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A Perspective Thing

2 May

If you were to ask me how the day went, and then ask the cat how the day went, you’d get drastically different descriptions despite our having spent the bulk of the day together.

My relating of today goes something like this…

Got to sleep in, which was nice, eventually got up, made breakfast, fed the cat, chilled with a couple episodes of Criminal Minds, realized I can’t be super lazy all day so went for a walk and was gone about an hour and a half. Once home did a quick vacuum of the living room, kitchen, and bedroom, started the laundry, made dinner, sat down to eat and watch more Criminal Minds. Between changing the loads of laundry I cuddled with the cat. All in all a pretty chill day.

The cat’s version of today is a tad different…

Was forced to wake up before I was ready, that human just can’t figure out the proper time to get up. Walked the human to the kitchen and was not at all surprised she put her needs before mine when it came to getting breakfast ready. Why she thinks it is ok to make her tea and toast her bagel before getting me fresh water and food is beyond me. Switched napping locations to the ottoman in the living room, I refuse to let her have the use of the entire ottoman for fear she will get spoiled and think it is hers. For a while I lay on her legs, I like stealing her body heat and it’s funny when she starts to get uncomfortable but doesn’t move because I’m on her. She had the nerve to get up and go outside! I definitely did not give her permission to do that. She was gone so long I thought I had been abandoned and was going to have to ration my food and water until rescued. Eventually she returned, I refused to acknowledge her, someone who would leave me like that doesn’t deserve my affection. I was then harassed by the evil loud machine that wants to eat me. Using all my stealth and speed I outwitted it once again. Instead of eating me it ate all my shed fur, the pieces of cardboard I had scratched and spread on the carpet, and the kitty litter I expertly kick out of the box and on to the floor. All that hard work destroyed! I immediately started replacing what it had eaten from the floor. The cardboard pieces are not as many as they once were but I will fix that over the next couple of days. I have already kicked more litter out of the box and despite my human trying to catch my fur that sheds when she pets me so she can put it in the garbage I have successfully left some fur on the carpet, the ottoman, and the living room throw blanket. I have been extremely productive today and deserve treats, obviously. After dinner I got the human to make a blanket fort for me to sleep in but she kept messing it up by leaving to go “switch laundry”, whatever that means. I employed my cutest positions and got her to stop getting up when the faint buzzer sound came from the other room thereby ensuring I got some much needed uninterrupted sleep. Now the human is up late waiting for the “last load to finish” and I am forced to sleep resting against her outstretched leg. I make sure to deep sigh and look at her with my sad eyes every ten minutes or so, making sure she realizes she is letting me down. I want to go to bed but have to wait for her so I can take the best spot right before she tries to get in the bed. It has been a traumatizing and exhaustive day, I can’t wait to get some sleep so I can be ready for my early morning tapping of the human’s face.

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No Spend Challenge

23 Apr

My landlady, in a joking way, texted me saying she thinks I may have an online shopping problem.

I got all excited because I thought that meant an item I bought online last week and have been anxiously waiting for had arrived, but realized it can’t be that item because I am signed up for text notifications and hadn’t received one saying it was delivered. So I started to text her back to let her know the list of things I am waiting for only to realize the list is uh, let’s say, substantial, and having to type it all wasn’t going to make me look good.

I fully understood her joke when I got home and found not one but three packages waiting for me.

Three! It’s like a random personal Christmas out of nowhere. And it really is out of nowhere since all three of these packages took way longer than expected to get to me. Something online shopping teaches you, if you aren’t shopping with Amazon Prime that is, is patience.

The first package I opened is a t-shirt from one of those annoying ads you see on Facebook. It was cheap, and cute, and I decided to buy one t-shirt to see what their quality is like. The shirt fits, and smells horrible, so it is now in the hamper and we’ll see how good it looks once it’s been through the wash. I hope it stays cute!

The second item is stamps. Yeah yeah, I know, the post offices are still open, why was I so incredibly lazy and unwilling to go in to one to buy stamps? I actually have a valid reason for this! The post offices by me are tiny, and in the backs of small stores, and I am supposed to be avoiding places like that to decrease my chance of exposure and by extension risk to the seniors I work with. I thought buying stamps online from Canada Post would be the easiest purchase, and fastest delivery, since ya know, they are the ones delivering them.

No. That thinking is incredibly wrong. After you buy them you get an email saying they will process your order in three days. Not have them to you in three days, or in the mail in three days, but that they will take three whole days just to process the order. Oh, and they come from Ottawa, case you were wondering, so three days to start processing the order, then delivery time from Ottawa, they took almost two weeks to get to me.

But that’s ok, because patience. It is a virtue, it is a thing best practiced over and over…and over…

And over yet again by the book I ordered that finally arrived. That one took about a month.

But really, what does delivery time matter, right? They all arrived eventually, if somewhat embarrassingly on the same day, and I now feel like maybe I am buying too much stuff.

I don’t think of myself as someone who tends to randomly purchase things online, I will look, then talk myself out of it, but looks like two times I didn’t talk myself out of it…I’m leaving the stamps off this list because I do actually need them, so what’s with all the shopping?

Before you say two items isn’t that big a deal, I have more things on their way to me…oops?

Looks like this is the perfect time to start a No Spend Challenge.

April 22 2020 a

What is a No Spend Challenge you ask? It is exactly what it sounds like. For the next two weeks the only things I will spend money on are food, gas for the suv, bills, and $8 I owe a friend who is doing a fundraiser. It doesn’t have to be for two weeks, you can set any time frame you want, I’m choosing to ease myself in to this and picked a short time frame to start with.

I’m leaving myself a teeny tiny loophole, due to the pandemic, that if yet another emergency situation pops up, I mean c’mon, we haven’t been swarmed by locust yet so there are still some ways things could get worse, I may expand the list to random emergency items I can’t think of at this moment in time.

This means no more online shopping when I’m bored, or feeling a bit sad, or anxious, or because something cute caught my eye at random (*cough* t-shirt *cough*). To make it more likely I will succeed at this challenge I need things to do when I feel like shopping, distractions to stop me from hitting that checkout button.

So far I have come up with reading one of the many books that are in this apartment, writing cards or letters to people, exercising, trying to read the cat’s mind, cleaning (let’s be honest, this one probably won’t happen but I feel like it is expected to be on the list), and practice my knitting (I am learning and need all the practice I can get). Did you notice what all these things have in common? Well, except for trying to read the cat’s mind that is.

Hands. They are all things that will keep my hands busy. Busy so they can’t be tapping the screen of my iPad or typing on my laptop, busy so I am physically engaged in an activity that will not only keep my brain somewhat occupied but also my body. I find if I can keep one of those two busy I am less likely to engage in a behaviour I am trying to avoid, if I can keep both busy I do an even better job of it.

If you have any suggestions for things I can do instead of shop feel free to share them!

April 22 2020

Striker thinks spending more time petting him is an excellent way to stay busy, so looks like I’m adding that to my list…the top of my list if Striker has anything to say about it!

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Simple Things

20 Apr

I don’t know about you but I’m noticing simpler things more than I used to, and finding pleasure in them. Maybe it’s not pleasure but enjoyment? Whatever it is, little things I took for granted I appreciate more.

So I guess I’ve settled on it being appreciation? Lol So many word options!

Here are some silly, not actually important things, that I appreciated this week.

My complete inability to flip an egg on Thursday. I failed spectacularly but who cares? It still tasted good!

British junk food, the best kind! Completely over priced and worth every penny, or I guess nickel since we don’t have pennies anymore. 😜

A delicious bowl of fresh raspberries, my after work snack this evening. Yum!

This little guy still has his hat, too cute!

Striker being a goofball and hiding in the closet. 💜

Nothing riveting or unique, (except Striker, he’s one of a kind!), and mostly food related. Just some little things that had me smiling, or even outright laughing, this week.

Uhhh, to clarify, the laughing was at my egg flipping “skills” and Striker being silly. I haven’t crossed over into crazy enough that I’m laughing at fruit or junk food for no reason lol

I know everyone is going through a tough time, I hope, even when so much around us is hard and scary you’re able to find something that gets you smiling, or maybe even laughing!

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We Don’t Eat The Human

15 Apr

Picture this, Striker and I having a lovely cuddle. He’s purring, resting his head on my hand while I pet him with my other hand. All is calm and happy in our little section of the world.

Then, for no apparent reason, Striker lifts his head and in a slow and deliberate manner he bites down on the hand he had been using as a pillow. Then like some kind of adorable maniac he stays like that. Doesn’t apply more pressure, doesn’t release my hand, but does continue to purr.

So I, in a calm and rational manner, say:

“We don’t eat the human.”

Nothing. Not even a twitch of an ear to show he heard me.

I wait a beat, he turns his gaze, not his head, just his gaze, and makes eye contact with me. There was definitely a glimmer of the perfect little killing machine that is a cat in that gaze.

While making eye contact I repeated:

“We do not eat the human.”

I swear to god he rolled his eyes before releasing my hand. Then he flounced down to my outstretched legs, lay down with this back to me, and flicked his tail to show his displeasure with me.

He remained like that, pouting, for a solid twenty minutes before realizing it’s a better life strategy to keep the two-legged one who opens the food container moderately appeased, and turned around on my lap so I could see his adorable face.

And possibly so he could see if another opening appeared where he could get to my hand. 😜

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Cats Are Gonna Cat

8 Apr

Today started with Striker meowing at me incessantly until I got out of bed. I thought he needed something, like food maybe, but what he actually wanted was to steal my bed.

He didn’t even pretend to look ashamed at his underhandedness.

Then at work I saw something amazing! The African Violet I repotted and I was sure hated me is showing signs of flowering. A miracle if ever there was one!

When I got home from work I had a card waiting for me, which actually means Striker got an envelope in the mail that he allowed me to have the contents of.

My day is bookended by the cat…seems about right!

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A New Way To Shop

3 Apr

Even before the pandemic my preferred way to shop was online, though there were always some items that had to be bought in person. I found it irritating that not every single item I wanted to buy couldn’t easily be purchased online, and now here we are, buying most things online and it is some sort of treat to be able to go to a shop. Weird huh?

Cat food is one of those items I have to buy in a shop because Striker, my Cat Overlord, is incredibly food picky and will only eat one flavour, of one brand, that can only be bought at one specific store. Well, chain of stores technically.

At work yesterday I used part of my break to run across the street to Bosley’s so I could buy Striker his food since stores close early now and I can’t always get to them before closing if I go after work.

bosleys

Pre-pandemic pic. Before the front doors were covered with warning signs.

When I got there I read the sign on the door saying customers are not allowed in the aisles and that staff will assist them. Then I got inside and learned all the new rules of shopping in this era of social distancing.

I had to wait just inside the door while a staff member hollered out hello to me from the counter, as he put on gloves he asked me what I wanted. I described the cat food I needed and he went and hunted it down. While I waited I glanced around, all the aisles had caution tape strung in front of them as a visual reminder that customers are not allowed in the aisles. In fact, they were only allowing one customer at the till, and one by the door, anybody else would have to wait outside. They had two staff working so that big ‘ol store is allowing a max of 4 people in it at a time. Impressive.

When he found the cat food he said I could come near the till so I followed the tape markings on the floor and moved farther in to the shop. I told him the two other items I needed, I was picking up items for two people at work cause I’m a friendly sort, he went and grabbed those, I paid by tapping my payment card since they don’t accept cash, and was done.

The only things in there that I touched were the items I bought, talk about a stress free way to shop!  I think it saved me money because I like to wander the pet store and usually come away with a treat of some type for Striker but for my friend, who I bought litter for, it cost her a bit more than normal. See, she needed cat litter, she said to buy a small bag of whatever the cheapest brand was. That is exactly what I told the gentleman working. The bag he picked was rather large and when I asked him about it he said it was only fifty cents more than the size down and was such a better deal. I can’t exactly argue with his choice since I can’t see the options so I went with it.

I don’t mind this new way of shopping, I knew what I wanted, it was easy and relatively fast, and I don’t think I’ve ever had such dedicated service in a shop, but it feels odd to not be able to see all the options and choose for myself. We are so often inundated with too many options, now that I can’t see any of them I wonder what is hiding over on those shelves, in that aisle, that I am forbidden to enter…the curiosity is real!

apr 3 2020

 

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It’s A Hard Day For A Cat

7 Mar

Today has been such a hard day for Striker.

He stole my chair, pillow, blanket, and heating pad.

First I was here, on a day I’m usually at work, ruining whatever plans he may have had.

Then I kept getting up and down from the living room chair, ruining his afternoon nap, because of having to do things like switch loads of laundry, go to the bathroom, make something to eat. Ya know, normal things for me but useless activities from his point of view.

To make everything even worse I had the nerve to leave the apartment, without his permission, to buy groceries. I took longer than normal because I chose to walk to the store instead of drive, something I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want to face his wrath.

Now I’m back and instead of immediately settling down so he could cuddle on my lap I made dinner, and insisted on eating it! So rude I know. This of course delayed his evening nap.

Seriously harsh day for him.

For me though it wasn’t so bad, I did get to end it with a slice of homemade carrot cake which was delish.

Mmm, can’t go wrong with cake!

I will of course pay the price for eating the cake instead of providing cuddles, most likely punishment will come in the form of being jumped on in the night but hey, we lose an hour of sleep tonight so one less hour for Striker to get his revenge!

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Scarf Season

19 Nov

Last year Striker (the cat) scratched so much at his neck he created a bald sore spot. And by spot I mean decently large sized wound. It took a lot of gauze neck wraps, kid polysporin, and me physically stopping him from getting to the scab when it hit the itchy stage, before it all healed up.

This is when he started wearing scarves. He hit a point in his healing where he didn’t need a gauze wrap but he did need something around his neck to make it harder for him to scratch the scab. My friend L made him a scarf, which he loved! So then she made him two more, and cat scarf season officially became a thing.

He never wanted me to take them off, if I did he’d get upset and try to get it back on. They were sized to be loose enough he could easily slip it off if he chose, I was worried about the scarves being a choking hazard if he got up to mischief while I was at work, but he never took them off. Unlike the gauze wraps I tried my best to make impossible to take off, which he got off multiple times. Cats!

Today I got home after work and exercise class to a fur massacre on my chair.

Of course he pulled out the white fur and left it on my black chair. He is nothing if not dramatic.

So I did what any sane person would do, I pinned him on his back on the bed and made him let me look at his neck and what did I see when I moved fur around but an area he’d yanked that fur from and the beginnings of an owie. Oh, and in case you worry I was hurting him, he was purring through all this because he thought it was a game, or a chance to get a good chin and neck scratch.

We had a good long cuddle, where I alternated between reminding him about last year and how much it hurt and how annoying the gauze was and how stressed he made his human, and just holding him and giving him love and telling him he was perfect and I’m so sorry this happened again.

Yeah I’m a sap, so what?

Then I grabbed his favourite of the three scarves and it instantly became Scarf Season.

scarf season 2019

So dapper. So handsome. So stress causing.

He hasn’t taken it off yet and it has been a couple hours. In fact he’s sleeping in the blanket fort I make for him every night and seems perfectly content. Let’s hope the scarf stops this whole situation from becoming like last year, and instead we can just enjoy a lovely, slightly longer, Scarf Season 2019.

Oh, and if anyone has a tip for where to get him more scarves I’d appreciate it, I feel bad asking my friend to make more when she doesn’t even make them for her cat.

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An Ongoing War: Cat vs Human

24 Mar

Ok so yes, this is yet another post about the cat, I swear I’ll stop writing about him so much soon…actually, no, that’s not true. In fact, it is a bold faced lie. So consider yourself warned, cat post ahead!

The cat and I are having a battle and seemed to have reached an impasse. I say that to be generous to myself, he is winning, oh how he is winning. sigh.

When he had his vet appointment and they took blood they shaved of a patch of fur on one of his front legs. No biggy right? Well, no, not for this guy. His thinking went something along the lines of “hey look, a section with less fur on me, this must mean I should lick and bite and fuss with this area as much as possible until I have created an open bloody wound!” and then he commences with said behaviour until he reaches the aforementioned result.

In other words, the little brat licked his leg so much he created an open wound.

Words. There are so many words in my head right now describing him, none of them are polite…

I did what any person would do, I wrapped his leg up after cleaning and disinfecting the wound and prayed to all the gods he wouldn’t get the bandage off. We went to bed. I woke up the next morning only to find the bandage off and he had the nerve to be laying at the end of the bed, licking the freakin wound!

Oh the audacity!

So I create a better, thicker, hopefully harder to remove, wrapping. The first layer is a non-stick square bandage, which is then wrapped with gauze to keep it in place, which is then covered with tape so he can’t get at the gauze. Easy peasy. It was barely on him before he managed to move it enough to expose part of the wound. I then create a second wrap and place it just above the first one, so more of his leg is covered, thinking it will keep the wound covered.

It seemed to work, he fussed with the bandage, licked at it an such, but no break in the tape, no damage to the gauze, no removing the bandage from the leg.

Clearly a victory for me.

Then yesterday about a half hour before I have to leave for work I take a look at the bandage, I was planning on redoing it that night when I got home but had to immediately take if off because when I thought he was fussing with the bandage but not causing any harm he was actually twisting it around his leg and parts of the gauze had gotten scary tight on his poor little ankle. He wasn’t acting like he was in pain but no way could I leave a bandage that tight on for the length of time I would be at work, or any length of time really.

So while he cries the cry of his people, surely making the humans upstairs think I am torturing him, I cut the bandage off him. Just so you know, despite his loud protesting meows he actually lay in my arm, not resisting, completely compliant with whatever way I moved him so I could get a better angle on the bandage. So the meowing to inform others of the abuse I was tossing his way was purely a psychological tactic to get other humans to turn on me.

Sneaky little guy.

After I get the bulk of the bandage removed I discovered that when he was fussing with the bandage and twisting it around that caused the non-stick pad to move and now covering was wound was gauze. Plain ordinary gauze. Crap. Combine gauze being on the wound with the saliva he kept licking on to the bandage making its way down to the gauze layer and the gauze and wound have now become one. Seriously, the gauze couldn’t have been more attached to the wound if someone had super glued it on. Double crap. So I lock us in the bathroom, dampen a bandage, and soak the area in order to loosen the gauze. All the while I have visions of having to explain to work I will be late because I need to make an emergency run to the vet and already wincing at how much that is gonna cost me. Luckily my trick worked and I was able to get the gauze removed with no visible pain to the cat. Phew!

But now what. I can’t re-bandage him the exact same way, since it obviously has massive flaws, but I also can’t leave him without a bandage since he has zero self-control and will just fuss at the wound the entire time I am at work. What I need is a cat babysitter! Since I don’t have one of those I do the next best thing and try to create a better bandage system.

I take two of the non-stick squares, tape them together to make one larger one, then I tape that around his leg (it is now large enough to go completely around his leg, no exposed fur), then I wrap it in the dreaded gauze, then I cover in tape, then, and brace yourself because this was truly a masterpiece idea, I take one of his scarves that he is currently not wearing and wrap it around and around and around his leg.

Yup, that’s right, I had that sucker wrapped around his leg so many times his leg was easy double his regular size.

To say he was not impressed is a tad bit of an understatement.

He wouldn’t even say goodbye when I left for work, just kept his back to me and refused to acknowledge I was there.

I spent my work shift wondering how long it took him to get out of the scarf and curious as to how long he will hold this particular grudge.

When I got home he had the nerve to meet me at the door with no scarf, no bandage, as if they never existed!

The best part of all this? I still can’t find the discarded scarf or bandages! It’s been over 24 hours and they are still hidden somewhere in this apartment, un-findable by yours truly. I would have sworn I knew all his hiding spots but apparently not…

So I spent last night barely sleeping because when he’d start licking I’d shoot awake and put my hand in the way, or gently move his mouth aside, or just grab him and force him to cuddle in my arms. Neither of us were impressed when the alarm went off this morning.

I decided I had no better idea for how to wrap his leg so I was going to have to chance it and leave him at home while I went to work sans bandage. I almost dreaded coming home and seeing how much damage he did during the day.

He didn’t make the wound much worse, its not any better, but definitely not worse, which makes me wonder if the lecture I gave him about personal responsibility and how the big scarf leg wrap was the consequence for his own poor life choices got through to him.

Then I remembered that he was sleep deprived because of how we spent the night and more likely he didn’t fuss with the wound too much during the day because he was catching up on sleep.

I however came home with what I hope is my ace in the hole.

Bitter Apple.

bitter apple

Please please please work!

Heard of it? It was suggested to me by someone at work, it is marketed for dogs but according to my good friend Google is also safe for cats. Though a small percentage of cats actually like the taste of Bitter Apple, making it ineffective on them (what do you just bet he is one of those cats?!).

My research says you wrap the wound, then spray the bandage with the Bitter Apple, it makes the bandage taste so gross they won’t lick or bite it, which in theory, means the bandage will stay on. You shouldn’t spray it directly on to the wound because it could sting.

Since I’ve been home I haven’t bandaged his leg. It is good for the wound to be exposed to air, help it scab up quicker, which means he is getting no privacy, if he goes to a different room I go with him, and I stay within reach of him so if he starts to fuss with the wound I can stop him. He’s no dummy, he figured out early on what I was about and caved, instead of going in to a different room he sprawled on my lap, making my feet go numb as a form of silent protest to my continued harassment, and every now and then when he subtly tries to lick the leg I reach down and stop him.

It’s a system, not a great one, but a system none the less.

Before we go to bed I will once again attempt to wrap the leg, and spray the bandage with Bitter Apple, and hope this time the bandage manages to stay on and not fussed with too much, giving his wound time to heal overnight and tomorrow while I am at work.

If this doesn’t work I am out of ideas so cross fingers for me this works!

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$1456.82

17 Mar

What, you may be wondering, cost $1456.82?

Was it a ridiculously over priced purse?

Was it a plane ticket to somewhere far away?

Was it a deposit on a new apartment?

Before you get excited for me and my shopping take a deep breath and calm down, because it was none of those things. Nope. That was the cost of the vet bill for my cat Striker. 

Yup, that’s right, my little bundle of floof just cost me $1456.82 and while he is worth spending any amount of money on, omg that is such an expensive bill! His appointment, while stressful, did have some funny moments so feel free to grab a drink, settle in, and enjoy our little vet adventure.

Striker has been feeling off for a couple weeks, not eating normally, not sleeping normally, not pooping normally (sorry for the tmi, he’ll kill me if he finds out I’m sharing his personal business online, but lucky for me he doesn’t know about my blog! lol 😉 ) just in general something wasn’t right. I started trying him with any and every type of food out there, hoping to entice him to eat but he barely touched anything. I didn’t know what was wrong but knew something was so I booked an appointment for him. About three days prior to his appointment I noticed a wound of some sort on his lower lip and over the course of the next three days it got noticeably worse. Me being me I started freaking out that he has cancer, severe infection of the gums, he’s gonna need his jaw removed, all sorts of things. 

We get to the vet and Dr. H takes a look, weighs him, tries to see the wound on his lip, manages to squeeze a bit of puss out and notices that the wound (whatever it is) is swollen and his upper canine has pierced it so every time he closes his mouth his fang is going in to the wound, effectively stopping it from healing and keeping it open to infection. 

The recommendation from Dr. H is that Striker stay there for a couple hours, be sedated, blood and urine will be drawn, the wound will be looked at and thoroughly cleaned, and we’ll go from there.

Dr. H brings me a contract to sign saying I authorize them to care for Strike and blah blah blah. Then he asks me if I authorize life saving techniques if they are needed or do I want a DNR in place. What?? Seriously? You’re asking me if I want to sign off on a Do Not Resuscitate while Striker is staring right at me?

striker sink vet

Striker watching me from the sink in the vet’s exam room

So I grill him on just what this all means. If life saving techniques are used does this mean that after he’s been gone for 20 minutes they’ll manage to bring him back but he’ll be half brain dead and have a shit quality of life? Does this mean he’ll be on the other side for 10 seconds and they’ll get him back and he’ll be fine just down one life? Is this basically CPR because CPR on people rarely works so does it work on cats? Just what is he envisioning here because this is not a yes or no question. Dr. H looks at me and asks “do you work in healthcare?” lol I said no, I just work with a lot of seniors and have to deal with DNRs often. 

In case you’re wondering, in the end I said yes to life saving techniques. Mostly because he said if something goes wrong they will start implementing life saving techniques and immediately call me to let me know what is happening and we can decide in the moment what to do. Which would be a horrifying convo but lucky for us we didn’t have to go there. 

I get a phone call after a couple hours that went something like this:

Dr H – Sooo, here’s what happened. Striker is a very determined cat, and he really doesn’t want to be here. He shook off the effects of the sedation much faster than normal and we were only able to get the blood drawn. We couldn’t get a urine sample because his bladder is empty and we never got a chance to look at the wound on his lip. 

Me – smiling and kinda proud at how strong willed Striker is

Dr H – We decided to take the catheter out and go from there. When the tech went to remove it Striker turned around and bit them. So we put him back in his kennel to give him some quiet time, help him calm down and regroup, but we can’t send him home because he still has a catheter in. 

Me – absolutely beaming at the vision of Striker defending himself. 

Dr. H – we instructed the tech to go to the doctor to have the wound looked at

Me – wait! Striker isn’t in trouble is he? This isn’t his fault. You’re not going to put him down because he bit someone the way its suggested with dogs right? It’s the tech’s fault!

Dr. H – No, Striker is fine, we expect this from cats. 

So there I am grinning like an idiot, so proud of Striker for defending himself when in a scary situation. He is much more prone to flight than fight when shit goes down so I’m impressed with his reaction. 

Dr. H then says they need to sedate him again to get the catheter out and hopefully look at the lip wound and do I authorize that. Obviously I said yes since I don’t want him sent home with a catheter in. 

I get a call a couple hours later, they got the catheter out but Striker shook off the effects of the second dose of sedation quickly and they still can’t get a good look at the wound. Dr. H feels that Striker would do better at home and even though they normally would want a cat to stay a bit longer for observation after so much sedation he thinks I should come get him. Teehee. They were kicking him out lol

The test results showed negative to cancer, hiv, all sorts of things. He did show as being at the end of a pancreatic flare up, which could be why he gets sick and throws up, and why he goes off his food. He also showed as having some sort of marker in his blood that indicates he’ll potentially have kidney issues at some point but right now he is fine. So they don’t know the underlying cause for the lip wound, and weren’t able to clean it out. The doc gave Striker an antibiotic shot and an anti-inflammatory shot in the hopes the lip would will go down in size and his tooth will stop piercing it and if there is an infection it’ll die and give the wound a chance to heal. He said he wasn’t going to send Striker home with medication for me to give him since he didn’t think Striker would be too keen on taking it. As if Striker treats me the same way he treats the vet and the tech? Pfft! I do appreciate not having to deal with medicating him though. 

I am to watch his appetite and the wound, if he doesn’t start eating I have to take him back, and I need to keep an eye on the wound to make sure it doesn’t get worse. 

So far his appetite has come back with a vengeance. He is eating way more than he used to, but I figure he has two weeks of barely eating to make up for so that’s ok. Would be nice if the only food he decided he will now eat wasn’t a $3 per can wet cat food but really, if that’s what he’ll eat, what am I gonna do, not buy it? 

Oh, and side note, he has let me open his mouth and look at the lip wound daily without issue. He’s such an awesome little guy. 🙂

 

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