Sick cat week

[dianeduane]

(sigh) That graphic over there (which occurred to me very early this morning) is the only worthwhile thing I've gotten done today. Everything else has been about sick cats. If you're not a cat person, or feeling sympathetic, skip this blog entry....

Goodman -- the all-white cat and the middle-ranked of our three males -- found and ate something bad, early in the week, in his wanderings through the countryside. He came down with a terrible case of diarrhoea, went off his food, and initially stopped drinking as well: then the drinking picked up again, so we thought at first he was getting better.

But he wasn't. He got very dull and lethargic, and was completely disinterested in food -- so much so that when I offered him steak one night, he just stood there and stared at it.

When that happened, on Tuesday, I said to Peter, "He goes to the vet tomorrow." And that's what yesterday was about. Taxi rides, moaning unhappy cats, sitting around in waiting rooms full of greyhounds, waiting for blood work and other tests to get done, etc etc. Finally our vet told us that Goodman had enteritis -- no surprise there -- and he stuck him full of pain relievers, anti-diarrhoeics, and cortisone, and sent him home. "Bring him back tomorrow," our vet said.

So we got up early this morning and did that. Goodman was already significantly improved over his condition just twelve hours before, though the diarrhoea was still a little bit with him (and we've had to follow him around the house with paper towels mopping up the occasional leak). Today he had some more shots, and we were given some diet food for him, and we came home again and relaxed a little in hopes that things would get back to normal.

Until we saw that Mr. Squeak, the senior male, who's been working on extending his territory by the most straightforward method -- by beating up on the male cat who lives down the road about a quarter mile from here -- had started to limp. At first we thought it was a sprain. But a little while ago I got a whiff of him, realized that whatever else they may do, sprains don't smell, and took a few minutes to check out his side more carefully. Turns out he's got an infected bite or other wound buried under all that thick Norwegian-forest-cat fur, where he can't get at it to clean it, and it's paining him so much that it's hurting him to walk...and enough that he won't let us clip the fur to get at it and and clean it up. So now Squeak has to go to the vet first thing in the morning...get sedated, have the wound cleaned up, possibly stitched, get some antibiotics...

Ah well. In the good news department, for those of you who were asking, there are some more hardcovers of Wizards at War available in the bookstore. (There are some more advance readers' copies as well.)

Oh, and for those who were asking how I manage to follow baseball season in Europe? It's these guys -- NASN, the North American Sports Network. They have a pretty fair schedule once the season gets going. (wry look) I wish that was right about now...

Tags: cat, cats, sick cat, young wizards, youngwizards

Comments

[singer-mn-lead.livejournal.com]

(is crying) I know how you feel. i just told you i lost one of mine Tuesday.

[wyvernfriend.livejournal.com]

Your cats just seem determined to keep you in the vets, hope they get better soon.

[terredancer.livejournal.com]

I can relate to the sick cat issue, especially given how my one has been having trouble lately. *crosses fingers and hopes all sick/injured/etc cats get better soon*

On another note, I love that mug and will be getting it... as soon as possible. :)

[caitlin.livejournal.com]

*snicker* I was considering getting my friend a copy of WAW, and now I can. I get the one I just bought off ebay from your store, and my friend gets my 'old' copy (note: only read twice so far, and still looks new).

As for your feline family, here is hoping everything goes well.

And, yeah, I want the mug too! =D

C.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

I do hope the cats are better soon. (I have to be careful with the local Qatari feral cats, rabies is too endemic here.)

I already *knew I was getting t-shirts for my four year old daughter and her 16 year old half sister, I suspect their mother is getting a mug too. Though which one may be a problem, she's a coffee addict, but she's also British, and does love her tea as well.......

(chuckle)

[kellan_the_tabby]

I hope they all get better - I _so_ know what it's like having cat troubles...

[ateji.livejournal.com]

Thanks to your wonderfully hilarious graphic, my coworkers now think I have the "perfect evil laugh."

[dduane.livejournal.com]

:) Thanks. That was more or less what I did this morning when I thought of it... causing Peter to look at me and go "Huh?" (Which he does a lot.)

[terani.livejournal.com]

Ouchie.

Sick cats are sad. Bless my lucky stars and magic that my kitties remain healthy.

I dread trying to haul a combo of 40 lbs of cat (2 kitties) to a vet.

No fights for my babies tho. Indoor only. Chicago isn't a safe place for outdoor cats.

Oodles of copies of WaW at Barnes & Noble..... :) Tho I think I need a new copy of Deep Wizardry. It's the oldest one I have and has survived 4 moves and a trip across 1000 miles.

baseball

[mitchy.livejournal.com]

Commiserations on the sick kitties. Hope the furballs get well soon!

Regarding following baseball, may I recommend the deal offered by www.mlb.com? For a monthly or season long subscription of not very much at all, you get internet access to live feeds of every game, every day of the week, plus all the October games and the World Series. It's a great way of keeping up with teams, and it's how I cemented my own baseball enthusiasm. You need a reasonable connection, but I used to be able to watch a game without tooo much trouble on my old 56k modem. Broadband IS better though, obviously :)

Go Mutts! err Mets! :)

Re: baseball

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Ooh! Ooh! Thanks for that! That is (frankly) far better than NASN's offering. I'll check that out.

[wolf-moonshadow.livejournal.com]

Oh, my sympathies for the furry ones, I hope all ends up well. It’s hard enough to drag our cats across the street in our car, I can’t imagine in a taxi across town! I do love Norwegian Forest Kitties though, they’re magnificent cats.

Any chance of that wonderful new graphic also making it as an LJ icon, for us icon whores?

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're feeling insane as regards DW, I believe I have one more copy of the original hardcover. (I'm not going to list it until tomorrow, though: after all the running around is done for the day, I need to do a careful count of the on-shelf inventory and make very sure that it's not already spoken for.) Otherwise, there are always the paperbacks.... :)

[djelibeybi.livejournal.com]

Cat solution: put them in boxes. Then - who knows if they're sick?

[terani.livejournal.com]

oooh....

Could I request an autograph?

Afterall, I'm a Wizard groupie.

*grins*

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Oh, they all come autographed! And personalized. :)

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Re the icon: Yep. :)

Reduction in shipping?

[caitlin.livejournal.com]

I just did the silly thing and bought a copy of the Advanced Readers copy as well as the 1st edition (4 hours apart, mind, but even so).

Could I please get a reduction in shipping costs?

C.

[terani.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a must have for me then.

Would be a fab b-day present to myself!

[datalore.livejournal.com]

Whyever do you let the cats roam outside? It seems that keeping them inside would save them a lot of discomfort and you a lot of vet bills...

[dduane.livejournal.com]

Two reasons. (a) Our house is too small to keep four cats inside permanently. But much more important: (b) They're all country cats, every one of them a rescue who came to us from an outdoors life which was the only lifestyle they'd ever known. To all of them, normality and happiness means being able to go out and roam freely.

We've tried in the past to keep one or another of them in. No sane person would want to deal more than once with the frenzy of rage and frustration that ensues: one cat nearly died of it before we relented and let her go back to the way she was used to functioning. She snapped back immediately to good health and sanity, and stayed that way until she died of a heart attack in otherwise healthy old age.

We consider the outdoors lifestyle normal for these guys. The occasional vet bill -- and they are very occasional -- is the price we all pay for it. It's just that (like the buses) you don't see one for ages, and then they all seem to arrive at once. :)

[datalore.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. We've been lucky in that our rescued kitty never pines for the outdoors. Then again it's usually quite cold here for nearly half the year, so being outside isn't as appealing for cats. :)