Ch-ch-ch-changes

I found out last week that my old domain and web host is shutting down. Like, soon. While I'm taking the necessary steps of moving the domain and securing new web hosting, the timing is particularly bad and it's highly likely that the domain will be offline for awhile. For that reason, my ronniecat at ronniecat dot com email will probably be non-functional for a considerable period.

If you need to contact me for the next few weeks, please use ronnie dot cat at gmail dot com. Yes, there is a dot between ronnie and cat. When I set up the account, Gmail was beta and they insisted they wanted the format to be firstname.lastname @ gmail.com. We can see how well that worked out for them.

The RACS pet gallery archive is in the safe hands of Mr. Harrington at http://talkingponies.com/, and thank you very much to him for that.

ronnie

Master of the House

I gave Mojo his sub-q fluids by myself yesterday. This was an experiment; usually one of us holds him, while the other (yes, we are both veterans now) does the administration. He was (as one of the vet techs told us) "a bit of a jumper". Well, he's not much of a jumper anymore, and having both of us do it has become routine. But it's also a bit problematic, since both of us travel for work. Previously, when one of us was out of town, the other would go to the vet. But since it has become pretty routine now, I thought it would be really helpful if he would accept just one of us doing the task.

I had to hold him on my lap (no way was he sitting on the table passively while all this was done) and it was a bit like trying to put a bra on another person with your hands upside down. And each holding an orange. Okay, not quite that awkward. He didn't like the setup much. Where was Dad? (In the living room, so as to not be a distraction.) He wasn't particularly impressed with my technique. And he fussed a bit. But overall it went pretty well. If I'd had an extra hand, it would've helped.

This was important because Husband is away on work now, and I have to give him his fluids tomorrow. Overall, I think this is better than disrupting him to take him to the vet. (I use a 21gauge needle because I've got all the time in the world. They use a much bigger one. [His fluids are administered by syringe, not IV flow, at this point]) He also needs to learn to let one experienced person do it for when he stays at the Cat Spa when we're away.

It's an evolution, all an evolution. Meanwhile his health is still good, he's still running over 8 lbs (I say - sort of jokingly but not really - that my goal is to turn him into a 9-pounder) and he is still in astonishingly high spirits, playing with his catnip toys, running up and down the stairs faster than any cat ever did, ever. For a 13 year old cat with a heart murmur and chronic renal failure, his quality of life is off the charts.

Wish me luck tomorrow. It's all in service of the Master of the House, as best we can figure it out for now.

ronnie