Feline Friday: Good News from Theodore’s Checkup

For Feline Friday, all you have to do is post a picture, drawing, cartoon, or video of a cat.

Since I mentioned recently that Theodore went to the vet for a cough and was scheduled for a re-check, I wanted to let you know that the infection is gone and Theodore is back to being in great health.

The vet said his lungs sounded great!  They still want us to give him Laxatone a few times a week to make sure it doesn't happen again. 

Theodore was born in the vet’s office, and he grew up there, so he gets treated like a celebrity whenever he goes back.  I think, by the time we left, everyone had carried him around, snuggled with him, and taken pictures of him.

Theodore loves going to the vet! 

Thursday 13: A Lot of Randomness

Today’s Thursday 13 is going to be all over the place.

1.    Mortimer had an emergency visit (fortunately to our regular vet’s office) on Friday due to eating plastic.  Fortunately, after x-rays to confirm there wasn’t an obstruction, fluids and an anti-nausea shot did the trick. 

2.    Unfortunately, I doubt this did anything to curb his obsession with eating plastic.

3.    We mailed out a total of 152 protest postcards on Saturday.

4.    We had severe storms and a moderate risk of tornadoes late Saturday night into the early hours of Sunday morning.  Pre-Helene, we wouldn’t have been very concerned, but almost everyone here gets nervous about storms now. 

5.    Because our house doesn’t have any rooms without exterior walls, we deemed our bedroom closet the best place to shelter in case of a tornado.  We didn’t want to have to round up five cats in the middle of the night with a tornado imminent, so we opted to lock all five cats in the bedroom with us.

6.    Catching and containing five cats is a big job! 

7.    Fortunately, there were no tornados, and we didn’t have to shelter in the closet.  We had a lot of rain, but no flooding or damage.  Unfortunately, we didn’t sleep well at all.  Caroline’s facial expression sums up the night well.

8.    Other than that storm, we’ve still been enjoying mostly sunny weather.

9.    The daffodils along the back fence have bloomed.

10. The daffodils next to the carport are at their peak.

11. The forsythia is just starting to get a few blooms.

12. There are a lot more flowers on the bush in the front yard.

13. And the hyacinth is still blooming,

 

How was your week?  

Some More Catching Up

I’m still working on catching up from my blogging break, so here are a few more recent happenings.

Let’s get the not-so-good news out of the way first.  Frankie is having some health problems.  At 14, he’s an older kitty, so it’s concerning.  He had an abdominal ultrasound in January due to some unexplained vomiting.  It showed some minor thickening of his intestinal lining, which could be indicative of lymphoma.  After talking with Dr. D, we chose not to pursue exploratory surgery and biopsies; the outlook for treating cats with lymphoma isn’t great, and we’d rather give Frankie a good quality of life.  Dr. D put him on some different medication, and the vomiting stopped. 

Last month, the excessive vomiting started again, so we took Frankie back to the vet.  Dr. D did some x-rays and a lot of bloodwork and determined that Frankie is in the early stages of kidney disease, lymphoma is still a real possibility, and he also has thyroid disease.  Out of all of those, thyroid disease is the easiest/least invasive to treat, so Frankie is now on thyroid medication.  Dr. D also adjusted his dose of some other medications, and the vomiting has stopped.  Frankie goes back on the 27^th to have his thyroid levels checked again.

He has lost some weight, but he’s eating and seems to be happy.  Frankie still plays and likes to get into things, so as long as he’s happy and has a good quality of life, we’re happy.  We’ll continue to treat his thyroid issues and go from there when he has his appointment later this month.  With any luck, he still has quite a few good years ahead of him.

In other news, it has been cold and insanely windy here.  Everyone at work has been running space heaters, and this morning, there were lots of trashcans blown over when I was leaving for work. 

One of the local animal shelters has been asking for extra blankets since it has been so cold.  It has been nice to see people step up and drop off and/or ship blankets.  It just shows how much people working together can do.

Our local sheriff’s office did a women’s self-defense class last week.  It was a great class!  They did it at a community center, and several female deputies taught it.  It was a good mix of teaching situational awareness and teaching and practicing specific self-defense techniques.  I definitely learned some things. 

One of my coworkers is retiring this month, and we had his going away party last week.  We did a potluck and ended up with tons of food.  I brought macaroni and cheese. 

We’ve also managed to squeeze in some Christmas fun.  One of the churches does a fundraiser event that’s a journey to Bethlehem.  They have people in costume, live animals, and tons of props to recreate walking through Bethlehem.  Nick’s family used to go every year.  I went for the first time last year.  This year, our neighbors went with us.  It was a lot more crowded this year, but we got to listen to Christmas music (which I love) while we waited for our turn.  It was fun going through with a bigger group this time.  We also drove around and looked at Christmas lights.  There’s a subdivision where almost everyone goes all out on the lights and decorations, and it’s so fun to drive through it.  This is a Pixabay picture since I don’t think I’d be able to get good pictures from the car.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this funny picture of Charlie.  He seems to have no concept of his size, and yesterday, he spent quite a while trying to stuff himself into this box.  I don’t think he ever figured out why he couldn’t get in the box.  He definitely looked cute trying!  

Howard’s Glucose Rollercoaster

I’m still catching up with some things I meant to post about last year/earlier this year but haven’t gotten around to yet.   So, here’s the story of Howard’s glucose rollercoaster.  

The day after Duke died, I couldn’t find Howard when I got up, which was unusual.  Howard is generally very enthusiastic about breakfast and greets us when we get up most mornings.  If he doesn’t do that, there are a couple of places he likes to sleep, and he can usually be found in one of them.  Finding Howard isn’t usually difficult, so I knew something was wrong.

I found Howard in the cat room (where we keep their food, litter boxes, and lots of random things).  He was behind a laundry hamper, half in the closet, not moving.  He wasn’t exactly asleep, but he wasn’t fully awake either.  I picked him up, and he felt colder than he should have.

I gave him corn syrup, per Dr. D.’s instructions.  She told us from the beginning of Howard going on insulin to rub corn syrup on his gums if it ever seemed like his glucose was too low.  I wrapped him in a blanket, put him in a carrier, and called Dr. D.’s office to say we were on the way.  

Dr. D. was off that day, so Howard saw Dr. L.  They did a glucose test right away.  Howard’s was 20.  It should be between 120 and 300.  They also checked his temperature.  It was 98.  It should be between 101 and 102.  

Dr. L. started Howard on a glucose IV (one of the vet nurses used to be a paramedic, and she was able to get his IV in right away) and warm fluids.  They also used some type of warmer on Howard that blew warm air under his blankets.  

Howard perked up relatively quickly, and they offered him food, which he very enthusiastically ate.  Dr. D. came into the office in the meantime (she seems to come in most of the time when she’s supposed to be off).  Dr. D. and Dr. L. decided they wanted to keep Howard for the day so they could closely monitor his glucose.  He dropped (though never as low as 20) several times throughout the day, so they recommended that we transfer Howard to the 24-hour/emergency vet since their office isn’t staffed at night anyway, and with it being December 22nd, they weren’t going to be open much longer.  

So, I picked Howard up and took him straight to the 24-hour vet.  They were extremely busy, so by the time a vet came in to talk to me (nurses had been in and out checking on Howard), it was the night-shift vet, Dr. H.  We’ve seen Dr. H. before, and we really like him.  I’m always nervous at the 24-hour/emergency vet because we’ve had a few vets that really seemed like they went into the wrong line of work.  But Dr. H. has always been awesome.  I was so relieved to see him that I almost cried.  

Dr. D. and Dr. L. had apparently passed on that Duke had just died the day before because Dr. H. mentioned that right away.  I had told Dr. D. and Dr. L. that Howard had been eating a lot of Duke’s food over the past few weeks.  Duke wasn’t eating much and was losing a lot of weight, so we were trying a lot of things to get him to eat.  He liked chicken and rice, so we mixed chicken and rice with his food.  He still wasn’t eating all of it, and Howard was helping himself to Duke’s leftovers.  Most cats would have just eaten the chicken.  Howard isn’t like most cats.  He was eating the dog food, the chicken, and the rice.  Obviously, after Duke died, we didn’t set his dinner out, so Howard had no dog food or chicken and rice that night.  

Dr. H. said that normally stress and grief tend to raise glucose, but in some unusual cats, it can lower it.  Everyone agrees that Howard is an unusual cat!  Dr. H. said that in addition to the stress and grief of losing Duke, Howard was probably picking up on us being sad and stressed and the extra stress of Duke being sick right before and Nick having COVID.  All of that,  plus not eating dog food, chicken, and rice (which would tend to raise his glucose), probably led to the crash.  

Dr. H. suggested a FreeStyle Libre monitor for Howard.  If that sounds familiar to you, it’s the same one that’s used for humans.  It’s a continuous glucose monitor.  There’s a little sensor (we’re told people usually put it on their arm) and a monitor that scans and records it.  For pets, they like to put it on their back, near their shoulder blades; basically somewhere that they can’t mess with, and it’s not likely to get caught on anything.  They shave a little patch of fur and put it on.  

Here's a picture of Howard with his sensor when I got to visit him while he was in the hospital.  He didn’t seem bothered by it at all.

With the Freestyle Libre, they were able to check Howard’s glucose without doing an ear stick.  He was pretty sick of being stuck by then, and you really can’t blame him.  Most of the time, you can scan him without even waking him up.  They checked Howard’s glucose every hour for the first 24 hours.  Dr. H. had me bring in his food and insulin and let me bring in his blankets. 

The plan was to give Howard a very low dose of his insulin once his numbers stayed at a high enough level for long enough, then make sure he didn’t go too low again.  It took a few days to get there, but Howard came home on Christmas Day.  Definitely the best Christmas present we’ve ever gotten!  

Here’s a picture of Howard under the Christmas tree the day he came home.

Initially, they wanted us to scan Howard every two hours.  It worked out well that we were off/home for Christmas because that was rough.  Once Dr. D.’s office opened back up the day after Christmas, she took over managing Howard and had us email the numbers from the scanner every day.  For a while, he was getting one unit of insulin about every 36 hours, then 24 hours, then 12 hours.  We kept up every two hours of scanning for several days.  Dr. D. finally told us to stop before we wore ourselves out.  

The sensor lasts somewhere between ten days and two weeks, so Howard has had several sensors.  We all wanted to make sure he wasn’t headed for another crash.   Howard was the first kitty at Dr. D.’s office to have a sensor, but now she has lots of patients with them.  Howard, the trendsetter!  

Eventually, Howard started getting really agitated over having the sensors put on, so we all decided on a break.  He was running a little high, but Dr. D. thought that was better than risking another crash. 

Howard had his regular checkup in late June, and his glucose was high, so we opted for another round of Libre sensor monitoring. 

A few weeks ago, his glucose started fluctuating wildly.  It would drop down as low as 60, then within a few hours shoot up to over 400, then drop again.  

Dr. D. believes that Howard is experiencing Somogyi swings.  You can read about it here, but the short version (at least for cats) is that somehow, the insulin contributes to the body, causing itself to drastically raise and lower glucose levels.  So, we took Howard off of insulin, and his glucose has stayed much more stable.  Howard has diabetes and asthma.  The diabetes is likely caused, or at least contributed to, by all of the steroids to control his asthma.  But, since breathing is vital, we can only limit the steroids so much. We’ve also lowered his steroid dose a little more.  It may have to go back up in the fall (allergy season) and/or if he starts having breathing problems.  

During all of this, Howard also started experiencing severe gastrointestinal issues.  Dr. D. isn’t quite sure why, but thinks it may be due to an injection of a newer drug to help with arthritis.  The G.I. issues Howard was having are one of the rare side effects of the drug.  So, we’ve opted not to continue using that one.  He’s currently on some medicine for his stomach and has started talking probiotics.  Fortunately, all of the medications can go in Pill Pockets or be mixed with food, so Howard doesn’t mind taking them. 

Howard is also starting to have some kidney issues, likely caused by a combination of age and diabetes.  It’s not terrible yet, but we don’t know how long that will last.  He’s seventeen, and I know we’re lucky to have had him this long, but it still feels like being punched in the gut to think about his time being limited.  I feel like I don’t know how to exist in a world where I’m not Howard’s mom.  I had Howard before I met Nick.  Nick and I are coming up on sixteen years together in September, so Howard has been in his life for a long time, too.

Dr. D. offered us a referral to the specialist, but after talking with her, we’ve decided not to go that route.  Howard is very patient and good at the vet, but he seems to be reaching his limit for how much poking and prodding he’s willing to put up with.  And, in talking with Dr. D., there’s not a fix for the kidney issues that are coming.  There are only short term solutions that likely come at the cost of creating other problems to manage.  It really feels like we’d be doing it for us, to buy ourselves more time with Howard (which is so incredibly tempting) at the cost of his quality of life.  

Because of that, we’re not pursuing treatment of the kidney issues.  We’re managing the diabetes and asthma as best and least invasively as we can, and we’re honestly evaluating Howard’s happiness and quality of life.  Right now, he seems happy.  At seventeen, he’s not very active, but his behavior hasn’t changed.  One of the vet nurses described Howard as a watcher and said he likes to be in the middle of the room and watch everything that’s going on.  That’s very accurate.  He spends most of his time on the fluffy cat bed in the living room, keeping an eye on everyone’s comings and goings.  He cuddles with Frankie, and he’s very enthusiastic about his food.  He seems happy and doesn’t appear to be in pain.  He still wants us to pet him every time we walk by, which we’re more than happy to do.  

Howard’s quality of life seems good for now, so the plan is to keep his as happy and comfortable as possible for as long as possible, and love him as much as we can while we can. Howard still loves to cuddle with Frankie, is very enthusiastic about his food, and loves to be in the middle of everything.  

Thursday 13: A Busy Week

I was hoping to post again before this, but since I didn’t, I decided another Thursday 13 was in order.  It has been a busy week.

1.     Duke has pancreatitis again.  We’re not sure how he keeps getting it.  He had it in April, and we’ve been careful about not giving him too much people food since then.  We took him to the vet on Tuesday, and Dr. M. wanted to hospitalize him.  We’re hoping he’ll be able to come home tomorrow.  He’s eating again (always a good sign with Duke) but still has a fever. 

 

They sent us this picture of him today.  He likes everyone there, so he's happy.

2.     Dr. D. had us bring Howard in on Saturday morning and show her exactly how we were giving him his insulin injections.  Given Nick’s EMT background, no one was really expecting an issue with how Howard has been getting his shots.  Howard’s insulin dose was due before the appointment time, so Dr. D. had Nick demonstrate with our syringes and a bottle of saline. 

3.     Everything was right.  I bought the right needles, and Nick has been doing the injections perfectly.  I didn’t demonstrate (Yay!) since Nick does most of them, and I do exactly what he does. 

4.     Howard went to the emergency vet last night.  He started having severe gastrointestinal issues, and I called in case it was something to do with his insulin.  We were there for about three hours, and they gave Howard fluids and antibiotics and did bloodwork.  His glucose level was finally good!

5.     I really liked the vet we saw.  It’s always a gamble at the emergency clinic; most of the time, they’re great, but it seems like when they’re bad, they’re really, really bad.  This vet was awesome, though.  I hope we don’t need to see her again, but I’d be happy with any of the fur kids seeing her when we do need an emergency vet.

6.     I mentioned Duke’s pancreatitis to the emergency vet, in case it was related to what Howard had.  She said it most likely wasn’t and was just terrible timing.  I talked to Duke’s vet (Dr. M.) this morning and Howard’s regular vet, Dr. D., and they both agree that it’s only a coincidence that Howard and Duke are similarly sick at the same time.  Dr. D. was thrilled about Howard’s glucose when she got the report from the emergency vet.  He has an appointment with her next week to check it again, and we’re all hoping the level stays where it is.

7.     I hate that Duke and Howard are both sick, but I’m relieved that we don’t need to worry about the other five cats having the same problem.  That would be a lot to deal with!

8.     In non-vet visit news, I’m going to try to make my sister a crocheted cat couch for Christmas.  She doesn’t read my blog, so I’m not worried about her finding out.  She has been asking for one for two years now, but I’ve been scared to try it.  There weren’t any left-handed videos, but Crochet Crowd posted one recently, and I’ve been practicing the stitches.

9.     It only has three different stitches; single crochet, double crochet, and half double crochet.  I used the half-double for most of the mask adapters I made, so I’m pretty comfortable with that one.  I think I’m getting better at the single and double.

10.  I like the UK crochet terms better than the US crochet terms.  The UK terms seem to make more sense for what you’re doing.  I like the videos from this website, and she gives you the UK and US terms, so it works for me to learn from a UK site. 

11.  I ordered the yarn I’m planning to use, and it arrived this week.  I really like the gray and rainbow yarn in the pattern, but that yarn was more expensive, and I’m not sure my first attempt will be gift-worthy, so I opted for the less expensive yarn.  The gray is for the couch.  The multi-colored one is called Fiesta, and it’s for the afghan and the dust ruffle. 

 

12.  We bought the foam on Saturday after we got back from taking Howard to the vet.  Nick will be in charge of building the couch.  I’m terrible at things like that, and he says the pattern/building instructions make sense to him.  I’m sure the couch will take me a while, so I’m hoping to get started on it this weekend, assuming we manage to stay out of vet’s offices.

13.  We have cherry tomatoes again.  We’re pretty sure 2016 was the last year we planted cherry tomatoes, but we have some come back every year.  I think they should be called something other than cherry tomatoes.  Maybe immortal tomatoes would be a good name for them.

So what have you been up to this week?  

Duke Has Cushing’s Disease

After Emma’s Cushing’s Disease, I truly hoped it was something we’d never deal with any of our pets having again.  Unfortunately, that hope hasn’t come true. 

We boarded Duke at his vet’s office when we went to Folly Beach in the fall.  We've always loved boarding the dogs there because the vet is very hands-on.  More often than not, it’s the vet himself walking, feeding, and playing with the dogs.  It’s sort of like a week-long vet visit/observation period for the price of boarding. 

They’re also perfectly fine with you calling to check on your pets, and they usually text us updates and pictures.  When I talked to Dr. M. on the third day, he mentioned that Duke’s water consumption was excessive and that he wanted to do some tests. 

I know that excessive water consumption is a sign of Cushing’s Disease.  It happened with Emma and was really the first symptom we saw.  I should have put it together with Duke, but I didn’t.  My first thought was diabetes.  Dr. M. has lectured us for years about Duke’s weight.  I thought we’d finally have to get strict about Duke’s food. 

After the first round of bloodwork, I knew exactly what Dr. M. was looking for.  The results were similar to Emma’s years ago.

Dr. M. did all of the bloodwork necessary to confirm Cushing’s Disease and was able to diagnose Duke.  He just couldn’t tell us, for sure, if it was the pituitary or adrenal kind.  He’d already referred us to the specialist for imaging.  He was just doing everything possible ahead of time since the appointment was months out.  We were waiting for the specialist, Dr. V., who had treated Emma.  We’d had an extremely bad experience with another vet in the practice (she misdiagnosed Emma and cost us time with our girl; you can guess how I feel about her) and wanted to stick with the vet we knew we liked.  Meanwhile, Dr. M. was in contact with Dr. V. about the test results he was getting and was fairly sure Duke had the adrenal Cushing’s, not the pituitary like Emma had. 

Because of Dr. M.’s diligence, we were able to make Duke’s first appointment with Dr. V. for all of the imaging needed to determine whether the Cushing’s was adrenal or pituitary.  We also knew what our options were likely to be, so we had a little more time to plan.  Dr. V. was great with Duke, and they did all of the CT scans and bloodwork they needed. 

Dr. V. was able to determine immediately that Duke’s Cushing’s is the adrenal kind.  He has a mass on the right adrenal gland.  She told us that from what she could see on the CT scan, Duke was a good candidate for the surgery, but she wanted a radiologist to look at to be sure.  That took a few days.  Dr. V. called with the results and told us that Duke is a good candidate for the surgery to remove the adrenal gland and tumor.  The outlook with treating it with medication instead of surgery isn’t good. 

We talked to Dr. M. (because we always talk to our regular vets), and he agreed that surgery is in Duke’s best interest.  He said it’s a highly specialized surgery, and not one he would perform himself, but one he felt confident in the surgeons at the specialist practice doing.  Dr. V. isn’t a surgeon, so she won’t be the one doing Duke’s surgery. 

Duke was scheduled for surgery on Monday, January 17^th, with Dr. A., the surgeon Dr. M. is familiar with.  Unfortunately, because of all of the snow and ice in western NC and upstate SC, the specialist vet’s office was closed on Monday, and Duke’s surgery was canceled.  He’s now scheduled for surgery on Wednesday, January 26^th, with Dr. S.  

Dr. M isn’t familiar with Dr. S. but says he’s confident in any of the specialized surgeons there who do this kind of surgery.  He also said the surgery needs to happen as soon as possible.

I talked to Dr. S. on the phone three times yesterday, and I liked her.  I had some questions about some problems Duke has been having, and she said that Dr. V. was more qualified to address them since Dr. V. treats diseases.  Dr. S. talked to Dr. V. and called me back within 10 minutes.  Dr. V. and Dr. S. wanted us to get an appointment with Dr. M. for Duke to get checked out and have some bloodwork done.  Getting a call back so quickly was huge.  I feel like that means the vet cares when they communicate and work to get answers.  I also liked that she immediately involved Dr. V. when she thought Dr. V. would be better able to help Duke.  The third call made me like her even more.  She called to make sure Dr. M. was able to see Duke since all of the vet’s offices were behind due to the weather.  If Dr. M. couldn’t fit Duke in, she wanted to make sure they got him in at her office.  Dr. M. was able to see Duke, but I really liked that Dr. S. called to make sure.  I always feel better about a vet who seems to see him as Duke, the three-legged dog who loves to catch birds and rabbits and steals lasagna, not chart #12345.   

Oddly enough, Duke will have to go on steroids for a while after the surgery.  Apparently, the adrenal gland that’s left takes some time to start functioning properly, so dogs who have the surgery go from way too much cortisol (Cushing’s) to none/not enough (Addison’s Disease).  Dr. V. will be the one managing Duke’s medication and aftercare, which is good since we know she’s good and very communicative. 

We’re told that Duke will have to stay in the hospital for a few days.  There’s a risk of blood clots and complications in the first week or so after the surgery, but after that, it’s usually all good.  The specialty clinic is part of an emergency clinic, so they have 24-hour staff. 

Of course, we’re nervous.  Duke’s our boy, we love him, and he has already been through so much. 

The silver lining in all of this is that we have a great regular vet.  Dr. M. was able to get things started to get Duke diagnosed much earlier than he might have been otherwise.  We’re also fortunate to be within a reasonable drive of a specialty practice and that we have a vet we really like there.  I’m also so incredibly grateful that the adrenal Cushing’s  Duke has doesn’t suppress his appetite the way the pituitary Cushing’s did with Emma.  Duke has always been a total pig, stealing food every chance he gets.  It would be devastating to go from that to begging him to eat something, anything, the way we did with Emma. 

Assuming all goes well, Duke should be completely back to normal after he recovers.   We just want him to be healthy and happy.

The Weird Things We Do For Our Pets

With six pets in the house, it seems like fairly often there’s something going on with one of them. Sometimes as pet parents we find ourselves doing some pretty weird things all in the name of keeping our pets healthy and happy.

The latest something is that Milo seems to have developed a food allergy. We’re not sure what he’s allergic to, but something periodically causes Milo’s mouth to swell up a little, and gives him a rash on his legs. He’s clearly miserable when it happens, and has to get a steroid shot to clear it up. 

Taking Milo to the vet is an ordeal for everyone. Apparently he’s worse when I’m not there, which is hard to imagine because it’s horrible when I am there. We’ve learned to take pictures of his skin issues before we go to make it easier for the vet to get a good look. Needless to say, we want to figure out what Milo is allergic to, and find a better food choice for him as soon as possible.

Milo’s last appointment (when they determined that it’s most likely a food allergy) was with a different vet than our usual vet. They recommended a food that is prohibitively expensive, and made the suggestion that Milo be fed separately from the other cats.

Milo doesn’t like being separated from the other cats, and seems to get really upset if he thinks they’re getting special food or treatment that he’s not getting. And when Milo gets too upset or stressed out he chews on his back legs and pulls the hair out, so we try really hard not to stress him out.

We talked to our regular vet about our food options and our worries about feeding Milo separately, and she agrees that separate feeding just isn’t the best choice for us. So she told us to go to the pet store and take pictures of a lot of different foods (she told us a few basic proteins to try to avoid, as well as some to look for) and said that she’ll research the foods, and double check all of the other cats’ records to help find a food that will be a good choice for all of them.

We went to Pet Smart on Sunday and spent quite a bit of time reading cat food labels and photographing bags of cat food. We got one or two strange looks in the process, and I’m pretty sure we spent more time reading labels on cat food than we ever have reading labels for our own food.

I called the vet’s office on Monday, and they said it would be much easier if I printed the pictures and brought them in. So I went on Walgreen’s website, submitted the pictures, and scheduled to pick them up after work.

It was incredibly busy when I went to get the pictures. Apparently Monday afternoon around 5:20 is the time to go to Walgreen’s. So a manager was helping out in the photo department. He asked me to check the pictures before I paid, so I opened the envelope and pulled the first stack out. 

Before I had a chance to say anything the manager started apologizing about how they must have given me the wrong pictures because it looked like, for some reason, I had gotten a lot of pictures of labels. I then had to explain that the pictures were exactly right because I had taken them in an effort to find an appropriate food for my cat with food allergies. I think at that point he decided I was a crazy cat lady, and that sending me on my way as quickly as possible was the best choice because it was the fastest checkout experience ever.

I took the pictures to the vet’s office on Tuesday, and they had a good laugh about Walgreen’s thinking something must be wrong because surely someone wouldn’t take and print a bunch of pictures of cat food.

So what about you? Have you done anything weird because of your pets lately?

An Update On Emma

As I mentioned before, Emma has recently been diagnosed with Cushing’s Disease. We’ve been working on getting the right dose of medication for her, which has involved lots and lots of blood work for her. She is definitely over going to the specialist and is very over having blood drawn and getting shots once she gets there. It’s almost an all day process, and involves multiple blood draws, so I can definitely understand why she doesn’t like it.

Fortunately her last round of blood work showed really good results! The higher dose of medication seems to be working for her. Her last cortisol level was 3.9. They vet said they want it to be between two and five, so Emma’s was pretty much perfect.

We go again for more blood work on the 22^nd, and are hoping for similar results. If her results are good then we’ll be able to reduce the blood work to about every three months instead of basically once a month. Here’s hoping!

The Month of May

I planned to take a little blogging break after finishing the A to Z Challenge in April, I just didn’t plan to take a break for almost the entire month of May. I’m still not sure how it went by so quickly.

We did some projects around the house and yard. I uprooted two bushes in the front yard that I didn’t like. Have you ever uprooted an entire bush? If you haven’t I can’t say that I recommend trying it. If you have, why didn’t you tell me not to?!? Nick took down blinds that needed to be replaced and put up a curtain rod and curtains. It looks nice. We planted quite a few more things in the yard. Nothing terribly exciting, but all things that needed to be done.

She seems to like it here.

On the pet front, we foster failed and adopted Cookie. Dot never warmed up to us, and seemed very happy to leave us once the renovations at the shelter were finished. Cookie, on the other hand, seemed to like our particular brand of craziness.

We thought long and hard about adding a fifth cat to our household. We decided to foster her for a while longer to make sure she did alright with the other cats before adopting her. She fits in well enough, and seems happy here, so we made it official and adopted her last week. 

On paper, adding a fifth cat to our household, and a senior cat at that, probably isn’t considered a great decision, but it’s one we felt very good about. With kitten season upon us, we were really afraid that Cookie would be overlooked at the shelter. She’s gorgeous, sweet, and has a great personality, but the truth of the matter is that older cats seem to be practically invisible next to all of the kittens. We couldn’t let that happen, especially when Cookie seemed like such a great fit at our house.

I feel like I spent a huge part of May at various vet’s offices. Emma had some recurring health issues that popped back up. She had blood work that was way off, and just wasn’t acting quite right. Repeated blood tests showed that the problem was only getting worse, so our regular vet referred us to the specialist group.

Patiently waiting in between blood draws.

We went to the specialist group last year with similar issues and didn’t really get any results. I didn’t care for the vet we saw then, so I was a little nervous about going back there. We ended up with a different vet this time; one that one of my co-workers credits with saving her dog’s life, and who our regular vet says has a good reputation.

I immediately liked her better! She was better with Emma, spent more time with her, and seemed to listen more to what we had to say about Emma’s symptoms. She suggested pursuing advanced testing for Cushing’s Disease, which we did, and it turns out that Emma does have Cushing’s Disease.

You can read more about it here, but the short version is basically that Emma has the pituitary dependent kind, meaning that she has a tiny benign tumor in her pituitary gland that causes her body to basically overdose itself on steroids. Left untreated it can cause liver damage and other issues. The treatment for it is medication to regulate the production.

You can read more about the medication here, but the short version is that it takes a while to get the right dose. Too little doesn’t adequately treat it. Too much causes other, potentially very serious, problems. There’s a fair amount of blood tests involved in the beginning to help determine the right dose. We go on Wednesday for her first round of blood tests since starting the medication. My gut feeling is that her dose will have to be raised a little bit; there’s some definite improvement in her symptoms, but still room for a lot more improvement. We’ll see.

If I let myself think about it too much I get totally freaked out over the fact that Emma technically has a very small brain tumor. She’s been a huge part of my life for the past 12 years, and I hate to think about anything being seriously wrong with her. When reason returns, I’m grateful for the fact that it wasn’t some of the other, much worse things it could have been. And I’m glad it’s a problem with a medical, not surgical, treatment, since that seems like a better choice at her age. She seems happy and seems to be feeling better, which is wonderful.

So what about you? How has the month of May been for you?