kaleidoscope

I can't believe our yum-yum is 5 months old this week. I am pretty much out of the "transitional" stage at work and am trying to carry my weight. I feel very pulled in lots of directions. A few things are falling to the gutter. But, baby is awesome. She just keeps growing and changing like a kaleidoscope. Speaking of carrying my weight (ha ha) hefting the baby caused me to throw out my back. I'm taking it easy with lifting and bending while it heals. But, it really speaks to how fast she is growing.

Our kitty, Kazi, is making a slow recovery. He's still timid, weak, and without much appetite. But, he got his stitches out, his incision has mostly healed over, and he comes out of his scaredy-cat hidey place and chases Akira from time to time. Akira is trying to make a power play for alpha cat while he's down and out and he still has enough salt to shake at her. His blood work seems to imply that no permanent damage was done to his organs and there is no reason why he can't fully get back to normal. He did lose 20% of his body weight, and has to try to recover his muscle and strength on a restricted low-fat diet. I did finally realize the benefit of premium food. His diet of crappy, cheap cat food probably caused his pancreatitis.

I am excited to be going to Utah in 8 days for DJ and Marilyn's wedding. I am probably not as excited as they are, but still... yum-yum and I are going to be able to see and be seen.

map

no rest for mama

I know all of the internet is holding his or her breath waiting desperately for news about how my cat is doing. That's just how Kazi rolls.

I picked him up from the hospital Tuesday night and he has since eaten a little and used the potty... both signs that he is improving. He's still really weak, he lost A LOT of weight while he was sick and he looks like a supermodel. He mainly hangs out in bed, where we wait on him hand and foot, delivering special food or chicken broth (warmed, of course) antibiotics, and love. His incision is healing well, and it looks like he will get his stitches out on Wednesday. He'll be fine eventually, but right now, he sort of looks like he just had exploratory surgery. (Oh, right... he did.)

In other parts of life, I decided not to wait until Zola is 18 and I have stacks of stories and photos piling up in her blog and no time to compile them... so each weekend, I have been using the software from Blurb to create the layouts. That way, when the book is full, I can just upload it and order the hardbound copy online. It is already shaping up to be very cute!

Also, the quest for babysitting help is shaping up. Maybe I will be talking about the break we are getting from having help soon.

pain-crea-us titus

So last night kazi started throwing up like crazy and foaming at the mouth, so I took him to the emergency room. They did a bunch of tests and found that he had a mass of gas in his upper intestines that indicated that nothing was moving through his system. This is really life threatening to cats.

The ER doctors thought that he might have swallowed a foreign object and recommended surgery that would have us out the door at over $6,000, without which he would need to be euthanized. We didn't really want to spend that much, since Kazi is a pretty old cat and doesn't have a long time left anyway. So we just took him home.

This morning, I called his regular vet and she said she would do his surgery for a fraction of the amount the ER quoted. So, I took him in. She did some x-rays to try to rule out an obstruction and found that his bowels were not passing anything through, so he went into surgery at 3:00 pm. She cut him open and found that his pancreas was swollen gignormous and was the cause of his intestines being blocked so she just sewed him back up without doing anything else and started a treatment for pancreaitis. He'll be in the hospital for a few days with an IV for fluids and medicine. His prognosis is still hard to guess. He had a pretty advanced and critical case so it may have done some permanent damage to his other organs. Or he could be perfectly fine once things get moving again.

For now, we are just hoping that he gets well. He's been a member of our family for 13 years and has been a force of love and companionship in our lives. I know that he has changed anti-cat people's opinions about cats by being awesome.

I was just saying (a few weeks ago) that we should get him pet health insurance since he is getting older. Well played, life. Well played.

Hip hippos baby booties

Hip hippos baby booties
Originally uploaded by Jennifer Ladd handmade.

omg.