Something's In the Air

Not sure what it is, but it made last week weird.

 Pixel and Artie were helping me with costume things, which is totally in character.

There was a pattern sale at Joann's so I got to stock up on patterns for burlesque clothes.

And then all the weirdness hit for Valentine's Day.

On our way to dinner we witnessed a hit and run, so we got to deal with police. Thankfully no one in the car that was hit was injured. No clue about the other driver who sped off.

After dinner we got home to a very weepy-eyed kitty. One trip to the emergency vet later and we find there's a shallow, wide injury to Pixel's left eye. No clue how it got there are she was perfectly fine when we left the house that morning.

She's not a fan of the eye drops, but she tolerates them better that the pain relief ointment.... which we stopped using because all it seemed to be doing was making her foam at the mouth from the foul taste getting there via tear ducts.

Continued weirdness is her left pupil remains dilated even though it's been a few days since we last gave her the pain ointment. She's got a follow up with our regular vet on Thursday, but I'm going to call and ask them about the pupil tomorrow.

I need to get back to work. I've got lots of sewing and laundry to catch up on. See you next weekend!

Update on Ellie Bean

Haven't had time for much in the last week. Miss Ellie did in fact have her procedures last Monday. She was spayed, microchipped, and multiple biopsies were taken. We added a second antibiotic to her meds list because the vet found blood in her urine as well. She was already on one to help calm down her guts, along with a probiotic.

Honestly we were torn about doing the spay when we did, but we needed samples for biopsy and she kept trying to sneak outside and meet up with a couple of local tom cats. Knowing that an adventure like that would definitely kill her, we opted for spaying her while she was under for biopsies.

She spent her first night home in Mercedes' kennel after she irritated her sutures by crawling inside the box springs of the guest bed. Also she didn't do well in the donut thing. At all. We decided it was because she was too weak to mover her head while wearing it.

So I modified a onsie to see if that would protect her sutures.... that didn't last long.

Ultimately it was decided that I would just move into the guest room and be with her 24/7 for a couple of days because gentle redirection kept her from messing with her stitches. And all she wanted to do was snuggle anyway. We did block her access to the box springs before allowing her back in there. She wouldn't even look out the window until Friday. She was too tired and weak to care. I thought I'd have to syringe feed her if she didn't perk up soon.

We ended up back at the vet's on Thursday because she was still so lethargic and not eating/drinking well. She got some fluids and another shot of pain medicine, which helped immensely. While we were there, her biopsy results came in. In layman's terms, all of the strange swelling, the weird ropy scarring on her back leg, her inability to gain weight, is all because her system was strained for so long due to the parasites. She's so weak that it takes a lot for her to fight off anything and quite frankly she's lucky to be alive.

Our new plan of action is to get her to eat any way we can and once the sutures are removed, we'll start a course of steroids to give her a boost. FuzzyHusband produced cans of tuna in water and chicken legs to roast. Those have gone over very well with herself.

She's looking much better now. (Yes I still need to put away the Christmas tree. Been too sick to bother with it.) She's still not very energetic, but she'll come out of the room and inspect things on the main floor. No access to stairs just yet. I want those sutures out first.

That's all for now. She's doing well enough that I can actually get some housework done, so I"m off to do that. See you next week!

Really, Universe? Really?

That cold I had after the holidays stuck around and turned into bronchitis. I've been coughing all week because apparently I warranted antibiotics and oral steroids, but not an inhaler or cough suppressant.

Ellie is supposed to have her spay and at least 2, maybe 3, biopsies tomorrow.. along with getting microchipped and her rabies shot. However. Let's play "what's wrong with my kitty's face?" again!

Her left upper lip is swollen and hard and there appears to be an abscess on the left side of her lower jaw, right up against the teeth. So that's going to be a "fun" reveal to the vet in the morning. She was totally fine Thursday. I saw a bit of swelling Friday, but figured she'd gotten tagged in a disagreement with Pixel. And now it's atrocious. I'm hoping we go forward with the spay anyway. Her hormones are just going to keep getting her into trouble otherwise. Might have to hold off on the biopsies though. Dangit.

At least being sedentary this week has been good for critter snuggles and stitching.

See you next weekend, hopefully with good news.

Good Intentions As Paving Stones

I'd planned on doing an early blog post last week to commemorate FuzzyHusband's and my 10th wedding anniversary, but things were just too busy. I was too busy trying to finish this piece and neither of us wanted to deal with holiday crowds, so we've opted to wait until after the holidays to have a nice dinner out somewhere.

I did get the vest done and delivered on Saturday. Kinda bummed that I'm still too sick to see it being worn on New Year's Eve.

FH bought me some beautiful jewelry, which is a rare and wonderful treat reserved for special occasions.

He also picked flowers that were the same type he used to buy me when we were poor college students and just starting to date. So sentimental! <3 p="">

Saturday was busy right up until I passed out from exhaustion. I had a cake to bake, a wreath to finish, bags to pack, critters to prep... all kinds of things needed doing. The last wreath of the season got done whilst waiting on the cake layers to cool. I designed it for my mother-in-law specially because she loves nutcrackers.

Then I wanted to make a post for Christmas Eve/Day, but again life was filled with wonderful things that were more important.

Tuesday morning I woke up with a fever and very little voice. When we finally got home that afternoon, Ellie Bean was injured and we had to rush to the vet. She'd somehow injured her lip, and the vet (not our regular one) wasn't sure how so he gave us antibiotics and sent us home.

I slept through most of Wednesday and Thursday as the lurgy symptoms got worse. Thankfully all signs point to it being a nasty cold and not an infection.

We went back to the vet Friday, in a snowstorm, because her lip looked worse. FH was home around 2:30 after swinging by the grocery store and passing 5 wrecks in 3 miles. The roads were heinous. It took us a while to get there and I'm glad we left way early for the appointment.

 This time we saw our regular vet and she's seen this type of injury before. Apparently Ellie likely failed to stick a landing after jumping down from something, landed on her faced, and skidded. The vet was impressed that her lip didn't tear away from her face. Confident that we weren't dealing with a potential abscess next to her jaw, Ellie and I headed home in the storm.

It was still coming down late yesterday evening. I haven't even gone near the door today as I woke up coughing and have no voice. Himself has been taking care of me all day. I've slept through most of it, as rest and fluids are about all one can do for a virus.

I figured I'm likely to sleep through most of tomorrow too, but since I was awake now I'd go ahead and update the blog. So Happy New Year to all. May 2018 be kinder to the world than 2017 has been.

Been A Busy Week

Happy Father's Day!

Monday started off with me driving a transport of 25 dogs from downstate IL to the local no-kill shelter up here. They were confiscated from a mentally challenged man who didn't understand how to help the animals being dumped on his property and breeding to excess.

Tuesday Artie need to see the vet. He had an that wouldn't stop tearing and weeping. It was obviously irritating him and just didn't look good. Squinting was the word of the day, which made him jumpy too.

Some medicated eye drops have done the trick and he's back to normal now.

The rest of the week was divided between sewing/quilting, cleaning, laundry, studying Spanish, and getting organized for the Row by Row Experience nations-wide shop hop.

The chevron quilt fronts and backs are now completely finished. Just need to get them sandwiched and start quilting.

Also I put together a little pin cushion using a pattern from a Missouri Star Quilt Company magazine. Scraps from the flag wall quilts came in handy.

The Dresden tea cozy halves are sandwiched and basted now.

I've quilted around the applique with invisible thread. The rest of the quilting will be in variegated purple.

Friday I had a sewing day with a friend and we started a quilt-along. We're using the same pattern but I'm making a runner with metallic fabrics and she's making a huge quilt... doubling the size of the pattern!  These are the centers of the blocks for my runner. I still need to finish piecing the turquoise and brown ones.

That's it for now. Here's a picture of Victor checking out his toy that I picked up last weekend at the expo.

And a picture of Pixel for good measure.

Have a good one!

Ugh

Pollux and I are both sick.  I'll get caught back on blogging when one of us is well again.

Castor: Forever Loved- March 29, 1999-May 22, 2011

Where to start?  It's had to describe anything that's been a part of one's life for nearly half of it... even harder when that "thing" was a living being whom you loved.

  Castor was born as one of seven kittens to a mother owned by a couple other college kids in the town my university is located.  He and Pollux were the only two Siamese looking kittens in the entire litter.  We wanted named that wold reflect their twin-like appearance and ran through several, rejecting the most obvious ones like "Cain and Abel," "Romulus and Remus," and "Heckle and Jeckle."  I came up with the idea of Castor and Pollux.

From Wikipedia:

"In the myth the twins shared the same mother but had different fathers which meant that Pollux was immortal and Castor was mortal. When Castor died, Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together and they were transformed into the Gemini constellation. The pair were regarded as the patrons of sailors, to whom they appeared as St. Elmo's fire."

 It took a while to figure out which was which, but their personalities helped make the distinction.  Spookily enough the mythological Pollux also outlived his brother.  That thought has been haunting me for about a year now...

Castor wasn't the runt of the litter but he was the smaller of the two.  I started referring to him as "my littlest love."  It stuck even when he became the bigger of them.  Even after baby Confetti came into our lives.  He loved playing fetch with paper wads, eating canned pasta (I didn't start him on that), and being outside on walks.  And people.  Being a university student I had friends coming and going almost every day.  Castor loved everyone and just knew they were there to see him.

Saturday morning everything was as normal as it had been for weeks.  Then right as the vet's office closed, Castor took a turn for the worse.  FH and I debated and decided we would wait and see if he was really in pain or if he might be able to wait until Monday morning.  He seemed fine through Saturday evening but Sunday morning was a different story.

He was so tired and couldn't walk on his own any longer.  Thankfully our vet works for the emergency clinic, so they were willing to work with us and our special needs.  FH and I decided (with our vet) months ago that we wanted a necropsy preformed so we'd be better prepared if Pollux starts showing these signs.  Usually the emergency clinic doesn't hold bodies for testing, but after a couple of phone calls the arrangements were made.

Everyone got to say good-bye here at home.  Castor loved on Artie like always.  Pollux has been increasingly upset for the last few days and didn't want to have much to do with his brother.  They did touch noses one last time though.

It was bittersweet letting him go.  Stopping the pain outweighed our own sadness though.  Castor was relaxed the whole time, from the car ride to the end.  In fact I'll swear to my dying day that he looked relieved.

Pollux and Artie are both sad and confused.  I'm hoping Artie can keep Pollux from slipping into a depressed funk.  Tempie hasn't noticed Castor's absence yet but she will eventually.  As for me, I'm stuck between relief that he's not hurting and being totally shattered that my baby's gone.  We've been preparing for this day since before moving to this house last year.  In fact we weren't sure he'd see his 12th birthday, but he fought hard to stay with us.

I believe he's earned the rest.  I know he's basking in the sun at the Rainbow Bridge with Confetti, 'Bert, and their Uncle Meat Loaf.  I'll see them all again eventually.

Good-bye, Castor, my littlest love. I will love you forever. See you at the Rainbow Bridge.