good day Archives - Page 7 of 7 - Hope for Liver Shunt Cats

De Goo Goo Goo, de Ga Ga Ga

(With apologies to Sting and The Police for the shameless riff on “De Do Do Do” lyrics)

De goo goo goo, de ga ga ga
Is all I want too say to you
De goo goo goo, de ga ga ga
Your innocence will pull me through
De goo goo goo, de ga ga ga
Is all I want too say to you
De goo goo goo, de ga ga ga
They’re meaningless and all that’s true

Time for another round of “True Confessions.”

I hereby and duly confess that I am a both a wordsmith and a word snob. Hey, it’s my job! My ability to provide for the care and comfort of the beasties is directly proportional to how well I can convince clients that I exhibit a command and mastery of the English language. (Blog posts aside – I don’t get PAID for those LOL)

As a happily childfree chick, I escaped the “goo goo, ga ga” baby talk indoctrination, and I have secretly snorted scornfully at the piffle people prattle to their pets, partners and progeny.

Puhleeeeze, why insult their intelligence with all that gibberish?

Well, now I know.

Just LOOK at that face!

::squeeeeeeeeeeee::

After spending the first several months of Newt’s liver shunt diagnosis with him practically living over my heart while snuggled in his sling, and his darling little smile and brilliant copper eyes gazing back at me, I found my ability to communicate changing.

Devolving into smaller sound bytes, tiny tidbits of the most elementary components needed to convey basic meaning. Morphing into a new language – a dizzying, kitten-smitten shorthand.

It’s still English.

More or less.

Him ALWAYS has him happy face, yes him do!
Him mummy’s seepy baybay. Seeeeeeepy New New.
Pookie poopy in him box; good Pookie!
Cat Daddy, Schnookie hunnnnggggeeeee boy. Him TARVIN’!
New New ate ALLLL him din-dins! Himz mummy good widdle boy, yes him is!

Your innocence will pull me through, indeed.

Knitting with Cat Hair

So I get home and discover Cat Daddy, while wearing Newt in the sling, dancing nekkid in the tulips spinning cat hair, and knitting pajamas for the dog.

Sorry, I’m not a major corporation, able to pull off a grandiose April Fool’s Day (AFD) joke. This was the best attempt I could conjure, what with pulling an all nighter, and having no clue as to what types of foolish antics our liver shunt cats might play on us. Unless you consider the 23 days of rapid-cycling with no apparent cause only to be seemingly be resolved as mysteriously as it appeared to be an early AFD joke.

Hmmmmm that’s as good an explanation as any!

Newt continues to do well. He’s nestled in the Annex Box here beside me, after eating all his meals today, and then foraging and begging for morsels from our dinner. Yay!

All’s Quiet on the Eastern Front

Newt has had another good day. A bit manic this morning, and more re-arranging the living room. Naughty boy keeps knocking the dog brushes onto the floor. Wish it was because we trained him to brush the dog, but no. He likes to gnaw on the rubber tips of the brush. I guess it’s better than him chomping on me or his One True Love. (Little bugger left a humongo bruise on me the other day. Ouch! No wonder One True Love screams obscenities at him.)

Cat Daddy is doing a fine job with Newt-rition. He says Newt is eating every bite of his normal meals. Yay! I guess after weeks of me whining to him to “fix my Pookie Bear” he finally decided that doing so would be the only way he could get any peace.

I heart Cat Daddy

Third Time the Charm?

Three days in a row now with no drool. We’re touching wood, rubbing Buddha’s belly, tossing coins in the fountain … any other superstitions we should adhere to, to keep Lady Luck around?

Obviously, Cat Daddy is a liver shunt cat caretaker extraordinaire. Like I didn’t know that already

He informed me that he has tweaked Newt’s diet a bit. Still giving the homecooked veggie / chicken mix; just in a smaller quantity. And he’s direct dosing the Lactulose.

It’s working. Newt was rather manic today. He woke me with several exciting games of footsies, chased his One True Love around the house while waiting for breakfast, and then while I was away, re-arranged the living room and kitchen. He ate well, helped add extra oomph to my workout by swinging his ten-pound self from my knees and wrist, and is now resting comfortably in the Annex Box here next to me as I prepare for the next round of today’s work.

Please welcome new shunt cats / kittens:

Bartholomew in California
Sky in Ontario
Teddy in Utah

And even more exciting news:

Finn has navigated the stairs on his own;
SugarMint has been playing;
Marley has regained a bit of weight; and,
Simon is coming home tomorrow!

Woohoo! Wonderful news on several fronts with our liver shunt kitties!

Just Another Manic Monday

Still trying to figure out all this new-fangled blogging stuff. Yeah, yeah, blogging is soooo, like, four years ago, and what with Cat Daddy calling me his Geek Goddess? Puh-leeeze.

I’m so ashamed. OK, not really, but pretend penitence is all you get from me today.

Ah well, blame it on Newt. It’s all his fault, really. I never really was into the whole blogging thing. I enjoyed browsing other folk’s blogs, but never wanted to write one. Too shy, too quiet, too lazy, too private, too paranoid.

And then came Newt.

As he defied the odds, and slowly began to blossom, we thought well, if his story can help other shunt parents to have Hope, then what’s a bit of time on the computer, anyway? So I began cobbling together bits and pieces of his story, back-filling info as I had time, adding new details as the mood struck me. I refuse to feel bad for the gaps and the holes and such. I promise, I’ll make it a proper site one of these days. In the meantime, it has already become so much more than we ever anticipated.

Problem is, I never really did much with the promoting, the tagging, the categories, etc. Pretty much meta everything with cat liver shunt, and there you go. (By the way, did you know that googling “cat liver shunt” yields Newt’s web presence in the top five entries, with his survivors page as the #1 entry? Amazing!)

Then it struck me today, that I have several entries under the “bad day” category, and yet, I don’t even HAVE a category for the good days. Oops.

Well, we do now, since Newt is on his second “good day” in a row.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the “good” days, just blundering along when everything is peachy keen, no reason to rush to the computer and see if anyone is in chat with a handy shoulder for crying; no questions you need answered right NOW. You just … live – and revel in the good days. And when the goods days blur into an ever-growing series of good weeks, then good months, you tend to get complacent. Even though you know in your heart that the disease isn’t cured, you can sort of pretend that everything is normal, and keep the annoying little voices at bay.

It’s only when things aren’t quite so good that you start reaching out again, for the comfort of pixelated strangers. For those who know the gasps of the wheezing wheezelets; the wiping of the never-ending puddles of drool; the frantic offerings of delicacies to get them to eat something – anything; the Damoclean choice of surgery vs. medical maintenance, and the never ending chorus of “are we doing the right thing? Are we doing enough?“

So to each of you who have been so kind and concerned during Newt’s recent roller coaster, Cat Daddy and I extend our heartfelt thank yous. I’ve had a bit of the guilties, and haven’t been posting Newt’s details in the support groups as much, because I feel rather guilty at everyone being so concerned for him. Plus, I know how up and down and up and down and UP and DOWN we’ve been feeling; didn’t want to add that burden to other folks who truly ARE in crisis with their liver shunt cats.

He’s really doing okay. Far better than when he was a baby. He’s not been in crisis, he’s not been critical; he’s just not been having the Indian Summer of good days to which we have grown so accustomed.

In fact, today he is being quite the little scamp. Has eaten well the last two days, no drool, hair coat looks good, a wee bit manic (or is it his normal kittenish behavior?), playing with his toys and wrestling with his best friend the Dog.

Life is good.