While I am using my phone to make this post, because I can’t do anything with photos on my desktop, this might be the last post where this is an issue.

My new computer is ready to be picked up at the post office.

Unfortunately, I can’t get there before it closes over the lunch period.  It reopens at 2, so I’ll head our then.  After that, we’ll see how long it takes to set it up and see how it works.  It will take a long time to set up or transfer my data over, but I should at least be able to go online and write posts.

I really hope this turns out to be a good machine.

In other things, cat related.

I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady.  They now have several cats from us, living with them permanently.  They have pretty much all had weird health issues.  Thankfully, Cabbages is now hale and hearty.  Leo – a kitten we never named and never expected to survive – had lung issues but is now officially declared healed. 

Then there is Muffin, a muted calico that was supposed to be adopted out, but bonded instantly with her husband.  For some reason, she hates the Cat Lady, but gets along with everyone else.  She also goes to job sites and coffee runs with her husband!

Well, one day, while the family was out of country, her mother, who was taking care of the cats while they were gone, found her with a bloody mouth.  After an emergency weekend trip to the dentist, she had some teeth removed.

Since then, they got a diagnosis of stomatitis.  She’s going to need all her teeth removed.  !!!

Telling my daughters about this, they told me of a cat they follow online (Yes, a cat; not the owner!) that had all her teeth removed a couple of years ago.  Apparently, cats can handle being gummies just fine.  So hopefully, things will work out for Muffin.

I shared this with the Cat Lady, along with mentioning how we feel so bad that she has all these cats from us that turned out to have major health problems.  She told me it was okay.  Other cats they’ve found themselves with have been much more difficult.  And she wasn’t talking about the one that was do physically abused, he can no longer eat without help, and had to have a leg and tail amputated. 

Which is rather alarming!

Then she got back to me later, after talking to someone with 41 cats, wants to adopt some out and get some of them fixed.

Just some?

The Cat Lady says she is getting so tired of dealing with the public, she just wants to focus on us and our cats.

What does that say about the other situations she deals with, when ours is the least problematic??

Speaking of which…

We have a problem with Driver.

A couple of days ago, he seemed to be limping on a back leg.  I wanted to keep an eye on him, but yesterday, I never saw him walking.  While feeding them, he was in the cat bed under the platform in the sun room, and didn’t get up.  When I came back after finishing my rounds, he was gone.  Checking through the bathroom window during the night, though, I spotted him on the top shelf by the window.   I figured if he could get up there, he was doing alright, or at least improving.

This morning, however, he was walking around on 3 legs, holding a front paw off the ground.

About the only positive thing I can say is that the leg isn’t dangling.  With Ginger and with Toni, when I saw how their legs were dangling and flopping around, I knew right away, amputation would be the most likely recommended course of action.  With Driver, however, he’s holding the leg up, but there is nothing swinging around or flopping.  As I had not noticed him favoring his front leg before, this may even be a new injury he somehow got last night.

The last I saw him, he was disappearing under the storage house.  I wasn’t even allowed to get close to him, never mind pet him, which is now unusual for him.

The problem is, we can’t even take him to a vet.  With the spay day coming up this weekend, plus expenses like the new computer, expecting new glasses for my husband, etc, we just don’t have any more budget left for vet bills.  I’ve told the Cat Lady about it, but not with any expectation that they should take in the expenses. 

We have had cats show up favoring paws or legs before, that healed on their own.  We will watch closely.  Hopefully, it’s not anything serious, but at the moment, I can’t get close enough to check.

*sigh*

Well, we do the best we can.

What else is there?

The Re-Farmer