ishte, posts by tag: pets - LiveJournal

Seems like he's accepted his new box as he has pretty much been sitting in it nonstop since I brought it up here and showed it to him. lol.  The important thing is that at present, he is staying OUT of my scrap fabric box.

Cats! lol. You know, people think they are dumb animals, but they are not. When I got a pair of computer glasses from Zenni, they sent a special blue laser pointer to demonstrate their special brand of anti-blue light coating. So Goblin is the only cat who comes up here to the attic with any regularity. So he has got to experience the fun of chasing a dot on the floor. At first he didn't quite make the connection of the dot with me. But he very quickly figured out that I somehow created it for him to play with. Now he comes up here and BEGS me to make it appear.  I just did a quick test to see if he also made the connection with the actual laser cylinder by picking it up and fiddling with it (but not turning it on).  He totally understands that this is where the blue dot comes from and that I control it. lol. He was in my face immediately upon seeing me pick it up.  I showed it to him and he rubbed his face on it and begged me to play with him. 

Of course, he really pounds his murder mittens down on the dot  trying to catch it, so it sounds like a herd of elephants up here when he's chasing it.  So I only played for about 30 seconds because marynachaotica is in bed as she is not the night owl that I am. This cat though. He's such a character. So now he knows I put the device away, but he's pretending to hunt anyway.  Here he is at my side again asking for the dot.  He's not going to get the dot any more tonight. Sorry Goblin!

Star had her big 3 month follow up vet visit today.  I took a soft blanket with me to lay on the table while they did her blood pressure and they did that first before drawing blood for her workup.  The result was awesome.  Her blood pressure was 100, which is just about as perfect as it could be. Dr wanted it below 120, and she's extremely happy with it where it is. We'll know how her blood work up comes out by about Saturday most likely.  All is going well in the world of Starfire.  Her special account is now empty though. The funds we raised have served their purpose though, they got us through to this last full workup of her initial treatment.

Full workups will be annual from here on out. She has to have a blood pressure test every 3 months for the rest of her life, so I'll have to put aside a little bit each week to replenish her account for the next time, but for the moment all is well.  I hope that she will be with us for many more years.

If you didn't catch it, Star had gone completely stone blind as a result of high blood pressure. Her retinas had detached and her pupils were completely blown.  Now that her blood pressure is back where it needs to be with medication, her retinas have reattached and her pupils are reactive. She can see, though I'm pretty sure not quite as accurately as she once did. She still follows motion and looks at me when she sees me.  I don't have to touch her or talk to her to get her attention.  (unless she is sleeping, which she does very well). She sees me come into the room and follows me with her eyes.  Her depth perception is not as good though, so she's more cautious about hopping up and down from things. (especially down) and occasionally you can tell by her over correction when she reaches the floor, or scrabbling when she hops up, that she misjudges the distance. Thankfully she's super smart and recognizes that she can't 100% trust her eyes when it comes to distance guageing now.

We are extremely happy with her progress. We feel that the $1000 we raised went a long way towards helping us prepare financially for her continued lifetime treatment. Thanks to everyone who donated.

As many of you may know, my sweet 16 year old Lady Galadriel Starfire suddenly went blind a few weeks ago due to high blood pressure resultant of kidney disease.  We have got started on treatment and her prognosis is very good. The vet says that she is in remarkably good physical condition for her age, with good bones and strong muscles.  If we can resolve this issue, she may even get her sight back.  However, the vet bills are quite high, and at the moment she is still on weekly visits which can range from $60 to $200 per visit depending on what needs to be done.

Unfortunately as everyone probably also knows my financial situation is not where it was this time last year.  Since ARC closed, my income was cut in half. After I started at my new job I was doing better, but now my hours have been cut too.  This couldn't have come at a worse time. Some of my friends have expressed a desire to help with vet bills, and I appreciate it.  This service was used by another friend with pretty good success, so that's why I chose it.

Thank you in advance.  If any more than is needed for her treatment is donated, I plan to find a local vet care assistance program that I can pass the surplus on to and if I can't then to a local rescue yet to be chosen.

Here is the link if you are able to help or if not I'd appreciate if you could share it.

http://www.gofundme.com/7kvito

So, LiveJournal keeps banning me for the wrong password. Seriously. If I fat finger (or phone finger a the case may be) the password one time, I'm locked out for an undetermined amount of time. A password that I can't see as I'm typing it in mind you. So I might have been posting more, except that I get locked out when I have time and have to go on to something else. Annoying. Also, again, LiveJournal's app for Android is amazingly pitiful. Btw, there are lots of Russian apps, but only two (well three.... One of which only shows you LJ top posts... So useless to me) English language ones. The official one, which I an using now (and hoping for no strange auto corrections to happen that I don't catch) and which really sucks, and ElJay which has it's own issues but which I haven't used in a while (so I think I'll try out again and see if it is improved). I really wish Semagic had a mobile app...

Here's a picture.

The app says it cannot load the image of poor blind Starfire. Ymmv. We'll see if it posts or if it is some giant unviewable size. (the app also moves my cursor to the end of the post automatically if I take to long spelling out a word with Swype.... Extremely annoying that I can't Swype a word with more than seven or eight letters.
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Isn't that precious? My post link won't load.... I don't get a button... I have to open a secondary menu to post, and it won't open. >_<
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I just discovered that I have to turn my phone sideways (in which case it is much harder to type in the tub) to see the post button menu.... K... I finished proofreading. See how this goes.
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*snort* .... Now my menu works again in portrait.... Wtg LiveJournal app....

So recently, Lady Galadriel Starfire has slowed down a bit. At first we thought it was just the process of aging slowing her down. She is fifteen now after all. But then we started noticing that certain things she was doing a little differently than she used to.  For example, we have a gate that separates where we feed the dog and where we feed the cats which is has a door that is open during non feeding times, but which is raised up so that the cats can crawl under it but the dog doesn't fit.  (this is because the dog will go in and hoover up all the cat food the instant they walk away from their food if he is not blocked from it, and the cats will eat a little food and then wander around a bit and then go back to it, so their food stays in their bowls for about an hour, where Blooper eats all his food right then and is usually done within two or three minutes.) We noticed last week that even when the door to the gate was open that Star was crawling under the gate instead of stepping over the bottom rung through the door.  We also noticed that she was approaching the stairs differently than she usually does.  She goes up by feeling her way with her whiskers, and goes down by feeling her way with her right hand first, and then once that hand is on the next stair down, she would go down a step before reaching down for the next one. She didn't hop hop onto the bed from floor to hope chest to bed or back down any more either, but did so much more cautiously. These things clued us in that she was not seeing as well as she should, so I looked at her more carefully, and noticed that a) she was not tracking my hand in front of her face unless I got close enough that she parsed me with her whiskers, b) her pupils were thrown about as wide as they could go, and did not react as strongly to light as it seemed they should, though they do still react somewhat.  c) her expression has always been fairly wide eyed when she's paying attention, but now she seemed more to be staring blankly than staring at you when you call her.  We reached the conclusion over a couple of days that she had gone blind.  I did some research online and learned that sudden blindness could be a sign of hypertension in cats.  Often this is caused by hyperthyroidism, or renal issues. (More often hyperthyroid, but hyperthyroid can also mask or mimic a renal problem.) 

So off we went this morning to see the vet to see what was going on with her.  Our vet's office is very nice and everyone is pleasant there. Star had not seen a vet for a while. She is exclusively an indoor cat, so she doesn't have as much risk for infectious disease etc that an indoor outdoor pet would need to be concerned with, and she has been remarkably healthy.  However, at 15, I knew it was only a matter of time before she would need more frequent visits to maintain her good health.  First the vet tech took a history, and checked a few things. Temperature (good), Weight (9lb. slightly less than the last time she was weighed I believe but not a whole lot less.) Mostly she just talked to me about what I'd observed and also watched as Star parsed her way around the unfamiliar room and figured out what was what, familiarized herself with the new person and was generally herself and in good spirits, despite the ride in the car and strange people and getting a thermometer where she didn't want one. 

Then the tech went out and discussed her case with the vet for a few minutes and then the vet came in and checked her over.   Felt her thyroid glands, of which one was enlarged and the other she said she 'couldn't feel' which I interpret to mean she couldn't feel anything wrong on that side.  Star was more annoyed at having her kidneys palpated, since thyroid overproduction can mask or mimic kidney issues too.  Then they whisked her out to get blood for a full workup (expensive...) and to get her blood pressure. Result?  We won't know what the lab results are until tomorrow, but Star's blood pressure is very high (as suspected vis a vis her sudden blindness) and needs action right away.  The Vet agreed with me that Star is profoundly blind and upon looking into her eyes, her retinas are definitely detached due to the unbalanced pressure pushing them off the back of her eyes.

Now we're back home, and star has her little blood pressure pills, of which she is to take a quarter per day.  She has had her first dose, taken with a very minimum of fuss.  Once the lab work is back, then we'll know what additional steps will have to be taken. Despite her 'ordeal' today, Star is in good spirits, busily napping in the next room at the moment.  The good news is that once her blood pressure is under control, Doc Bahns believes that there is a chance her retinas will float back into place and over time reattach, which mean her vision may be restored. So any good thoughts any of you can have towards that I would appreciate for her sake. Even still, if she remains blind, and is restored otherwise to good health, I will be happy with that. Star is compensating for her blindness extremely well, and does not seem very distressed about it at all.  The doctor did comment that for her age, Star is in remarkable physical condition. i.e. not overweight, not underweight, strong and muscular and active despite her blindness.  She seemed pretty happy about that.  She also said that once her thyroid was in balance, that it would be as reasonable expectation that the condition of her coat (which I just assumed had started to deteriorate due to her age) would improve.

P.S.  I am finished having winter now, so if we could please move on to spring now I'll be very happy. Thanks, and keep me and Star in your thoughts.

because it is too cute not to share. It's going on FxcxBook too. hahaha.

I just want to show you how to keep the kitten from cleaning your butt while you're sleeping.

See? Notice anything MISSING from this cat?



Here, look a little closer



She is completely denying access to her rear end by sitting on her tail while she sleeps.

Of Star... because it's necessary to demonstrate clearly how she hates hates hates Olive.
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I swear I thought that I'd posted some shots of Lady Galadriel Starfire here before. This Kitteh has been with me since the day she was born about 9 years ago. In fact... I saw her before her mother. I got up to see where her mother who was in labor had gone and put my foot down on something wet... that squealed. (thankfully I have very good reflexes and picked my foot back up before I did any damage. I picked hte little darling up and put it in the proper place and then went in search of Gretchen, her mother. Gretchen was found in the kitchen by me... eating. I guess she got tired of pushing and decided to go eat before working on it any more. Little did she know, she dropped somebody on her way. *rolls eyes*

Ok... please ignore my messy room. I was away visitin' evil_little_dog last weekend and I have not cleaned up my mess from arriving home all week. Too busy working and riding my bike and important things like that.

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