----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 9:26
AM
Subject: Happy Thanksgiving,
Everyone
Dear Friends,
I haven't posted in quite a while but I wanted to let you all know that
you are always in my thoughts. Thank you to Joan for the funny emails,
to Anne for keeping me up-to-date on Sophie, and to Paolo for
everything.
It's been a rough few months and I've been so overwhelmed that I simply
couldn't keep up with my email. I've 'dropped in' a few times to catch
up and to all of you who have had losses, my heart breaks for you. I
hope your memories will comfort you. To those with sick kitties, my
prayers are with you. To all the new folks, welcome; I'm sorry you had
to find this group, but it's exactly what you need and you will never find a
better group of folks.
In September, my husband was diagnosed with diabetes and we've been
making some rather dramatic lifestyle changes (grocery shopping has become an
all day event; it takes that long to read all the labels!). My mom is
disabled and has had several falls recently; she completely ignores the
doctor's orders and my sister and I are just in a quandry about whether or not
she can continue to live alone; we have somone coming in, but not all
day. It's a difficult situtation as I'm sure many of you know. On
October 1st, I came home from work and Wayne (one of my cats who does go
outside) was not there. He rarely ever left the porch. To date, we
have no idea what happened to him. We have searched everywhere.
Contacted shelters, vets, AC, put up posters, etc. There have been a few
leads, but none of the cats turned out to be Wayne. We are
heartsick. It's like he just disappeared.
Some of you may remember Cheddar the cat who was unable to urinate.
We started him on methylcobalamin (a form of vitamin B12 that is being used
for some neurological problems) in September and it made no difference.
There were no options for him other than repeated anesthesia and manual
expressing of his bladder. A few weeks ago, we got a call from the tech
who was his primary caregiver (and who loved him desperately) saying that she
felt it was time for him. His whole personality had changed, his abdomen
and the shape of his bladder had changed from the force needed to express him
for all those months and he was not happy. We decided to euthanize him
that night after the office closed. He had such a sad life, but he
finally did find a group of people who loved him. My dear Tommy has
recently been diagnosed as hyper-thyroid. He's responding well to
Tapazole and we are looking at the radioactive iodine treatment as a permane!
nt solution.
My FIV+ kitties are well; Maurice was re-tested with Western Blot last
week and he came back positive. He is a giant tank of a cat who is full
of charm; we've let him out a few times, but there are issues with some of the
cats and him and I can't rule out biting; he does get aggressive with some of
the males who are aggressive with him. He needs a roomate who is a bit
more energetic than Brownie. Brownie is well; he is confined by a baby
gate to a small part of the room where his food, bed, litter and scratcher are
all in the same pattern (he's blind and almost totally deaf in addition to
being FIV+) and he seems quite happy. He LOVES his little bed and he's
never met a bowl of food that he doesn't vacuum up! He was terribly thin
when he came to me, but he's finally putting on weight and is getting quite a
big tummy. Eduardo has become quite friendly and rubs my legs every day
at mealtime. I lured him into the mudroom with food ! when the nights
started to get cool and he tore a foot wide piece of linoleum off the floor
trying to dig his way out under the door. We can only assume he was
somehow trapped somewhere in his life and just freaks out when confined (he
ate through a window screen and the panel of an air conditioner to get out
when we first brought him in the house). He's not aggressive and does
well with the outside cats and will at least come into the garage
overnight. I'd rather have him in the basement where there is heat, but
he is very wary and won't come down the stairs. I can put a doghouse in
the loft above the garage (he climbs the ladder like a little fireman!) and
put his down bed inside it and he should be OK during the winter; at least
he'll be out of the wind and those insulated doghouses are good, I
think. I'm going to try one of those discs that you put in the microwave
and insert under their bedding, too. He didn't want to come into the
garage unt! il it got cold at night, so I'm hoping he'll reconsider the
basement when it gets to be subzero!
I have to figure out a way to reconfigure my house so that I can adopt
two double positives (FeLV/FIV) who came into my friend Joan's rescue
recently. Esme is very timid and nervous. Her fur was so matted
that it took Joan and I over an hour to shave about 2/3 of her body and you've
never seen anything like these mats; they were as hard as rocks and literally
covered her body like a shell. She became SO animated when we were
shaving her; she was in terrible shape when we got the call and was covered in
fleas. She was so matted she couldn't even reach her skin. We gave
her a good scratch after shaving and she was licking us like crazy!
Backus has a burst eye but he is too much of a surgical risk at this point and
the vets feel he isn't in pain, so while it looks quite awful, it doesn't seem
to bother him. We're trying to get him built up so that the eye can be
operated on. I am hoping that feline interferon is the miracle w! e are
all hoping for and I am praying for the kitty who is to be treated with
it.
We have a healthy new addtion to our home; his name is Donovan and he is
about 8-9 months old. He looks exactly like Wayne and has much the same
personality. We had a knock on the door one night about 6 weeks ago and
it was a neighbor who had found him running in traffic on a busy street across
town. Her son is desperately allergic and she wondered if I could take
him. He is such a sweet and mellow little boy; it's like he has been
with us forever; he just moved in and fell into the swing of things
immediately. Until he was vetted, I had him in the mudroom and I made
him a bed that first night. He got right into it like it had always been
his!
I hope to be 'around' more; I've missed you all.
I wish each of you a wonderful Thanksgiving; I'm so thankful to have
a group of friends like you.
Hugs and headbutts.
Love, Julie
"I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the
more entitled it is
to protection by man from the cruelty of man. "
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged
by
the way its animals are treated."
Mohandas Gandhi
(1869-1948)
Paws Come WITH Claws!!!
If you're thinking about
de-clawing your cat, you need to re-think your decision to acquire a pet.
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