Ivy

Laying in the grass together on a lazy Sunday afternoon

CATZ!

1) When your previously heretofore cat with the feeding tube decides to hork up said feeding tube and chew off the end of it, try not to freak out. This is more stressful to the human than the cat. But when that cat opts to re-swallow the still attached feeding tube only to somehow sneeze it into her nasal passages thus causing her to breathe funny (i.e. horribly and stutteringly), it probably really is as stressful to the cat as it is to the humans who have been awake for approximately 3.2 seconds.

2) When you finally make the call that you will take the possibly not breathing and gasping for air cat to the emergency vet, be prepared to wait for a while because the cat will act normal and breathe normally as soon as you get to the vet. You will then question if you just happened to dream it all up.

3) The emergency vet will recommend taking some x-rays to check on the tube placement. These x-rays will indicate that the tube is behind the soft palette instead of in the esophagus as expected. The vet will try to get the tube in the correct orientation. You are welcome to wait in the front lobby watching reruns of Victoria Stilwell's "It's me or the dog" while talking to the receptionist with whom you are on a first name basis because your cat used to be at the e-vet all the time 2 months ago.

4) After the surgery, the cat in question will sneeze upon waking up, thus causing the tube to go into her nasal passages again.

5) The vet will just take the damn tube out.

6) Now you can go home and pray that your cat will eat and drink enough to not need any more feed tube nonsense.

7) Be relieved that the cat does indeed eat and drink.

8) A few days later, take the other cat to the vet because he's got the runs (to make sure it's not worms or other nasties).

9) Try not to be surprised when the vet calls later to state that they think the cat may have a touch of the diabetes (This is much more tolerable if you can pretend that the pronunciation is 'die-uh-bet-us' instead of 'die-us-beet-ees').

10) Do not get worried when the vet also says they will be sending blood to the lab to test for both the diabetes and FELV. Especially since you have been vaccinating your cat against said FELV disease since before birth. It does not help that the tech tells you that the FELV vaccine is not 100% and that her cat, in fact, did get FELV despite being fully vaccinated. Try not to freak out too much when you realize that your possibly FELV+ cat donated blood to your kidney problems cat a month ago.

11) Talk to the vet post blood results to find out that, indeed, your cat has the diabetes. It is expected that you will have to give said cat insulin shots. Do not be alarmed that the insulin recommended for cats costs $100 for a 100-unit vial.

12) Go to the vet to go over how to give your cat the insulin. Try to come up with a way to feed your kidney-issues cat a high carb, low protein diet throughout the day while giving your diabetes cat a high protein, low carb diet with only 2 feedings per day. Keep in mind that never the twain shall meet (i.e. they must eat their own food. bad things happen when they eat the other food).

13) Pay $50 for a bag of low-carb dry food (jeebus christ, cat!) Also, the food has quite a bit of "by-product". Not even the cheap cat food at the pet store has this much by-product in the first 5 ingredients.

14) Read online that you really can feed cats high-protein wet food on a non-prescription diet that is damn close to the prescription diet, and a mite-bit cheaper.

15) Go to PetSmart and spend the better part of an hour in the wet cat food isle reading ingredient lists trying to figure out which ones are low-carb and which ones are not (hint: generally the 'gravy' varieties are higher carb). Seriously think about finding out if you can cook meals for cheaper.

16) Go get a blood glucose meter to track your diabetes cat.

17) Go buy a second blood glucose meter and strips because you didn't realize that glucose meters don't come with test strips and it will take a week for the test strips to come in from Amazon. NOTE: The reason you will buy a secondary glucose meter and test strips is because it will be $40 cheaper than buying just the strips for your first meter.

18) Go home and spend an hour or so trying to get a drop of blood from your cat. Do not get frustrated that every time you manage to get a drop of blood on his ear, he will shake his head thus leaving you to start from square one.

19) Eventually give up on finding out his 'pre' blood sugar. Feed him some food and give him his insulin shot (which he doesn't even realize you're doing. JUST GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY EARS, EVIL WOMAN!

20) Wait almost 2 hours and finally get a good blood drop and test.

Bi-sickle! Bi-sickle!

Tonight, we have a wedding (for Shawn's boss).

Tomorrow we have the Livestrong Bike Challenge. 90 miles of riding fun! The most we've ever done has been 45 I think...but we never take enough food and so we energetically crash somewhere around mile 35 and never really recover. That shouldn't be the case on the actual ride since they have rest stops every 10 miles or so. But just to be safe, we can choose to do the 65 mile ride after we get started if we want.

PLUS! Matt and Ross will be coming over to the house in order to take care of Ivy-cat. Who, at this point, has suffered an acute kidney attack (kidney stone), liver failure (from not eating enough and going into starvation mode), and now, anemia (because the kidneys tell the bone marrow when to make red blood cells, and since they've been pulling blood with some frequency, it makes for a cat with a low red blood cell count). So yay...

6 Years

6 years ago when I moved down here, I found out that the garage had a little kitty door. I decided that this seemed like a brilliant idea to catch myself a pet cat and so I turned the little lock knobby thing to the point where an animal could come in, but couldn't get out.

Of course, after Ivy found us, I left it that way because she and Quazi would frequently go out into the garage and sit at their little kitty window and look outside trying to figure out a way to get out. (What happens if I push on it? hmm, Nothing. Okay...What happens if I push on it now? hunh. Odd. Nothing happened)

Since it's been 6 years and we've never had a problem with animals coming into the garage, I completely forgot about it. Until the other night when we had a feral cat in the garage. Well, we can't blame the cats - they tried to warn us (they both REALLY wanted out in the garage even though it was fuh-reezing outside). It also should have tipped us off as we came home and the garage smelled like cat piss, but I figured that the smell was because I had been cleaning out the litter boxes and throwing the waste in the garbage and we hadn't thrown away any other trash. So instead we sat in the house until the poor animal knocked over a rolled up rug Shawn had next to the garbage can. When we saw the cat, Shawn just opened the garage door and the cat left (though I feel like we should have put food and water out for it first because who knows how long it was stuck in the garage).

But man, can those feral cats jump. It was jumping about 6' straight up in the air trying to get away from us (and it was already in the opposite corner of the garage).

Pawprints

Taken after the cats went outside on Friday, Feb 4. (The most snow in Austin, TX since 2004)

Cat Food

I don't know how I managed to start feeding our cat a food that can only be found in 6 pound bags. And I can hear you asking me, "well, isn't that because your cat is on special kidney food?" and the answer is, "yes, but it's not that cat."

That's right, Quazi was put on a special food around this time last year. That food was Oral Sensitive by Royal Canin. The reason why he was put on this food is because he has the bad habit of scarfing food and then regurgitating it on the floor about 20 minutes later. The Oral Sensitive variety helps prevent this because he actually has to chew the food before swallowing it which means he eats slower and therefore won't act like an angsty high school girl. The food is good, Ivy likes it too, the only problem I have with it is that the big name box stores around here only sell it in the 3 pound bags, so I have to go to the ONLY store I've found thus far who sells it in the 6 pound bags.

Since I have to call in Ivy's food to the vet (prescription diet), I think I might ask if it's possible for them to order me Quazi's food too. Kill two birds with one stone.

Ivy and Gray Kitteh

Last picture of Ivy before her feeding tube was taken out. It was taken out on Monday, so right now she's all nekkid while the hole heals. Yes, those are some glass sheets from our Window Replacement of '10 project...aka old windows. So, if anyone needs some sheets of glass, let me know.


Gray Kitteh! is "owned" by one of the neighbors...which is obviously why he spends more time in our yard. duh.

Cats

Here are some pictures for my sister (who refers to Quazi as her "grand-nephew kitty"). This year, for Christmas, the cats received a huge bag of toys treats and other such stuffs from their "cousin", Remy (my sister's dog):
Ivy coming out of the little "house". Dani got it figuring that Quazi would like it, but it has actually become Ivy's new favored hiding place. It sits next to the chair, and she likes it because two of the 'doors' are on the backside so she can get in and out without having to go in the front door.

Ivy playing with "Cheepers" This damn bird toy is covered in cat nip so both cats love it and every time they bat at it, it does this obnoxious chirping thing. Which drives the cats wild. They also love the little mice. I came home from work the other day and one of the cats had crawled into the bag to retrieve the mice. The mice in which I had never shown to the cats. So someone must have smelt the catnip. Of the three mice, one had been ripped from the packaging (a cardboard back), and the other two were still attached. All three were COMPLETELY covered in cat spit. Like they were 50% heavier because of cat spit. Ew. I haven't taken the other stuff out yet mostly because we dole out toys throughout the year, otherwise they'd end up with all of them under the couch within a week.

So Thank You Aunt, Dani.



Now then, for the rest of you. If you've been following my half-assed posting the last two days, or have been reading my Tweets, then you know that we've had a gray tabby kitten hanging around in our backyard. We don't know if he's a stray, but we think he MUST have a home because he doesn't just hang out in our yard all the time (he does actually leave for large periods of time). He's very people friendly and he follows Quazi around and vice versa. Ivy puts up with him being around but he isn't allowed within 3 feet of her. He does have ear mites (our cats are on Advantage Multi so they won't get any from him), and he's got a spot on his left ear where the skin is rubbed off--can't tell if it's like frost bite, or if he was attaked by a different animal and the skin is sloughing off, he also seems skinny to me--If I remember right, when Quazi was this age, he still had a little bit of a belly (not fat, but you know, a little spot where you could feel that he had a belly, this cat doesn't have that). He keeps trying to come in the house (reminds me of Ivy when she found us), but he's not allowed in because he's still "someone's" right now.



Also, all these photos were taken with my Droid. The top two in low-light, and the bottom one in bright-light. The most annoying thing is the response from when I tell it to take a picture to when it actually does take the picture. you gotta have a VERY patient subject.

Cat Rug

I realize this is about a week and a half late, but this is the cat that I had gotten back from the Emergency Vet two weekends ago

Home

The cat is home. We'll have to do tube feeding for a while--40-50 ml 4 times a day, and subcutaneous fluids 50-100 ml once a day. The goal is to do the feedings for a while until she starts eating on her own, and the fluids every day for about a week, then every other day for about a week, and then every 3rd day for a week.

We have to take her in to get her bandage around her neck changed every 3 to 5 days (where the feeding tube goes in), and blood work needs to be done again as well--we'll see when that gets done because one doc doesn't want to draw blood since they have to sedate her until at least a week out while another doc wants to do blood work when she's in for the bandage change.

The biggest problem with all this? the fact that the Quazi doesn't even recognize Ivy and so we're having to go through and re-introduce two cats to each other, neither of them likes cats, but they put up with each other. Last night Quazi managed to get Ivy stuck on the bed by guarding the bottom so she couldn't jump off to go to the bathroom. That was a fun time at 4 in the morning.

Elevator

Overheard in the elevator on my way to my office yesterday:

"At one point last night I thought to myself, 'you know, I should really switch to drinking Red Bull and Vodkas now so I won't get drunk.' Obviously I was already hammered."

In other news, I have Ivy sitting on the chair next to me because I picked her up from the E-vet early and have to wait for my normal vet to open. She was meowing a lot which either means "don't take me there", or more recently it's meant "I have to pee now, where's the litterbox? K, thanks" so I decided to stop off at home. Sure enough, I let her out of the kennel and she first headed for the back door (oddly cats that used to be strays and are still indoor/outdoor prefer to go to the bathroom outside instead of a litterbox, no matter how clean the litterbox is). Obviously I didn't let her out, and so she then turned tail and made a beeline for the litterbox. That cat can hold a bunch of urine in her bladder.

Anyhoo, the main point of this post isn't that she's using the litterbox (which is good), but it's more that because since she's gained so much weight on the force fed diet, she's like the really overweight people you see at Walmart--you know, the ones that have to take the little invalid carriages because they can't walk around the store without getting winded? Yeah, the poor cat has to rest after every 8 steps or so because she's getting so worn out. She jumped on the chair next to me and promptly went to sleep for 15 minutes.

well, looks like she's awake, and the vet is open, so I better get her back there.

Sigh...fingers crossed that she can come home soon and we can do fluid treatments here.

Prognosis: Still guarded...I think?

today I dropped Ivy off at the e-vet for the night. Yes we're still taking the cat to the e-vet. She has gained 5 pounds. I gave them a slightly overweight house cat and they handed me back a brine filled butterball. And when I dropped the cat off at the vet, the actual vet himself asked me when we're going to be done with this back and forth thing...sounds to me like they're wanting her out of there just as badly as I want it.

Prognosis: Still guarded

After picking Ivy up from the E-vet this morning and driving her back to the normal vet, and then waiting all day long for the blood test results, they finally came in. The results are far from great (they're all still really high), but they are definitely better than what was expected. The expected result was that the blood work would come back the same or worse than it was yesterday, but thankfully it came back better than yesterday. Yesterday, there were 4 things that were higher than the normal ranges--Potassium, Creatinine, BUN, and Phosphorus. Of those, the Creatinine and BUN were off the charts--as in the machine couldn't even read the levels they were so high. Today, the Potassium and Phosphorus were in the normal range (elevated, but normal), and the Creatinine and BUN were still extremely high, but the values had come down enough that the machine could actually get a reading. This is good news in so much that it means she's recovering...now the question becomes whether she can recover enough to be able to survive without being on the IV drip...plus she has to be able to eat on her own.

Of course it also means that we have to do this normal vet, emergency vet dance until Friday afternoon when they do her next blood test. Here's hoping that that blood test comes out good (or she starts eating on her own by then) since Friday is my birthday and it would doubly suck if she had to be put down then since she is generally considered my cat while Quazi is Shawn's cat.

Prognosis: Guarded

Ivy is at the Emergency Vet tonight. She puked Monday morning at 4 am. Between the time that my inlaws went out for the day (1030 am) and when Shawn came home from work (530 pm), she had thrown up 4 or 5 more times. We figured that the stress of us being gone and then having guests over was a bit much. She proceeded to puke another 4 times throughout the night. I took her to the vet first thing in the morning. They did blood work and diagnosed acute kidney failure and raging bladder infection. She was put on IV fluids and baytril. They called me at 3 pm and said she was doing better, but would need to be transported to the E-vet for observation through the night. I'm then to pick her up at 630 am to transport her back to the normal vet where they'll do another round of blood work to see if her kidneys have recovered at all from the fluids.

If so, then great, she'll recover.

If not...well then...what a birthday present for Shawn. :'(

Nostalgia

I don't know why I thought of it today...

Back in the day (about a month after I.V. adopted us as her peoples), Bob and Elsie (aka the inlaws) came to stay with us. They had decided that rather than stay in Austin all week, they were going to stay with us for a few days, head down to San Antonio for a few, and then come back to stay with us at the end of the week.

Not 15 minutes after they walked out of the house to go down to San Antonio, I.V. very purposefully walked into the guest room (aka drum room). She then very purposefully walked over the bed to the center. And then she very purposefully popped a squat and peed on the bed.

And for whatever reason, I found it hysterical.

Then I spent the rest of the day washing the bedspread and sheets.

Snake Bite

No, I did not get bitten by a snake. I just was scared half out of my mind last night that I was going to be bit.

Okay, let me explain.

For the backstory on why I would possibly think there'd be a snake in the house, you should probably read the first and last paragraphs of my Garden Blog post Here.

And so, last night after we went to bed, IV was wandering around the house mewing loudly. In the past I used to think that she did it because she was looking for something, and she always comes a runnin' when I say something to her. Ultimately, after watching her meowing at lizards outside in the same manner, I realized that she actually meows loudly when she's got a prize.

In my sleep induced state, I yelled something out to the effect of "IV! we're in the bedroom!" And I hear this jingle jangle of her running to the bed and she jumps up and comes over to get her pets. As she's snuggling with me, I suddenly think "oh god, no, she was meowing like she had some great prize. OHDEARGOD. DO NOT TELL ME SHE BROUGHT WHATEVER IT IS ON THE BED WITH HER!" So then I laid there in bed debating on what to do about the possibility of having a snake or a roach or some other undesirable on the bed right next to me. I think I quickly made some sweeping motions with my hands, hoped that I had knocked whatever off of the bed, and then convinced myself that as soon as she heard me call her, she would have dropped whatever she was carrying and come running.

This morning I woke up and found out she had been carrying her purple feathers around the house last night.

Disaster averted.

Socks:

The new style for cats. Coming Fall '08.


Really, he isn't as pissed as he looks. He's the tolerant one. Actually, IV attacked my foot tonight because Quazi was too close to her. Amazingly she's never attacked people outside "The Family".

Open Wounds

Tonight Shawn and I were sitting on the couch watching our TV shows (I want to say it was Criminal Minds) when Quazi jumps on the couch and starts snuggling with me.

This normally doesn't happen (Quaz isn't much of a snuggler), so when it does, we capitalize on it. So I'm petting him all over and scratching his neck and everything when I notice there's some matted fur on his upper right shoulder area. As I try to figure out what it is, it started falling apart and then I noticed the cat had a bald spot. And in that bald spot is a red puncture wound. It isn't infected, and it isn't bothering him, and it explains why he's smelled like ass the last coupld of days.

We cleaned it up and then started discussing when it would have happened since he hasn't been outside most of the week. That's when we realized it probably happened when he lost his collar last Saturday. It also explains why he has been sleeping more than normal and being more snuggly.

Stupid cat needs to seriously stop picking fights with other cats. Those collars and tags cost like $12 every time he loses one.

On a side note, because Quazi was getting so much attention, IV freaked out and attacked Shawn's foot. Yeah, she's got misplaced agression issues. I just find it funny how quickly Ivsie can go from being a lubby-dubby Iver wivers to a horrible she-bitch that is growling and hissing and attacking anything that comes within a foot of her.

Bonding over Rats

That's right. Like Janet's cats, our cats are bonding over rat hunting.

Well, relatively.

Everything would have gone better if IV hadn't flipped out about Quazi looking at HER rat, couldn't he just, you know, go over there and look at HIS rat?

IV keeping tabs on her rat under the boards. (the rat is the greyish blob just above the knot in the wood)

Ivsie's Rat.

Quazi hunting his rat under the boards.

No, you can't come inside.

And she's been sitting out there for half an hour. by the door. waiting to come inside. she finally like 2 minutes ago got the hint so she's now in the grass eating it's delicious braaaaaains.