Tribble has been sniffing at the door and peering out the door when I come and go, so this morning I took him outside with me for a few minutes. It was a sunny, pleasant day, not too cold. He used to love to go outside and I figure the poor old boy doesn't have much time left. He sniffed at the bushes and was cautious about the strange new environment, but I think he enjoyed the interlude.

Owl's been climbing into my lap for attention and complaining about being hungry, so I must go tend to the Horde.

I just bought some more cat trinkets from Red Tango. I love this woman's cat designs. Check out her gift shop at Red Tango.

Moggyblog entries will be spotty for the next week or so due to heavy work commitments and an upcoming business trip.

Pippin has taken to attaching himself to Opal's butt and giving her no peace. Randy has realized it's time to get Pippin fixed. Yes, indeed. I'll call the vet tomorrow and see if they can do it this week. If not, it will have to wait until after our trip.

I decided to repurpose the cat box in the bathroom which was originally bought for Nefreet. It's a purple Booda Dome. It's always been a pain to clean because of the round shape. I figure one large cat box upstairs is all Pippin and Opal need, and one less cat box to clean is fine by me.

I washed it out thoroughly, disinfected it and turned it into an enclosed cat bed. It caused much interest when I first brought it into the office, and is getting occasional use. Meanwhile, Diva has pretty much taken over the cat bed on top of the spiral step cat furniture. She loves it.

And now, because nobody in particular demanded it, lots more cute cat photos.

Tribble hasn't thrown up for about 24 hours. I'll take that as a good sign.

I got on-line and ordered more of the homeopathic remedy in a liquid form this time. I'm not sure how much faith to have in this stuff at all, but I want it in a form that I can feel reasonably sure is being assimilated. One thing about cats, if it does work, I can be sure it's not a placebo effect. I tried explaining the placebo effect to Tribble. He said, "Woof!" He says that sometimes and it usually means "Why aren't you feeding me?"

The Girl Terrors have gotten tired of the on-line game. They're ignoring it now. Zoe slept upside down in my lap the whole time I was playing.

I are an idiot. Math is not my strength, you see. When I bought the homeopathic remedy, I failed to take into account that I would be giving it to three cats, and since I can't do math worth a damn, the small bottle I bought will only last 2 days. Arrgghhh!

Not knowing how else to approach it, I've simply been putting the pellets into their mouths. I hope that works.

Today Jetta joined Zoe in "helping" me play WoW. They wanted to slay the kobolds and it was quite frustrating for them when they couldn't. What's really funny is that a friend of mine who's been playing the game much longer sent me some in-game gifts. One of them was a cat! She said of course I had to have a cat in the game. So now I have an orange and white tabby that follows me around wherever I go. I can't escape the moggies, not even in the virtual world!

I had to make a trip to Bakersfield today to pick up medicines and prescription food. Now that the Big Three (Owl, Querida and Tribble) have tasted the canned food, they adamantly refuse to have anything to do with the pouch food. Naturally, the canned food is more expensive. :P

While I was in town, I also had to do some human food shopping at Lassens, a large organic foods store. It occurred to me that Lassens would probably carry homeopathic remedies, and sure enough, they had a full line of them. I purchased the one I want to try on the Big Three. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get a cat to allow a teeny-tiny pellet to sloooowly dissolve under its tongue. Uh, yeah, that's gonna happen. And no, you can't add them to food. Will have to think about this.

I started playing the MMOG (massively multi-player on-line game), World of Warcraft. Tonight's mission was to slay a bunch of nasty little creatures called kobolds. Zoe and Sapphire were extremely intent on helping me slay the kobolds. They were so intent, I could hardly see the screen. The girls knew there had to be a way to get in there and get those things moving around and making weird noises, but alas, the kobolds eluded them.

Tribble and his cage were a major mess this morning. He had again thrown up which was all over the floor and soaked his bed, plus he had crap on the floor, in the bed and on his rear end and tail. Poor, poor old cat. I spent quite a bit of time getting him and the cage cleaned up. I have to handle him so carefully these days, because he really doesn't have an ounce of flesh left on him. I took the cover off the cat bed and washed it, along with a few other cat bed covers and blankets. May as well do a whole batch at once.

Saffy and Puck are at it again, the lover-cats.

I had a long, long talk with the vet late today to go over the results of the blood tests on Owl and Querida.

To keep it short, Owl seems to have an underlying infection which could be in both the liver and the pancreas, so he's going onto the same antibiotcs as Knobby.

As I feared, we're rather at a standstill with Querida. It does appear to be a sterile cystitis, so the antibiotics aren't helping. The main treatment would be steriods, but we've already discovered that she can't tolerate the steroids.

The Irish Contingent of readers sent me some interesting info about a homeopathic remedy. I've read up on homeopathic remedies and studies over the years. The most recent studies indicate that for whatever mysterious reason, the remedies seem to work even though science can't explain it. At any rate, it can't hurt and Querida will quickly decline if I do nothing. My research has pointed toward a particular remedy to try and it's quite inexpensive, so that's next on the list. I mentioned it to the vet and he was entirely supportive, since he had no good options to offer. He said to let him know how it works.

And of course I'd love to hear from anyone who is an expert in homeopathy, or has useful info.

Randy decided we could try an experiment Sat. night. Rather than putting Pippin and Opal up in their own room, we let them sleep with us. They were rather taken aback at first to find humans under the bedcovers. "Look, Opal, something's moving!" POUNCE! But that didn't last too long. In fact, they were perfect angels. They were quiet, behaved themselves, and settled in without a fuss. Opal liked being between Randy and me at about mid-torso, while Pippin made himself at home at my feet. Around seven-ish, Randy said that Opal stuck her face in his and tickled him with her whiskers, trying to wake him up, but when it didn't work, she went back to sleep.

In spite of being so well behaved, Randy didn't sleep well. He needed to move around more, but didn't want to bother the cats! My only problem was the I woke up each time the cats noisily used the catbox in the bathroom. SCRITCH! SCRATCH! SCRITCH!

Consequently, they spent last night in their upstairs room, but I suspect Randy will relent and want to try leaving them downstairs again. We shall see.

I decided on my own to start giving Knobby the anti-nausea medicine that I have for Tribble. I figure it can't hurt, given how much Knobby continues to throw up.

Zoe is being adorable, curled up in my lap on her back with her hind feet sticking straight up in the air.

Owl and Querida got a trip to the vet yesterday for their lucky Friday the 13th. According to the vet's digital scale, Owl weighs 8.9 lbs., compared to my scale at home which says 8 lbs. But as I feared, he's dropped more weight, nearly a pound, since last time the vet weighed him. Owl conveniently provided me with a fresh stool sample that morning and the good news is that there was no blood or other problems in it. The bad news is...he's still losing weight and we have yet to find the reason.

As I feared, Querida has a lot of blood in her urine even after being on the Baytril for weeks. The vet has thought all along that she's more prone to a sterile cystitis rather than infections, which is why the Baytril isn't helping. She has also lost weight. The problem we have with her is the treatment she needs for the sterile cystitis is steroids, but the minute we give her steroids, her URI flares out of control.

He's sent out blood work on both of them before we decide what to do next, but Querida especially seems to be one of those no-win situations, unless he can come up with some other kind of anti-inflammatory treatment.

Knobby has gotten hip to the medicine routine, consequently it's getting harder and harder to catch him at the right time. One minute he's there behind me in a catbed and the next minute he's slunk off, trying to stay one step ahead of me.

The Three Mousketeers - Zoe, Sapphire and Jetta - get really crazy, racing around, pouncing and wrestling and carrying on like the little lunatics they are. I suspect Opal would get a lot crazier and even more energetic if she were out here with them, but she's around Pippin, who is Mr. Mellow. I'd say he's one of the most mellow cats I've ever lived with. He's playful, but not wildly so, and he's quite happy to flop on Randy's lap and sleep there like a pool of molten ink. What cracks us up is that sometimes Pippin sloooowly oozes off the edge of the sofa and sort of oozes onto the floor where he promptly goes to sleep again.

I was terribly worried about Tribble last night. He showed no interest at all in the canned food. Usually he's begging non-stop and right under foot, anxious to get at the food. Even when I put him in his cage for the night and put the food under his nose, he showed no interest, and he acted as though he was not feeling well at all. I was so worried, I ran out to my office to do a quick, last-minute check on him just before I went to bed.

This morning the food was gone and he was back to normal. I was one, very relieved person.

Pippin took another stab at trying to drink from the little water fountain. He got his paw wet and his nose wet, but couldn't quite figure it out.

Tribble has been enjoying his new cat bed all night, but during the day, Puck has taken it over. He loves it.

It occurs to me that a lot of what I write about has to do with my cats' medical problems, which might get rather boring. But it's a major part of my concerns, so it would be odd not to write about it. I have two other reasons. What I learn and go through may be of help to other readers. And other readers often have words of advice or tidbits of info that help me.

Today's medical news...I weighed Owl and I'm unhappy to say that it looks like he's lost more weight. He only weighed 8 lbs. Consider this, Zoe, a mere 7 month old who is half his size, weighs 7 lbs.! That is not good. And yet Owl is eating well and what I'm seeing in the cat box looks improved. I think it's time for a follow-up visit to the vet.

And now, tons of moggy photo adorableness.

My tabletop water fountain arrived and has been set up in the bedroom. My doctor suggested it for adding humidity to the room. I have me doubts. I can't see that this little thing will do much in that direction.

But it's a pleasant little thing, bubbling quietly away, so I don't mind. It's square with three tiers, each tier larger going down, a bit like a pagoda (minus roof). The water bubbles out of the top and down the tiers where it goes into the reservoir at the bottom. It came with polished stones that I could arrange as I liked, to which I added some Viking rune stones that I had.

We set it on the floor so Opal and Pippin could check it out. Opal ran around, caught between fascination and fear. Pippin spent a long time sniffing it, then decided it wasn't that interesting after all. I suspect they will eventually end up drinking from it.

Saffy's eye is healing well, now that I stopped putting ointment in it. It seemed to me that her eye was getting worse instead of better, so I stopped. I had this happen many years ago with Unicom. He had an injured eye and I used the standard eye ointment my vet gave me. His eye became worse and worse until the vet realized that Uni had to be allergic to one of the ingredients. Uni nearly lost that eye, but managed to heal up eventually. I was amazed, considering the condition it was in. Consequently, it's made me cautious about how cats react to the ointment.

I made a trip to Bakersfield yesterday to pick up Clavamox for Knobby and some more anti-nausea med for Tribble. In spite of everything I'm trying, Tribble threw up a large amount today. I'll see how it goes tomorrow, before I call the vet, since I don't think there's much he can do at this stage anyway.

I also bought Tribble a new bed. He's so skinny and bony, I wanted to get him something very soft, with high sides and lots of padding. I found one that was just the right size, soft plush, with cushy eggshell foam padding in the bottom. Tribble seems to like it a lot.

Interesting article on the evolution and genetic development of modern cats. You may have to register with the NY Time to read it, but it's a simple registration and there's no fee.

I didn't start Puck on the kitty-prozac until this morning. I wanted to be able to observe him during the day when starting something new like that, just on the extremely rare chance he didn't react well to it. He has seemed more subdued today, so I'm going to only give it once a day for now. I don't want to lose the Prince of Mischief...I just need to tone down the nature of the mischief a trifle.

Amidst all the other medical news, I forgot to mention that Saffy scratched an eye, so I've had to put ointment in her for days. There are two things I try to always have on hand -- eye ointment and amoxicillin. I inevitably end up needing them.

Saffy has also developed a bad habit of harassing Querida. Nothing major, but Saffy will take swipes at Querida at the water bowl, for instance, and my poor old girl isn't up to dealing with uppity youngsters any more. I need to put a stop to that behavior fast.

Late today, the vet called with the results of the blood tests on Tribble and Knobby. Not much in the way of good news.

With Tribble, the thyroid is well-controlled, but it could be the thyroid med itself that is causing the GI problems. Or there is always the possibility of a cancer, but I'm not going to subject Tribble to a biopsy. So we're going to cut back on the Methimazole, let him be borderline hyperthyroid, keep giving him the anti-nauseau med, and watch carefully to see how he goes on this treatment. The next step would be surgery to remove the thyroid so we can take him off the thyroid meds, but given his condition, surgery would be extremely iffy. As the vet put it, we're between a rock and a hard place with Tribble, and running out of alternatives.

Knobby's news is a bit worse. He had abnormal results all over the place which indicate serious problems with his kidneys and bladder. It could be a) kidney failure, b) a urinary infection that turned into a kidney infection, or c) a kidney infection that led to a urinary infection. For now, we're putting him on heavy-duty anti-biotics to see if it can be controlled.

Zoe and Saffy have heaped into my lap, making a large furry pile to type around.

I had a major incident with Puck this morning. He attacked Theseus, and it was a vicious, prolonged attack that I had difficulty breaking up. I weighed Theseus the other day, and he's up to 19 pounds! In spite of his heft, Puck had Theseus on the defensive. It wasn't safe for me to even try to touch Puck until I'd gotten them apart for a few minutes. Then I finally got hold of Puck and locked him in the cage to think things over for an hour or so. This is getting to be quite serious with him.

And last night he was fawning all over a friend of mine who came to visit. He rubbed her shoes up like a total slut-kitty. Zoe tried to eat her camera strap. Nearly all of the Horde came out to greet her and perform for her. In the house, Pippin was a friendly boy, but Opal took one sniff of my friend's hand and ran away. We never could figure out why Opal acted so oddly the whole time.

At any rate, I took Tribble and Knobby to the vet this afternoon to deal with their vomiting problems. They had blood work done and I'm waiting for results. The vet thought Knobby seemed to be in pretty good shape in general, though his fur doesn't look so great. But Tribble is doing poorly. He's lost yet more weight and is under 7 lbs. now, and his thyroid is enlarged. Enormous, in fact. One possibility we discussed is having the thyroid surgically removed. My worry is that Tribble is too frail to endure that kind of operation. We'll make that decision after we see what the blood tests show.

Meanwhile, he gave me something to try and control the vomiting, plus he gave me something for Puck to take the edge off his aggression, we hope. A mild kitty-prozac, so to speak. I'm not crazy about the idea (though I'm the one who brought it up), but I can't let Puck go on like this. Sooner or later, one of the cats will get seriously hurt, more than a mere abscess. I'm hoping this works. The next alternative would be to give him away, and I really hate the thought of that.

Knobby's neck is healing up extremely well, but his general health is still not so good. He throws up nearly every day and isn't showing much interest in food. He's been on my list of cats to get to the vet, but the more urgent ones have had to go first. Tribble is throwing up a huge amount again, so I really need to do something about Tribble as well. It boils down to what I can manage to do.

Zoe's almost entirely back to her usual bouncy self and is spending a lot of time in my lap.

Ariel cracks me up because she'll lie somewhere quite close to me until I notice her. As soon as she realizes she's been spotted, she has to jump up and run off.

Zoe finally got into my lap today. I was starting to worry, because she was such a dedicated lap cat before, but hadn't gotten into my lap since she got back. I thought she might not forgive me for her traumatic experience. She's curled up with her head against my right arm in her usual position. It's nice to have my little lap cat back.

Happy Birthday to Querida! I don't know her real birthdate, but my best estimate puts it sometime around Jan. so I gave her a Jan. 1st birthday. The Dowager Empress has made it to the grand old age of 19. She's doing pretty well for a girl of her advanced years. She gets around fairly well, she has a good appetite, and the antiboitics seem to be taking care of her latest urninary tract infection.

I was greeted by another cat toy massacre this morning. A squishy mouse had gone to its doom. I took a photo, but I warn you, it's not for the faint of heart.

Photos of: dead squishy mouse, Theseus, the cats meet an umbrella.

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