After this past week of me being back on-site, working a new contract, and Cat Daddy taking his usual, excellent care of the Great Spotted Newt, it would appear that he’s gone episodic today.
Was it my cooking?
As much as I hate to take pictures of Schnookie when he’s sickly, today I decided to try and grab a quick snap to show you what a medium drool day looks like for him.
Never in my life did I ever imagine I would have accumulated such a diverse knowledge of the various degrees of drool and progressions of poo!
But, living with a liver shunt cat can do that. As Lactulose can be such a critical aspect of medical management, and its dosing can be as much an art as a science, determining the exact dosage is based upon careful observation and monitoring of kitty’s litterbox (assuming you are able to beat the dog to the scat snacks, that is!) For those kitties who have drool as one of their symptoms, you learn to gauge how bad the drool is, how long the episode will probably last, and how much Lactulose to administer, in order to help minimize the episode.
Here’s the pic of Newt’s medium drooly day today. And don’t worry, no poo pics, as the Dog beat me to it
Newt’s friends around the world continue to sing a song of healing to support our friend, Pingu.
Cats, dogs, mums, dads – so many people are pulling together in song, showing love and Hope for Pingu, the senior shunt cat who has been providing Hope for so many young shunt cats.
I humbly ask Newt’s friends, loved ones, and family to continue to raise your voices in a song so loud that Pingu’s family can hear it, all the way over in jolly olde England. Loudly, softly, perfect pitch, or off-key – with prayers, healing vibes, or simple good wishes, let us raise our voices in a glorious chorus of Hope.
After successfully defending The Dog from his unjust incarceration for excessive early morning barking, (what, he was just doing his WATCHDOG JOB!!!), the Magistrate (aka Cat Daddy) commented that Newt should hang out his shingle for future
lawyering business endeavors.
Newt the Cat, Esquire, Attorney at Claw
You like it? It made me snort coffee through my nose. Cat Daddy is quite the comedic entertainer, as well as being an awesome musician and singer.
Speaking of which, I also think that Newt may be adding “Singer” to his resume. Another liver shunt cat parent mentioned today on Newt’s Support Group that in the Siamese cat tradition, they sometimes refer to sending prayers, healing vibes, etc, as “singing.” Apparently Siamese kitties can be *quite* vocal, unlike our quiet little spotted weasel cat.
So, I shall gently tweak Newt’s little iguana tail and make him “sing” for his friend Pingu, who is feeling poorly.
You may recall we’ve mentioned Pingu on here in the past. Pingu is a sexy, senior shunt cat who has served as a beacon of Hope for young shunt cats around the globe, showing that shunt kitties can not only survive, but thrive. Under the careful love and attention of his owners, Pingu has beaten the odds many, many times.
Many of Newt’s Group members are sending their well wishes to Pingu today. Will you join Newt and me in “singing” to Pingu?
I’ll get my accordion, and we can REALLY make a joyful noise!
The Great Spotted Schnookums is currently having a fabulous run of good days, after a spate of ups and downs. Not content with being the self-proclaimed, international poster cat for liver shunt awareness, he seems to have decided to branch out in new career directions – most recently that of Moving Man and Legal Eagle.
Yesterday, he closely supervised the installation of a new door, and helped with moving the old sofa. His assistance included attacking, ripping, flipping, gnawing, chewing, and writhing on it, and then, riding at the helm it as it was moved across the floor – repeatedly, so as to try and obtain video footage of his superior supervisory skills.
Much hilarity ensued. Never before have furniture moving and handyman efforts been so much fun!
This morning, The Dog was unceremoniously thrown in jail (time-out behind closed door) for excessive, very early morning barking. The family sat around, bleary-eyed and yawning, whilst debating The Dog’s fate, (and staying vewwy, vewwy quiet, so as not to share the same consequences!).
Lawyer Newt decided that He Had Had Enough and leaped into action! He pawed and meeped pathetically at the closed door, then trilled demandingly at the Magistrate (aka Cat Daddy). His closing arguments included frantic tail lashing, and pacing between the jail cell and the stern Magistrate’s office.
Who could resist such an emotional and demonstrative plea?
Needless to say, Newt successfully bargained for The Dog’s early release.
The Dog was happily (and much more quietly!) reunited with his BFF and lawyer extraordinaire, and the rest of us learned a valuable lesson – we will NOT bark at 5AM, at least not loud enough to annoy The Powers That Be!
Been frantically trying to wrap up a deadline before the momentous occasion of Newt’s third birthday week. Everything was going fantastically, even better than anticipated. Was on schedule to finish well ahead of the deadline, and enjoy a leisurely birthday celebration with Newt and Cat Daddy on Tuesday.
And then Murphy’s Law entered with a vengeance. Everything that could have gone wrong – did. Laid waste to the plan, the backup plan, and even wreaked havoc upon the backup to the backup to the backup plan. It was a total, unmitigated nightmare of epic proportions!
I was working round the clock, trying to regain some semblance of control, and all the while, Newt was right here with me. He’s been such a little trooper. We’ve talked before about how my little spotted Schnookums insists on being right by my side at all times – even during periods of high stress (such as deadline wraps). I truly believe that his episodes can be triggered / exacerbated by stress, so we are always really careful to maintain as stress-free an environment as possible. We’re successful, most of the time.
And then, there’s deadline time.
It’s one thing for me to have to miss meals and go without sleep while working; it’s quite another story for Newt. In spite of the chaos surrounding the deadline challenges, we managed to keep his food and meds on schedule; but I was really worried that the back-to-back all-nighters were going to trigger him, as they did the last time.
Nope, not this time! Either Newt is getting smarter in his “old age” (ha ha) or mummy’s bizarre schedule is not as interesting to him as it used to be.
He actually snoozed here beside me in his “Annex Box to the Annex Box to the Annex Box” (a.k.a. AB3). He did get a little manic at one point, and was leaping about and chasing the Dog around the house. Am pretty sure it was normal play behavior for him, but was holding my breath, desperately hoping that I wouldn’t have an ER visit to deal with, on top of everything else that had gone wrong with the project.
He got a lovely card from one of his friends in England, and numerous electronic birthday greetings from his friends all around the world. The Slasher Queen even deigned to permit him to sleep in her extra special, furry nest. Both of them took their duties as Quality Control Analysts quite seriously.
The deadline was met, the client was very pleased with the end result; and the Newt and I settled in for a long overdue nap.
Happy 3rd Birthday, Newt! You are living proof that it is possible to not only survive, but thrive, when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. Thank you for acting as the unofficial spokes-cat for your condition, (feline portosystemic shunt, aka “liver shunt”), and for being an inspiration to other kitties with severe health issues.
SugarMint’s mum has asked for your healing energies, love, prayers, and whatever
support you’d care to send to Newt’s shunt friend Sugarmint. She’s had a rough prior 48
hours, and there may have been some seizure
activity involved. She is snowed in; unable to get out to a vet right now.
Latest
update seems to indicate that Sugarmint may be coming out of an
episode, but is still having impaired vision and wobbledies. She has been relatively stable for quite some time. This has been her
worst ep since her initial diagnosis.
Please send your Love, Hope and Healing Energies to Sugarmint and her mum.
Have missed you guys! Sorry about not posting for a while. Have been pretty vigilant about doing Newt’s daily tweets ; am hoping that habit will soon develop into more frequent blogs from him.
Alas, have been slammed again with deadlines, so no time for fun writing (aka acting as Pookie’s social secretary!). Nothing major going on with your favorite little spotted Schnookums. Relatively stable overall, with a few minor blips on the radar.
Am convinced more than ever that stress exacerbates his condition (as if I didn’t already beleive that stress can affect our companion animals!). His last bad day was, I believe, triggered by me pulling two all-nighters in a row. Silly boy insisted on staying by my side the entire time. I know how sick *I* felt after that episode of non-existent sleep; it’s not really surprising to me that our fragile flower feline was also affected. Next time, I think he shall be safely confined away from my office – in his room with his favorite downie and his shunty toy, and forced to nap!
No huge stress going on right now, just the usual round of deadline stress and fatigue. Combine that with the recent spell of Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr cold weather, and Newt has been acting a bit out of sorts.
No drool, but fur feeling oily, intermittently inappetent and half-crouchy, a bit wobbledy. Was demanding snuggles and Reiki yesterday, and
yet, foraging for snacks!
Am hoping that since I wrapped one of the deadlines this morning, and should finish the other tomorrow, that whatever stress *I* may be experiencing, (thus affecting him), will cease. Yeah, yeah, students and clients, I hear you, it’s time to start practicing what I preach, and engage in some self-care, no? But it’s so much easier for me to tell YOU what to do, than it is to do it myself!
I think that I shall take a lesson from Newt, and join him on his “tanning bed,” where he is lounging in the sunbeams … and resting comfortably.
To all of Newt’s American fans, Happy Thanksgiving!
On this national day set aside to demonstrate gratitude, Cat Daddy is in his element.The man loves to cook.
Hey, if it makes him happy to do all that work, who am I to argue?
It has been our annual custom to begin our celebratory meal with a list of things for which we are thankful. Having an awesome husband who loves to cook is always on my gratitude list LOL.
As you can imagine, Newt’s continued stability and good health was once again at the top of the list for both Cat Daddy and me. Additional thanks were made for Newt’s many friends and fans around the world, whose support, empathy and encouragement have come to mean so much to us – in particular, our growing community of shunt cat parents, who continue to be a source of information, love and Hope for us.
Newt has been enjoying his Thanksgiving feast throughout the day. Due to his dietary restrictions from his liver shunt, he is not allowed to gorge and stuff himself silly (at least not when we can catch him!) Therefore, his menu for has been designed as a four-course meal, served in shifts.
Newt has partaken today from an assortment of items selected and prepared especially for his pudgy Pookie palate, including: cheese and broccoli casserole, baked ham, carrots, cucumber salad, freshly roasted chicken, roast pork and warm buttered croissant. Dessert will be a bit of Danish apple yogurt artfully adorned with a splash of cream.
Yum.
And if you tell anybody that Cat Daddy cooked for the cat, he will lose all of his man points.
So, since Newt has made so many wonderful friends around the globe, I wanted to make some of them a small token of his appreciation (like a key fob, or such), and to mark another year of Hope for our liver shunt cats.
Never mind the fact that I am:
In the middle of a humongous work project (36 MB and counting);
Just double-booked myself with a second, time-sensitive contract;
Wanting to sew five pet beds, a pair of pajama bottoms, a superman cape for a cat, and a slip cover for The Dog’s chair;
Needing to crochet and wash a swatch before crocheting two towel toppers;
Wanting to knit two stuffed animals;
Wanting to make 10 sets of stitch markers, and,
Trying desperately to clear out and donate much of my craft inventory,
I have become obsessed with making my own free, Shrinky Dinks from recycled #6 plastic containers! Perfect way to re-use all those empty containers from the salad bar where we have splurged and gotten Newt’s bits of fresh broccoli and mini veggie assortments.
Was I satisfied with my quick experiment with a pen, doodles on a piece of plastic, and three minutes with the stove last night? Could I simply be free, and indulge in a burst of spur-of-the-moment creativity?
All together now, say it with me, “Noooooooooooooooooooooo!“
Once again, we had the ongoing Battle of the Brains – Right vs. Left. A life-long 50/50 split down the middle, where my logical and analytic side fights for dominance with the random and intuitive side.
I had to:
Spend hours looking at various sites for techniques while making detailed notes on the process;
Spend more time oohing and ahhing over images of finished projects, seeing that others had accomplished what I was envisioning;
Bemoan all of Newt’s salad bar containers that we’ve recycled the last two years;
Run a mathematical computation (approximate number of containers per week x average number of weeks; variable z includes container size) to estimate how many trinkets I could have made with those recycled bits;
Re-organize my Sharpie inventory (by tip size, and colour, of course!);
Draw images on several canvas bags and bits of cardboard for design inspiration;
Colour those images and determine approximate final size of completed objects, factoring in approximate shrink percentages (variable includes oven temperature);
Retrieve my coloured pencils from the “to donate” box, and re-sharpen all of them to lovely crisp points:
Doodle designs on card blanks with the lovely, freshly-sharpened, coloured pencils;
Find out that Shrink Film is available so you can actually print things from your computer!
Generate a spreadsheet comparing prices and online sources on various types of printable film (variable includes shipping costs);
Decide that I really should see if I can find a small toaster oven at the thrift store so I can heat them up outside, so the fumes won’t adversely affect Newt;
Realize that I can probably use my gift basket heat gun to shrink them outside;
Spend even more time comparing different die-cutting options, because it would be soooo much faster and tidier to cut them with a machine instead of by hand (again with the spreadsheets!);
Retrieve my hole punches from the “to donate” box;
Use the punches on the previously doodles cards to make them even more artistic;
Coordinate ribbons for finishing touches on the cards;
Visually inspect ribbon rolls for potential use as hangers on the as-yet, still un-started tokens;
Realize that the old CD rack will make an excellent free-standing ribbon spool holder;
Roughly compute the quantity of ribbon against the available surface area of the rack to determine size adequacy;
Fight the overwhelming urge to immediately hack that rack so the ribbon can be taken out of bins and be more readily available to use on the tokens (plus it will look sooooo pretty!);
Realize that the method of dissecting the plastic is still undetermined, so, check out various types of larger hole punches to achieve the same results as a die cutting system, only cheaper (again, again with the spreadsheets!); and then,
Check Black Friday ads for any of the machine systems, punches and Shrink Films to be on sale (detailed list, of course, showing cost, any additional coupons, item location, sale times, and, travel time between locations).
::sigh:: I’m already exhausted and I haven’t even started ! LOL
I really better get back to WORK so I can afford all the tools I wanna buy for my “free” Shrinky Dinks!
