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Just got word that Petey was adopted over the weekend! He went to a great home with another cat, and a dog. Woohoo so VERY glad to hear it.
Many thanks to all of Newt’s friends and fans from around the world for sharing Petey’s info, as well as your prayers, healing energies, and everything else you were doing to help him.
Now I really must finish my tax prep so I can reward myself with crocheting a cat bed to donate to Washington Animal Rescue League in Petey’s honor and to celebrate his adoption!
Many thanks for all of the well-wishes, healing energies, prayers, positive vibes, and emails of support and encouragement. They are working. He’s had support coming from California to Australia to the UK.
Wow what an international Rock Star
Newt continued to upswing thru the evening, and ate his midnight snack, had a good bath, pounced on his One True Love, rolled and preened and seems generally back on track again. Will post any changes, but he’s acting like his normal, adorable, albeit sleepy, little self.
Has been nibbling a bit of chicken and marrow soup, especially when hand fed. Beastie has the jaws of a steel trap! Direct dosing meds and water. Intermittent drool all day. Slept most of day, but at least it was a comfortable, curled up sleep.
Still crouchy, but drank water on his own around 8PM. Hydration is good. Fresh chicken procured and more carrots to make another batch of goo.
Mummy is at her wit’s end. Have been pathetically whining like a brat, demanding Cat Daddy to “fix my Pookie Bear!” Still screaming sore hamstrings from last Thursday’s foray into yoga; knee / hip acting wonky as well; and brain is scattered to the four winds. It’s making bending to give meds and tax prep a bit more challenging than norm.
Pookie Bear perked up remarkably Friday night, and had a really good day yesterday, complete with several rousing overnight games of attack the sleeping toes. This morning all was normal. Ate part of his lunch, spent the afternoon and the Boys of March Birthday Bash sunning in the window.
Okay, okay, okay! As if I’m not far enough behind on keeping you updated on Newt’s progress, updates to his website, acting as his personal secretary, etc,, I’ve added yet another “Thing To Do” on the ever-growing list.
After debating for months, I finally have set Newt up with another site, to showcase the handmade items that have helped to buy his chicken and Lactulose The plan is to provide tutorials to help rescue groups learn how to make simple, inexpensive items either for their own adoptables, or as items to sell at fundraisers.
The site is Knitting for Newt, which is a bit of a misnomer, as it includes a variety of items, including sewn, knitted,crocheted, braided, and other projects, but I liked the way it sounded. Plus,while knitting in public, people ask me what I’m doing, and the standard reply is “Knitting for Newt.” This always led to interesting discussions on how I could be “knitting” without needles, and what in the world does a Newt need with Knitting?
So, once I figure out a name for the blog section of that site (right now, it’s simply called “blog” – how original!), I’ll post links, and upload the site. For now, if you want to be creative and help Name That Blog, that would be awesome, and I bet there will be a token of appreciation to the winner – probably in the form of a cat toy or two.
Day 1.5 of being trapped in the house during “Snowmaggedon.”
Cat Daddy says that I go crazy in the snow. Hmmm. He may have a point. I do seem to enjoy staying outside in the still quiet,listening to the solitude of … nothing. Nice change from the bustling noise of the DC suburbs. Of course, grab the camera, grab the yardstick, go measure, make snowmen, have snowball fights with imaginary opponents, play with the dogs, let the Newt go exploring, I guess you can agree with his assessment that I get a little snow crazy::grin::
Got out this morning to let the dogs go potty.. took far less time and effort than in years prior, thanks to Cat Daddy’s engineering brilliance. He had the bright idea of using the empty recycling bin,trash can, and other plastic containers laid in a path to help keep the snow from accumulating. Simply marvelous. Move the crates, and a nice path was left, wide enough for a tall Collie to navigate, and minimal shoveling for the Doggy Latrine. Have I mentioned before how much I adore that man?
So far, the snow is up to the dogs shoulders,and still coming down. The dogs weren’t too keen on hanging out andplaying with mommy in the snow, so I had the bright idea to let Newt gooutside. It’s only been a year since his last (first!) snowadventure. Let’s see if he’s learned his lesson about wanting to sneakout of the house.
And NO, I did NOT throw him out in the snow! I simply held open the door to see if he really wanted to sneak out.
As you can see by the pictures, he wasn’t too keen on the idea, and quite happily skated across the frozen porch back into the house as soon as I opened the door. He is now nestled snuggly next to his arch-nemesis, Tinky One Fang., who hates him and regularly tries to kick his skinny little arse whenever he even thinks about getting within tenfeet of her.
Cat Daddy says obviously the blizzard is making us ALL a little snow crazy!
Cat Daddy says that I am weird. I have no idea why. Doesn’t everyone spend a snowy day making a snuggie snowman?
After wrapping up a month-long contract and having Newt be symptomatic for about 12 hours earlier this week, I decided to unwind a bit by unleashing my creative urges and using some of the 21 inches of snow we dug out clearing the driveway to build a snowman.
Newt is being “newtered” tomorrow morning. I’ll have to come back later and edit this post to include the complete tally of Newt’s spraying victims. Suffice to say the list is both long and varied. From Accordion to Zydeco and numerous points between.
The suspects have been hiding in plain site all this time – right under our nose, every time Newt twitches his tail in our face. Yup, his pesky package. Rampant teenage boy hormones raging and all that.
Neutering is normally a routine procedure, and were Newt “normal,” would already have been performed. Although nothing about our boy has been normal yet, right?
Am feeling much better since meeting his surgeon today. (Side note, three, make it four) vet visits in three days; I think this is a record, even for us!) Follow up exam with specialist, pre-op meeting with surgeon, delivery and pick up for surgery tomorrow.
His surgeon has an excellent bedside manner, and is not only familiar with the special issues faced by liver shunt cats undergoing surgery, she has ALSO repaired a kitten liver shunt!
BONUS!! The first real life person with whom we’ve spoken who has encountered a shunt cat. Way cool.
So the plan is, fast after 8PM (Poor Pookie doesn’t get his midnite snackie tonite!), pull water after 6AM, drive to the hospital with meds and food for drop off at 730, and pick up to return home tomorrow afternoon. It was my understanding that typically they hold special cases overnight for monitoring, but am cheered and guardedly optimistic by this plan.
And yes, I did already ask the surgeon on behalf of the other shunt cats if she would like to include any information for the site
All healing energies, positive vibes, prayers, candles, etc, gratefully accepted. As for me? I’m planning to drink myself into oblivion with a bottle of Rescue Remedy
Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on how we, as shunt cat owners, can communicate effectively in a timely fashion? My best advice has been to guide folks over to the Yahoo Liver Shunt and MVD Support Group. They are an experienced and amazing group of folks with lots of info, a very active group.
We’ve gotten a couple of new shunt parents, a couple of our “old timers” are having some issues, and am at a loss as to how best assist in the information sharing process. So many of you have far more experience at this, and it would really benefit owners to be able to chat together more quickly, instead of waiting for the questions to be posted in the blog or in a NewtsLetter.
Don’t want to re-invent the wheel by trying to start another yahoo group, that would be silly, but want to help. So any suggestions or ideas would be most welcome!
Am becoming a bit concerned about Newt. He’s developed a new habit of … ahem … “thinking outside of the box,” if you will.
To be blunt, he has begun peeing in inappropriate locations! Grocery bags, cardboard boxes, dog food bowl … Grrrrrrrrrr. Poor Cat Daddy, poor Mommy, poor Newt. Oh, and Poor Greycie, too; she’s Newt’s “One True Love” who was recently diagnosed with early stage kidney disease / Chronic Renal Failure. We had suspected that it was she who was having issues, but then we discovered Newt’s new game when we caught him in the act.
I swear, he used up yet another of his 9+ lives when I discovered that he had not only knocked my fabulous new, bright yellow Crunchies bag onto the floor and had a whiz on it, he had also snagged my favorite scarf off of my chair and onto the bag to cover it! Fortunately for him, I had recently removed the latest knitting project out of the Crunchies bag, and it was sitting on the desk, empty. But, still!
In addition to the peeing issue, he has been showing some serious aggression off and on the last week, went mildly symptomatic for about 10 hours on Friday, and has been a bit off his feed.
Needless to say, I have been stalking him with a specimen cup for the last several days, trying to get a urine sample to take to the vet. But suddenly, Mr. “I’m going to leap in and pee in the box while you are cleaning it” has gotten shy. And sneaky.
So, am a bit worried on more than one count. Do we have a UTI? Are we seeing Struvite crystals? Has he begun ::horrified gasp:: spraying?
Because of his reactiveness to just about everything, neutering has not yet been performed. The original plan was to have him neutered at the time of his shunt surgery. But since the Ultrasound was inconclusive, and we then decided to not pursue surgery because the vets were not sure he could survive the anaesthesia and we didn’t have a good read on his shunt anyway, well, let’s just say that Pookie’s Package is still present.
Needless to say, he’s had quite a bit of “time out” the last couple of days. And instead of me calling “here, kitty kitty,” the refrain has changed to reflect his newest nickname, compliments of the ever-witty Cat Daddy:
