remembering Bert

Remember Bert? 

I rescued Bert back in 2015 when I was helping with a large TNR effort in a mobile home community.  Bert was trapped an unneutered, friendly boy wearing an old flea collar. No one in the neighborhood claimed him so I worked on getting him healthy and learning to once again trust humans.

While working with him, I feel hard for him. I loved him so much.

Bert was such a gentle, wise soul with so much love to offer.

Once he was healthy, I found him his purrfect forever home.

I received word yesterday from his human that he crossed the rainbow bridge after a courageous fight with cancer. She says he was such a gift to her and her family. He brought so much joy, love, and laughs to everyone. Such a special boy. I'm grateful for the update as I think about him often.

Be free Bert - I so look forward to more of your delightful tummy rubs when I see you again.

 💗

Thankful for Theo!

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

It's been quite the year! Many challenges and many blessings. 

It has been a little over a year now that Theo had his brain surgery to remove a large meningioma. He healed without any problems and today, one would never know that he experienced such a big ordeal!

He gets more and more cuddly and demanding that he gets his "Theo time". 

Theo time in action

I can't figure out who is enjoying the Theo time more, him or me! Every time I get time with him, my heart is flooded with gratitude that we get these extra days with him. Last year with the brain tumor, it sure felt like we were losing him. He wasn't at all himself. The surgeon told us surgery could be 50-50, so it felt like a gamble. Each additional day with Theo feels like such a gift.

Theo is very much still Theo. All of his bold personality, his curiosity, his love for the dramatic.

 He brings us so much joy and love.

Curiosity drives him to do all sorts of crazy things.

At dinner time, he remains as obnoxious as always. He can be a bit anxious, so we recently bought him a Thunder Shirt. He immediately flopped over acting immobilized. Eventually, he got up but walking around with it on has been difficult. It's as if when he's wearing it, his backend doesn't quite work right. We are still working to see if he can adjust, I hope so, because I think it will help him tremendously. 

Even though he's nearly 13 years old, he still enjoys to play and be silly.

Theo and Nahum remain best friends forever! 

They love cuddling together and sharing tongues.

warming the buns!

Personal assistant

Theo has a come a long ways toward accepting Oliver. They both want the choice cuddle spots with me, so that sometimes leads to some tension, but Theo is handling it better. Slowly, Theo is learning to share cuddles with me and Oliver.

enough about me, time to sleeps!

Yah for a bonus year with Theo - I hope for many, many more!!!

I hope you all have a wonderful day of celebrating gratitude.

Update on Ms. Rose

 

Rose is back home from the hospital. She returned a day early. The hope from the parathyroidectomy surgery was that her calcium level would drop and remain steady in the normal range. Sadly, that did not happen. Her calcium levels remained at the high level they had been in prior to surgery. So, because there was no real change in her calcium level, she was discharged early. 

She's happy to be home and went right to the litter box and then ate a hearty dinner. She didn't eat much there so was pretty hungry. She let me love on her for a bit while she was safe under her blanket fort. She purred and purred. 

The plan is to keep checking her calcium levels as we await the pathology report from the growth that was removed. The internist noted what the results of that report will dictate our next course. She indicated that her calcium level is just over the edge of the normal range and if it stays where it is then she could probably have a normal life with no other intervention. But she recommended that we keep looking for what is causing the hypercalciumia. 

We are quite disappointed that this surgery didn't fix her hypercalciumia like we had hoped. I'm grateful to hear the vet's encouraging words though. 

Ms. Rose

Hello again!

Remember Ms. Rose?

She's still very, very shy and prefers for humans to not see her, and certainly to not touch!

Sadly, after ten years of nearly perfect health, this past year has been a hard one for her. Over the summer she had an anal gland rupture. She had to be crated for awhile so we could get easy access to her so we could administer meds and clean the wound. She wasn't thrilled about that, but she would often forget that she was terrified of humans.

She purred and purred as she enjoyed tummy rubs and check scratches! Whenever the hand stopped moving, she insisted on more!!

In getting her wound taken care of, the vet ran some blood work and found that her calcium level was abnormally high. Over the next many months she got more tests and we tried a medication to help with the calcium, but it didn't really work. So, a few more ultrasounds. The first one revealed weird things on her liver and other organs. The last one was of her parathyroid glands and it revealed a growth on her right parathyroid gland. 

Yesterday was her surgery, removal of the right parathyroid gland. The parathyroid was only 3mm, which seems small! The surgeon noted after the surgery that he wasn't able to separate the parathyroid and the thyroid as originally hoped, so she had right side thyroid and parathyroid removed. 

She is recovering at the hospital for most of this week so they can keep close eye on her calcium levels. The goal is for it to go down to normal range and for the other three parathyroid glands to compensate for the missing one. Not sure how having the one thyroid gland may complicate things - a question for the internal medicine specialist.

Nahum and Rose - BFF!!

After she heals from this surgery and the calcium level evens out, then we start looking at what's going on in the abdomen. She had been scheduled for exploratory surgery, with the vet thinking maybe she had cancer on the liver. I hope that's not the case, and now hoping it's something related to having had high calcium for a bit and that with normal calcium levels, everything goes back to being good. 

Purrs and prayers for a speedy recovery for Ms. Rose would be appreciated!

Mr. Floofy

 Hello world!! 

It's been a long time, way overdue for a post - yikes! 

I'll try to update you on all our happenings - one cat at a time. 

Mr. Floofy has had some health challenges. His arthritis in his back is getting worse, making it more difficult for him to jump. We are still working on getting his diabetes regulated. That has been quite the long journey. He's been inappropriately peeing all over, especially on the human bed. Thus we now have a blanket of pee pads on the bed and a waterproof blanket under those pee pads. Some of his peeing is territorial marking and some might be neuropathy.  He's also been bullying Oliver something awful.

I've tried so many things to get him to pee in the litter box. Recently we started him on a little fluoxetine and some gabapentin and it might be helping - paws crossed!

Nahum has definitively been more cuddly. He insists on a nightly cuddle - of course I don't mind that one bit unless he pees while on top of me, that is no joy.

That's a waterproof (pee-proof) blanket on the couch too!

A dog?? Yes, my 84 year old father and his large dog, Nikki, moved in with us at the end of August. Dad and Nikki live downstairs and all the cats are sequestered upstairs. Occasionally a cat gets to go on a supervised walkabout downstairs. After a very slow introduction, we learned that Nikki is curious about the cats, and very cautious around them. The cats pretty much ignore her unless she pokes her nose towards them, then she gets lots of hisses and she backs away. I love seeing the cats put her in her place! We don't let the cats roam freely as they could easily trip dad up.

This past spring and summer was basically completely occupied with getting dad's house ready to sell and then moving his stuff out. It was a tremendous amount of work and I'm very thankful that work is done.

joys of working from home

 

Theo makes everything more interesting!

Zonkersville

A good day for a snooze...

All is well here, we hope you are all well too!

bonus!

I've had a few opportunities to work from home which has given me the benefit of enjoying these moments...

Fluffy Nahum Goodness!

Sweet Oliver Amazingness!

Delightful Theo Cuddles!