Another Pink World

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Category: moses

July 14, 2008

lisa and moses discuss battle rabbit

l: a rabbit feast. i bet you could go for that. YEAH.

m: tell them not to put any onion in it because that will make me more anemic.

m: actually, they don't even have to cook it.

m: actually, it doesn't even really have to be dead.

l: just kind of stunned? so it's easy?

m: yeah. like that.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:38 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

June 29, 2008

yes, i have to go to a cat birthday party

i'll admit, i didn't think of the position i'd be putting people in, if they needed to explain where they were going.

tonight i invited over a few of moses' most ardent local fans (aka, people who help me take care of him and will listen to me prattle on about him ad nauseum). (although i have to say that the person who is willing to listen to me the most is J, plus it should be mentioned that he also helps me with moses a lot. for instance, he played a key role in the one and only bath moses has ever recieved.)

anyway, i called it moses' birthday party because you know, he's seventeen today. but mostly i wanted to hang out and feed my friends some nice drinks and snacks and stuff. we also listened to records-- you know, real actual vinyl records-- which was fun. i played that sugarcubes record with the birthday song, and we talked about how the first elvis costello album was rumored to be backed by guys who played with huey lewis (which georg later confirmed to be true).

i attempted to make mojitoes and failed, as usual. i swear i will one day make a decent mojito. this is going to mean figuring out how to really get mint to grow and thrive in my garden. if mojitoes were made with sage, rosemary or garlic chives i'd be set. oh, or marjoram. find me a mixed drink made with marjoram and i can set you up. i suppose it would also help if i would bother to squeeze fresh limes.

we drank them anyway, though. they weren't too bad, they just weren't really mojitoes.

moses go to eat so much chicken that he threw up. IT WAS GREAT. i kind of forgot to give it to him gradually. i put a little plate down in front of him, looked away for a moment and 3/4 of it was gone. then soon it was all gone. and then a little came back. then it was a matter of seeing how many barf jokes we could work into the evening.

GOOD TIMES.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:46 AM | Comments (3)

Category: moses

June 28, 2008

Hey Moses! It's your birthday!

Yep it's true, little dewd turns the big one-seven today.

And he seems to be fit as a fiddle and frisky to boot.

Yay Moses!!!

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:58 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

June 12, 2008

he walks!

so, of course as soon as i blog that i'm worried about mo, he starts getting up and walking across the house and whatever.

in unrelated news, the advantage to having a couple of 102/103 degree days in early june is that when it cools off to 87 and 90, you've acclimated and that feels okay.

I'm also selling three lovely pairs of shoes on ebay.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

June 09, 2008

pink toes

i've been feeling kind of demoralized by the state of the mo the last few days. he doesn't get up and walk on his own, ever, and when i get him up he'll only go a short distance, maybe eat for a couple of minutes, then lay down again. it's almost definitely the anemia, but today i started to wonder if he might just be giving up.

tonight though i realized his little toes are pink. not deep pink like i like to see, but definitely not all pale like they have been lately. they are pink and warm.

could be a fluke, but i feel a little more hopeful. hang in there little dewd. only nineteen days til you turn seventeen.

Posted by spacegrrl at 01:45 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

June 04, 2008

all mo, all the time

so, a little moses update. we went to the vet today. mo is doing okay. we're still in the valley of anemia but not getting any deeper. this seems to be making him very tired, which in turn makes him not want to get up and go get food and water. while i was gone over the weekend, my pet sitter didn't realize that he was eating and drinking abnormally low amounts and that she needed to bring the food and water to him to help him. this was just a SNAFU and no one's fault really. when i got home late sunday i could see that he was dehydrated and when i brought him his food, he ate hungrily. he was due for fluids and that pretty much took care of the dehydration right away. since then i've been bringing him his food and water if he won't go to it, and he's eating just fine.

monday evening i also decided to re-start the oral potassium just to see if it would help. i have seen in the past that it makes him stronger when he stands up and walks. i think it has helped and dr. c is okay with continuing that.

sadly, i think moses was the healthiest patient dr. c saw this morning. i guess if you log enough hours in a vet's waiting room, you're going to see stuff you'd rather not, and i have certainly logged more than my fair share of hours there. oh well. it's the circle of life, i guess. my sturdy little man is still hanging in there anyway, and i am starting to really be hopeful he's going to make it to his 17th birthday at the end of this month. only 24 days to go.

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

May 14, 2008

the dangers of google

okay, so i googled moses' symptoms last night and jumped to the conclusion that his liver was failing. my vet gently told me this morning that we aren't seeing enough evidence to support that conclusion, or even test for it.

oops.

i mean, it could be the beginning of something bad, but probably not.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

May 13, 2008

aw, come ON

i was getting into the groove of my ten days straight without travel, family obligations, excessive stress, etc. then tonight after work i spotted some litterbox weirdness that has me completely freaked out that moses' liver is failing.

here's hoping it turns out to be a big fat nothing. he's going in tomorrow morning for a glucose check anyway so i'll find out the score quick enough.

let it be nothing. let us have our week and a half of peace before we hit the road again.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

May 08, 2008

trifecta!

cat bodily functions below; skip if you don't want your day to begin similar to how mine began.

this morning i was awakened by the sound of moses throwing up in the kitchen. i knew it was the kitchen by the big, echoey sound he was making. great.

i walk into the kitchen and there's a trail of cat poop spread across the floor.

i reach for him-- he's in a corner over by his food-- and step in a vast puddle of pee that i didn't notice.

apparently he lost his mind during the night-- i always set up the back bedroom with a bed, food and water. the reason he was throwing up was because he was hungry; that's why i always leave him food during the night.

i go to grab the food from the back bedroom and everything is untouched. water bowl still full, food not pushed around, bed not peed on or slept in. wtf?

i give him the food and he starts throwing it down on the pee covered floor to eat it. a lot of cats do this, they take dry food out of their bowl, throw it on the floor and then eat it.

so i pick him up to move him and realize his flank is soaking wet, which means he laid down in the pee puddle on the tile floor, perhaps waiting for food to magically arrive.

allow me to assure you, this is a delightful way to start the morning.

tonight we'll begin re-training on Where Moses Spends The Night. apparently "we" need a refresher. by "we" i mean MY CAT.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:59 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

April 24, 2008

here we go again

moses has diabetes again. we did a full panel yesterday and his glucose was 600 which is quite high.

i had a feeling that might wind up being the case. my guts tell me it's because we switched him off of m/d (the diabetic food) for k/d (kidney disease food). after we switched him he started to gain weight again and now he needs insulin again.

i asked dr. c if he wanted to put him back on m/d and he said no. but i think i'm going to bring it up again in two weeks when we re-check.

in the good news department, the anemia situation seems to be stable and his kidney values have actually not gotten worse, which was a pleasant surprise. i really thought we'd see downward progress in the kidney disease.

we've passed eight months now since was first diagnosed with CRF. if nothing else, that's pretty amazing.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:23 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

March 22, 2008

A slight correction; cleaning out

We're well into the territory of interesting to NO ONE but me, but I found another vet invoice today from moses' early years that lists his birth date as June 28, 1991, which is probably his for-real actual day of birth.

This was in the process of cleaning out my basement. Today I attacked the stuff that has, historically, bothered me the most-- boxes that i packed at my old apartment, moved to this house eight years ago, shoved in the basement and never unpacked. they've been sitting right in the flood zone so i knew it would be an ugly job.

Most of it's in the trash now-- it wasn't worth keeping anyway, even if it had not been ruined-- but i deemed a surprising amount of stuff salvageable and worth salvaging. most of that will need to go to goodwill. Besides moses' actual birth date, I think the best thing I found was a Fluevog catalog in decent condition that has my favorite Lift Offs as the centerfold.

each box was like a time capsule (of crap) from different points in my life. it was mildly interesting to see that stuff but man, i really used to have a problem discerning what was worth keeping and what wasn't.

tomorrow i'm going to attack the section that is stuff i set aside for goodwill, shoved in the basement before a party, and is probably mostly trash now.

Posted by spacegrrl at 04:55 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

March 11, 2008

Moses is 16 - I can prove it!

Okay, so no one cares about this except me, but I find it somehow reassuring to have definitive proof of Moses' age.

While working on my filing tonight I found a vet invoice from November 2, 1991 that describes "Male, Tabby, 4 months". That puts Moses' birth date at around July 2, 1991, and his age is definitely 16.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:04 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

February 13, 2008

cat music

mo went in for a checkup today. all is well. dr. c wants to start him on the prescription food for kidney disease. until now he's been on the stuff for diabetes. i gave him some k/d tonight and he seemed to love it, but now his guts are making all kinds of gurgling sounds. he seems happy enough, but i wonder if it's disagreeing with him.

saturday will be six months from when he was diagnosed with CRF. a sturdy cat, indeed. i think i am going to buy him some nice organic chicken and cook it up for him. i think he'll really enjoy that. happy six months, little dude!

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:47 PM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

January 15, 2008

Full of it

Lately I've been putting Mo to bed at night in the back bedroom. He's got a nice bed in front of the heat vent, his food and water, and of course the litter box. I put the pet gate up in the doorway so he's stuck back there. This way, I don't have to listen to him come into my bedroom every night as I'm drifting off, or every morning just before my alarm, and piss on his bedding.

This has all worked great for a while now, but this morning at 7:15 (over an hour before I planned to get up) he starts caterwaulin'. It's unbelievable how much his voice has changed as he's gotten older; he really does sound like a crazy tomcat now. I swear, a year ago he was all, "mew, mew!" Now it's like, "MIAUOW. MIAUOW."

Well, he really got going, and clearly wasn't going to let me go back to sleep, so I got up. It turns out that he'd pooped neatly in the center of his bed. Pee he is, unfortunately, willing to sleep in. Happily, not so much with the poo.

I gave him a big speech about how maybe he shouldn't use his bed as a litter box, cleaned it off and told him to eat his breakfast. So now I'm awake (and feel horrible), and he seems pretty content.

Tomorrow marks five months to the day since he was diagnosed with CRF. Go Moses!

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:25 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

January 02, 2008

a good sturdy cat & other updates

a good checkup today. PCV is up near normal again at 34% (that is, he's not anemic and the Epo is definitely still working), his weight remains stable and his electrolytes are normal.

Dr. C is giving me the Epo to administer at home now so I have two weeks worth and we don't have to go back in during that time. Yay!

:|:

despite my best efforts to get my sleeping schedule back on track, i still could not fall asleep in time to get a full night's rest last night. i did get tired on time, so i am hopeful this will work itself out in a day or two. i may have to kick moses out of the bedroom for a few nights; as I was drifting off last night I heard him come in and pee on his bedding, which of course meant getting up again and cleaning it up. ugh. i think i need to change his name from mr. kittypants to mr. pissypants.

:|:

the thought of going to mickey death for breakfast was awfully tempting this morning, but i didn't. as i was thinking about it, i realized that i haven't eaten any fast food since before christmas-- probably right around when J came to visit. he's a good influence on me that way.

:|:

i spoke with someone at my credit union this morning and finally got some good information on the convertible: we're waiting for the title to be sent to the buyer's credit union, and that should happen later this week. so basically, we're waiting. i think i should probably start her up and run her around the neighborhood for a few minutes just to be on the safe side-- it's not good for her to sit unused in the cold for so long. i'm completely paranoid that something will happen to her between now and the completion of the sale, though.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

December 21, 2007

In the "whew" department...

Mo's PCV (red blood cell count) is up 5% over last week, to 25%. Target is around 35%. so that means the Epo is still effective, and that's a big relief.

I'll be administering his next two Epo shots myself over the holiday, but it shouldn't be a big deal because it's done the same as insulin, and Dr. C already prepared the syringes for me.

We'll be in Va for an extended period over the break and he always has a fine time up there, plus he's obviously feeling more energetic this week, so he'll be SuperHappyKitty, which will be great.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

December 12, 2007

don't scare me like that!

earlier this evening i looked over at moses and i thought he was dead. i mean, i really thought this was it, from the way he was laying there. he'd just up and died while right next to me, and i hadn't even noticed.

i yelled his name and his eyes flew open and his head popped up, and he was all like, "huh? what? eh?"

he was just sleepin' extra hard. i think because his dinner was delayed and then he had an extra large meal.

he's doing just fine these days. i really could swear his ears and nose look like a reasonable pink color and i hope his anemia is turning back around again. we'll find out friday.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

December 09, 2007

Happy cat in Va

It seems that moses has reached a point where he's really happy at J's house. He's even comfortable being downstairs and likes to position himself at the nexus of everything (the hallway), then give us eye-squeezies while we make breakfast.

This morning while we were all hanging out upstairs, moses walked right over to Reese and started sniffing him. He never growls at Reese any more, and only scolds him when he thinks reese might be trying to get his food.

His ears and nose still look pale to me-- not the palest I've ever seen them, so hopefully the epo is at least helping him maintain-- but I would so much rather see them nice and pink. J also commented that he looked a little thinner than he did over thanksgiving. On the other hand, his coat has improved a great deal since we started the potassium and he's still pretty plump. so most of the time, he still seems like a nice soft kitty.

anyway, he's having a good time still so all is good. i think i'm going to put up a christmas tree this week so that should make life a little more interesting for him at home.

In other good news, I have a buyer for the convertible! She is offering me less than asking price but still significantly more than I'd get at carmax, and as a bonus she really seems to love the car and not be bothered at all by the cosmetic issues. i'm holding out until Monday to see if the other person offers me a higher price, but in my gut i think she had too many uncertainties about the car and i don't think she'll want it.

Posted by spacegrrl at 01:58 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

December 05, 2007

mo and other updates

mo had a checkup today. his red blood cell count keeps decreasing so we're ramping up the epogen doses again. it's possible that he's developed antibodies to the epogen and it will no longer be effective. BUT let's not dwell on that yet, shall we? maybe the larger doses will turn it around again. i swear his nose and ears look a little pinker this evening.

otherwise, he's pretty great. he gained back the weight he'd lost, i've been putting a lot of time into encouraging him to eat and i guess it paid off. his electrolytes are balanced again although the oral potassium supplement is messy and difficult to give. it's kind of sugary and at least a little winds up dripping out of his mouth during the process, so he has little potassium icicles in his fur here and there. i've started giving him a sponge bath about once a week to get rid of that and just generally clean him up. it's... semi-effective. he's not that enthusiastic about it.

his fancypants memory foam bed arrived yesterday, and it actually is pretty awesome. much more awesome than the assortment of folded blankets i typically use for him. was it worth the money? ehhh... maybe not. but it is really nice.

i put it in front of his favorite heat vent and he seems to be extremely comfortable there-- all stretched out and more relaxed than i usually see him. so i think that's a win.

:|:

i re-started weight watchers on monday. so far, so good. it was either that or start shopping for clothes. this seems like the better option. cheaper, anyway. after all, i have fancypants pet beds to pay for.

speaking of financial shenanigans, i have a nibble on the convertible! someone at work wants to look at it friday. i'm trying not to get too hopeful about it, but if i were to actually sell it in a private sale, it would improve my finances considerably. oh yes.

i posted to the neighborhood listserv that creepy lawn guy was back and wow, huge discussion with elements of bickering and people getting all huffy and then other people complaining about how they're sick of all the complaining. ah, the internet.

the upshot seems to be that a lot of people don't want him around (understandably, since it appears that he starts peeping again almost immediately after being released from jail), anyone who admits that they might consider hiring him again gets beaten down and yelled at (which is kind of understandable given that he is, technically, a sex offender), and he still keeps finding work in the neighborhood because, oh my god, maybe not everyone is on the list.

so that's what's new with me.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

November 29, 2007

mo-date

had a checkup at the vet yesterday. nothing too terrible, but he's slipping in a few areas. he's lost some weight, and he needs oral potassium supplements now. his anemia has also gotten slightly worse so we'll step up the epo for a while.

so yesterday he had fluids, epo, and potassium and today he's a new cat. woke me up caterwaulin', freaked me out but he just wanted his breakfast. his voice has changed in the last year and he sounds like the bastard lovechild of a siamese cat and a police siren. NOT my favorite way to wake up.

i bought a waterproof mattress cover yesterday and i plan to try letting him back on the bed soon. hopefully then he'll just glare at me when he wants his breakfast.

i finally decided to spring for this expensive memory foam pet bed i've been considering. it takes a long time to ship which bothers me; what if the situation with his health makes a bad turn next week and... you know? but whatever. chances are he'll get to enjoy it and it'll make him happy and comfortable.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:48 AM | Comments (1)

Category: moses

November 16, 2007

a good, sturdy cat

i just realized that it was august 15th-- three months ago yesterday-- when moses was diagnosed with CRF. at that point, i wasn't sure he'd live three days; three months seemed out of the realm of possibility.

good cat.

Posted by spacegrrl at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

November 15, 2007

a good mo check-up

just heard from the vet and it's mostly all good news. his creatine level has dropped again to 3.5 which is really great. that's the main indicator of how well his kidneys are functioning and how much the fluids are helping. apparently, a lot.

other things that must be monitored in the crf cat are at normal levels-- phosphorus, potassium, and blood pressure.

blood sugar was still normal, so i was indeed wrong about the diabetes being back.

finally, he has become slighly anemic again but not dramatically. he'll get another epogen shot tomorrow and given his past response to the drug, that should hold him for another two weeks.

so, here's hoping we can keep him at this good place for a while to come. everything is very manageable right now and i like it like that. he's also obviously feeling pretty good and happy.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:01 AM | Comments (1)

Category: moses

November 12, 2007

Moses Burns

I have decided that my cat is like Mr. Burns on The Simpsons.

he has many illnesses
every third day, i pump him full of live-giving fluids
he's shaky on his feet
and yet... he just keeps on living past all expectations.

i am not so sure that he has high blood sugar. wednesday he has a scheduled blood test and i decided to wait until then to find out. his water consumption and appetite are not that outrageous.

he fared very well during our trip to virtginia this weekend, and as always enjoyed the extended time in the car. no pee incidents in almost two weeks now, which is nice.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:55 AM | Comments (1)

Category: moses

November 06, 2007

Crap.

Greasy coat, voracious appetite, soaking wet litter box.

The diabetes is back. !!!

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

October 31, 2007

Moses the amazing wonder cat

In brief, moses:

• is still not diabetic
• is still not anemic, not even close
• doesn't have to go back to vet for two weeks this time, yay!

on the other hand, my credit card balance is less than healthy and needs help stat. must take action to sell convertible ASAP.

Posted by spacegrrl at 01:24 PM | Comments (1)

Category: moses

October 24, 2007

a good mo update

went to the vet this morning, and it was all about the medications he didn't need. did not need epogen (for anemia). does not need insulin!

i think there may be a correlation between incontinence and insulin overdose, with him, so i am hopeful that there will be no more pee incidents today, and i can invite him to sleep in the bed with me again. i miss having him there when i wake up.

in other happy news, it looks like we're going to get a few days of rain (the mo cam will be dark today due to cloud cover), and from where i'm sitting, i can see that my red pepper plant is actually about to produce some red peppers! which is pretty amazing for this time of year. in fact, from this angle the whole garden looks fantastic. basil, peppers, marjoram, rosemary, sage, lavender, and the pumpkin vine. i think i love my new back bedroom.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

October 23, 2007

two steps forward, one step back

i've cleared most of the clutter in the living room, but twice today moses has urinated where he was sleeping, and the second time (which was just a short while ago) was a HUGE mess and just EVERYWHERE. not only is it demoralizing when this happens, but it makes me feel like i just can't keep up with his needs. i had been thinking all evening i should carry him back to the litter box in a while and then i walked into the room and... sigh.

i'm starting to have serious doubts about having a party saturday. i love halloween, but maybe this isn't the year for a party. maybe a sick pet and a houseful of drunk party-goers isn't a good combination. obviously, it will also be a strain to get the house ready, although it is good to have a deadline for this sort of thing. i doubt i'd be as far along as i am now if i weren't planning a party.

finally, i've heard from at least one person who said that saturday is a really overbooked night. not that i need to have the house packed to the gills to feel like the party is a success, but given how little effort i've put into telling people about it, i'm not sure that much of anyone will be coming.

i don't know.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

mo-cam today

okay, let's try this again, this time with a registered copy of the software.

the mo cam

if all goes well, he should be on all day!

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:20 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

October 22, 2007

the eating cat

my god, my cat can eat.

he is working on his fourth meal of the day, and i think he had snax during the afternoon while i was at work.

i think his hurt foot is better. i watched him walk from the living room to the back bedroom (all his idea) and his limp is nowhere near as pronounced as it was yesterday. he also seemed to manage the litter box much more easily.

maybe i'll actually get a full night's sleep tonight.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

the moses cam is live!

i was feeling kinda worried about moses (as i often do) and a co-worker suggested i resurrect the mo-cam. With the work J and I did in the back bedroom, that turned out to be very easy. So here it is!

spacepod.org/mocam

watch my cat eat, sleep, and generally not move much. it's relaaaaaaxing.

ETA: it looks like the demo version of the cam software only runs for an hour, so it has shut off now. bummer.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:52 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

October 18, 2007

all is right with the mo

woke up this morning and immediately knew moses was totally right and himself again today.

he's got that glazed yet contented look right now after having eaten an impressive breakfast.

today i'm going to the farmer's market at lunch to buy pumpkins and have fried shrimp and hush puppies, my annual october outing. it's a little belated, but yet still right on time as we used to say.

time to move. i think i even feel rested today.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

October 17, 2007

a little slip...

the vet confirmed my fears this morning: a blood glucose test showed that moses' blood sugar was low which means there's another reason he's drinking a lot of water, and the most likely reason is that his kidneys have gotten worse.

there's still a ways to go, i think; moses eats a lot and has gained a little weight in the last two months, which i think is highly unusual for cats with CRF. it's just sad, kind of demoralizing, and a reminder that this is not a disease that will just remain stable indefinitely. it will progress to its inevitable end.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

October 16, 2007

mo and other updates

i was feeling pretty worried about mo last night; he really slept hard all evening and through most of the night. the kind of sleep where he doesn't wake up the moment i touch him or move around. i skipped the insulin altogether, but it was all feeling hauntingly like the night before he was diagnosed with CRF.

but this morning, all seems to be well. he came to the kitchen for breakfast and it looks like he'll be in the clean bowl club pretty soon. there were no weird surprises in the house when i woke up. so i'm feeling much more reassured (and better rested).

last night i came home and slapped a coat of paint on the doors and shelves. i think this process is going to go fast although it looks like we might actually get rain on thursday, so i need to find a way to protect them. the paint dries fast so i should be able to stack them, which will help.

last night i changed out my warm weather shoes for my cool weather shoes and was sort of dismayed to find that i have more spaces than i have shoes, now. i don't see any shoe-buying in my immediate future, either. of course, i don't need any new shoes, i have a perfectly good shoe wardrobe, so i have no real complaint here. i guess i have become used to excess.

in the jeans department, however, i definitely do not have excess. i have so far only found one pair that fit me, and i seem to have a pair missing. i'll hunt for it in the attic again. the pair that fit are becoming threadbare, which puts them squarely in the "nights and weekends" category. i may reluctantly have to shop for more.

i also became disgusted anew at my lack of hanging space. i want my fairy godmother to drop a wardrobe into my bedroom. and a new chest of drawers while she's at it; something with a little character, and where all of the drawers can actually be used to store things.

well, enough of that. i should go to work or something.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:53 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

October 15, 2007

fsck addendum.

i realized, when it was not 5:30 in the morning, when the sun was up and i'd had something approximating a full night's sleep (not that i feel like it), that i changed two things over the weekend: i upped his dosage and i cut way back on the dry food, which contains more carbohydrate than the wet food.

so that's hopefully, probably why he went into insulin overdose mode.

in case you were wondering.

Posted by spacegrrl at 01:07 PM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

fsck.

at four units (of insulin), moses drinks water excessively, a sign of high blood sugar.

at five units, after two consecutive doses, he's so weak he can barely walk, and urinates where he's laying... like, say, on the bed next to me.

hence i awaken three hours early to find my thigh in a patch of damp. he'd soaked through layers and layers of cold weather covers and was just laying there. i went out to the living room to find he'd soaked the blankets he was laying on out there earlier in the night.

he's awake, alert, and seemingly happy right now... we're both on dry bedding out in the living room and he ate happily when i put him in front of some food... didn't seem interested in the litter box... hell if i know what's happening inside his body.

Posted by spacegrrl at 05:49 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

October 03, 2007

good kitty!!

Mo's red blood cell count is now at normal levels and we are going to just twice a week on the epogen. hopefully after next week we can go to just once a week. ah sleep, blissful sleep... getting him to the vet at 8am three times a week was killing me.

i also discovered last night that his blood sugar may not have jumped right before the renal failure stuff started-- i may have started unintentionally under dosing him with insulin. several weeks ago i bought some syringes at a regular pharmacy and didn't realize that they were much smaller than the syringes i was getting from the vet. yesterday i went to use a syringe from the vet and realized the difference.

if high blood sugar (which he had for a while before we caught it) causes renal failure... i don't want to know. i didn't ask my vet this morning while i was explaining this to him, and he didn't say.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

September 26, 2007

good kitty!

moses' red blood cell count is up 10% since we started the epogen treatment a week ago. the vet says this is an unusually strong and fast response to the treatment-- and a very good thing.

the goal is to get it up another 10-15% and then we can try tapering off the medication.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

September 17, 2007

a mo-date

so after waiting days for my vet to call with the blood test results from last wednesday, i finally called him myself this morning. sheesh.

kidney values have not changed, which is good. he has not gotten worse in that regard.

blood sugar was normal, so the diabetes is under control.

anemia has reached the point where it needs to be treated, so on wednesday we're going to start medication that should stimulate red blood cell production again, hopefully.

so long as the anemia treatment goes well, we're in a pretty good spot right now, all things considered.

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

September 12, 2007

not really a moses update

moses, by the way, has been doing great. really great, actually. he plays. he goes outside of his own volition and sits in the sun. he jumps on furniture and never falls. he wrestles the evil slipper. he sharpens his claws. he bathes (kinda).

today we went to the vet to recheck the bloodwork. they sent it out to be done this time, so i won't know until tomorrow what the numbers are like. the vet seems to be ever more impressed by his condition, which improves each time i bring him, rather than deteriorates.

not to be too optimistic or anything. his gums are still pale, so anemia is an issue. we'll see how bad tomorrow. he still gets dehydrated before the fluids. he's still a sick kitty. just one who doesn't really act sick.

last night ray and mary came over and helped with the fluids. ray's job was to keep him distracted with dinner for as long as possible. well, i have never seen moses eat for such a long time! i think ray patiently held the bowl and scraped the food around for a good 45 minutes, long after i had finished the fluids.

today, after fluids, a massive dinner, and a deep sleep, he's like a younger cat. like pow. he gave the vet a really hard time today. i couldn't feel too bad about that.

i must insert this: i think i just heard our barred owl! he's back!!

i think tonight i'm going to make a push on the back bedroom. i've removed about a third of the crap in a fairly orderly fashion. i think i could get most of the rest out tonight, and possibly begin painting tomorrow evening.

the boy and the puppeh will be coming on friday (rain, rain, finally!!) which makes this tricky; it's not good to have the house full of displaced crap when they're around. but i'm so ready to see the room change.

saturday we're picking up some bookcases from my mom. real wood, although battered from years in my brothers' bedrooms. i'll have to paint and otherwise rehab them, but they're free and they're not particle board. she couldn't believe i wanted them. but i think they're going to be a great backbone for this room.

my plan is to paint a very faint blue/green color (similar to or the same as stepsk8r's favorite seaside blue), but instead of a crisp white for the trim and furniture (most all of which will be painted the trim color), i'm going to use a creamy, yellowy white, the same as the trim in my bedroom-- in part, because i already have a lot of it, and in part because i think large masses of dead white might look, well, dead, and not warm.

well, enough jawing. time to work.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

September 04, 2007

everyone loves ice cream

at goodberry's tonight, i ordered my favorite, chocolate with oreo, and while the dude was making it the guy in line behind me said, "that sounds really good". "it's my favorite." "that sounds REALLY good."

after the goodberry's dude handed it to me, the guy behind me leaned in and changed his order.

at home eating it, moses was VERY VERY VERY INTERESTED. in fact, he stood up on the arm of his sleepin' chair and leaned in as close as possible. which i have not seen him do in... like, ever.

of course, something containing chocolate, lots and lots of lactose, and a heap of sugar might not be so good for a diabetic cat (given that most cats are lactose intolerant, and chocolate is toxic for cats).

but i decided to treat him with a little tiny bit of plain half and half. he is now curled into the Crescent of Utter Contentment. hopefully it won't hurt his poor little tummy.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

beaks and snouts

vegetarians and the squeamish probably want to skip a lot of this first bit.

MORE...

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:48 PM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

September 01, 2007

On The Road

Moses celebrates the 50th anniversary of the publication of Kerouac's On The Road with a road trip.

This was the expression on his face most of the way across Virginia. He was completely content. I think taking him to Virginia this weekend was a great idea, he's having a fine time.

He spent some time downstairs with everyone last night too. While J and I made and ate dinner, he scooted around, sat in the kitchen doorway while we made dinner, then settled in the hall while we ate.

Today J and I are going to Nearby Beer Related Theme Park, and moses will have many quiet naps in the Kitty Cave upstairs.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:22 AM | Comments (1)

Category: moses

August 29, 2007

peel the bandaid off slowly

last night i went out and read parts of felinecrf.org. it's a great site and i'm happy to give her more google juice with this link, but it was also overwhelming and upsetting.

i don't want either of the friends who sent me the url to feel bad about doing so, because ultimately the information on that site will allow me to better help him, and that's what really matters.

a lot of feline detail to follow, probably not of interest to everyone, or possibly upsetting to some.

MORE...

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:05 PM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

August 24, 2007

not what we hoped for.

although moses is doing better in a lot of ways, the blood work still indicates that this is a case of chronic kidney failure. getting him to eat and doing the fluids helps a lot of the numbers, but the number that really indicates how the kidneys are functioning has not really improved the way it would have if this was acute failure due to a drug he was on.

so i will continue to manage the situation as best as possible with care at home and who knows how much longer he will be with me. days, weeks, months, there is no way to know.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:09 PM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

August 23, 2007

We're getting along nicely here

I HAS A LEAF.




A CATNIP LEAF.

Moses goes in for testing tomorrow. Here's hoping he passes! We're cramming tonight. This involves eating a lot and taking naps. He'll be ready.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:28 PM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

August 21, 2007

it's official...

...i am hopeful. there are little things every day that tell me that moses is getting better. his appetite never falters, and he pretty much acts like his normal self.

d & s came over tonight to help me administer fluids. he's a lot stronger than he was on saturday, he nearly got away from me, and i had to keep him scruffed the entire time. it was fortunate that we had three people because d. was able to keep him scruffed while i got the needle in and s. handled the flow device.

i have done some reading, and it is actually plausible that he has acute, reversible renal failure caused by an antibiotic that he was on. the vet has mentioned this twice as a possibility, i just didn't think it was a serious one until this week, because he couldn't find any reports of this particular drug causing kidney problems in cats.

anyway. i may be disappointed when we do the tests again later this week, but i live with the cat every day and i feel it in my gut that he's getting better.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:43 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

August 20, 2007

moses spits in the face of your dire predictions

this morning moses sat on my head. when that wasn't effective in getting me up, he went out in the hall and started meowing loudly.

he is now nose down in a revolting mixture of baby food and cat food.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:57 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

August 19, 2007

no news is good news

he's doing great today. he's scooting around the house, not sleeping much at all, going in the kitchen and eating, using the box like normal, getting up on the furniture.

he's also suddenly totally spoiled. he wants me to bring him food when he sits in his chair in the living room, and then he likes it if i make the food move (one of the things i did to stimulate him to eat when his appetite was low). and the baby food, oh he loves the baby food.

feline TMI behind the link, don't read if you don't want details :)

MORE...

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

August 18, 2007

happy cat

moses is doing surprisingly well. he sleeps a lot, but otherwise usually seems pretty normal. i do bring food to him and make sure he eats, plus he's getting spoiled with all kinds of fun treats like baby food and chicken stock and whatnot.

today, J and i administered subcutaneous fluids to him at home. right in the living room in the sleepin' chair i've set up for him. it's a little more difficult than giving an insulin injection, but it went okay and i think it really helps him feel better.

one interesting effect of the fluids is that i think it hydrates his skin really well. the purpose of the fluids is to flush toxins out of his body-- kind of like dialysis. but his fur is also softer than i've felt it in a long time.

he's also washing. i haven't seen him wash in a long time. it's not a thorough full-body wash, but he's definitely reaching areas he hasn't reached in years. i'm fairly sure he's truly grooming himself, and not licking areas that are in pain. i think this is due to two things: first, his weight is down to 14.5 lbs which is close to ideal for his size. of course, the reason his weight has dropped so much is because he's sick. but it has some positive side effects. second, i think the hydration from the fluids means his skin is more elastic and it doesn't hurt to stretch as much as it did.

the positive effect of the fluids are so pronounced that i wish it were reasonable to administer them to pets who are simply old and have painfully dry skin. it would make them so much more comfortable. but of course, the process of administering the fluids is not comfortable at all so i doubt this would really be a reasonable thing to do.

anyway, he is fed, clean and soft and sleeping on his comfortable chair on many layers of blankets and towels while J and I watch tv. we've moved the mattress into the living room so we can sleep near him without having him try to get up on the bed.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:36 PM | Comments (1)

Category: moses

August 17, 2007

sleeping on cat time

thanks everyone who has written with their support. it means a lot to me.

i woke on cat time this morning. not for any reason that i could find. i was just awake at 5am.

he was sleeping in the hall when i went to look for him. well, not sleeping, he was awake, but that's where he spent the night. he followed me back into the living room, where i'm sleeping now, and climbed on the sofa with me, and start gnawing my hand.

which is moses for, "i'm hungry."

we did subcutaneous fluids yesterday which is probably why his appetite has rebounded. dr. c said that getting him to eat is the most important thing right now. all day yesterday i brought him tempting things-- chicken stock, baby food, and wet cat food. he consumed everything i brought him. he loves baby food. and i think it helps if he doesn't have to expend the energy to get to the food.

mom is coming by this morning with dan. i was supposed to be joining them and going to atlanta, but of course i won't be doing that now. they are going to pick up a few things to take to stuart in his new place, and say goodbye to moses.

J is coming tonight. the puppy will be staying the weekend at the puppy spa so moses can have peace and quiet and have his house to himself. i would love to have reese here, but J and i both agree that that's probably not what the moses needs right now.

Posted by spacegrrl at 05:50 AM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

August 16, 2007

a very sad moses day

moses is still with me, but probably not for much longer. he has kidney failure that has come on very fast and will probably progress very fast.

i know a lot of people who care about moses and me read this blog, so i am posting this here to let everyone know at once.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

August 15, 2007

lesson learned

when your gut tells you not to give the cat insulin, go with your gut.

he's not passed out or anything, but has seemed close, and i finally wound up rubbing corn syrup in his mouth, which is what you're supposed to do when their blood sugar gets too low.

tomorrow we skip the insulin until i talk with the doc.

poor little guy.

Posted by spacegrrl at 01:08 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

August 14, 2007

overdose

i think we're overdosing moses again. he's definitely not right.

feline diabetes is the pits. i wish i had gone with my gut instinct and reduced or withheld his insulin tonight. i should have; he's barely eaten.

sorry, no happy moses story tonight, i guess.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

August 11, 2007

in his box

the moses decided we'd get up early this morning, which for a change was amenable to me. the heat has broken. it's very nice today.

took him for an arthritis shot and then decided to go through the mickey death drive-thru afterwards. moses was in his carrier on the passenger seat.

when the young woman at the window handed me my change, she giggled and said, "little cat sitting in his box!" i smiled and giggled too.

i don't think anyone (besides me) has called moses little in a very long time.

after making a couple of stops after the vet, i guess the little cat decided that we were going on a long trip in the car, perhaps to see J, so he rolled over on his side to sleep, but couldn't, because there were too many bumps and too many interesting smells to smell out the window.

he seemed quite surprised when we arrived home, like, "wha? i thought we were going to J's house?"

the various medications seem to be doing their job; his breathing is quieter, his coat looks better, he's drinking less and i saw him washing one of his hind feet the other day, although the arthritis still seems pretty bad. i'm tempted to put little dabs of yogurt on parts of his body to see what he can reach. i suspect he could wash most of his body if he really wanted to; maybe he just needs a little reminder. it would also be a safe way to get him to stretch.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:37 AM | Comments (3)

Category: moses

August 04, 2007

15 pounds of fury

moses met this morning with his arch nemesis, Dr. C.

good news: he's down to 15lbs, now just 2lbs away from a reasonable weight. this is the lightest he's been in years. this will be good for both his arthritis and the diabetes, and just for his overall health.

eh news: his sinus infection is back. we're going to hit it with a different antibiotic. dr. c said that if the breathing noises and congestion were being caused by a tumor, he'd be all but dead now. so at least we've pretty much ruled out Fatal Cancer, which was, of course, my big fear. the root cause could be a viral infection, and if so, that can be treated with lysene.

also in eh news, i got him to walk around in front of dr. c who agreed that the arthritis is a lot worse and we should try some drugs again. so we're doing adequan for two weeks, and if that doesn't cut it we'll escalate to something stronger but slightly riskier in terms of kidney damage. (but still very safe.)

less good news: his blood sugar was very high, so we need to up the insulin again. this could mean that he's going to be one of those cats who are difficult or impossible to stabilize... but we won't worry about that too much yet. we haven't even begun to exhaust the dibetes-fighting arsenal. i'm not even feeding him the diabetes food exclusively; he's still mainly on a higher-carb food that we think is helping him lose weight.

there was a teenaged volunteer there today and when i told her how old he is, she was amazed-- "he's older than me!" i said he was 17 but i think he might be 16. i can't keep track anymore. we think he was born in May of 1991, so you do the math :)

Posted by spacegrrl at 04:33 PM | Comments (1)

Category: moses

July 30, 2007

ole iron jaws

i can tell you that there's one part of the cat's body that isn't affected by arthritis.

the legs may be weak, the claws may be slack. but if you play with him around dawn, during prime hunting time, after he tires of batting at your hand with his all but useless forepaw, he'll go after you with the jaw.

ow.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:08 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

June 20, 2007

i'll just bite the hand that feeds me, instead

so last night before sleeping i had a heart to heart talk with moses about this whole standing on my head at 6am thing.

i think he listened. he didn't stand on my head, and he didn't wake me up at 6am.

instead he bit my hand at 7am. then he started making for my head but i blocked him with a pillow, and we laid there in a detante for the next 40 minutes, until i deemed it time to rise.

i guess the acupuncture is really working, because he just jumped down from the sofa instead of using the moses steps to get down. of course, he's going to pay for that, he immediately started limping afterward, but i haven't seen him just jump down like that in a really long time.

in non-moses news, today a slew of electronics shall arrive at my house and i get to try to install an ipod hookup in the spacepod, amongst other things. should be interesting.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:24 AM | Comments (1)

Category: moses

June 19, 2007

my cat obviously feels better

because he's started sitting on my head every morning at 6am. it's just his little way of saying, "you shouldn't be in REM sleep, you should be walking out to the kitchen with me JUST IN CASE there's no food in my bowl."

i always get up and shuffle to the kitchen with him. there's always food in his bowl. he's like, "ooh, food! i shall eat this!"

sigh. my cat.

it's also really weird for him to weigh less. after having had a fat kitty for so many years-- he topped out at 21 lbs a few years ago, and has been holding steady around 17 for the last year or so-- it's like he's shrinking before my very eyes. he has all this ground clearance now. i am sure people meeting him for the first time will still say, "wow, that's a BIG CAT!" because he's not just overweight, he's tall and long and very sturdy, but to me he's getting kind of little.

it's good for his health of course. but i kind of miss the squishyness.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:37 AM | Comments (5)

Category: moses

June 16, 2007

good kitty news

the more-accurate fructosamine test that moses got this week showed that we have stabilized his blood sugar at a level of insulin that was lower than my vet predicted he'd need. in fact, it's a little on the low side but we now it can skyrocket when he's stressed so better, i guess, for it to be slightly low most of the time.

i haven't weighed him lately but i am pretty sure his weight is coming down.

the only worry now is the fact that he sounds congested all the time. his lungs sounded perfectly clear several weeks ago when i first mentioned his weird breathing noises to the vet; today on the phone i told the doc that it has morphed into a constant sound of stuffy nose, so he's going to take a quick look at him today and possibly treat it as an infection.

anyway, the good news about the diabetes makes me feel better about leaving him while i go on vacation.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:10 AM | Comments (0)

Category: gardening

June 02, 2007

marjoram honey and other idyllic thoughts

photos of a lovely day in june

observed while watering new plants: honey bee unable to tear itself away from the tiny white blossoms on my gigantic marjoram plant.

a pair of robins. i've been seeing them around, you know? i think they're living in my yard this summer. the female is very bold. well, i guess it's the female. she has a rusty breast, not bright red.

a white butterfly.

:|:

feline locomotion study:

click through for notes.

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:47 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

May 20, 2007

a good moses day

earlier this week my vet changed moses' insulin dosage, bumping it up quite a bit based on some blood glucose testing.

well, it was too much, too fast. the change in moses was immediately obvious the next day-- he was listless, slept probably 22-23 hours (i watch him on a webcam during the day), and would eat for only a few moments at a time.

so we bumped it back down, and then yesterday i completely fouled up his dosing schedule, resulting in skipping his night time dose so i could give him an on-schedule dose this morning so my cat sitters tonight and tomorrow aren't having to come over at 2am to take care of him.

i felt horrible guilt about skipping a dose even though i knew it was the logical thing to do-- but much to my surprise it did him a world of good! he's completely back to himself today, even came and woke me up this morning.

i can tell he feels good today and he seems happy. yay! i like it when my kitty has a good day, and this makes me feel a lot better about going out of town tonight.

Posted by spacegrrl at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

May 11, 2007

moses in virginia

kind of like nixon in china, except without all that fussy diplomacy stuff.

so moses is still a great little car traveler.

i put him on the front seat and he just stayed there for the entire trip. i even gave him his insulin shot at a rest area and he didn't bat an eyelash.

by the time we pulled into j's driveway, he was spread across the front seat and looked pretty happy.

i carried him upstairs where he can be sequestered from the puppy. he was pretty pissy at first, but that gave way to curiosity. he slept all night on a blanket next to my side of the bed. i'm hanging out upstairs with him now. he's been scooting around periodically, checking everything out... the most voluntary activity i've seen him have in weeks. maybe bringing him up here was a good thing.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:39 AM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

May 04, 2007

shooting up

i administered four insulin shots today.

i'm glad i never did become a veterinarian.

:|:

moses, by the way, is doing well. his transformation to sick kitty was so subtle that i hardly noticed it and chalked a lot of it up to age. but i can see now that he wasn't feeling so great for a while, i'm not sure how long. but now his appetite is rebounding, he's moving around a little more and i think his coat is even a bit better.

:|:

tomorrow is the home tour. after talking with a realtor about my own house (which has spurred me to spend new energies on the house), and picking up my HGTV habit again, and talking with people about houses quite a bit lately, it's all like house house house right now.

also tomorrow the roto-rooter guys are coming out and if the price is not too shocking, i'm going to have them put a video camera through my mysterious storm drain system.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

March 12, 2007

Moses helped

My favorite photo of the weekend:

I didn't see the gnome-tipping incident happen. I just looked over, the gnome was somehow, mysteriously, laying on his little plastic side, and moses was intently progressing away from the scene of the "crime".

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

the kitty who turned into a pea

this occurred to me this morning when moses curled up into a perfect ball next to me.

there once was a kitty
who turned into a pea
so he could go
walking around with me

he curled into a ball
and then he turned smooth
and then he turned green
and then very small
my little pea-kitty!

i put him in my pocket
we went to the store
we went to the sea
we rode on the train
under the city

and when we came home
he was still with me
i put him on the bed
and he grew big, and brown
and quite furry

he said to me: Maiow!
and we talked of the day
the store, the sea and the city.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:56 AM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

December 25, 2006

my charges

house #1 - mimo and sherpa:

house #2 - laika and alexander:
(alexander was being elusive tonight)

house #3 - bailey and scooter:

and let us not forget The Moses:

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

October 18, 2006

the good news

i took mo in today to follow up on his arthritis treatment and to get a urinalysis done to see if a very slightly off factor we saw a few months ago has gotten worse.

so for the arthritis the vet felt that we are not ready yet for the more heavy duty drugs with the potential for serious side effects. which is kind of frustrating in a way, but also kind of good.

and for the urinalysis, everything is exactly the same. his kidneys appear to be just fine and that one factor is not worse and is very low anyway. so all is good with the mo.

i also spoke with MFM. he did a more thorough road test of creampod than the dealership. his opinion is that this is not a straightforward case of the clutch plate being burned down. the car grabs too well and behaves like a car with a good clutch, except for too little play in the clutch and of course the smell.

he's given me some ammunition to take back to the dealership and get the VWoA tech rep involved to have this investigated as a warranty issue. so i am going to give that a shot. this dovetails with what i suspected anyway, which is that there's a deeper problem here. and if that is covered under warranty-- then VW owes me a clutch.

obviously the situation with the car is not ideal, and it's a pain to have to fight with VW about the issue, but at least now i feel like i have a shot at not having to pay through the nose for this, and that makes me feel pretty good about things.

that and, you know, the fact that my cat isn't dying of kidney disease. that makes me pretty happy too.

Posted by spacegrrl at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

Category: moses

September 09, 2006

the mo: officially cured

for those following along at home, it's official. moses had his three month thyroid test recently and the levels were normal. no more hyperthyroid.

he's such a good kitteh.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:08 AM | Comments (4)

Category: moses

August 18, 2006

unrealistic expectations

at the vet this morning picking up some extra kitteh food, a woman was there dropping her dog off for grooming.

she told the receptionist that she wanted to talk with the doctor. "He won't eat! i mean, he won't eat his dog food. only table food! i wanted to see if y'all could give him something to get him back on his food."

errrrr....

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:56 PM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

July 12, 2006

adventure kitty

the Mo, he worried me so tonight! he acted like his old self of ten years ago, went out in the evening, wouldn't come in, then poof! disappeared for several hours into the wee hours of the night.

he's home now, never fear. he appeared magically on the side stoop just before i was about to give up and go to bed.

i used to be used to this, but nowadays i don't like my elderly kitty to go off adventuring, especially at night. i not only called and called, but searched for him in a neighbor's yard with my flashlight, wandered up and down the block (oddly, a woman, perhaps my neighbor, was sitting on a small stool on the street talking on a cell phone the entire time he was gone) and contemplated braving the woods behind the house.

he seems happy and healthy lately, in fact i was remarking to j this weekend that it's as if the hyperthyroid never happened. right now he's on the ottoman beside me, pupils dialiated, belly exposed, tail moving, and telling me that it is time to PLAY.

Posted by spacegrrl at 01:06 AM | Comments (1)

Category: moses

June 30, 2006

Mr. Healthypants

I got the results of Moses' thyroid test this morning-- his thyroid levels are normal!

He seems totally normal now-- sleeps as much as he ever did, wants to play around the time i want to go to bed, yammers for his breakfast in the morning and dinner in the evening. Yesterday he went outside to eat grass for a while, even.

Sometime in the month of July-- if i'm remembering the month correctly-- he will turn 16. I might have to start calling him Mr. Elderlypants, instead!

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:36 AM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

June 25, 2006

my little vampire

so one of the ongoing problems that j and i have to solve is the dog and the cat.

the dog is a 2 year old black lab mix with great manners but absolutely no experience with cats.

the cat is my 16 year old overweight, arthritic tabby who has spent his entire life being terrified of dogs.

so we keep them separated a lot, but that's not a long term solution. last time, j brought both his baby gates and we restricted reese the dog to kitchen/dining area for some periods of time. this was okay, but moses mostly wanted to hang back in the back bedroom and didn't come hang out with us as we'd hoped.

so this weekend we reversed it. while we were cooking, we kept moses the cat in the kitchen with us, and shut reese out. moses was terrified at first, and spent a lot of time yesterday hiding in back corners but sometime today he seemed to turn a corner and started interacting with us normally while we were making breakfast and stretched out and acted happy and comfortable after a while.

and then something interesting happened.

i was in the kitchen with moses, and j and reese were outside. when they came back in, reese went right up to moses, who was near one of the gates, and stuck his nose over the gate. moses, who wasn't trapped at all, and could have easily slunk under the table, didn't budge.

the nose was not withdrawn. moses went on the attack. he swatted the nose, then attempted to jump the gate while batting at reese's face! reese started barking, j yanked reese back away from the gate and moses slunk off after a while.

i put moses in the back bedroom and he was still pretty ramped up-- hissing, crowding the door every time we came in to visit him. i think he wanted to go out there and finish the unfinished business with the dog.

j was pretty good-natured about it; i think he considers moses to be a lesson the puppy needs to learn. the cat can and will defend himself.

later in the day, j said, "he's like a little vampire," and imitated moses' hissing noises. i laughed. "he is! he's like a little furry brown fat vampire! awww."

anyway. j and reese are gone now and my little vampire is reclining happily on the ottoman, his eyes closed and a small smile on his face.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:42 PM | Comments (4)

Category: moses

June 01, 2006

Mr. Crankypants is home!

He's home. His mood improved the minute we put him in the car. I left the windows down and he sniffed things the whole way home.

The tech who had been taking care of him asked me how old he is and was genuinely surprised when i said he is 15. "I would have guessed 8 or 9 by looking at him. He really doesn't look that old." That was certainly a nice thing to hear, given that this whole thing has made me think too much about how he's getting old and it will probably only be a couple of years before he's gone.

But who knows, maybe he'll be one of those crazy wonder kitties who lives to be 20 or something.

Anyway. Yay! My kitty is home!

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:09 PM | Comments (6)

Category: moses

May 30, 2006

RadCat pt. 2

It's official: my cat is radioactive.

I don't like medical stuff, so I was pretty anxious this morning. I also don't like being home without my cat there, so I was kind of sad, too.

Something nice happened, though-- just as I arrived home from dropping him off, the mailman came with an imp of BPAL's Snow Moon, a swap I made last week. It always cheers me up to get a little BPAL in the mail.

Anyway, they called just now and said he's fine. I had to laugh-- heartily-- when the nurse said "He got a little bit angry with us so we had to give him a little gas..." I totally forgot to warn them that he hates vets. My vet is so used to it and to me it is just normal for a cat to go on the attack with a vet. Oops. I did tell her I wasn't surprised by that at all.

Apparently now he's sitting in his cage with his legs crossed in front of him, as he always does, looking very calm and pleasant. "He has such a sweet face..." she said. "And then when we opened his carrier, he was like, RRRRR!" heh.

Posted by spacegrrl at 01:18 PM | Comments (11)

Category: moses

May 19, 2006

RadCat

A week from Tuesday, Moses is slated to become a RadCat. It's clear that medicating him for the rest of his life is not going to work well. The dosage is a moving target; I get careless and miss doses or give them late sometimes. I'm human. It happens. Since J. found that study that demonstrated that the radiation treatment doesn't kill them any faster than anything else, I decided to go for it.

It's a week of bleeding money. The radiation treatment isn't cheap. Last night I looked at an electric range that a neighbor is giving away, and realized that I have my heart set on a new one (although the free one would actually be a step up from what I have now).

Spacepod needed a few things done before he goes out on loan to Xta's mom. He needed them anyway, and this is a good way to make myself just get it done.

Now that I've got the Moses situation settled, I feel like I can book the trip to Vegas. I wanted to make sure I wouldn't be leaving town at a time when he'd need me here. Since I've waited so long to book it, I shudder to think what the prices will be. Maybe they won't be so bad; it's still over a month out.

Here's some perspective, however: my current re-obsession with BPAL has lead to a renewed interest in the BPAL online forum. In one thread, a woman wrote that her limit for her next BPAL order is... $750. Just think on that for a moment. Seven hundred and fifty smackers worth of fragrant oil. That's the better part of a mortgage payment, around here. More than two car payments. Well over half of Moses' radiation treatment. I could furnish and re-furnish my screen porch several times over for that price.

At least I'm spending my money on stuff that ain't just for smelling pretty.

Speaking of, today's scent is Zombi.

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:57 PM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

March 04, 2006

SUPER MO BROWN!

mo had a checkup today. his blood pressure is way down, which means that the hyperthyroid medicine is working!

unfortunately, over the last couple of days he's developed an allergic reaction on his ears. that means we have to stop using the transdermal medication for now, and switch to pills.

my vet is going to research this and see if the carrier could be the problem. he said he's never heard of a cat having an allergic reaction to the transdermal medication before.

i'm hopeful that we can still use the transdermal at least when i'm out of town and someone else is taking care of him.

Posted by spacegrrl at 02:05 PM | Comments (3)

Category: moses

February 11, 2006

moses update

today moses went to the vet to have the hyperthyroid diagnosis confirmed. they took blood for a lab test (as opposed to the in-house test that was done originally), took his heart rate and blood pressure.

his heart rate and blood pressure are still up, but he hasn't developed a heart murmer, which is good-- that can happen with hyperthyroid.

i told the vet that i don't want to use the radiation treatment. because there's no heart murmer, the condition hasn't reached a critical level yet and the vet was willing to try transdermal medication rather than pills. if the transdermal medication doesn't get the condition under control, we'll have to go to pills, but we have some time to try the approach i want.

i can pill moses, in fact he had to take a de-wormer recently (just in case that was the cause of the original vomiting) and i had no trouble at all getting him to take them. still, the transdermal meds-- which are rubbed on the cat's ear daily or twice daily-- are going to be easier and probably less traumatic for everyone. it's also something that probably anyone can do, so when i go up to virginia, i might find a friend who can administer his meds while i'm gone, and i won't have to bring him with me or put him in a kennel.

he seems to take vet visits in stride these days, i think because of the series of arthritis shots that he received late last year. which is good, because we'll have to have his blood tested periodically to see how well the meds are working.

one thing that i didn't expect was that, in order to get his blood pressure, they shaved a patch on the underside of his tail! i didn't even see it until i got home. poor moseman. as if being subjected to all of these vet visits isn't bad enough, now he's got a bald patch on his tail.

oh, and a visit from a dog, today and tomorrow. really, the indignities.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:18 PM | Comments (2)

Category: moses

January 27, 2006

radioactive kitty

this afternoon, my vet called to give me some test results for moses. he has hyperthyroid.

it's serious, but there is very good treatment available in our area, and we've caught it early.

that's not to say i didn't spend the afternoon in my office with the door shut and the kleenex box next to me, wishing desperately to go home and hug him.

the treatment is expensive, and a little scary-- i definitely have a few more questions for my vet-- but almost magical in the way it works, from what i have read. they give a single injection of a radioactive isotope at a special treatment center. the isotope is absorbed only by the "bad" thyroid cells, no matter where they are in the body, and it kills only those cells. the healthy thyroid cells are unharmed and eventually regenerate. a single treatement cures most cases.

the side effect is that my cat will actually be radioactive.

he has to stay in the treatment center, which is set up to handle radioactive material (and cats), for several days. i won't be able to visit him during this time.

the big question i have right now is, of course: won't my cat get cancer from this?? secondary questions like, "will he glow?" i suppose i can save for later.

anyway, i do find this upsetting, although as my vet said, if he's going to have a problem at this stage, this is the problem to have. and i'm very glad that i'm at a stage in my life where i can provide an expensive treatement for him without it being a real problem.

anyway. go moseman go.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:47 PM | Comments (6)

Category: moses

November 22, 2005

don't corner that cat.

i'm taking moses to the vet every tuesday and saturday morning for a series of shots to help his arthritis.

i usually try to get there quite early, because it's faster and quieter. this morning i slept through til 8, so i didn't get there til 8:30, which is when things start to get busy.

first there was a woman with a very small cat to be spayed. it took an act of will on my part not to serriptitiously photograph this woman with my cameraphone; she was wearing a coat comprised entirely of 2×4 inch squares of brightly colored, boldly patterned, and completely mismatched fabrics. several of the squares were torn and flapping loose. this covered most of her form; peeking out below were pants two inches too short and pilgrim shoes. i swear, even at my worst and most eccentric, i would not have worn such a thing.

as i was waiting to pay, a woman entered with a large dog. the dog was on a leash, but in the very small waiting room, the amount of leash he was being given exerted no effect on his movements at all. he made a beeline for moses' carrier, shoved his nose at the front grate, and was promptly swatted.

i moved to stand in front of the carrier. the woman failed to shorten the dog's leash and he lunged for the carrier again. i wasn't sufficiently in his way and he got swatted again.

it seemed to dawn on the woman (though not the dog) that keeping the dog away from my cat would be a good idea. the crazy coat lady invited her to come stand next to her cat, which she did.

the door opened and a man (who apparently knew the dog and the woman) walked into the waiting room. the dog lunged for the man and the woman let the leash slide through her hands.

once the man was done greeting the dog, the dog headed for moses again. i had stepped up to the counter to pay, and was no longer standing in front of the carrier. the dog was swatted a third time.

the man took the dog out for a walk. i paid, and left. moses assumed a crash position for the remainder of the ride home.

i learned a few things.

• if he feels cornered, moses will attack a dog, no matter how large the dog is.
• look in the mirror. damn.
• although i maintain that dogs are smarter than cats, some dogs are still really dumb.
• some dog owners are also really dumb.
• apparently, it's not sufficient that i put my cat in a carrier when i take him to the vet. perhaps i should put him in a metal box with small grates covered in hardware cloth.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:45 PM | Comments (5)

Category: moses

June 28, 2005

...and now we are fifteen.

if memory serves, moses was born at the end of June 1991, which means that he turns fifteen this week.

this seems to be the age where things start to go awry for cats, but moseman appears to be a pretty healthy kitty. he went to the vet this morning for his yearly checkup, and has lost another pound in the last six months! he is now down to 16.8-- the last time he was below 17 lbs was 1998. the cosequin (feline glucosamine) is keeping him active.

i'm waiting now for his blood panel to come back-- if there are kidney problems, we'll know about it today. but i'm pretty hopeful that he's just as healthy as he appears to be.

happy birthday moseman!

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:23 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Category: moses

June 10, 2005

always be sure to have adequate storage for all new acquisitions.

kittens.

kitten storage.

nawwwww.....

Posted by spacegrrl at 02:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: moses

April 21, 2005

lizzie comes to visit

well, an experiment was tried last night, something i have never tried before-- lizzie the dog came to visit.

moses has always seemed to be afraid of dogs, although now that i think about it, the dogs that live next door seem to bother him a lot less now than when we first moved in. i assumed that as soon as lizzie walked in the door, moses would bolt for the bedroom and we'd see nothing from him for the rest of the evening.

what actually happened was, he acted freaked out, made his body look as large as possible, growled, but kept a safe distance. he also let me touch him without attacking me, so it was a sort of a combined agressive/submissive response. catious, but not stupid. lizzie is a lot bigger than he is.

i put him in the bedroom for the first part of the visit, then later let him out. he took a turn around the house once or twice, but mostly stayed in the bedroom, on the bed, looking alert but not distressed.

after lizzie left, he sat on the sofa with me and did all of his "i am very happy" stuff, like rolling on his back, looking up at me, smiling, and purring. so there seems to be no lingering resentment.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: moses

March 11, 2005

the mo-cam is online

so long as he's sleeping right next to where i am working, i might as well put him on the cam!

watch mo

we'll see if the work in the basement gets him agitated.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:05 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: moses

March 07, 2005

just in case you missed it

this superadorable picture of my cat got buried under all the icky basement photos. just thought i'd point that out.

i'm not biased. really.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: moses

February 18, 2005

mo-cam in full effect!

he's sleeping on the bed right now.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Category: moses

February 16, 2005

the mo-cam

the mo-cam is online today!

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:10 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Category: moses

January 28, 2005

now we are twelve

i took moses to see dr. miller today. he seems kinda stiff and he cries when he lays down, usually, so i figure that arthritis is probably starting to creep in. i want to keep him moving as much as possible to help with his weight problems, and also just want him to be as comfortable as possible as he ages.

the big surprise of the visit was... he has lost over 2lbs in six months! i don't think we've seen this kind of weight loss since we first started trying to get his weight down several years ago. for a kitty, that is a lot-- close to 10% of his body weight. this is very good news.

not surprisingly, dr. miller gave me some glucosamine for his arthritis. he's actually been pretty active lately, and hopefully the glucosamine will help turn him into a super playful, active kitty. those of you who are used to him being a sedentary 20lb blob may be in for a surprise... let's hope :)

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: moses

January 19, 2005

i think they heart their dog more than i heart my cat

this morning at the vet i walked in and there were three women.

one was at the counter bringing in her pretty gray tabby for a bath. then she left.

a short one was standing next to a taller one, who was holding a very small dog. the dog was trembling slightly and wearing a little coat.

when the woman came from the back to take the little coat wearing trembling dog, the tall one said, can she be put with the cats. dogs freak her out and upset her. and cats love her. she's great with cats. the woman from the back said ok.

then they commenced to discussing the little dog. she is tired and she is old. will cleaning her teeth put her under much longer? i'm worried. "oh roxy," both the tall one and the short one said, "come through this ok! we love you!" and then one of them said, oh, she's been giving out kisses for free all day. we had a party last night. it was a party for her! all of her friends were there! the short woman gazed deeply at the very small dog and i had to look away.

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:36 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Category: moses

December 20, 2004

still surprising me after all these years

this morning i woke up to little white paw prints all over the house. moses kept flicking one of his hind legs uncomfortably. i picked him up and he let me hold him belly-up-- i always feel uncertain about doing that, for fear he might claw me in the face. but he didn't seem to mind. the problematic hind paw was caked with damp clay from the litter box-- yuck.

i got some paper towels and some warm water and decided to give it a shot. he let me hold him belly-up again. i figured he wouldn't tolerate his hind paw being touched, much less cleaned with a damp paper towel-- but much to my surprise, he was totally cool about it. he let me really clean it up for him and even started purring. i've never had such a good look at a cat's hind paw before-- it's pretty interesting.

he's usually completely intolerant of having his hind claws clipped or of any combing or brushing-- however gentle-- around his hindquarters-- so it was a total surprise that he was such a sweetheart about this. i guess it was so uncomfortable that the warm water felt good.

after he was very sweet and wanted to cuddle on the sofa while i updated the ipod.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: moses

December 12, 2004

poor little brown

last night i had him running around like a crazed thing, thanks to our new favorite toy. today he is slow and sore, barely able to get up on the sofa and not moving around really at all. i guess i need to talk to dr. jim about something a little more potent than the fish oil (which helped).

Posted by spacegrrl at 03:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: moses