The Road to Recovery

Ok, I know this is an unflattering pic of Frosty again (sorry Dad), but it's his favorite position to lie in. Anyway, if you notice, he's sporting a new haircut and a built in zipper. Don't worry, he was sleeping, he's not still drugged. Poor thing looks like he's got front butt. Anyway, his surgery went well yesterday. He had to stay overnight, which didn't go well with him or Max. Max endured it by pulling out clumps of his own hair and leaving them around my apartment, as well as trying to sleep on my head and love me to death.

Thankfully, when I picked Frosty up today, they said that he's not been trying to mess with his incision and has been a really good boy. He just has a few doses of antibiotics to endure and then his internal stitches will disappear. They're also running an analysis of his bladder stones to help figure out how to prevent them from recurring so I don't have to drop another wad of cash on him in the future. Other than a bit of wailing on the way home, things have returned to normal for the most part. He followed me from room to room and laid on my feet for the first couple of hours. That included laying on my feet while I was cooking, sleeping, or standing. Good times.

Now the sucky part is that I have to pack him up and drag him to the parents' house tomorrow. And, if I had any doubts about whether I could leave Max alone here for a couple of days, those were amplified when I returned home to find Max in clumps all over my apartment. If I were to leave him alone for a couple of days, I'd probably return and he'd be bald. So he gets to travel as well.

Thanks for all the well wishes and even the offers to come over and sing him lullabies or do interpretive dances to keep his minds off things. He appreciates the concern. As a side note, it's amazing to me how many people told me I should just put him to sleep instead of worrying about surgery or the possibility of having to deal with this again in the future. Now, I've been careful not to call myself his mom or him my "baby", but disposable pets are not exactly my cup of tea either. Apparently they are for some people.

Bits and Pieces

I love working for the government on election day. Bonus vacation day! K was kind enough to join me after my 2nd job and eat breakfast and then we went down to vote. We were voters 19 and 20 at our precinct. Last time, I voted with 15 minutes to spare and was only voter 220. That's sad.

Frosty did not have surgery yesterday due to a medical situation with a member of my human family. My grandfather has been ill and I went home for the weekend and could not be here to restrict his food and water. I'm keeping a close eye on him and he's scheduled now for Tues. the 20th when the vet returns from vacation. I did not realize when I rescheduled that it is the Tues before Thanskgiving, which means I can't leave them here for the long weekend. So instead, they will be making the trek to the parents' house with me where my mom's cat is less than friendly. Especially to Frosty. Poor Frosty.

My second job is looking for volunteers to work the night of Thanksgiving. Technically it will be Friday morning from midnight to 4. If I work, I get paid my 4 hours of regular holiday pay, plus time and a half for the hours I actually work. Roughly grossing $115 for one night. I need to double check with my manager that that's actually the case and it's not just straight up time and a half. If so, I am really tempted to work since we're doing Thanksgiving later in the weekend. I can also take Monday off from my law job since I've been racking up vacation days and have yet to use one. I was supposed to take the day off yesterday, but they scheduled Court. Unlike my caseworkers, I don't have anyone that can step in and cover for me for the day and let me keep my day off. So I went in anyway.

Last night at work was freezing. Our work gives us clothing including these nice parkas, stocking caps and work bibs. I made the mistake of only wearing 3 shirts and the parka last night, with my tights and jeans. I'll definitely be layering myself up tonight better since it will feel like 22 degrees at the point when I will be outside, unshielded by the wind. I think a trip to Dicks Sporting goods is in order. I just can't wait until it get to be 0 degrees.

Under the knife.

My kitty has been sick for a few months. The vet and I have been trying everything low tech to see if we can make him better. Including special diet food, antibiotics, steroids, etc. He went in on Monday and they finally ran an x-ray. Turns out the boy's got bladder stones.

Basically the doctor gave me two options:

1. Surgery on Monday to remove the stones, after which they should know what caused them and how to prevent them. Pros: Fix the cat. Downside: Expensive.

2. Do nothing and let the stones just keep rolling around and cutting up his bladder, at which point he'll either get a severe infection or a blockage and die a painful death. Pros: It doesn't cost me any more money. Downside: Death.

Gee, not a hard decision. While I don't really have the money sitting around, luckily I do have a second job that can help defray the cost.

Additionally, I was planning on taking off Monday and making it a long weekend since we government employees have Tues. election day off. But instead, I get to be at the vet at 7 a.m. on Monday. The things we do for our pets.

Random Bits

Now, I know I have a pretty commercial taste in movies. But I do like to give other, more artistic movies a shot, even when I think it's not going to be my cup of tea. I used to watch the Sundance channel religiously and catch all of the movies that never got picked up for mass release. That will come as a surprise to some of the more refined movie goers out there who think that I only ever watch rom-coms.

I'm not really a fan of the fantasy movies. I think it shows my limited imagination as a child. Though I'm left handed, I am definitely not right brained when it comes to that creativity. I must say, I'm happy that I gave the Harry Potter movies a shot, as I do enjoy those (but not in 3-D on an IMAX screen, I must say. It gave me a hangover worse than any alcoholic beverage could have).

K and I watched Pan's Labrynth tonight. It's Spanish and subtitled for those of us who are not as fluent in our Spanish as we should be. That doesn't bother me all that much. I like a good subtitled movie. But I did not like this movie at all. The acting was ok, but I just didn't care for the random fantasy bits. And it was way more graphic than I care to watch. I got online and checked and the movie got rave reviews everywhere. Also, K seemed to really like it. I must just be in the minority on this one.

Tonight I was painting my toes and my cat came up to rub on my legs. He bent his head and did a quick sniff of the polish and immediately went into a gag reflex. It was like the cat version of one of those TV shows when someone discovers a dead body. I know cats don't like certain smells, but I didn't realize smells triggered the vomit reflex in them the way it does in humans. He settled in on the far corner of the bed and has just been glaring at me for the past 20 minutes. I'm just glad no actual vomit came with the gagging, since I've had my fill of cleaning up feline bodily fluids this week.

The element of surprise.

Last night, I crawled into bed half asleep. All of the sudden, I felt something at my feet which made me start questioning whether I had just washed my sheets and didn't get them all the way dry. When I realized I hadn't, I then wondered if the sheets felt cold because of the windows being open. I decided that wasn't likely. After closer inspection, I discovered that one of my cats had left me a nice wet present. Yeah.

Now, I honestly couldn't get too upset with him. He's had a urinary infection/bleeding bladder for about 4 months and this is the first time he has ever went outside the box. Stress makes it worse. And I'm partially to blame for stressing him out. But the only reason I'm partially to blame is that my apartment complex is almost entirely to blame. As those of you who read the post from a few days ago can remember, any day now the complex is going to open my door and weather strip it. So I have to keep the cats locked up. Yesterday morning, Frosty was hiding under the bed in my room and I couldn't get to him. I didn't want to be late for court, so I made the decision to lock him in my room. I had anticipated coming home after court and working from home. So he would have only been in there 4 hours. But my 4 hour day turned into 10.5 hour day, and his little bladder couldn't hold it. No wonder he didn't run for the door when I came home.

Luckily the little present only hit the sheets and didn't soak through to the mattress. I think he was embarrassed and held it as long as he could based on the location and the splatter pattern. So I've forgiven him. Unfortunately, my the kink in my neck from sleeping on the couch has not.

Here's hoping I have no more presents awaiting me tonight.

The never-ending remodel.

3 weeks ago my apartment complex put a note on my door that informed me that they would be painting our doors, which includes opening them and removing the weather stripping. Ergo, we need to make sure the pets are secure and not fleeing from the building. The note said this process would take up to 2 weeks.

We learned earlier this summer that they have no control over the paint crews. When repainting our buildings, they would paint one floor, or edge another and then come back about a month later. It was so bizarrely done.

But I faithfully locked my cats up each day for the last 2 weeks. At the end of the 2 weeks, they had painted the outside of my door but had not returned to open it and weather strip it. Thinking that perhaps they had changed their minds, I emailed the management to check. Nope, they're still planning on doing it. Then I got a note on door a couple of days later (after continuing to lock up the cats) telling me that they would begin the weatherstripping process today. And it could last up to 2 weeks.

Of course I have no idea when they may possibly make it to my building. It could be tomorrow. It could be October 1. But now, I'm expected to be able to lock my cats up all day every day until it's fixed. Which would be fine if my cats didn't have 2 brain cells. They've wised up, and by the time I wake up in the morning, they're both in hiding under my king sized bed where I can't reach them. I've tried locking them up at 5 a.m., before my shower, after my shower, etc. The only thing I haven't tried is locking them up at night before I go to bed. But I don't exactly want to listen to them whine all night.

So now I'm officially up a creek. If no one hears from me tomorrow, I'm either still chasing them around the complex or I've gotten myself stuck under my bed.

Lazy Days

The boys made it back from the vet pretty much unscathed. Frosty wailed like he was going to his execution almost the entire time. There was an older woman in the waiting room who kept looking at me scornfully. Then she made a big production of pulling out her tissues and rubbing her nose. Please. If you have a cat allergy, the last place you need to be sitting is in the waiting room of the vet.

Max, on the other hand, is a chick magnet. All of the assistants at the vet loved him. And he pranced around the room rubbing on everything with that "I know I'm cool" look in his eyes. The vet said I'm a very good mom owner because I got him to lose 3 lbs over the last 6 months. He's down to a hefty 21. Doc says I'm doing everything right and that he's just going to be a big cat. The whole time he was trying to examine him, Max was doing a dead jump from the floor to the 4 foot counter and over to the chair. The vet was very impressed with his agility. Good boy. Too bad he still has a behavioral issue which the doc may think is because he is too big for the litter box. I've now got to to use a 20 gallon tub instead to see if that helps. Big cats need big toilets apparently.

Frosty hid in the carrier and wailed for 20 minutes. When he finally got out, he kept trying to blend into the background. Under the lights he had a nasty yellowish shade going on. Doc thinks that he may have bladder crystals, but is hoping it may be an infection which will clear up with an antibiotic. I get to crush pills into soft food for the next 2 weeks. Frosty loves soft food and tubbo Max won't touch the stuff. So he'll be nice and happy for the next few days. I'll just have to remember to shut off one of the feedings on the feeders, or Max will be happy eating a double portion every night.

When the vet techs were oogling Max and how big he was, I told them that my mom had a cat who could stretch out and just about hit the light switches in their house. I'm pretty sure that stretched out he's about 3 1/2 feet. Their jaws dropped and claimed that they've never heard of a cat that big. But, what can I say, we grow them big in the Jesus House.

Pop Quiz

I have this wonderful tool called the ShedEnder. It was recommended to me by a fellow cat owner who knows the pain of waking up every morning with cat hair on your clothing, your pillow, your pantyhose, etc. Oh, and don't believe the ad. You can get it at Walgreens for less than $10.

The quiz: I got busy brushing this evening and these were the results. How many cats did I brush to get this much hair? (I promise this is 100% cat hair and not the dumped out part of my Dyson which I blogged on before).

Think you know?

Are you sure?

It was 3/4 a cat. The one in front below. Granted, there is a lot of him to go around, but still, it's pretty ridiculous that you can get that much hair off of one cat. And I'm not even done with him yet. He only allows me to get so far until he tries to bite my arm off. So I have to go back later.

The boys are going to the vet tomorrow. I didn't want the vet to think I was a bad cat owner who didn't groom her cats. The white one's got some issues which I'm hoping are not serious. The other one is going just to get his shots. Hopefully the visit will not cost me an arm and a leg. Even more important, I hope it's just a run of the mill UTI and not something more serious. I know I'm adamant that the cats are not my kids, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy having them around. He's only 6, so he should have a lot more good years in him.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother('s cat)

My brother's cat, who has lived with me for the last 2 years, has always had a problem with his weight. When we were concerned about him, we brought it to the vet's attention. The vet brushed it off and declared that he was "big boned." Actually, his words were that he was a jungle cat. Apparently doc wasn't too concerned that Max (appropriately named) was tipping the scales at 25 lbs.

Yet, despite his weight, he's a lively little sucker. A few months back, I invested in some automatic cat feeders so that I could leave for the weekend and not have to worry about him eating an entire weekend's worth of food in a few hours. Even though he doesn't need it, my cat is also treated to the diet cat food. According to the bag, for his weight, Max should be eating 1.5 cups of food a day. However, the feeders feed 3 times a day and I have them set to only feed a 1/4 cup at a time. Therefore, even if he were eating all of his own food, plus my cat's food, he'd still be under the limit.

Today, I found out that he has shed some weight and is a healthier 20.4 lbs. Not quite lean, but better off. I know he weighs this much, because he weighed himself this morning while I was getting ready. Yes, you read that right. HE weghed himself. I heard something click behind me and turned to see what it was. Max had climbed onto the scale and was sitting very still. He waited about 30 seconds and hopped off. And lo and behold, it registered his weight. I didn't think it was accurate, so I weighed him myself, and sure enough, 20.4 lbs. Apparently he's been monitoring himself when I'm not looking.