Hi, I have a few tricks I use to help me get thru 3 years of always coming up surgerys and trying to recover. The music one is a good one, my favorite Eric Clapton, CD player and head phones in the hospital was good to block out all the noise. I like Civil war history, so I read more books on it, reading about battles, made me think my problems were not so big. My faith was a big help also, and last my cat "Billy Bad Ass". This cat has been in trouble from the beginning, the Vet even thought he had lukemia once. I remember him saying watch the strips if they are not all blue , we have trouble. They were all blue, I wish I had been as lucky! Well then he got past someone and got out, he was hit by a car , his tail bone was smashed and both legs, it was really bad, at first the Vet was going to put him done, I was crying and I said " I guess this is the end Billy Bad Ass". When the Vet heard that he said with that name , we have to try. He took tissue and muscle from his stomach area and rebuilt one of the legs, did a little with his backbone and the other leg was left alone to maybe remove later. I went before work every day to encourage Billy. Finally he could come home, he walked in and slapped the other to cats and marched around like he owned the place! He worked hard to get back to a normal cats life and he never quit. He is still bad, even now that he is older. He sets in my bird bath, sleeps in my flowers and smashes them, he has broken more things than my kids did when they were little, but I would not trade him for the world because when they did all the surgery on me and I would be weak and never think I would get up again I would think of Billy and say if that damn cat can do it so can I! Everyone in our town knows Billy and all my Doctors did too, so even though this is a long post for me , I had to share Billy with you. He even had a flap before I did.