormous!

I was nervous that I’d have to wrap the pills in turkey (which might defeat the purpose—he’s also supposed to be on a low-sodium diet) or slather them with almond butter, but turns out Coconut has no issues taking them as is!

Like I said before, he is SUCH A GOOD BOY.

Apart from Coconut’s medical adventures, this week primarily consisted of work (eh!) and trying to find creative ways to use up the food in my cupboard/fridge before moving day, which is now less than a week away! 😱 To use up a can of crushed tomatoes, a bag of celery, an onion, and some penne, I made a delicious bolognese a few nights ago. (My biggest takeaway: don’t use carrots! I didn’t have them in my mirepoix base this time, and it was SO much better than in the past.)

Another tricky thing to get rid of were three bottles of Heineken in my fridge. I don’t drink beer, but they were leftovers from when my mom visited a while ago. To use up one of the bottles, I made beer bread, which was alright—it got slightly burnt and I could unfortunately still detect the taste of beer, which I thought would be masked by the flour and sugar.

Having said that, though, it’s still the best bread I’ve made on my own thus far! Now to figure out what to do with the last two bottles…

I also had a can of Spam in my cupboard, which I made into….cooked Spam. Nothing really to do there, but having it on top of rice will always be a (delicious) classic.

This last one wasn’t really to “use up” anything per se, but I just really wanted some cupcakes Friday night, so I made a batch from scratch. They weren’t bad, but I realized that 1) I like frosting more than buttercream, and 2) I do not like frosting cupcakes. Mad respect to cake decorators! 🙏

My free time in the upcoming week will be dedicated to reading, learning Javascript, and packing. My new lease started yesterday, so you could say that the process of moving is officially underway!

I’ll probably also spend a significant amount of time trying to plan out the layout of my new apartment. I’ve never lived in a studio before, and the toughest thing is trying to find ways to delineate space without the use of walls (and I personally don’t want to purchase room dividers).

I wish I had the vocabulary to better describe what I’m going for, but I’ll do my best to channel my inner interior designer when buying new furniture! I’ve been using this and this for inspiration—I love how you can detect a thematic shift in both of these (bedroom vs. living vs. dining space) via space elements alone (like using alignment and rugs to mark division), in contrast to this, which uses a bookshelf as a de facto wall.

Alas, more on my moving adventures next week!!