The Beginning Of The Trip

Me: Get in the box.
Stop fighting me and get in the box.
The box is the only option
Cat: ...
Me: See? That wasn't so hard
Cat: meow?
Me: We're taking a trip to Doggy World (the vet) I know, you would rather be stabbed with needles than visit Doggy World, but you get both! (maniacal laughter)
Cat: meow? ... meow? Meow! MEEEow.
Me: Keep it up and I'll start singing at you.
Cat: ...
meh
mow
myow
meow! meow! meow!
Me: Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again...
Cat: Meow! meowmeowmeoooow!!!
(musical medley of cat noise and badly sung Simon and Garfunkel ensues)

At The Vet's Office

Me: Yay! We've made it to the vet's office and we're both still making noise!
Cat: (as loudly as ever) Meow!
(We go inside)
Cat: ...
Me: Hi. I'm here to have Friday's blood sugar checked. (looks around and counts 6 dogs and two empty seats, both of them are within slobber distance of at least one dog)
Me: (to box of cat) See? I told you we were going to Doggy World.
Cat: ...

In The Little Room

Me: You can come out now
Cat: ...
Vet: Good afternoon, how is Friday doing today?
Me: She's going to hiss at you.
Cat: hiss
hiss again just in case you didn't hear me the first time
Me: Also, you might need another pair of hands to pin her when you draw her blood.
Vet: Oh boy.
Me: She's not, like, vicious or anything... But she scratched Dr. Zeis last time and she never does that.
Except for shoes. She doesn't like shoes.
Vet: Ok. (closes door of cat carrier) We'll just take her back and check her sugar. (Vet looks at cat) I remember you.
Me: Yeah, she's the spawn of satan.

Behind The Scenes

RrrrRRRRrrr
grrrowl hiss hiss mrrrrr!
MrrrROW!!!! (cat scream that I can't phonetically reproduce)
Dr. Zeis: (just back from lunch) Who's putting on the show back there?
At least three people: Friday. (laughter)

Time to stab the cat...

With her second daily dose of insulin.
Is it worth $115 every other month to keep my 10 yr old cat from peeing blood and helping her be bouncy and playful?
As long as we can afford it, yes!
(The bloody urine is 'likely' a sign of infection that's caused by high blood sugar -says the Vet)
Curious things about kitty diabetes:
Sometimes, it's temporary.
The vet said there is no "type 2 diabetes" with cats. (type 2 is when your pancreas is making plenty of insulin, but your insulin receptors look at it and yawn because they're tired of seeing all that insulin everywhere)
Cats *can* become resistant to the insulin you give them. The fix? Switch to a different kind of insulin.
Cat insulin is NOT for PEOPLE. Don't be stupid.
You can get needles in a nifty case that holds 10 packs of 10 needles that doubles as a sharps box!
I make om nom nom noises when I feed the needles into the sharps box.

Can One Be Proud Of Their Cat?
.
Because I'm proud of my cat. When we found her at the shelter, she was a "rescued stray". Meaning some good hearted person spotted a bunch of wild kittens foraging for food and took them to the ASPCA animal shelter (they took the mom cat too). The shelter decided that the kittens were young enough to be tamed (but not old enough to be adopted yet) and put them on display.

Meanwhile, across town; my hubby and I were buying a house. When we moved in, our cat lost all the fur on his butt and around his tail. The vet said he was healthy, and the fur would grow back once he got used to his new environment. We decided that Yellow Kitty was lonely, and began the search for a new cat.

A friend of ours was doing some carpentry work at the ASPCA and spotted the kittens, so he gave us a call. This was on October 24th, 2000. The only kittens left were black and the ASPCA wouldn't let them be adopted until after Halloween. So on November 1st, my hubby-man went there and adopted a tiny bundle of black fur. We had to wait another 2 weeks for her to be old enough to go home with us. Turns out she was born right around the time we were buying our house; which was on a Friday the 13th. No. We're not superstitious. :D

In honor of her blackness (she is a true black cat: black nose, black ears, black underfur, etc.) And the possible date of her birth, we named her "Friday" short for "Princess Friday the 13th of October".

This is a tradition begun with Yellow Kitty, who my 3 year old son named "Mine Little Yellow Kitty Cat". Each cat since gets a long name and a short name. We currently also have "Hunter of Things In The Night" (Hunter) and "She Hides In The Shadows Of The Moon" (Moonshadow, or just Shadow) Although I think we got their names reversed, because Hunter will persistently hide in shadowy places, whereas Moonshadow lays right out in public and kills every moth that gets in the house.

Anyway, back to Friday. She has a trait that you often see in strays, she's an opportunistic eater. If there's food, she eats it. She can not walk past a food bowl without stopping for a nibble. And Yellow Kitty was naturally thin. He was 10 lbs of lean muscle mass, but looking at him you'd never believe he weighed as much as a bag of flour, much less two.

Having a skinny cat makes it hard to put the fat cat on a diet. And Friday was FAT. Over the years she has gone from a delicate pile of fluff to a rotund blob, to something so heavy she can't jump down from the sofa without a muffled "oof".

We worried about Friday. We knew her weight was shortening her life, and we knew she was miserable. We asked the vet about Kitty Prozac. We searched the internet for behaviour modification techniques. The best we found was the suggestion to put the food in a box and make the hole too small for the cat. We joked about it, but would never do it.

In the end, Friday learned all by herself that food would always be there. She became mother cat to the kittens Hunter and Shadow, and always tried to leave food in the bowls for them. (3 cats = 2 small food bowls and 2 small water bowls)

So now Friday looks fat. but isn't. She has hanging skin. She can jump again. Yesterday, I saw her sitting on the arm of the couch; with all her feet on the arm! I noticed it because she had a flap of fur hanging into my coffee cup. But she actually fit on just the arm of the couch!
And today, she was crouching on the foot rail of the wet bar downstairs! She can do kitty things again! I'm so proud of her.

And yes, it is funny when she runs across the room batting at a cat toy, looking like furry black jello during an earthquake.

My cat is a freak

When I order shea butter, it comes in a big ziploc type bag. I transfer it to glass containers in order to infuse it with comfrey. So today, I dropped a little flake of shea while measuring it. The cat rushed up and licked the floor clean where it had fallen. Now, I know shea is edible and all; but I never thought a cat would want to eat it.

By the way, if you decide to grow comfrey yourself, dry the leaves in a closet or something. Cats love the leaves, and they will eat your entire stash. One advantage to growing prickly comfrey (comfrey uplandicum) is the neighborhood cats won't eat it while it's growing. Of course, it grows so fast, that a little nibble here and there won't make much of a difference.

*shameless plug time*
For those of you who are interested, I have eight 4 oz tubs of pure shea butter ready to go. The price is $5.

A redhead, her snake, and his food

Last night, I went to get snake food. I actually like buying snake food. It's an adventure, and I never know what I'm going to get. The reptile store has an earthy, sometimes pungent aroma. They have snakes, lizards, tortoises and turtles, alligators, spiders, scorpions and frogs. One week, I'll see geckos stuck to the glass of their 4 ft high cage. The next week the same cage will hold an emerald tree boa. The only constant is the cage that holds impossibly large pythons for less than $200. Sadly, people buy snakes, then get rid of them when they grow too heavy to carry around. I would love to give a home to some of those beauties, and it's not practical. The cost of their food would be too great. Which brings me back to last night.

It was windy last night. I could see the trees whipping around as the cold front the weather guy had warned us about moved in. And Sinbad needed food. I'd been putting it off for too long. I stepped out the side door, expecting a bitter wind.
Instead, a strong warm wind swirled around me. It lifted my hair like a mini tornado and caressed my face as if to say, "hi". I suddenly felt playful and wonderful. The arthritic aches and pains I ignore daily just... disappeared. I felt like a teenager again. I stalked lightly through the backyard as if I were walking on air. Who knows? Perhaps I was, because that odd warm wind swirled around me all the way to the truck. Have I mentioned that I love being shaman? ;)

I drove to the Exotic Amphibian and Reptile Center (aka the snake store), still in that happy-playful mood. When I climbed out of the truck, the cold-front wind was, well -cold. Nastily cold. My lovely warm wind had abandoned me. The snake store stank to high heaven, and they were out of large mice. They had nothing but pinky mice. I didn't have enough cash on hand to buy the half-dozen baby mice Sinbad would need. The girl behind the counter suggested a small rat. I know Sinbad is big enough to eat a small rat, but I had avoided buying one previously. Mice are food, but rats are pets. They're intelligent, agile and capable of loving. I would feel really bad feeding a rat to my snake.
Of course, in the wild Sinbad would be eating rats, mice, baby bunnies and even rattlesnakes. It is a food cycle, don't ya know. So I bought a $2 rat. Looking at him, I realized how big his teeth could be, how strong his jaws, how potent his interest in surviving. (sigh) I asked the girl if I should "thump" the rat. She thought it would be a good idea, if I could stomach it. I decided I'd better find a way to cope with it. It's way too cold out to be taking Sinbad to the vet for a rat bite.

So I carried the rat out to the truck, wrapped in my coat to keep him warm. Don't ask me why I take such care of what is, clearly, no more than food. I just do. It's what seems right.
I turned up the heater, and headed for home. As I got off the highway, the wind began circling the truck. It had not abandoned me, it just didn't want to leave the neighborhood :) The wind, not as warm as before, but still nice; stayed with me all the way to the door. It even politely held the storm door open for me, and closed it behind.
I don't know why the wind chose to dance with me last night. I don't care. I'm grateful for it's gift.

Back to the tale of the food. I gave the box of rat to my hubby and explained about there being no mice. He was pleased. He'd been thinking of switching Sinbad to rats for some time. Now was as good a time as any. I told him about the thumping suggestion, and said I wasn't sure if I had the heart for it. By this time, hubby-man was playing with the rat. He was letting it crawl over his hand, and up his arm. He abruptly got up and took the rat to the bathroom with him. I knew what was coming, and a small part of my brain recoiled in horror. Good idea or not, it was deliberately harming a living creature. (now might be a good time to stop reading)

I heard a "thunk" from the bathroom, and felt all tingly and unpleasant. Our son asked, "Did you just thump the rat's head against the sink?" Hubby said, "Yes." That was apparently enough. Hubby headed toward the bedroom, carrying the now limp rat by it's tail. We followed. I really wanted to see Sinbad eat this monster sized piece of food. The rat began to twitch, kicking his hind legs. His eyes were still glazed looking, so we knew it was just reaction from the rat's now damaged brain. Every twitch sent little shocks of horror through me. The rat was dumped into Sinbad's cage, and we sat back to watch.

The poor rat had landed on his feet, and because of the kicking hind legs, began hopping around the cage. Had I been less shocked, it would have seemed funny. Then the rat hopped right into Sinbad's water dish. Hubby rescued it before it drowned. Good man. I don't think I could have handled seeing the poor thing drown. He laid the now soggy rat on it's side, and we watched the snake scent his way around the cage.

We left the room before Sinbad found his dinner. It wasn't interesting anymore, just kind of sad. Next time, I'm buying a mouse.

Putting it out there to the Universe

My little family of 3 is looking for a specialty kitten. Somewhere in or near St. Louis, there is a pregnant cat in a happy home. She is not feral, and has both people and other cats to keep her company. Her family is willing to have prospective kitten owners visit a few times while the kittens are growing. Her family will also understand that we want to wait a few months before having the kitten spayed or neutered.

Does that sound like a big request?

Here's the background. Yellow Kitty (deceased) became lonely when we moved from my mom's house into our own house. He had gotten used to having Lady to groom and play with. So we rescued Friday from the APA. How could we not, really? She was beautiful and playful and needed a home, or they would put her to sleep. It being just after Halloween, nobody wanted a black cat. Friday and Yellow Kitty got along great, but there were some problems. Friday was a feral kitten, and has trouble bonding with people. She just didn't get enough contact as a kitten. Also, she was spayed at 8 weeks. I think that was too early. I believe a cat can be spayed at 3 months, but no sooner. My Gods, let them grow a bit!
Anyway, it's been a few months since Friday became an only cat, and she needs a friend. We don't want another feral cat. We want one that likes people. When we had other cats in the house, Friday would snuggle with us more often. It was almost as if she saw how the other cats behaved, and thought maybe she should cuddle too.

How L acquired a snake, and the amusing results

When L was 5 or 6 years old, he wanted a pet snake. I told him he would have to buy it with his own money, but that if he did, I would buy the tank, heater and food. I had owned a snake before, but gave him away after L was born. I didn't have the free time to handle the snake and care for a newborn. So Sinbad the Western Garter Snake found a new home.

L saved his allowance, report card and b-day money, and we went to the pet store. He bought a Bananna King Snake, and promptly named him Sinbad. We had him for almost 6 months, then he escaped while we were on a camping trip. L was pretty upset about this. I'd catch him looking at the empty tank, asking God to bring his snake back... or at least keep it warm in the winter.
We replaced Sinbad II with a hamster. That lasted for nearly a year. We found it one morning (dead) with it's nose pressed against the glass, looking like it was trying just one more time to escape. We buried the hamster in the back yard, between the lavender bushes. As soon as it was warm enough, we went to the Reptile store to buy a new snake. Snakes live much longer than hamsters do. I'll probably still be caring for this snake when L goes off to college. (good thing I love reptiles)
At the Exotic Amphibian and Reptile Center, they had a cage full of eggs with a sign reading, "Hatching Now!" L went into spasms of delight. "Can we buy one, can we? Pleeeeease? Can we buy an egg and hatch it at home? Pleeeeease?"
We did not buy an egg, but L picked the egg he wanted, and every day we went back to see if it had hatched yet. (He couldn't actually remember which egg it was, but I pretended like I remembered. I'd pick an egg at random and say, "There it is!") The third day we visited, we spied an egg with a black snake nose poking out of it. L cried out, "That's him! That's my snake! he's being born right now!"
We got lucky that day, because the owner was the one behind the counter. He told my son, "As soon as he gets done hatching, I'll put him in a box for you. You can't take him home until he sheds his first skin, though. So you come back in a week and pick him up. OK?"
When we showed up a week later, there was a round plastic case with my son's name on it, waiting for us. L gave me his $24 to pay for the snake, and took the box from the guy behind the counter. L said, "You're very beautiful, and your name is Sinbad."
I asked, "What if he's a girl snake?" While trying not to laugh. The salesman said, "It's young yet, let's find out." He explained that when snakes are babies, their sex organs are easy to reach. It's much harder to identify the sex when they're adults. He took the snake out of it's enclosure and squeezed around the area they poop out of... and it's stuff popped out!

That was probably the grossest thing I'd ever seen. L and I were both fascinated. I wanted to ask the guy to do it again, but I knew snakes aren't squeeze toys, so I kept my mouth shut.

Sinbad the Third, no bigger than a nightcrawler, came home with us that day; and I promptly put 10 pounds of rocks on top of the cage. This snake wasn't getting away. 'Locking lid' my ass.

Every September I take Sinbad to the pet blessing that L's school holds out in the playground. Every year, we get swarmed with children wanting to see, but not touch, the snake. Every year, I turn a few more kids into snake lovers.
I love being a stay-home mom.

Oh, yeah. Sinbad III now weighs over 2 pounds, is about 4 1/2 feet long, and would eat every 3 days if I let him.

Poor Friday...

I think our cat is preparing to hibernate. She's chunked on 4 pounds in the last month. Yep, she'll be sleeping any day now.
The other pet in the house is also slowing down for the winter. Even though the temperature in Sinbad's tank is 80+ degrees, he's gotten lazy about eating. That's saying a lot for a snake that usually eats 1 large mouse or 2 smaller mice, then searches the cage for more. I bought him a mouse last Saturday, and he finally ate it on Tuesday. Last winter, he went on a 6 week hunger strike. We tried everything we could think of, and he just wouldn't eat. We finally had a warm spell, so I took the snake to the Exotic Amphibian and Reptile Center and asked them to look at him.
The EARC is a fabulous store on Lemay Ferry. It's where I buy most of Sinbad's food and bedding from, and it's where we bought the snake himself, too.
Anyway, they said Sinbad was fine. Sometimes in the winter snakes won't eat -something about preparing for the mating season.

The Ghost Kitty

Back in the year 2000, we bought a cute little 1960's bungalow that sits atop a hill, with a magnificent view of the Mississippi River. We closed in October, on Friday the 13th. On our final walkthrough of the home, we found a cat hiding in the basement ceiling. We were pretty disturbed by this, and called the realtor, asking if the (soon to be) former owners had abandoned their cat. It turns out they hadn't. The cat hid during the move, so they figured they'd come back for her later, after she had calmed down. (which they did)

After we closed, Amy and I scrubbed the house from top to bottom. Every wall and doorway, floors and ceiling got touched my my hands. I was removing any energy from the old occupants, and replacing it with my own. When we finished, I had more than a home. I had a brick rectangle of dragon treasure. :)

Now, I like ghosties. That's one reason I wanted to live in the Carondolet neighborhood. There are houses here from the early 1800's. My next door neighbor has a garage that was a blacksmith's shop 150 years ago. The history here is amazing, and with history comes ghosties. I've woken several times at night because a ghostie has walked through our front window and come straight down the hallway then disappeared. They don't enter our bedrooms. It's as if their ability to materialize ends with our hallway. They don't see us. They probably don't even see the house. They're just passing through. The first year we lived here, a barge worker fell overboard and died in the river. His spirit used our hallway on his way to the afterlife. Freaky but cool.

Anyway, about a week after we'd moved in, I saw a cat in the kitchen. Our cat was orange, this cat was grey. It had manifested so thoroughly, I thought the cat in the ceiling had returned. It sat in the kitchen for a few seconds, then just faded away. When Hubby-man came home, I excitedly told him all about it. He thought it was cool, and regretted that he couldn't see it too. The ghost kitty came and went over the next few weeks. Once he brought a friend, thus in early November I had 2 hypo allergenic cats in my kitchen! It was great. Then the ghost kitty stopped coming around.

I figured, "Well, that was neat, but I'm glad he moved on. I'll miss him," and forgot about it. The next October, I'm still pretty messed up over 9-11. I've shut down my empathy, and probably wouldn't notice a ghost freight train if it passed right through me. I hear "maow!" from the kitchen. I glance at Yellow Kitty's usual sleeping spot, and both he and Friday are curled up asleep. Hmm. I hear "maow!" again, and think perhaps there's an injured cat outside. The voice sounded rather insistent. I go out the front door and walk all around the house, listening for the distressed cat. I tally our finances in my head, trying to find money in our budget for a trip to the vet. There's no cat outside.

I know I heard it, so I enter the house and decide to check the basement. Maybe the cat got inside somehow? I go into the kitchen and practically walk through the grey ghost kitty that's between me and the basement door. He stared at me for a few seconds, then faded away. Cool! The ghost kitty has returned! He made sporadic appearances throughout October and November, and then he was gone. 2002 saw him again, along with an assortment of other ghostly felines. Our house had become a gathering place for the kitty dead, and I was loving it. He always came in October, but this spring he reappeared. He stalked the hallways and laid in the sun. One day I spend nearly 40 minutes watching him fade in and out of this material world as he slept in a patch of sunlight. I could always feel him, but I couldn't always see him. He's been appearing for my Hubby with some regularity since Yellow Kitty died. (-sadness-) He jumped up on the bed once, right where Yellow used to sleep. For a second, I thought it was Yellow Kitty, but it wasn't. It was just our usual ghost kitty.

It just occured to me that I sound like I'm someone special. I don't think I am, beyond that I can see things. I do however, consider myself blessed that the ghost kitty chooses our house as the place-to-be a few months out of the year.

Idiot

Either we're going to have an earthquake, or we have the stupidest snake in the history of the known Universe. I was playing a video game (my favorite pre-bed meditation) and Hubby Man calls for me to come quick... the snake is eating itself. I dash into the bedroom expecting... well I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe Sinbad the snake doing the oroboris circle thingy. Nope. Hubby-Man wasn't kidding. The stupid snake had his mouth firmly clamped on his body, while the rest of him wrapped and squeezed himself. Mind you, he ate 2 medium sized mice on Friday. Yes, 3 days ago. 2 mice. It's not like he's starving or anything.
The brainless wonder finally figures out there's no mouse in his tank and lets go of himself. He then starts zooming around the tank trying to catch the mouse he thinks he hears somewhere in the tank. King snakes don't have the best eyesight at the best of times, and he looks like he preparing to shed again so I know he can't see squat. But really...

It's a good thing he's captive bred. There's no way he'd survive out in the real world.

I was posting to my other blog and I thought, "Geez, this shit's depressing! Maybe I should submit it to the Lifetime Channel instead of turning it into a book."

On another note- I was grocery shopping tonight and I had to get kitty litter. This took me past the shelves stuffed with cat toys. As usual, I looked at all of them. Purrhaps today I would find the fabled holy grail of cat toys, Yellow Kitty would like that...oh.
I'm proud to say I did not cry in the store, I just thought about it. I guess I'm getting old. I don't remember carrying my grief this long for any of my other cats, but it's been a long time since I've had any other cats leave my life.

I miss Yellow Kitty. His full name is Mine Little Yellow Kitty Cat. His life began on a farm. When he was 3 months old, a family brought him to the city to live with their 2 big dogs and their small boy. Kitty didn't like the dogs. They were big and noisy, and he was very afraid. He clawed through the insulation next to their air conditioning unit, squeezed through a 4 inch gap, and found that freedom is a very hungry place. He found us after 3 days of wandering without food or water. He came up to us -skinny, dry and lonely and climbed right up into L's lap! We were living with my Mom at the time, and she didn't want to have any more cats in the house, so we snuck him water and food. He hid under the lilac tree and greeted us every morning. He seemed more interested in loving than eating, and every time we went inside he followed us to the door. One day he just came inside with us. My Mom decided he could stay, which is good- 'cause we were keeping him anyway :p
Several days later L was showing off his new cat, and the boy down the street said, "That's my cat!" L went to give him back, and the boy's mom told us how he had escaped and told us to keep him. "He's obviously happier with you," She said. Thus we got a puffy scruffy kitty cat, and the dogs got a cat-free house back.
Since he was used to being outdoors, we let him travel about at night, until he came home with a hole in his head. Some little bastard had shot him with a bb gun. It went right through his temple into his ear canal. I was mad enought to spit nails. What kind of person shoots a cat? What kind of person lets their kid grow up thinking it's ok to shoot people's pets? (yeah, and what kind of idiot lets their pet out to be shot?...this kind, apparently)
We took Kitty to the vet and got antibiotics for him. The hole healed up, and even grew fur again. We neutered him to curb his need to wander, and he became a total indoor cat. He learned some of our language. Food? meant if you want something to eat go sit by your bowl. Treats? meant if you want cat treats, perk up, meow and stare at my hand. He would come when you called. He would find you if he thought you were lost. He would hop up and butt heads with you to say "hi". He was smart and funny and snuggly. He never bit or clawed. When we moved to our new home, he lost all the fur around his butt and tail. He would look great walking toward you, then he'd walk away and there's this denuded backside staring you in the face. It never failed to make me laugh.

Yellow Kitty came into our lives on a sunny July morning. He left us on the same day we took Baghdad. That Wednesday morning, after taking L to school, I opened a can of wet cat food to feed Kitty, and he wouldn't eat it. He looked at it for a while, then walked away from the dish. I gave the food to Loki, instead. Loki really enjoyed it! I went looking for Kitty to take him for his last dose of sub-q's and kidney test, and I couldn't find him. I called and called and he didn't even give a "here I am" meow. I finally found him wadded up in a ball behind L's door, facing into the corner. I've seen this kind of behavior in cats before, and I knew what it meant. I called to reschedule his appt. for later in the day, so L could say goodbye to him after school.
Then I retrieved Kitty from behind the door. When I picked him up, he started making this awful "I'm in pain, you're hurting me" sound. I wrapped him in a towel, carried him into the living room and put him on my lap. He just laid there on me as I held his head and petted him. His fur was hot like he had been lying in the sun. He was still making "I hurt" noises, so I tapped into his energy and took the pain and fever away. When his body cooled down he slid off me and went back to behind the door.
I told L that this was Kitty's last day when I picked him up from school, and he cried some, then he visited with Kitty and cried some more, then like any normal 12 yr. old boy, he went outside to play for a while. When it came time for Hubby and I to leave, L asked me to tell Yellow Kitty that he would miss him. It was the last words we said to him.

When I was a kid, we had to put a pet down. We took the cat to the vet, said our good bye's and left him there. Not so this time. We didn't want him to die alone on a table, so we stayed with him through it.
The vet, who I highly recommend by the way, gave him a sedative shot in the butt, which seemed to hurt like hell. Kitty meowed and hissed and bit at my sleeve, then the sedative kicked in and he totally relaxed. He laid there with his eyes open, and we watched his pupils dilate and contract, dilate and contract. We joked that he was tripping, and we hoped it was a good one. We petted him the whole time the sedative was taking full affect. After a while, the vet returned and gave him a second shot. A few seconds passed by, and the vet said "Alright. He's gone. You can stay as long as you like." Hubby and I cried, stroked Kitty's body, cried some more, got ourselves under control, cried some more, etc. I did not feel Kitty go. I felt him still there not breathing, and then I spent some time crying and trying to breathe around the tight lump in the back of my throat, and when I looked again it was just a furry body. My eyes panned from Kitty to the wall, to my Hubby to the other wall, and I saw little twinkly gnat-snowflakes fluttering behind me and Hubby. In typical me-fashion, I thought, "Kitty hasn't been dead long enough to draw bugs, why are there gnats by Buck's head?" I looked all around watching the twinklies flutter between us and the wall, and said "Do YOU see the twinklies?" He said, in a kind of sad voice, "No, I don't see them." When the twinklies went away all at once, we left the body and paid our $55 bill and went home. On the way home, I suggested that perhaps what I saw was because I had rubbed my eyes before seeing the Kitty snowflakes. My wonderful husband said "I prefer to think it was Yellow Kitty." And he meant it!
I DID rub my eyes. Petting the cat and then wiping tears made my allergies flare up, and my eyes itched. So I put a kleenex to my eyes and rubbed a bit. I took the kleenex down, looked at it, looked at Kitty, looked at the wall, looked at Buck, THEN saw the sparkles along side of us, but not between us or overlaying Buck's face. I like to think it was Yellow Kitty too. I am honored that he chose to share his life with us. He was a fabulous cat.

This morning, as I was waiting for Yellow Kitty to get his second subcutaneous fluids injection, I saw a middle aged woman come out of the admissions door. She gave a "that's that" kind of sigh, and I glanced at her as she swung an empty cat carrier onto one of the chairs. It was like I suddenly had a camera in my head.
-click- she's crying
-click- cat carrier
-click- little pile of poo in the carrier, no cat
"I can't walk out of the vet with an empty cat carrier, maybe they admitted her, no, you know she's been put to sleep, I'll wrap Yellow Kitty in a towel not the carrier" flashes through my head, then -tak!- the carrier comes to rest on the chair, and I start to quietly cry. So I'm sniffing, and she's sniffing, and I won't look at her. And I think if she sees me, she'll think I'm crying over my cat. I was crying over my cat, but I thought I was crying over her grief, which I could feel. She was being "good" and "tough" and I was right there with her in that moment.
She paid her bill, and the girl behind the counter asked her if she wanted the ashes returned, and she said "no."
I looked at Kitty, and tried to think of where we would scatter his ashes, but I couldn't think of anywhere. I decided Leo would decide.

It's funny how grief takes you.

kitty's test numbers: one in the 90's that should have been 10 or so and his creatine (?) score was 7 when it should have been 1
There's this optomistic hope that the kidney flush will fix everything. I hope he got stressed, got dehydrated, couldn't get better because of the stress...
Oddly enough, Roomie had the same thing, Although she caught the Cruise Ship Virus, not Chronic Renal Failure.
It's the circle of life, people, and it moves us all toward an IV drip

Yellow Kitty is in kidney failure. It can come on very suddenly, which it did. It's most common in persians, and with Kitty's long hair, I'm sure he has a bit of persian blood in him. He only weighs 7 lbs now, which means he's lost 30 percent of his body weight. (sigh) He's being pretty lethargic, doesn't move around too much. He seems to be eating ok, and Hubby put his water cup on the floor so Kitty could drink out of it whenever he wants. Kitty has always liked drinking from that cup. He will follow it around waiting for an opportunity to stealthily sneak up and drink from it, then go skittering off into another room when he gets caught, tail in the air, fur puffed out everywhere. It's pretty damned comical!
We are going to take him to the vet every day for the next 3 days, and they're going to give him subcutaneous fluids to help flush his kidneys. After the 3 day treatment, we'll do another blood test and see if it helped. Then we'll discuss it with our son. Then we'll make a really hard decision. I wish it were more clear cut. An inoperable brain tumor = happy pouncing ground. Chronic Renal Failure = ?
He's meowing right now. I wish I knew his language. Does he hurt? Is he afraid? Blogging is not helping here.

Gods! The more I read about treatment for this, the more it breaks my heart. I've always been of the mindset "screw your own needs, think of your pet's needs" We could apparently go months poking a needle into our cat's back and giving him a camel hump of fluid. We could keep doing this, saving his kidneys, easing or relieving the pain of kidney failure until all those excess fluids accumulate around his heart or in his lungs and he dies that way.
There's a website where a cat lived FOUR YEARS after diagnosis. Her cat, Whiskers, was 17 years old when it was diagnosed.
We've only had Yellow Kitty for 9 years. Will I risk heart disease to keep him around another few years? Can I somehow justify killing him because it would be easier to move on than to care for him? Cats don't understand that tomorrow might be a good day. Cats live in the now. Does holding him down, poking him with a needle ever other day and confining his movements while the scruff of his neck fills with prescription water constitute torture? Or, since cats live in the now, will it become "now it's a bother" then "now there's a moth in the house" etc.?
I don't see which path I should take here. I hate it when I can't see a clear road.

Thanks for listening, whoever's out there reading this.

would you believe there's a website on feline health called
tumor tidbits? Kitty may have a central nervous system tumor or (more likely) kidney disease.

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity - Albert Einstein.

Worrying about WHAT'S right, is always more important that worrying about WHO'S right - unknown.

Women and cats will do as they please and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. Robert A. Heinlein

My cat is dying, my roomie can't hold down food, my friend is being stalked by her sperm donor and my tummy wiggles like a full motion water bed.

Here's what's really going on = A has been throwing up since last Monday, and her doctor just now got her a bed at Saint Anthony's Hospital So we can assume they're pumping her full of fluids and vitamins and such, and hopefully by now the lab tests are back with good news!
The sperm donor only came by once, so he's not really stalking.
The cat has had blood drawn and fluids replaced 'cause he's a tad dehydrated, and I'll know tomorrow what might be wrong with him.
AND my belly/waterbed is fun to play with.

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson... WooHoo! Look at that blubber fly!

I just bought the biggest mouse for Sinbad.
I would show a pic of the actual mouse, but it's being digested as I type.