GetSheila

TIGER NOT DYING! OWNER DRUNK WITH JOY.

 

I took Tiger-boo in for a second opinion from a new vet and – SURPRISE! – he does not have cancer after all. At least, there is no indication of cancer at this time. His blood and urine show no anomalies, which they would if he had cancer because it apparently affects all sort of other things, like kidney and liver function. All of the tests came back perfectly normal and healthy and, dear god, they tested for everything. I have the vet bill to prove it.

The new vet could not feel the mass and does not think the funny looking area on the x-ray indicates cancer. It could just be a cross-section of poop in the bowel. He showed me some other areas on the x-ray that are, in fact, poop in the bowel and – hey! – they look suspiciously like the “cancer” area. Add the prior vet’s notes describing the alleged mass in one part of Tiger’s kitty abdomen a month ago and a completely different part a week ago and, well, I am still trying to wrap my mind around his bee-line to a 30-day mortality diagnosis.

I still have no explanation for Tiger’s rapid weight loss but it turns out he is not, in fact, underweight. He just looks super skinny to me because he was so fat before.

Now, could he still be sick and we just cannot see it? Yes, it is possible. He has been on prednisone for a week, which increases appetite and could have shrunk the mass, if there was one to begin with. The next step is to have new x-rays, though if the prednisone shrunk a tumor I am not sure what the x-rays can tell us at this point. I can have them taken before my vacation or, since the last ones were just a week ago, wait until I come back, which will put them at one month out from the last set of x-rays. Meanwhile, he stays on prednisone for 30 days, provided my house-sitter and kitty caretaker can get close enough to him to shove the pill down his throat once a day.

So, increase my comfort level by an immeasurable amount and my vet bill by another $220 before I leave for vacation or wait until I get back?

To make him docile while they drew blood and urine samples, the vet gave Tiger happy gas which had not completely worn off by the time we got home. He careened around like a drunken sailor before curling up in a corner to sleep it off. I expect he did not like the feeling much but it was funny as hell to watch.

I informed Tiger he has to live at least 450 more days to repay his $450-to-date vet bills with uninhibited kitty loving valued at $1 per day.

What? There are no kitty unions. It is a totally fair repayment schedule.

 

Technorati Tags: tiger,cats,euthanasia

Kitties: they don’t make ‘em like they used to

Meet Tiger. He is rambunctious. He is also dying, apparently.

I took him to the vet about a month ago because he was getting skinny for no apparent reason. The vet said he was not underweight and, even though he had lost an entire pound since his visit in the fall, I should just keep an eye on him and bring him back if he continues to lose weight.

I took him back today and he had lost another whole pound, which is a lot for a kitty. Factor in that it happened in a mere month and it is very bad indeed. Last visit, the vet felt a hard mass in his abdomen but said it could be poop in his intestines. He did not say he wanted to x-ray it and expressed no concern whatsoever.

This visit, he took x-rays and it is definitely a mass somewhere outside his intestines. So not poop. I could have them do exploratory surgery but the vet gave me virtually no hope. He said he has seen this many times in his twenty five years of experience and the mass, always cancer, has usually branched tentacles into various organs and is essentially inoperable. It would also be very expensive and, were it successful, would only extend Tiger’s life for a few months. But, again, he did not give me much hope that it would be successful. If he had, I would so do it. But he did not.

The vet gave Tiger about thirty days to live, shot him full of prednisone, and sent him home.

My two prior kitties lived to the ripe old ages of fifteen and eighteen. Tiger is six.

Adding to the awfulness is that I leave in two weeks to travel very far away for another two weeks, which rather uses up Tiger’s thirty day life expectancy.

So let’s see, spend bittersweet quality time with Tiger for the next week or so, have him put to sleep, then tra-la-la go and try to enjoy my vacation as I grieve for him? Or leave him in the care of my house sitter (who BTW did not sign up for kitty hospice duty,) hope he lives until I return, and worry about him the entire trip with the added bonus of looking forward to putting him to sleep when I get back?

Bah.

Technorati Tags: tiger,cats,grief,pet sickness,euthanasia

Death to All Flying, Stinging Things

I murdered some wasps this weekend. I tried to embed a Flickr slideshow for you but it did not order them correctly so please click over to the slideshow on Flickr. Click on “Show Info” at the top right of the screen over there if you do not see my comments for each photo.

Meanwhile, here they are pre-extermination: Dead Wasps Walking.

Now that I have finally done it once, I will not work myself into such a panic the next time. It was pretty gosh darn easy. It was a rather small nest, though. If I come across a larger one, I reserve the right to be scared like my nephew Daniel like a little girl all over again.

While I was pretending not to panic, I practiced my favorite method of procrastination and spent Saturday afternoon cleaning and organizing. Behold the freshly hosed down patio with the indoor/outdoor carpets brought out of winter storage to protect the delicate foot pad from the harsh concrete.

Just in time for friends to come over for some hot tubbing and later yell encouragement at me from the safety of the screened in patio while I sprayed death at the wasps.

Good times.

Technorati Tags: wasp extermination,fun with poison,backyard follies

Fast Fit Patio Pet Doors are Crap

I bought a pet door for my sliding glass door so the cats can go outside whenever they feel like it. Here is what it looks like leaning up against my family room wall:

It will be staying up against my family room wall until I figure out what to do with it, which does not involve actually installing it in my patio door. Hint #1 as to why:

Yes, the sliding door is fully open and that is all the room that is left after installing the pet door. They did some crazy shit in the 1970’s, those home builders. Who makes sliding doors this narrow? Even my mom’s house, which was built in the 50’s, has wider sliding glass doors.

But that is where the problem with my house ends and the problems with the Fast Fit Patio Pet Door begin.

See that white rectangular thing attached to the pet door near my right hand. That is half of a mechanism I had to attach so the sliding door had something to latch onto. The other half attaches to the sliding door and hooks into it.

But it did not come with the $120 Fast Fit Patio Pet Door, that lock. No, I got it from the old patio pet door the former owners left me that I removed when I bought the place because it was way too big (they had a giant dog.)

How is a new owner of the Fast Fit Patio Pet Door to lock their sliding door once they have installed the thing? Why with this, of course:

You are supposed to attached it to the tippy top or very bottom of the other door, or the track frame if that won’t work, and drill a hole in the sliding door frame for the bolt to slide through. See this site for a photo. Too bad my door has bolts that stick out at the tippy top and very bottom of the stationary door and the frame is neither large enough nor flat so this “lock” is useless to me.

They did provide some handy “draft stopper” rubber stuff to attach to the rear of the sliding door so it just touches the glass of the inner door and prevents drafts from getting in through the gap. Here is what mine looked like the next morning after it peeled itself off the door during the night and got half way across the patio before I caught up with it the next morning.

The top of the pet door insert is spring-loaded for a “fast fit” with turny-knobs to tighten it up, but it is impossible to get stable. The instructions conveniently mention you may want to attach the Fast Fit Patio Pet Door to your sliding glass door frame to secure it but do not provide actual instruction for doing so nor do they provide any hardware for the job.

As I am a girl with power tools and I don’t need no stinkin’ instructions, I screwed the pet door into the sliding door frame at the top but found now way to attach it at the bottom. Without doing so, the thing wobbles and might as well be called Come Rob Me Patio Pet Door.

I am so pissed because now that I have drilled holes the damn thing I cannot return it. I am out $120 for a freaking pet door that I cannot use.

My sister had a lovely patio pet door that the sliding door locked directly into with no attachments necessary, so I know they are out there. Stupid me bought the only model available at Lowes, thinking all patio pet door inserts are the same. Learn from my mistake: if you want a patio pet door that locks and is an actual deterrent to thieves, do not buy Fast Fit Patio Pet Doors.

(Oh, and this is Day 067 of my 365 Day Photo Project.)

Technorati Tags: "fast fit patio pet door" "product review" "pet door" 365days

No I am not dead, thanks for asking

I'm baaaaaaack. Well, sort of. I shall begin posting regularly again soon. Just how regularly, I have not yet decided. Any preference?

In the meantime, please go watch this video:An Engineer's Guide to Kittehs. It is approximately six and a half minutes long and entirely worth it if you are a cat person. Or perhaps if you just like engineers. Or both.

Some snips to pique your interest:

1. A rigorous lounge training schedule;
2. The Corporal Cuddling Method;
3. And my personal favorite: Cat yodeling.

I would write more but there is a bag of chocolate chips on my kitchen counter calling my name. Maybe I will actually bake them this time. Then again, is there anything more yummy than raw chocolate chip cookie dough? No, no there is not.

Tags: cat video

Feed Me

I found this on CuteOverload today. Clearly someone has a spy camera in my bedroom. (Video embedded below.)

 I especially like the "reach out and touch you" part. Other cats do that? I thought mine were just weird.

Edit: I could not figure out who created this video but Laughing Squid has the goods. (via Blogoholics)

Itty Bitty Kitty Committee

Did I mention I discovered the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee via CuteOverload?

It is a blog by someone in the Seattle/Tacoma area who fosters kitties before they are adopted. Every day they post new pictures of itty bitty kitties. Tiny faces. Teensy paws. Big eyes. Adorable!

Just a tip for those days when you find your Cuteness Quotient a bit lacking.

You're welcome.

Tags: itty bitty kitty committee, kittens

I have created a monster

Thy name is The Morning Monster.

I have a huge screened in patio. In the evening when I get home from work, I open the sliding glass doors - two sets: one in the family room and one in the dining room - and let the cats roam around out there. I open both sets of doors 1) to air out the house, and 2) so the cats can complete the circuit on their circular "I'm inside! No, I'm outside!" racetrack. On the weekends, I usually have the doors open all day, weather permitting.

Which brings me to The Morning Monster. The cats have become accustomed to going out into the patio when I am in any position other than lying prone in bed. Six AM is apparently the cutoff for allowable proneness. At six-oh-one, the meowing begins. It does not stop until I leave for work. I am sure it would stop if only I would give in to their demands and open a door to the patio but I refuse to be trained in such manner. I AM THE TRAINER, NOT THE TRAINEE.

Dammit.

There is usually a lull while they gather their strength for a renewed onslaught. This morning, the lull lasted long enough for one of the cats to hear bumps and scrambling noises on the roof. I heard it too and went out to investigate, thinking I had left the garbage can too close to the house and one of the neighborhood kitties had used it as a springboard to jump up onto the roof. But I saw nothing, Meanwhile, Tiger continues to sit at the top of the kitty condo, with his back to the room, staring into the corner with ears in alert mode.

So I am guessing I have mice or something equally creepy living in my walls.

Oh joy.

Tags: cats, incessant meowing, critters in the walls

I Like To Sing-A

Okay, I know you have probably seen this on CuteOverload or received it via email, but my friend Natalie sent this to me - along with several additional hilarious kitty hijinks images - and I laughed out loud, stopping only to prevent an inadvertent escape of pee.

Clearly I watched too many vintage cartoons in my youth.

Tags: cats, i like to sing-a

Teh Cuteness

The secret to the goodness that is CuteOverload is to read the title first, THEN look at the picture.

Case in point: Walter, I think you got a, er, growth there.

Go check it out. I'll wait.

*     *     *

You laughed out loud, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?

Don't make me remind you about CuteOverload again, people. Surrender yourself to Teh Cuteness!

Tags: cuteoverload, kitties