Sophie, as she was then
Now that my short stint as a movie blogger has ended I need to get back to the reason I created this blog in the first place, my kitties.
Star, always my good big girl
First the good news. Star is as always, my bestest girl. She is so sweet and so loveable. She always has a chirp and a purr for you (and a mouth full of hair if you give her a kiss with lip gloss on :-) I love her so and do not know what I would do without her.
Cosmo, 20 lbs of love, and breaking Mommy's back
Cosmo is pretty good right now too. After 8 months of largely useless therapy (and excessive spending) his Indolent Ulcer seems to be under some control. After trying everything his vets could think of down here we took him up to East Amherst to the Veterinary Dermatologist Dr. Karyn Beningo who after extensive testing discovered his has some serious seasonal allergies. To get the ulceration under control he was prescribed Clavamox, Atopica (Cyclosporin), and after VARL testing he now gets specific allergy shots every three weeks (administered by me) . This may not sound like "good" news but it is. Cosmo has gained back a pound of weight (he's up to 20) and is feeling better than he has for over a year. The allergy shots will not really take effect for four months (he needs to slowly build up immunity) so it may be a bit up and down until they do, but at least there is great hope now where there was none before. Plus it's likely not a food allergy so I don't have to be a cat food Nazi anymore :-) (he and Star both now eat EVO, Sophie eats.....well the Sophie story comes up next)
So, in case you've been wondering there is some "bad news". Well it started out badly but ended well, at least I hope it's ended well.
Sophie, as she is now. "Lionized"
Sophie my little waif girl has after living with us for 2 years come to trust and accept us. She has "good" relations with the other two kitties, and is loving and sweet, if not a bit hard to handle, thus part of her problem. Sophie literally panics when groomed, so I go slowly and comb what I can while trying to keep her calm. This would not be a huge problem with most cats, it would be a matter of just keeping them tidy, but Sophie is of course long haired and is a compulsive groomer. She grooms far more than do either Star or Cosmo and is thus prone to hairball problems. Stress seems to be the likely cause of her over groomng and Sophie is an intense cat. She does not like the high fiber foods we have tried to help her hairball issues with (and it's hard to get the loose surface hair off when an animal refuses to be well combed) but we have managed to keep up with it with only a few very "interesting" regurgitated hair balls the result. Two weeks ago though we came home from a day at the endodontist and beach and noticed that Sophie had not eaten. She was quiet, and seemed uncomfortable. I tried getting her to drink, but she could not keep even water down, and what came up had an alarming odor. I called our vet who had us come right in. She examined Sophie, didn't like what she felt, and decided to keep her overnight for x-rays and observation. A mere two hours later however a call came from the Dr who felt emergency surgery for the removal of an intestinal obstruction was imperative. We got another call after an agonizing 45 minuet wait that Sophie was doing fine and the obstruction had been successfully removed. Then the Dr asked me, since Sophie was still under, if I wanted some hair removed. I said sure, thinking that her "arm pits" and "britches" would be buzzed as I've had them done before to prevent matting. See the pictures for the result. When we visited her next day unaware of the extent of hair removal I admit I cried when I saw her. There she was in a cage with an IV in her little arm and no hair!! (well almost no hair) . It was a simple misunderstanding and is probably for the best when you consider her ample coat and compulsive grooming are the cause of her dangerous problem. But after the hot weather seems to have left us she is cold, and I look forward to her getting some of her lovely Blue Smoke coat back.
The most important news is she seems to have healed very well. (though she was very quiet for a week and was kept isolated from her two rough and tumble playmates) She is eating lots too, probably in part an effort to keep warm. I don't know what the future will bring for this little one, but we will do our best to keep anything like this from happening again, that includes a yearly buzz cut if needed.
As you can see, still absolutely gorgeous!
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