Today was mostly eaten up by taking Owl to the clinic for his first follow-up visit to have his sutures removed. I had to get up at an evil (early) hour and went out first to do all the cat stuff. Having given pills and cleaned boxes, I put the carrier inside Owl's pen in the hope he would get inside it himself of his own free will and hide out.

I had a quick breakfast and found that my idea worked perfectly. Owl was already inside the carrier, comfy and relaxed. All I had to do was close the door and we were on the way.

I left around 9:15 and arrived around 10:40. I dropped Owl off along with a note that had some questions on it for the surgeon. I did major grocery shopping, had lunch and went back for Owl. I didn't get to talk to the surgeon, but I was given a printed report that addressed my questions.

She said the incision has healed nicely, not to worry about the positioning of the fixator (I thought it had shifted, but it was an illusion caused by the swelling in his leg continuing to go down), to keep putting Neosporin on the hot spots but not worry about them unless they get worse, and that she's pleased with how well Owl is using the leg after only two weeks.

The bad news -- I have to keep him confined another month! Aggghh!

I got back around 3 pm. Owl did NOT want to go back into the pen when we got home. He complained a lot about it. I was in the pen visiting with him when my phone rang, so I had to hurry out and just "latched" the gate using the bungie cord. A short time later, I heard the gate go BOINGGG! as Owl muscled it open and escaped. He didn't get anywhere, but he was very unhappy with me for returning him to Kitty Alcatraz. And now I have to take more care to put the doorstopper bricks in place so he can't do that again.

His next recheck is on the 14th, when they take another set of x-rays. Which I have to pay for. Sigh...

Last night, Owl used his sumo ninja skills to sneak past me when I was cleaning up spilled litter. I was inside and there was Owl on the outside. He mainly wanted to roll on the catnip spa, so I let him do that for a few minutes before he want back to the pen. Doing hard time in Kitty Alcatraz.

When I came in this morning, Owl had removed almost every bit of litter from his box. Such a helpful boy. So I changed out the box, swept up the mounds of litter (I bought a small hand whisk broom that works great) and put the freshly cleaned box back in the pen.

Owl immediately climbed into it, threw half the litter out and used it. Sooo, more cleaning up, etc.

He's pulling the fur off his back again, so I have a query in to the surgeon to find out whether I can return to giving him antihistamines.

Shortly after I gave him the last of his several pills, he horked up a giganto hair ball, along with lots of food and at least one pill. Sigh...pardon me, I have more clean up to do.

LATER....

The vet said antihistamines were okay, so I've started Owl back on those. I think Owl has figured out that emptying the litter from the box will make me come visit him, because he's sure been doing it a lot today.

I had an amusing moment when I was inside the pen with Owl cleaning up. Tribble came up to the gate and stood there pondering me inside. He said, "Murf? Murf?" He was thoroughly perplexed. Then he began sticking his paw through the grid openings and sticking his claws into my feet, the patented Tribble Method of Getting Attention.

Next I have to put the cat carrier back together pending Owl's return visit to the surgeon tomorrow.

The little tabby with the white chest is hanging around a lot now and getting bolder. He'll stay on the porch and eat while we talk to him from 6 feet away or so, and he lurks around the yard. Still not sure if it's a he or she.

With the rise of cats coming to eat the food, there is also a rise in the number of cat spats, unfortunately.

Owl continues to complain about his situation, on and off. He had rubbed the raw spot on the outside of his knee to hot pink again. More Neosporin was applied.

Diva entertained herself by batting around the rubber tarantula.

Either Puck or Blue (both deny responsiblity) knocked over the tripod box, then they played hide & seek with it.

After such exhausting play, Puck needed a nap. He settled into the director's chair, apparently oblivious to the fact that Tribble was already sleeping there.

See for yourself (third photo down).

Owl is being an excellent boy. The raw spot on his leg looks better (the vet said the Neosporin tastes bad, so that would also keep him from licking it).

Querida, OTOH, was so badly congested this morning, that she was having trouble breathing while we were doing the pill routine. I've decided to make a second try at giving her the course of antibiotics that my vet wanted me to try on her. I stopped the first time because she developed such bad diarrhea, but the acidophilus is working so well for Owl, that I'm going to give it to her and hope that keeps it under control.

I have a tall narrow box in my office that a camera tripod came in. It's standing up right with the top open. I heard a lot of commotion and a big THUD!, so I went to check. I peered down the long box and Puck the Merry Prankster's big eyes stared up at me. I tipped the box over so he could extract himself, but he stayed inside near the opening and casually sniffed the edges to make it clear that he could have gotten out any time he wanted.

I'm sure I've already mentioned this in the past, but I have a large tattoo on my forehead that reads "SUCKER!". It's in glowing letters that only cats can see. Which is why I bought a cheap bag of cat food (barn cat food, the man called it) and set out a bowl of food on the front porch. The neighbor's cats from across the street were looking skinny and given all the drama that goes on over there, I figured she might not be feeding them regularly. Not that it's my problem, of course, I told myself as I put the food out.

But there are also plenty of other half-wild moggies around the area and they've finally discovered the food. The bowl is being emptied at a quicker pace. There's a dark tabby coming around now, very pretty and quite young. I'm guessing 9-10 months. I saw her (him?) creep behind the bushes, across the open space and onto the porch.

I looked out the front window a little while later after she had eaten. She must have heard me talking to Randy because she looked up at us for a few seconds before running off. She had ENORMOUS green eyes, big bat ears, a white chest and white mittens on her paws. Very pretty moggy.

Mr. Owl has been slightly quieter today. He complained to me quite a lot yesterday. I spent several sessions in the pen with him to give him love and attention.

While I was gone for lunch and running a couple of errands, Owl got a raw pink spot about the size of a nickel on the inside of his knee just below the bottom part of the rigging. He had something similar on the outside of the knee at the same location relative to the rigging, but this one is a bit more raw. I don't think he could have simply scraped the skin away, so I'm thinking he must have licked it raw.

I called and conferred with the surgeon. She said it's not uncommon, but if it gets any worse or yucky looking to bring him in. She also said it was okay to put Neosporin on it, which I've done. I didn't discuss it with her, but I'm thinking it must hurt somewhat for Owl to want to lick it that severely. Since I still have some pain meds from my local vet, I went ahead and gave him a dose of that, too. From the nice nap he's having, I think it helped.

I suspect part of Owl's crying may be to say "I don't want to use the same cat box for two jobs." He complains a bit when he's using the cat box for the second time, I notice. The acidophilus has helped with the gut problem.

He's also pulling fur out. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. It wasn't from the usual place on his back. Then while Randy was babysitting him, he saw Owl pulling out fur along the edge of the shaved area on his leg. Maybe the fur growing back is irritating him, so he's licking it hard enough to pull out the fur. Randy said Owl was also licking the incision, which I hope is a good thing, as in keep it clean vs. having a problem with it. It looks all right superficially. The stitches come out next Tues.

I have a new type of eye ointment for Querida, though I haven't used it yet. The inflammation in her eye calmed down with the last oinment I used. Considering how much she hates having stuff put in her eyes, I won't use it unless I really need to. She was drinking a lot of water this morning. I cut back her thyroid meds just a tiny trifle starting a few days ago. Drinking a lot of water could mean I need to go back to the original dose, so I will.

Owl has been crying today and I don't know why. It may relate to his guts bothering him. I gave him acidophilus this morning and really hope it will help him. I keep sitting down to give him pets and atteniton, but I think mainly he's just agitated and wants to get out and about. Definitely not a cat who likes to be caged.

Last night, I ran out of Clavamox, the liquid antibiotic, which they wanted me to give to Owl for 7 days. But they only gave me enough for 4 days. Color me confused. I left a long, detailed message on their voice mail asking them to contact my local vet and authorize me to pick up some more Clavamox from her.

That was the first thing I followed up on this morning and, of course, nothing had been done. I finally found out that the surgery clinic had not even gotten the voice mail. I was hard pressed to bite my lip and not snarl "Why do you bother having voice mail if you don't bloody bother to CHECK it?"

Anyway, after several phone calls and wasted time, I got things arranged, had breakfast, ran down to my local vet's office and picked it up. My local vet, bless her, gave me pills instead of the awful liquid, so Owl won't have an excuse to keep foaming.

I was very happy to see this morning that Owl had eaten every bit of his food -- all the canned food and every spec of the dry food. Randy did the baby-sitting with Owl while I cleaned up. Owl just wanted to escape, though he tried to put Randy off his guard by purring. I put some catnip on the catspa, which kept Owl occupied for part of the time, along with several other catnip fiends. Then I also put some catnip on Owl's cushion in the pen.

The poor boy looks so bored being cooped up. I asked the clinic if it would be all right to simply let him out and walk around a little bit, but they said absolutely not. I need to keep him contained, quiet and moving as little as possible. Sorry, Owl.

I gave out the canned food at the usual time last night, while not giving Owl his meds until later. I was really hoping that would help get some food into him. He showed a little bit of interest in the canned food, then threw up. Since he didn't have anything in his stomach, he only brought up liquid. That left me pretty worried. I had to go back to the office an hour later to do the meds and it looked like he might have touched the food, just a little bit. I decided to call the clinic in the morning if I didn't see improvement.

But this morning -- praise Bast! -- he had eaten the canned food and a portion of the dry food. I am so relieved. Randy, who is a saint, is now coming out with me before breakfast to babysit Owl while I do the housekeeping chores with the enclosure. He kept Owl under control, but he commented that although Owl was purring, he was also whacking his tail around in that way that says, "I may be purring, but I'm not really happy about this."

Once again, I had to let the Owlmeister out briefly while I cleaned up the pen. There was a lot of litter on the floor and in the water bowl. I always replace the water in the morning, refresh the food, remove the litter pan and sweep out the area.

I have to sweep with one eye on Owl the whole time. He wandered over to food bowls, but didn't eat. I'm rather worried about the eating. I can't tell that he's eaten any dry food, and he hasn't been touching the canned food at all. Normally, he's enthusiastic about the canned food. I can tell from the litter box that he's drinking water, but I'm worried that he isn't eating.

He then wandered around my desk and squeezed himself into the tiny carrier on the floor that Querida likes to lie in. Fine, I thought, let him stay here nice and quiet. The next thing I know, he has pulled himself out of the carrier and *jumped* onto the director's chair. At least it's a low-slung canvas chair, so it wasn't a big jump, but the last thing I want him to do is jump!

I immediately went over there to stand by him and pet him. I got him to purr for me. Then Puck decided to jump Kate. She took off with a squeak that spooked Owl who did exactly what I feared and tried to launch himself from the chair. Thank Bast I was standing right there and was able to catch him instantly. Back into the pen he went. I swear, it must be like having a 2 year old.

I rearranged where the food and water bowls are to get them as far away from the litter as I can. I'm also going to change how I give him the meds in the hope of encouraging him to eat at times when he's not foaming at the mouth so much.

Owl has gotten himself so pre-conditioned that last he started to foam at the mouth before I gave him the pill! And it isn't even the pill that tastes so bad, it's the liquid antibiotics.

He seems a bit more resigned to incarceration today, though he was quick to come out when I had to release him briefly in order to sweep up the litter on the floor.

LATER: I just got back from running errands. It's the middle of the afternoon. All I did was say hello to Owl and tell him he was a good boy, and he has already started foaming at the mouth as though I were about to give him the meds. Yeesh. Talk about Pavlovian conditioning...

It's been a tough couple of days. Backing up:

Thurs. 8/19: We arrived at the clinic around 5:30 pm after finishing our other meetings and such in L.A. The bill had gone up because the person who gave me the total the day before hadn't figured in the overnight hospitalization costs, roughly $300 a night! So the final total was $2920.00, a figure I can barely bring myself to think about. And there will be more expense down the road. The follow-up visits are included, but not the follow-up x-rays. I'm going to stop talking about this now before I go mad.

I was given the anti-biotics and pain meds, and detailed printed pages of instructions. I was impressed with their thoroughness. They covered everything I need to do or not do or watch for, as well as when I need to make follow-up visits, what those visits would do, what costs would be incurred, and so on.

They brought Owl out in the carrier. The tech commented that he is an "awesome cat". I think he made some fans.

He wasn't a happy camper on the long drive home, though. He fought with the carrier a little bit, which isn't like him, and he even complained plaintively a few times. He's usually silent. Shortly before we got home, he peed in the carrier and then complained quite a bit about that.

For various reasons, we didn't get home until pretty late. I needed to spend some time in the office with him, plus I had to give him the meds. We put the cat box, food and water bowls into the enclosure. Then we took the carrier apart so we could simply lift the unhappy moggy out. I wiped him down as best I could. Once inside the holding pen, Owl flopped around a bit, being pretty unsteady as you might expect, and he's got this metallic scaffolding jutting out from both sides of his knee. Almost immediately, he stuck his snoot into the foot and ate a little bit. I was told he didn't want to eat at the clinic, so this was a good thing.

But he was Not Happy about the pen. No, precious, not one bit. There was one tiny air slot at the bottom of the desk that we hadn't blocked off because we thought there was no way in hell he could get out there. That was the first thing he did. We turned around and to our shock found him squeezing and pulling and oozing through this low, narrow gap. We had multiple heart attacks on the spot. The last thing you want to do in that situation is interfere with what the cat is doing, so we had to stand by while he dragged his scaffolded leg out through this space.

I immediately put him back in the pen and investigated his leg with a flashlight. I couldn't see any outward signs of damage. Randy blocked the space with a brick and the large tub of cat food (to keep him from pushing the brick out).

By this time, Randy's asthma was reaching critical levels, having been in the car with a cat for two hours and now in the cat-filled office. He had to vacate for a while. I gave Owl his meds, which make him foam profusely. He hates that.

I was checking my email when I heard a loud thump from the back of the pen. I had blocked off other open spaces around this angled desk using spare shelves from some bookshelves, held by bungie cords. They seemed quite secure.

Not with the Siamese Hulk around. He had forced his way out and was making off for the back of the office. I put him back inside and stacked up three heavy boxes against the shelves. Randy, who had come back in again, placed a heavy toolchest against another shelf and brought more bricks inside.

We put a couple of heavy boxes against the child gate that forms the front of the pen, to hold him in for the night.

Fri. 8/20: I came out before breakfast to check on Owl and give him the morning meds. I was relieved to see he hadn't found some cunning new way to escape, Houdini-cat that he is. He's also very damned unhappy about being in prison. The pain meds are not keeping him nearly as sedated as I expected they would. He has one, sharply focused imperative in his furry brain -- ESCAPE. That is, after all, the duty of any good POW.

One of the techs cautioned me that the morphine-based pain killer might give Owl constipation. Instead, we had a messy case of diahrrea that required some unpleasant clean up on both cat and pen. I am not having fun.

Every time I have to open the gate to clean the box or give him food or whatever, he makes a break for it. He wants to be anywhere but there. I wish I could give him that simple freedom, but on one of his jailbreaks, he tried to get into a narrow space where he could easily get that leg caught. If he screws up this operation, we've reached the end of the road. About the only alternative after this is amputation. I remind myself of this to harden my heart while I keep him locked up.

But he really, really hates it.

Here's a batch of photos, mostly of Owl, but a couple of other moggies as well.

A big thank you to Lois T. for her donation.

I wasn't able to connect with one of the surgeons until late in the day. Owl is progressing all right. He doesn't want to eat, but she says that's pretty normal. She guesses he's the kind of cat that will do better back in his own environment, and and I quite agree. They've given him a box to hide in. She said he likes it.

Meanwhile, Randy and I spent much of the afternoon getting an enclosure made to keep Owl confined in comfort. The surgeon stressed again today how important it is to keep him from doing anything that could mess up the healing process. She said I'll have to keep him more or less confined for two months, not two weeks.

The other keel-over-heart-stopping news is the final bill. Over $2600.00. ::THUD::

I spoke with Dr. Wilson this morning. She said Owl is "subdued", which is to be expected right after surgery. There's some swelling, also expected, but he generally seems to be doing all right. He's on pain meds, of course, so that would also keep him subdued.

She said to keep checking every day and I might be able to bring him home by Thurs.

I didn't ask about the total cost. I don't think I'm prepared to hear it yet.

Enormous thanks to Alex B. for his donation.

For those who can, please consider contributing to the Owl Surgery Fund. Thanks so much!

Oh, yes, Querida's eye looks better this morning. I'll keep using the ointment and see how it goes.

By Bast's Whiskers, it's been a long stressful day.

I had to get up at omigod o'clock, an hour at which I am not yet a sentient being in order to have breakfast, give cat pills and get on the road for a trip I estimated would take about an hour and a half due to traffic. I'd had to put all the food away last night because Owl couldn't have any food after midnight, which meant the entire office Horde had to go without food overnight. The food went back out as soon as I had Owl outside.

I had a slight delay because while I was giving the morning pills, Owl's telepathy kicked in and he went off to hide. He was very unhappy about being in the carrier and panted a little during the drive (meaning he was quite stressed himself).

Owl is one of the sweetest, gentlest cats I've ever seen, so it's not that he struggles or makes noise or does any of the things other cats do. He just looks at you with those big, blue saucer eyes and that's all it takes to melt your heart.

I got started a bit late, but still got there within a few minutes of the appointment time...then got to wait for about 50 minutes. It's a good-sized place, very busy and extremely pleasant and upscale, just south of Westwood. I was amused by the chit chat in the waiting room. One young woman's father produced American Gladiator and other reality shows. Another young woman is the assistant to a TV writer and ended up with his dog because he never has any time.

They took Owl to the back for weighing, etc. while I waited in another room. Then the surgeon came in with the x-rays and we consulted. I have to say, I am very, very happy with the people there. She was terrific. First, she has a Siamese herself and really loves them. We discovered that we both have Siamese cats with the same plastic bag-eating fetish and the same obsession with eating/throwing up grass. So right off the bat, she was in tune with Owl.

She went over everything in thorough detail, with no false promises. She was very honest about what might or might not come of this, what the various procedures could be and the possible outcomes. With a big cat like Owl, it's harder to make this type of repair work as well. The main thing is that the bones had moved out of alignment and were being held that way by scar tissue, so the only thing she could do was to go in surgically and see what could be done in terms of a repair.

I had called ahead to the vet who'd done the first surgery and had him fax the records down, so they had a blood panel to look at. There was a question about the high blood sugar he had then and the fact that he's lost weight. We decided she would do a new blood panel before we made a decision about surgery. I hied myself off for half an hour while that was done.

The blood panel was excellent, blood sugar normal, everything indicated he's in good health otherwise. I left Owl to have the surgery, but I asked to see him before I left. They brought him into one of the rooms and I spent about ten minutes soothing him and telling him what a good boy and that everything was going to be all right. He wasn't buying it.

The tech who had drawn the blood came in to chat and tell me what a nice cat Owl is. The guy was warm and sweet. I could tell that he genuinely liked Owl. Another big plus point for this place. He nicknamed Owl "the gentle giant".

The bad news -- it's going to cost between $2,200 and $2,800...and there's no way to make payments. It's half up front, half when I pick Owl up. Aaaagggghhhhhh.

The surgeon wasn't sure if she would be able to get Owl into surgery today or have to wait until tomorrow. She said she'd call. I got home by late afternoon and went out to finally clean the cat boxes. To add to the worries of the day, I discovered that Querida's left eye is infected and nearly swollen shut. I found some ointment to put in it, but I'll have to check it carefully in the morning in case she requires a run to the vet.

C'mon, Bast, show a little mercy here.

Six o'clock came, 6:30 crawled by. I called and was told the vets were all still doing surgeries. Around 7, the surgeon called to assure me that it went well and that Owl came out of the anesthesia just fine. She said there was a lot of scar tissue they had to remove. They took out the pins and wire, got the bones aligned properly, did some suturing, and have put on an exterior rigging to hold the leg rigidly in place until the new scar tissue can form and hold things things in place. When she first described it to me, I called it scaffolding, so that's the only word I can think of for it now.

The idea is for the knee to heal in a certain position, with the hope that he might get some flex in it, but at the very least, he'll be able to stand on it and use it a little. That's what we have to hope for, because if this fails, we would probably have to consider amputation. And I DO NOT want to think about that.

She emphasized that it will be vitally important to keep Owl quiet and still for weeks. She wants me to either get a big cage or dog crate and keep him in that, or create some kind of enclosure so that he can't possibly try to jump or do anything that will dislodge what has been done until it's thoroughly healed in place. I'm afraid that is the most likely explanation for why his first surgery failed. He jumped or did something that screwed up the bones while the scar tissue was in the process of forming, and it formed with the bones out of whack.

Owl will be in the hospital for observation for another couple of days. The surgeon expects there to be a lot of swelling at first and she wants to keep a close eye on him.

About five minutes after we hung up, the phone range again. Instant paranoia! I was worried it was the surgeon again. To my surprise, it was a woman from my local vet's office calling to inquire how things went. I was impressed with that. I filled her in and told her about the need for a large crate or enclosure. I meant to call them in the morning to see what they might have. She said she thought they had something, but she would check on it and call me in the morning.

I feel optimistic about the surgery. I'm highly impressed with the surgeon and the clinic. I appeal once again to all you angels out there who can contribute to the Owl Surgery Fund. This is going to be a tough one to cover.

Puck is determined not to let Owl have all of the attention. He got onto the top of a bookshelf, knocked some empty boxes down onto Blue (who had been sleeping peacefully), then decided the wall clock could be used as a stepping stone, resulting in the clock and Puck tumbling to the floor.

I have been forced a couple of times today to stop what I'm doing and play with Puck before he explodes from excess energy.

Special thanks to Elizabeth B. for her donation to the Owl Surgery Fund.

Tremendous thanks to Shannon Muir who may have just saved Owl's life. I was in such a rush and too trusting and didn't do the kind of research I should have done. But Shannon googled on Dr. Rooks and the All-Care Center and discovered a very unsettling lawsuit against him. Numerous counts of malpractice, including having someone whose background was a heavy machine operator giving out anesthesia and performing surgical procedures!!! And passing off people as specialists (such as neurologists) with no such background, not keeping proper records, and so on.

I immediately cancelled the appointment. I'm still shaken by what a close call that was and the thought of what could have happened to Owl at the hands of unqualified people. Rooks may be a great surgeon (he has a good rep), but the person administering anesthesia is every bit as vital.

Rooks was supposed to have had his license to practice revoked, but has gotten a stay which allows him to remain in practice. That's not good enough for me! There were also other lawsuits, including lawsuits All Care brought against previous patients who complained about bad care or the loss of a pet, and All Care lost all of them, as far as I can see. Apparently, his clinic also tends to give a lowball figure up front, but charges more later.

I realize that things can go wrong with the best of vets. It's hardly a perfect science. A brilliant and caring vet will still lose patients. But the number and type of items listed in the lawsuit after a 11/2-year investigation by the California Veterinary Medical Board is enough to keep me away.

I spent the morning researching a place that looks very good and is recommended on a couple of websites that do animal rescues and adoptions. It was one of the other places my vet gave me to check out, Animal Surgical and Emergency Center in west L.A. I've made an appointment for Monday to have Owl evaluated there.

Deepest thanks to Shannon and Joyslin for contributing to the Owl Surgery Fund.

The Owl Report is about as dire as it gets.

I dropped Owl off at my vet's around 12:30 pm to await the arrival of the orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Rooks. Dr. Rooks has a surgical practice in Orange County, a two-hour plus (depending on traffic) drive south of here. He comes up once or twice a month, as I understand it, to consult at my vet's clinic and places in Bakersfield.

Later in the afternoon, my vet called to give me the results of Dr. Rooks looking at Owl and the x-rays. Yes, he agrees that Owl is probably having a lot of pain. The only option is to go in surgically and see what can be done. If there's a sufficient amount of cartilage remaining, it might be possible to reconstruct a working knee. It's more likely that he'd have to perform a procedure called arthrodesis in which the knee is permanently fused. It would no longer move, but it would also no longer cause pain. Given how well Owl has been moving around here, including jumping up and down from my desk, only using three legs, I don't think a fused knee would be much of a disaster.

Mainly, I want this to be the last damn knee surgery this poor cat and his poor (about to be impoverished) owner have to suffer through.

My vet gave me a list of four clinics that have licensed orthopedic surgeons she would recommend. We're looking at a *very* expensive surgery. Dr. Rooks estimates the cost between $1900 and $2400. Two other places estimated anywhere from $2500 up to $3200. I didn't even bother calling the place in Ventura because my vet said that when she priced them, they charged twice as much as anyone else. Since she took her dogs to Dr. Rooks for surgery, and since he has seen Owl and has the best price, I opted for him.

I'm driving Owl down tomorrow to have him checked in, to consult with Dr. Rooks (who I didn't get to meet today), and Owl has his surgery Sunday morning.

I picked Owl up late this afternoon, along with the x-rays and some morphine-based pain medication. At the moment, Owl is feeling pretty good (IOW a stoned moggy). He's not gonna be too happy about a two hour plus car drive, stoned or not.

I am deeply touched and appreciative and wish to thank Marty and Eva for sending money to help Owl without me even going into cyberbegging mode. I have been extremely reluctant to cyberbeg again after people were already so generous for the first surgery Owl had. But the price of that was nothing compared to the price of this. So, dear moggophiles, if you have money burning a hole in your wallet (hah!), Owl and I would be eternally grateful.

News about Owl: the vet took the x-rays to a radiologist and reported thusly -- the radiologist doesn't think the broken wire is the problem and thinks the joint has fused with scar tissue, a condition called arthodosis. There's a surgical procedure of arthrodesis which uses metal plates to fuse a joint that is too badly damaged to be repaired.

However, my biggest concern right now is that Owl might be in constant pain. My vet thinks he probably does have discomfort of some sort, if not outright pain.

By amazing luck, the vet has an orthopedic surgeon visiting her clinic tomorrow afternoon and he will look at Owl and the x-rays for free to give me a second opinion. I will take action depending on what I learn tomorrow, but I feel that something will have to be done and I don't see how it could not involve surgery.

I've been worrying about Owl's knee for a couple of months. He walks and even jumps apparently using it, but as I've commented before, when he sits or lies down, he holds it straight out. When I've tried to get him to bend it, he reacts badly and gets away from me as fast as he can.

When I had visitors over a few days ago, Owl wanted to run away from them and wouldn't even use the leg. He went three-legged instead. That was the tipping point of worry. I thought that maybe he was being a stubborn Siamese (is that redundant?), but it could be more than that.

For peace of mind, I took him to the local vet and had the knee x-rayed. She hadn't seen him before, so she did a full exam. The general exam looked good. But the x-ray news was as bad as it gets.

The wire holding his knee together has broken and the bones have shifted out of place. This means he *can't* bend his knee. It also means he must be in constant pain from the way the bones and cartilage are now jammed together. Plus who knows how much the broken wire itself might hurt.

Which means...another round of surgery to fix it. Damn! Once again, I'm looking at really expensive surgery I can't afford, but it's not like I can leave him in this condition.

The local vet is showing the x-rays to a radiologist this evening. She's going to call me with specific details tomorrow so that I can begin to call the list of orthopedic surgeons she gave me and decide where to take him. They're all a long way from here in West L.A. or Ventura or Pasadena (not a single one in Bakersfield). The ones in Ventura are supposed to be extremely good, but also twice as expensive as anywhere else. Sigh...

He was such a sweet, quiet, good boy about all of it. I was told not to let him have any food since this morning (which meant none of the moggies got to eat), so the first thing he did when he got home was stick his face in the food bowl. That was another nagging clue that had me worried -- I could see he was losing weight, even though he eats well. He's down to 13 lbs, a good weight for him, but down a couple of pounds from last Dec. If he's in constant pain, that might make him lose weight.

Poor Owl. The sooner I can get help for him, the better.

Nefreet is in the doghouse where Randy is concerned. He was petting her, then stood up and walked past her whereupon for no apparent reason she lashed out and gave him a nasty set of claw marks on his foot. I think she's very lucky that she didn't become a football at that moment. Punt!

Yesterday, I heard Diva having a wonderful old time batting something around on the floor. It turned out to be one of the extra Lysine capsules I had set aside for the evening dose. Both capsules were missing from the corner of my monitor stand. I rescued the one from her and only managed to find the second one later last night.

Tribble spent yesterday methodically puncturing my two guests in the legs. It remain the most effective attention-getting technique I've seen used by a cat. "Hi, pet me right now or I will stick this fish-hook into your calf."

I found Salem (neighbor's black cat) munching on bird feathers in the front yard this morning. I hope it was an old kill and not a new kill. I confess, softie that I am, I bought some cheap cat food and put out a bowl of it on the front porch a couple of weeks ago. The neighbor's cats all look skinny to me. Besides, I was hoping that having food handy might discourage some of the bird-eating and might tame them down a bit so that I could get a chance to pet them. No such luck so far. They are very spooky cats.

Here's a new batch of photos of the Demon Glowing Eyes Brigade.

Although Puck has gotten wise to it, I still manage to distract him briefly by flicking the large empty gelatin capsule into the air so it bounces and makes a fun thing to go chase.

This morning Puck bounced after it and mauled it in his mouth a little bit, just enough to make the gelatin sticky. I looked up and there is Puck, only a teensy bit perturbed, with a gelatin capsule glued to his bottom lip. This necessitated (between howls of laughter) grabbing my camera to get shots.

After about five minutes he got it off by himself, then pretended it never happened.

Since I had the camera out, I grabbed a couple of other shots, too.

Courtesy of my friend, Marty, take this link and under "Cats Falling Down", click on the video link. It's hysterical.

Poor Nefreet's catbox was overrun with ants again, blast the miserable things.

Puck is frustrated at not going out. He stretches himself full length at the door where tries and tries to figure out how to work the doorknob. He knows that round shiny thing is the means to opening the door. If he had thumbs, I'd be in big trouble.