This inspires confidence:
New coffee machine in the office... along with its user manual, the manufacturer has also thoughtfully provided us with its very own Sorry! Out of order. sign.
If only it had been badly translated into english on top it all ~ I would have proudly affixed it to the coffeemaker permanently... well, either that or the First Aid kit.
Good news on The Old Man: the test results say the thyroid is way down, which means {1} it's under control, and {2} we were right to halve the dosage.*
Since His Manliness is still vomiting from time to time, the vet suggested a two~day respite from the pills; so now I feel vindicated for having skipped Monday night's dose.
Was out of the diet food this morning, so all the kitties got the Mature formula. Later this morning His Old Manliness vomited his breakfast; our grey kitten {aka Our Idiot Son} also vomited, though our other kitty {aka Little Miss Lippy Headbutt} is fine...
It raises the question of whether the freebie Mature food has had something to do with the vomiting ~ even though The Old Man had been two weeks on the Mature formula before the heavy vomiting started... Must check to see if it has a best~before date. At any rate, we will switch them all back to the diet food for now and see what happens.
Poor dear Old Man... I hope they still give out Xma$ bonuses at work this year; if they do, I will start up a Save Mr. Clicky! fund, and put it towards his radiotherapy.
Cats are mysterious thangs, and I've heard that ill cats can sometimes go into spontaneous remission for no discernable reason.** I don't recall offhand any stories about that with respect to hyperthyroid in particular; but the fact that The Old Man's thyroid readings are now so low gives me a wee speck of irrational hope. I'd love to think that this could be just a blip on the screen...
~ ~ ~
* The only difficulty with a quarter~pill dosage is that it's almost too tiny to handle ~ the last time he spat it out I nearly overlooked it, and it's not the kind of thing you want lying around for the other cats to find; on the other hand, it's so dissolvable that if I can keep it in his mouth for long enough, there's really nothing solid enough to spit out.
** Well, okay, there's always the possibility that such cases were misdiagnosed in the first place ~ cats are hard to suss out, after all.
Went out to see Love Actually last night with friends; a lovely little movie, every bit as saccharine as they say. Delightfully so, goddammit.
But there was one small teeny tiny thing I regret...
Somehow, in my infinite wisdom, I insisted to my friends that the actor playing Colin Frissell (Kris Marshall) could be found in a BritCom called 2 point 4 children.
I don't know how I managed to do that. I wasn't drunk, I wasn't tired, I wasn't hypoglycemic... I can only imagine that I must have somehow been distracted by the ever~charming Alan Rickman.
Mr. Marshall is actually to be found in a BritCom called My Family, which also boasts Zoe Wanamaker {aka Madam Hooch} amongst its cast.
So. There we are then.
Do~si~do, Do~si~don't?
Got a bit of a scare last night. Boyfriend reported copious kitty vomiting, & was unsure as to whether the dark matter in the vomit was digested food or blood; we hightailed it over to the vet's.
Fortunately, the vet found nothing; and so she took the blood sample needed for this week's thyroid testing. We agreed the best thing for now is to halve the dosage of medication until we get the blood test results back {which should be some time later today}.
I didn't pill the The Old Man last night; that was a judgement call on my part. The vet was very clear about not wanting to stop the medication completely, and she said it would be okay to give him a half of his usual half~pill that evening. And I agree with not stopping; but if we're halving the dosage because it might be too high, then it stands to reason that he should be allowed a brief reprieve in order to recouperate.
Various informative sites have differing biases re: missing a dose. Sites promoting radiotherapy claim that missing even one dose is asking for trouble, whereas the sites that discuss management vs. cure* say a missed dose is not the end of the world; I'll side with the latter in this one instance.
Heaven forfend it's not the dosage but a sensitivity to the medication itself... I am trusting that the vet will know the difference. Hopefully the test results today will give us a clue.
He was behaving as if he wanted breakfast this morning; I was awoken at 6AM by his sitting on my chest {the Gargoyle Stare routine} which he doesn't do if he's not hungry. And he did eat most of the food in his dish. I'd like to think it was because he was feeling better, but more likely it was due to the reincrease of thyroid.
I was of two minds whether to quarter~pill him this morning; he had vomited on an empty stomach, and he was still averse to the kitty treats, so he's evidently not feeling better yet... but I didn't want to completely contravene the vet's instructions, so, quarter~pill him I did.
Hope he's able to keep his breakfast down...
~ ~ ~
* According to some sources, a cat with renal problems actually benefits from being mildly hyperthyroid ~ look here, near the bottom of the page, for an explanation of how that works.
Note to self: When they contact me to inform me of the test results, I must remember to ask them if they've checked up on his kidney function...
We've hit a snag.
The Old Man wants nothing to do with his kitty treats.
It was literally night and day, in a manner of speaking: Saturday night he was on his hind legs, stretching a paw out for the treats in my hand; Sunday morning he sniffed at them apathetically, half~heartedly chewed on one & then spat it out whole.
I had to pill him the "normal" way, and found out that the pill disintegrates quite promtly when wetted by kitty saliva ~ there was more pill on my hands than down his gullet.
Sunday night he was still indifferent, so I tried to bribe him to take the pill in catnip. Normally he is wild for the stuff; but instead he was listless, partaking of it only when it was placed right under his nose. He had already spat the pill out once, so I was able to squish the dampened pill into the nip.
This morning he didn't even want the nip: I'm almost tempted to say he took what little he did eat out of politeness. I had to pill the poor dear again; fortunately for sake of us both, my cat~pilling chops have started to come back. I was once actually quite proficient at pilling cats. Haven't needed that skill in a while...
He had been slightly off his feed over the weekend; this morning he wouldn't eat his mature~formula food at all, though he did eventually eat some of the diet food which the other cats had left behind {apparently they're off their feed as well; I suspect in their case it might be due to the new litter, which falls criminally short of its advertised claims in the odour~control department}. So I can't even crush the pill up into his food...
To top it all off, someone has been vomiting around the apartment; and I don't think it's one of the humans... We'd hoped it might be one of the other cats, but this morning I found cat vomit with undigested catnip in it ~ which leaves only one culprit... {cue forboding music: Danh. Danh. Dannnnh!}
They say that, if the side effects of the methimazole are to show up at all, they will show up within the first three weeks of commencement; and here we are. Vomiting, anorexia, lethargy... he's even scratching at his face...
Am supposed to make an app't with the vet for the end of this week, so he can monitor The Old Man's progress; wonder if I can get one earlier...
Why ME? Why "Edgar Mousehat"?
Alright, I'll tell you; but just because you asked.
~ ~ ~
Once upon a time, a long time ago...
Software was being installed on my computer, and the registration information boxes had to be filled out. My friend said, we need a name. Give me a name.
Now, this is not an easy question for me at all ~ inventing an alias is not something I would choose to do on the spot. My mind flew immediately to all my dictionaries & thesauri & reference books, and I thought of all the research I would normally do before I dared anoint something with a name, and I was overwhelmed. I said, uh...
Exasperated, my friend said, any name. Any name will do.
And my first thought was of a dear old chum, a former schoolmate who had recently come back into town: Edgar.
My friend types in "Edgar" and says, last name?
I say, oh... erm... uh...
And, plucking the word out of the air like a musician might pluck an invisible string, my friends says: Mousehat. And thus Edgar Mousehat was born.
I was {and still am} impressed at my friend's ability to pluck names out of the air without agonizing over their deeper poetic significance. If I must name something, then I pore over reference books, anxious as a new parent, afraid that the wrong choice will curse my misnomered brainchild until the none~too~soon end of its sickly days.
Unfortunately, for all my trouble, names derived via this overthought process all feel/sound really pretentious. So, when asked for a name to blog by, I defaulted to one I already had. And I've grown to like the name "Edgar Mousehat" because I came by it honestly.
I've been thinking about my process of naming, because now there is talk of a domain of one's own; and I'm thoroughly excited, and a wee bit apprehensive, about naming it.
Maybe I'll invent a new alias; maybe it's time for "Ed" to go sleepybyes for a while...
~ ~ ~
The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the same as that between lightning and the lightning bug. -- Mark Twain {Quote thanks to the wonderful Word-Detective.}
Yesterday, I stroked The Old Man's back and realized that ~ for the first time in a long time ~ I was not able to feel all the ridges of his spine...
It's remarkable. Only a week & a half ago {when we started the hyperthyroid medication} he was quite bony; now his face looks round & full, like a Campbell's Soup Kid. His fur feels more soft & plush. Maybe it's my imagination, but even his purrs seem throatier & more content.
I know this sounds really silly; but it used to be that when I laid hands on him, the energy in his body felt... hm... it's difficult to describe such an enigmatic thing... deadened? Hollow? Stagnant? At a low ebb? Where the other cats felt like running water, he felt inert; yet at the same time he was restless, in constant need of playtime interaction... writing cheques his body couldn't cash, as they say.
And now it seems his body is thrumming, almost crackling with renewed life energy ~ it's like putting my hands on a tiny feline Van de Graaff generator, makes me all goosepimply.
The medication hasn't turned him into a Stepford Pussycat or anything like that; he still gets grumpy with the other cats, and he still wrawls in the bathroom. But it has mellowed him. Whether that's due to him feeling better or more lethargic, can't say for sure...
Who knows? Maybe in his own mind he thinks he's finally getting the extra~special attention he deserves: kitty treats twice a day, just for him & only him; and his very own food at mealtimes, no sharing with the other cats.
And maybe we'll get another decade & a half out of him.
Isn't it odd, the flotsam & jetson of the unconscious...
...right now I've "{Keep Away From} Runaround Sue" in my head. And I have no idea why. I don't even know all the lyrics, just a fraction of the refrain.
The other day, the word "Blodeuwedd" popped into my head; I had no idea what the word meant {turns out it's a beer}.
I think my Muse is broken. I ought to be getting plots & storylines, not just these dribs & drabs of words & song fragments from the sediment of my memory...
Dagnabit... where'd I leave that warranty?
Have decided to become a full~fledged mad cat lady this year; will officially declare myself a mommy to my cats as soon as time and weather permits.
Am to be found hanging stockings for them this Xmas. Went shopping for cat toys; found most of them to be ridiculously expensive and uninspired.
Considered buying a bunch of teeny~tiny baby socks & mittens, & a big bag of cotton balls at the dollar store... y'stuff the the sockies & the mitties with the cotton, y'see, y'throw in a little catnip, y'sew 'em up & les voila! instant cat toys!
Did not buy them, however, suspecting that it might give houseguests the impression that my cats had done something untoward with local infants.
Bought soft & fluffy square padded potholders instead, which I intend for use as pillows in the cat beds; the kitties intend to ignore them.
Y'know, I bet if I had bought the mitties & sockies instead, they'd be happy enough to sit in the front window all day, playing with a small hand or foot, scaring the neighbors...
Went by the vet's to pick up more cat food; and since The Old Man is now officially over the hill, I thought I'd start him on the "mature" stuff. And I ran into a freebie; apparently this is Geriatric month, and the vet gave me a 24~tin case of the "mature" cat food for free. Woohoo!
{Turns out it quite tickles The Old Man's fancy, too.}
The vet asked after The Old Man {improving, knock wood} and he also apologised for not getting back to me yet with more information about the feline radiology. We got to talking, and he mentioned that in addition to the clinic in Ottawa/Kanata, there are also some feline radiology clinics just over the border in the states.
~ ~ ~
Now I had been aware of that, and I had thought about it... But given the current political climate... well, frankly, I just didn't fancy the idea of trying to cross the border with a radioactive cat...
Border Guard: "Anything to declare?"
Me, holding up cat: "Only Mr. Clicky!!!"
Geiger Counter: "click, click, click, clickclickclick, clicketycklicketyclickety..."
I'd be treated with some suspicion, I'm sure... and I know I'd just compound it by being sarcastic...
"Alright, fine, I'm smuggling minute traces of radioactive isotopes in my cat. {pause} Bwa~ha~ha. I've got a cat without a thyroid gland and I'm not afraid to use it. Now back off, or I'll expose you to enough rads to X~ray your luggage."
Mind you, this would be on the return trip; so in reality I'd probably get a guard who'd say, "So, hey, try not to make any bombs outta that cat, eh?" And I'd get to say, "Actually, for that I'd need two cats; and even then, I'd have to ram them into each other and hope they were the right mass."
~ ~ ~
Before I left the vet's, I picked up the DMV's brand new pamphlet. There was moment of hope when I read that they *do* provide the iodine 131 treatment; but when I called, they told me the same thing my vet had said: they have the equipment, but they are still training someone to use it. They told me to call back in February, because right now they can't even tell me how much they might charge.
So yes, The Old Man seems to be improving; and no clear sign yet of any nasty side effects from the methimazole. Now, vomiting is one possible side effect; and in cases where that happens, the medication is stopped, resumed at a lower dosage and then gradually increased again, but at a slower rate. I did see at one point last night that he was repeatedly swallowing for about half a minute, and I'm wondering if that was him swallowing the desire to vomit... but it has only happened once, and he didn't seem too pertubed by it. So...
So... so far... so good...
In lieu of any actual physical birthday prezzie, Boyfriend has given me a promise: he promises to build me a cat tree.
I kind of feel like that's my fault, in a way. I had kinda been begging him to give me his permission {as co-occupier of our domestic sphere} for me to build a humongous cat tree in our living room...
Now, it's not that I wouldn't be thrilled to get a cat tree gratis... and I'm sure he'd do a really great job, and surely better than I could have done alone... but... but...
We've got so many other things we're supposed to do already, and they're slow in getting done...
And he's got a brilliantly clever idea for the format of it {a spiral staircase/helix thingy} because he IS a very clever guy, but... it's so complex... the fact is, it'll take forever to do... if we ever get around to it...
So I'm just afraid that this cat tree will never happen. And it's really important to me that it happens.
I was just waiting on his agreement; but now, instead of feeling like I've been given something, I feel like I just had it taken away from me.
Because now I'm not supposed to do it myself. Because now it's a present.
And if I say, look, I can't wait for when you're ready to do it your way, I want to do this my way now, then he'll be insulted & angry & miffed & huffy. Because I'm being ungrateful.
*sigh*
...I ask ye, O ye tiny birthday gods: is it fair to give permission for a project, and then take over the project, thus delaying it indefinitely, as a birthday present?
I know I ought to feel grateful, and I really am trying to see things his way; and it's only a birthday present, which doesn't really count for much a the larger scheme of things, and so it really shouldn't matter; but...
... but honestly, I feel quite miserable about it. I feel like I've just been stiffed. And twice at once, at that ~ no prezzie, but more importantly, now no cat tree.
Maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully I'm wrong. Maybe it will get built sooner rather than later... but that remains to be seen.
...'til then,
Conflicted,
Edgar
The Old Man is finishing off the course of antibiotics from the teeth~cleaning and has started on the Methimazole for his thyroid; and so far, the tactic of combining the pills with the treats is going very well... almost too well...
So as not to have the other cats underfoot while I'm trying to medicate The Old Man, I sequester us both the bathroom; and then I put a towel on the floor as a sort of a cue to say, hey, it's that time again...
Quite understandably, he's now become most reluctant to leave the towel.
I'll shoo him off, fold up the towel and put it on the shelf ~ and then he'll jump on the shelf, park himself on the towel, and fix me with a significant stare.
Ah, well; at least the treats are healthy.
When I went to the vet, I was told that the doctor wanted to speak with me before I took my cat home.
So the veterinary technician escorted me the the examination room where I was to wait; and then she stepped out, telling me she would be right back with my cat. A moment later I heard a low but piercing hissy sound that abruptly rose to roiling screams ~ a sound normally emitted from a coffeemaker steamer attachment while it is frothing milk.
And I was actually thinking, oh, how nice, they must have a cappuchino machine in the back, when the technician opened the door a crack, poked her head in to say, don't worry ~ that wasn't him, and slipped out again, to the sound of staff soothing a scowling kitty...
OR... then again... there's also the possibility that they left a message at my home number, instead of calling me at work... which... is, in fact, what they had done.
Sometimes the most obvious answer escapes you. Or, at least, they tend to escape me... slippery little things, shooting like greased pigs through my grasping brain, those obvious answers.
So. Now, the good news is: the Old Man, aka His Old Manliness, aka Farticus, aka WhoDaPoopyhead?, is not dead. And his teeth are clean.
The bad news is, Grandma's on the roof...
I'm actually happy that it's been diagnosed; heretofore, His Old Manliness has been an unhappy cat, and this diagnosis means that there are things we can do to make his life much more pleasant...
The three little options are: {1} medication for the rest of his life, {2} surgery, and {3} radiotherapy.
Surgery is too cold... even my vet recommends against surgery {he admits quite frankly that the few times he's done it, the results have not been good}.
Radiotherapy is too hot... my vet says it's the best {if rather expensive} option; however, there's nobody in the entire province of Quebec who is qualified to do it, so His Old Manliness would have to endure a two~&~a~half hour trip to Ottawa... which we may yet do. But, says the vet, the DMV around the corner has all the equipment ready to go, and if we can just hold out until they get somebody trained, maybe in a year or so, then The Old Man will only have to go a hop, skip & a jump down the road. Therefore, for now:
Medication is just right.... or, rather, it will be... after we spend a few months tweaking the dosage... *sigh* poor dear poopyhead...
Since the medication can be a lifelong prospect, the manfucturers make it in many different flavours & forms ~ besides the usual pill, it comes as a liquid, or as a soft treat, or even as a gel that is rubbed on the ears. And The Old Man is mad for the Medi-Cal treats -- I just have to put a pill next to a treat in my palm, and he'll wolf 'em both. So at least the medication ritual won't be a horrid daily experience.
And hopefully, the "increased irritability" mentioned by the FAB information sheet is indeed a symptom of hyperthyroidism, and will be ameliorated by the medication... he is so tetchy with the other cats right now...
I have to let a few days pass, to let him recover from the anesthesia; and then he starts on this course of pills; and then in three weeks we have an appointment with the vet and we see how he is progressing.
Well.
He can't stay with us forever, and the best we can do is to ensure that the time he spends with us is happy, and that his passing on is dignified; but if we do this right, then he'll be happy with us for quite a few years yet. Bast willing...
The Old Man, my eldest cat, was dropped off at the vet's this morning for his annual teeth~cleaning.
They said they'd call when they were done.
They haven't called...
Cats have to be lightly anesthetized for this procedure; and the older a cat gets, the more likely it is that there might be dire complications with the anethesia.
The Old Man is getting on, almost 14 years or so now, and so I'm a bit worried...
That's the darker side of the worst case scenario. On the lesser end of "what's the worst that can happen?" is the possibility that they didn't do the procedure because they found something in the blood test which merits a delay.
And then there's the possibility that they have to keep him for another day because he hadn't been fasted for long enough. That's what happened last year... ooo, and they looked at me like I was a bad cat mommy... but I followed their instructions, I did, I really did... so this year I fed him his last {! ~ whimper} meal earlier, and tried to exercise him a bit...
{The poor dear... to go on an empty stomach... even the mafia will wait until you're eating...}
But you see, last year, when they had to delay it a day, they called to let me know...
Maybe they just forgot. They probably forgot.
We'll be going by the vet tonight to pick him up.
Boy... will he be happy to see us...
Had a dream last night that I had to fill out a government form:
The Ministry of Employment, together with StatsCan, was gathering information on workers & workplaces across Canada; so I had to fill in this form with my vital statistics, as it were...
...you see, there was this one page where I was asked to tick a box to indicate my bra cup size. It was explained on the form that the Gov't was going to correlate hiring/firing data with bra sizes to determine whether smaller~breasted women were indeed at a disadvantage in the job market.*
Now, the form had been asking some very personal questions up to this point, and I'd felt a bit sqeamish about the idea of the government knowing so much about me; and this question in particular gave me pause. It would be illegal for a prospective employer to ask me such things; is it okay for the Government to ask me this, even if it is supposedly for the better good?
Resigned, I picked up my stubby pencil to answer the question; and then realized that my cup size wasn't even an option. In true Gov't fashion {i.e., counter~intuitive}, the multiple choice answers were:
[A] D [B] C [C] B [D] Other (explain) _____________
~ ~ ~
* Cathy Jones, of This Hour fame, had a bit about this disadvantage in one of her gigs at the Just For Laughs festival; it went something to the effect of:
Apparently, breast implants are becoming more popular as a graduation gift for girls from their parents. And the parents are justifying it by saying, it's no different than a nose job; it's very competitive out in the job market these days, less attractive girls have a difficult time of it, so they need all the help they can get to gain the edge. Well... that's no justification, unless you're planning on your daughter being a live packing crate, or you want to get her a job preventing boats from hitting the pier...
