Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

Cattitude took the cat in for her follow-up appointment, and the nurse said she's doing just fine, and cleared her to start eating crunchy things (which include her favorite cat treats). She hadn't been eating much in the previous few days, so they sent Cattitude home with two medications to improve her appetite. The cat has her appetite back, and headed right for the bowl of kibble, and ignored the bowl of wet food. She also informed us at dinner, when offered Greenies, that those were her proper treats, thank you very much. The other cat, Molly, is also pleased that we are once again giving them kibble and the familiar treats; there was no practical way to give Molly kibble and Kaja only wet food, so neither cat got anything crunchy for ten days.

We may be going to London last month, to sort through some of Mom's stuff, including papers and photos. (Mark needs to be there, and I want to, even though it will mean a lot of time masking, and probably a lot of takeout meals eaten in a hotel room. I emailed the cat sitter,

I checked this afternoon, and my inherited share of Mom's Vanguard account is in my account. Separately, there's a life insurance policy that seems to have asked for another form after my brother sent in what he thought was everything they wanted. In addition to the Vanguard account, there are some UK bank accounts, which Mark thinks will take several months to go through probate. All of this is a little weird, and I want my mother, not her life insurance.

Boston (along with much of the eastern United States and Canada) is in the middle of the sort of heat wave where they advise everyone to stay indoors if possible, not just people who are particularly sensitive to the heat. Both the NWS warning and the Boston heat emergency are only through this evening, but they're predicting that tomorrow will also be hotter than I find comfortable.

We have looked at last night's photos from both wildlife cameras.

Kaja is definitely in the basement, eating and drinking: she came out, used the food station, and went away again several times, for a total of about two dozen pictures.

The food we left outside was eaten by an opossum and some sparrows (not at the same time). Interestingly, when cattitude went through the photos by time, we saw that Kaja and the possum both came out for food at the same time, a little after midnight.

( A photo of Kaja, behind a cut because it's large )

I texted Natya, the woman who is lending us the cameras and humane traps, to tell her this. She warned us she's going to be out of town for a little while, so for now I think we'll just feed Kaja, and stop feeding the opossum before it learns that our yard is a good place to hang out.

I got a call this afternoon from someone who does animal rescue in Newton, offering to lend us cameras and a humane trap. We chatted some and she came over this evening, with one camera (and the promise of more when someone gets back from Nantucket), a Hav-a-heart trap, and some more advice, which included "expect this to take several days if not longer." We put food, water, and a piece of clothing that has some of cattitude's scent on it, hoping they will attract Kaja.

In the meantime, I am taking care of cattitude, and helping him take care of our other cat, Molly (they're a bonded pair, adopted together because the Humane Society didn't want to separate them).

Our cat Molly was pissing on the bed some weeks ago. We took advice cattitude found online, and put a shower curtain on the bed when we weren't in it.

That worked, for a few weeks (after a time or two of having to wash the shower curtain, which is easier than washing the sheets, and a lot cheaper than replacing pillows). Then she did it again (and I no longer have a feather pillow). A couple of days after that, ( possible TMI ) That got us to call the vet.

Last Thursday, we took Molly to the vet for an exam. They said it was probably either stress or a urinary tract infection, and we should get a urine sample. The sample showed blood in the urine, but no infection. The next step was an X-ray, yesterday.

The X-ray showed a bladder stone (which I gather is somewhat similar, chemically, to a kidney stone); the vet recommended surgery to remove it. That was this morning.

Molly is now home, without a "large, jagged" stone in her bladder. She is wearing one of those cones to stop her from licking the incision (which was closed with glue, so no sutures for her to pick out). We have just offered her water (now that it's long enough after surgery); the plan involves waiting a bit, then offering food, and once she has kept something down, an assortment of medications; some are liquid but the antibiotics are pills.

I really hope this doesn't mean I have to stay up late again to get the cat medicated before we sleep. (We stayed up a bit late last night, because the instructions included "no food after midnight" and we didn't want them hungry longer than necessary—especially Kaja, who isn't sick. And got up a little early, to have Molly at the vet at 7:30.)

If Molly hadn't been having surgery, this would have been a rest day. As is, I went to Boston to return an overdue library book and get stuff at the Copley farmers market; I may not leave the house tomorrow, which implies that I won't be going to the Davis Square or Arlington market tomorrow afternoon. I came home with three kinds of berries, plums, a cucumber, a yellow watermelon, and smoked salmon pate. Between the trips to the vet and to Copley, I probably walked too much, despite taking the bus for the parts of the vet trips when we weren't carrying the cat.

tl;dr: My cat had surgery this morning and is now recovering, and I hope all will be well.

ETA: We have gotten her to eat a bit of canned food, and then some turkey with pills wrapped in it. In a bit, the liquid medicine, and then I can go to bed. (er prescription for the antibiotic is 1.5 pills at a time. Fortunately, I already own a pill cutter (the vet tech didn't ask), but the pills aren't designed for splitting, and she actually got more like 1.8 pills as her first dose.

The annoyance is for reasons not directly medical: at yesterday's follow-up they did bloodwork, as well as giving him his fluids and all the pills we hadn't managed to get into him in the previous couple of days, since he has gone from "oh, a treat" to "I'm not going near that, it has medicine in it"). He perked right up after getting his appetite stimulant; not being willing to swallow that one leads to an unfortunate feedback loop. Based on the bloodwork, the vet recommended adding another medication, warning up both that it was expensive and that most pharmacies don't carry it.

( cut for length and lack of excitement )

The vet's office told me yesterday afternoon that I'd call it in, and that I should expect to hear from the pharmacy when it was ready. Not having heard anything by lunchtime today, I called the pharmacy. They'd never heard of Julian. So I called the vet's office. The receptionist asked me to hold on, and then told me that she just had talked to Dr. Todd, who was about to call it in, as soon as she "finished making a couple of notes on the prescription," and promised that she'd call me as soon as she'd done that. I emphasized the urgency of this even though Julian won't need the medication today: it would have been a lot easier for me to pick it up today than for one of us to do it tomorrow, or for cattitude to do it while I'm away.

I had hung up before I realized how implausible the explanation was—"a couple more notes" on a prescription that she wrote yesterday morning? Yes, the receptionist saved herself the risk of being yelled at for someone dropping the ball (and now I wonder whether it was her or the doctor), but at significant cost to her/the practice's credibility.

I got off the phone with the vet's office 40 minutes ago as I type. I am going to drink this tea and then call back to check. (My hunch is that a call now might mean medicine available this weekend; a call tomorrow probably means Monday the earliest.)

ETA: I have talked, in order, to Cattitude, who got a phone message from the vet's office, and then to a competent-seeming tech at the vet's, twice. It's not clear whether the original confusion was at the Costco pharmacy (which seems plausible, but the vet is obviously better off if I blame Costco rather than her staff), but it seems to have been sorted out. The medication has now been ordered, and is expected Monday afternoon; it has Cattitude's name on it rather than mine, since he's going to be picking it up while I'm away. The tech said that if Costco doesn't call him Monday afternoon, he should call them to check on whether the medicine has arrived.

julian_tiger is still at the vet's until at least tomorrow, getting IV fluids and such, but they are encouraging us to visit, have him sit on our laps, and so on. I asked if I could bring him some blueberries and the receptionist said she'd have to check. So I cut a few in half and put them in a ziploc bag, figuring that if he couldn't have them I'd eat them myself later.

When I got there, the receptionist said that yes, he could have blueberries, and sent me into a room to wait. A tech brought Julian in, snuggled against her chest. She said nice things about him: he seems to be charming the entire staff. I offered Julian half a berry, and he happily ate it. And another, at which point she said something like "he really does like them!"

After the tech left, I fed him the rest of the berries, and then we settled in for a long session of head rubbing, scritching, and lap-sitting. He would have stayed on my lap even longer, had I let him, but our visits are an interruption to the treatment, and I want to get him home again as soon as possible. The first time I tried to move him off my lap he had hooked his claws into my pants, so I gave him a few more minutes, because he so rarely argues when we tell him it's time to get down.

We have started julian_tiger on a pill that is supposed to be an appetite stimulant in cats: 1/4 tablet every three days. Now, Julian is a fairly smart cat, and apparently has learned to recognize the sounds and/or motions of me opening a pill bottle and breaking a tablet in half on the kitchen counter.

His response to noticing this was to walk over and wait next to me. So I said "that's right, you're going to get a treat," used the pill cutter to slice a half-tablet in half again, wrapped it in the pill pocket stuff he likes, and fed it to him. Now, if only he could learn to like the subcutaneous fluids (which the vet recommends at least every other day).

Addendum: After three or four tries, we got Julian wrapped in a towel and holding still long enough to get at least some fluids into him. I think he got 75 cc today; the goal is 100-150, probably 150/dose if we're only doing every other day.

Also, I cut up some blueberries* as a possible treat/distraction, based partly on what anne had said about getting fluids into her cat. It wasn't practical to give them to Julian before or while we were giving him the fluids, but he happily ate every bit of them afterwards. And then stalked off to his food bowl for some kibble, which is also good: maybe he's just feeling better, or maybe the appetite stimulant is already starting to work.

*despite the instructions for the Ideologically Labile Fruit Crisp, I don't think I need to consult a therapist.

I have just bought a King County pet license for julian_tiger, after poking around the city of Bellevue website and finding "pet licenses" under "how do I--apply" (non-alphabetically between "development services (permits)" and "neighborhood improvements"). I am now wondering what if any other non-obvious things they expect me to do or apply for. Non-obvious in the sense that I didn't have to license Julian in New York (I did have to get him a rabies shot, which is optional in Washington) and that I could easily have missed this even if I had looked at the city webpage.

The cat is basically fine.

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