C'est froid, la, c'est froid. (updated with post script)

Seems like nobody's posting much these days. But we're still here! Including me.

Here, it's cold. Temperatures in the -20/-28C range, but the wind chill puts the actual feeling in the -30s. That's in the south of NB. Up north today in Edmundston, the actual temperature was -34C, not counting wind chill. At those kind of temperatures, this happens.

So, yeah, it's cold. Not -40C, which is extremely cold in most of Canada. (That's the point at which the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales meet up - -40C = -40F.) But cold enough that we're pretty miserable and just trying to keep our kids warm and ourselves warm and our cars and our water running, and make it in to work and make it home again.

Here's the conundrum: In Canada, in winter, it's either really really cold, in which case you are really really cold; or it is just normal-cold. Like, -10C. And when it's normal cold, it snows. A lot. So there's no winning, really.

I'm probably rambling at this point.

Punch-drunk and exhausted from cold.

Oh - Mojo? Thanks for asking. Better than ever. As happy and active as he's ever been in his life. The cold doesn't bother him much. The house is warm and cozy and he spends his days, while we're at work, rotating between his favourite spots: his little cat bed; on the red blankie on the Big Bed; and on his little plaid blankie on the sofa. I saw this on I Can Has Cheezburger today -



- and I swearz it's true.

Edited to add: His favourite spots when we are home is on his Dad's lap, or on my lap. So, a wide variety of options for one small indoor black and white cat.

ronnie

PS: I should note, for the record, that the morning after I wrote this blog post I woke up to an absolutely dead car and came home from work to find the kitchen pipes frozen and no water. Winter doesn't take kindly to published criticism it would seem!

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

The Dude Abides

 Looking back through blog posts, I am astonished to see it is over a year since Mojo was diagnosed with the early stages of chronic renal failure.

 Been a long road since then for all of us. If someone had told me a year ago that I'd learn to do sub-cutaneous fluid treatments, I would have said, "Not while there's a professional left in the world who's capable."
 
After a rough start and some intense negotiations, he is as good as gold for his sub-q treatments now. Husband barely has to restrain him. He sits as still as he can; impatience still ripples under his skin. But he is oh, so good.

We weighed him tonight. 8 lbs, steady as a rock.

And he is healthy. Approximately 6-7 small meals a day, received with enthusiasm. Plays with his catnip toys every day. Snoozes in his little round bed, on the big family bed, or on his favourite plaid blankie inbetweentimes.

Doing well. Knock wood.

ronnie

Mojo in Motion

An email from dear M.E. reminded me I owe you an update on the Mojo sitch. I mentioned that he had an ultrasound; results weren't definitive. There is some thickening of his stomach lining which may have been causing his vomiting, which could possibly be cancer (!) or something else, according to the vet. She suggested a series of options, ranging from doing nothing, to doing a biopsy of the stomach lining via an endoscope (a tube down his throat - I've actually had this done myself), to sending or taking him to the veterinary college in Charlottetown, PEI, for further investigation, to - and here she always couches her language very carefully - she "always leave[s] it up to the owners to determine how far they`re willing to go". This is code for euthanasia.

She also said that if we weren't going for further treatment options, steroid shots might mitigate inflammation of the stomach lining which might be causing the thickening and the vomiting.

All of this would be so much easier if cats were transparent!

We pretty quickly ruled out the more invasive and upsetting options including the biopsy and sending him to Charlottetown. We want to keep him around, but not at the cost of making him go through a series of really confusing and upsetting experiences. (Have I mentioned I've had the endoscope? Not. Fun. Even. Drugged.) We were somewhat dubious that the stomach condition was cancer since he was almost completely asymptomatic except for the vomiting and is gaining/maintaining weight. That left making a decision about trying steroid shots - a literal shot in the dark since we didn't even know if his stomach was inflamed.

Happily events overtook us. The vomiting stopped completely - perhaps in part due to him now getting sub-q fluids at home every other day and avoiding dehydration - and he has been in the best possible spirits and health for the past month.

Well, except for the 20 minutes or so every other day when we prepare and administer his sub-q. It is a misery for everyone involved, he tenses and struggles and fights and claws his poor Dad`s hands and wrists to bits, and I don't come away unscathed either. (Second-last treatment we administered the fluids to him in between alternately swabbing both our hands with paper towels so we didn't drip blood all over everything.) After fighting for five minutes or so, he usually becomes more-or-less resigned and  tenses but doesn't actively fight, and we can hold him still enough to get the fluids into him. Then the needle comes out and he casually strolls to the kitchen to wait for the treats he knows are coming.

Aah, good times. We will go through this because it is so worth it due to his current quality of life. Outside of those hated sub-q sessions, he appears to be extremely healthy and happy. Healthier and more playful and happier than he's been in about a year, in fact.

Oh, and we're shopping for leather gloves for Husband.

ronnie

Cayo Ensenachos, Santa Clara, y Remedios

As some of you have surmised, we have been away for awhile (last week to be precise). This time we stayed on Cayo Ensenachos, part of the Jardins del Rey Archipelago which we have now visited three times. We noticed big, big changes to the region and the towns we visited and passed through on this visit.

We also hired a car and spent some quality time in Remedios and - finally! - two years after the sprained ankle fiasco, I made it to Santa Clara.

I'll be posting photos of those two bustling, amazing Cuban towns on flikr over the weekend but for now, this is a picture of a can of Cristal beer, my favourite beer in the world which tastes like Cuba and which I am drinking while writing this blog post.

I see I have a lot of catch-up reading of my favourite blogs to do!

Mojo stayed at The Cat Spa, where the owner is well-qualified to deal with his current health issues. Unfortunately, he had a bit of a bad spell on Monday night and she had to call the on-call vet, and take him to his own vet on Tuesday. The consensus is that he now needs sub-q fluid more than once a week, and that smaller doses several times a week will be better for him. That saw Husband and I trekking over to the vet this evening after work to learn how to administer them to him ourselves. If he is going to have to have this done three times a week, we are not stressing him out by putting him in a carrier and trucking him to a semi-strange and unpleasant environment to have it done. I won't lie. Neither of us wanted to learn to do this and both of us hate it and are enormously nervous about it. But there you have it. I know some of you have dealt with this already and your encouragement that it will become quite routine is much appreciated.

He also had more bloodwork done when he visited his vet last week and we consulted with the vet on the results today. She says his kidney functions have mostly stabilized but she feels something else is causing his recent weight-loss and vomiting. So after laying out a number of options, from doing nothing to sending him to the veterinary school on Prince Edward Island for a complete work-up, we settled on having an ultrasound done here in town, which might show nothing or which might reveal some source of trouble which we can work on alleviating. It's worth a shot.

ronnie

He's living as hard as he can.

He's so present. He wakes us up at 6:30 a.m., not having gotten the memo about the time change. He does this on the weekends now, as well, having discovered that he needs hooman assistance to access teh wet food. Husband (who can go back to sleep after being awakened) heroically goes downstairs to feed him, knowing that I cannot go back to sleep after being awakened.

He follows us everywhere. He will quite possibly kill me by tripping me on the stairs. I accept this as part of the deal.

When I am in the bathroom, and have the audacity to lock him out, I am serenaded by the doorknob rattling constantly.

He likes the new feeding schedule, which is basically: he gets fed whenever he wants to. He indicates that he wants to by meowing. Actually, squawking. Loudly and persistently.

About every half-hour or so.

He still chases his dad's ties across the bed every morning, and runs up the stairs faster than any cat ever did, ever.

He's 12. And his kidneys are starting to fail.

He goes once a week to the vet to get a subcutaneous injection of fluids. He doesn't much like going, 'cause he's comfy at home. But he doesn't complain, and he doesn't notice the actual procedure at all.

In between, he is living as hard as he can.

ronnie

Sub-cu

Mojo had his first administration of sub-cutaneous fluid yesterday, to relieve the symptoms of his CRF.

It couldn't possibly have gone better. The vet tech used an enormous, absolutely terrifying syringe instead of using an IV line, which meant that the process took a few minutes as opposed to the 20 minutes or so that a small needle and an IV bag take.

Mojo didn't blink, didn't flinch, didn't react at all during the two administrations of the fluid with the syringe. Didn't seem to even notice it was happening. We were far more traumatized than he was - although we weren't much traumatized at all, because it all went so smoothly. The tech noted that they rarely notice or care, because they have so much loose skin on their backs they hardly feel it. It's amazing how little most vet treatments seem to bother animals, who don't know what's going on and therefore don't know they're supposed to be scared and upset. The key is just making sure you don't telegraph your worry and upset to them. I think we all did pretty well.

The bill? A staggering $6.50.

He was feeling in the pink when he got home, and ran around like a mad bastard for a while, skidding on the rug and so on. That's not the treatment - it'll take a couple of days for him to absorb all that fluid. But he was obviously in a good mood.

ronnie

Enjoying life.

Still playing with the new video cams. This is just a little video of me and Mojo noodling around the back yard on a sunny Saturday after watching Husband put some tomato plants in containers.



As you can see, I tried to discourage him from eating grass, which he managed to do anyway, so he threw up 10 seconds after going inside. Ah well, it was worth it to see him continuing to enjoy life. He's going to the vet next week for his first treatment of sub-cutaneous fluid. Fingers crossed that it goes well.

ronnie