One of my daughters and I had just loaded the 3 cat carriers into the van for their appointment with the vet, when my other daughter came running out.
She had just found the cat food bin in the basement had been knocked off the shelf, spilling kibble all over the floor.
Which means Tissue and Big Rig would have eaten during the night.
I went into town with all three, anyhow. Once parked near the clinic, which wasn’t open yet, but I had a signal. I texted the same person who contacted me the first time we tried this, even though I wasn’t sure she even had a shift today. As I was messaging her, I did see someone unlock the door and go in, though.
I did get a response saying that they would typically reschedule, due to the risk during anesthesia. Potato Beetle was alone in the sun room, though, so he was good to go. Then she asked if I was at the clinic. I told her I was parked outside. Next thing I knew, the woman I saw going in was waving to me at my window! 😄
She took Potato Beetle in with her. We’ve been there often enough, he remembered my daughter’s name – all the cat files are under her name in their system. Her computer wasn’t even up and running, yet, so she wouldn’t be able to check him in. She told me I’d get a phone call from someone else later, and we could do the paperwork over the phone, and the ladies will be rescheduled.
Well, at least Potato is getting done, and we’ll soon be able to let him out of the sun room. He will only need 4 days for recovery. After that, when it’s time to put Tissue and Big Rig for their fast again, we can use the sun room to isolate them.
This evening turned out to be a very pleasant 23C/75F, with a lovely breeze. I was able to stay out longer when doing my evening rounds, and take care of a few little things – with the help of a lot of mosquito repellant! We got enough cardboard from packages in the mail that I was able to lay some around the G-star patty pan squash, with only minor gaps. After topping up the kibble trays, I was able to hold a couple of kitties, including one I’ve never been able to touch before.
It was not happy, but it didn’t quite freak out, either. 😁
I also finally got the clothesline up.
The old line tightener worked just fine, and the new spacers will help a lot, too. We’ve never actually used the clothes line much, but now that we’ve got a nice, clean new line, I think we will use it more often. If nothing else, it’s a back up if we don’t want to use the dryer for some reason.
Like now. I did some laundry yesterday and, after popping it in the drier, the entire entryway and dining room filled with steam, basically. One of my daughters was able to clamber to take a look and discovered the hose was damaged and no longer properly attached. Best guess is, a cat fell off a nearby shelf and landed on it. We really need to build some kind of shelf back there, to keep the cats out! They wrecked the old dryer hose, too, as well as making a huge mess behind both the washer and dryer.
Oh, my other daughter just informed me that her sister managed to get behind the dryer and fixed the hose. Only a few inches of damaged hose needed to be removed. I’m still glad I got the clothes line fixed, though!
When I was a kid, we had three clotheslines set up on these posts. The hooks to hold pulleys are still there, if we ever want to set up one or two more lines. One of them has a pulley hanging off a length of twisted wire. It looks like someone had a line that wasn’t quite long enough, so they added length to the pulley to set it up. I have not seen any other laundry pulleys, though, so if we do want to set up the other two lines, we’d need to get 3 more pulleys, and another 240 or so feet of clothes line.
I doubt we’ll ever need to do that, but at least the option is there!
It was so pleasant out that, after I finished with the clothes line, I sat on the laundry platform bench to enjoy the cool breeze.
I had company.
There is a kitten in the above picture! One of two that were watching me.
The fuzzy one was watching me from behind the lettuce bed, and its darker sibling joined him while I was trying to get pictures.
They do not like the mesh over the beds, and kept going further and further around, trying to find a way through to where their sibling was playing in the path.
Their sibling didn’t stay in the path.
Instead, it came around the beet bed, walking along the logs, so get a better look at the weird human that keeps pointing a strange object at them. 😁
I keep expecting this one to be a good candidate for socializing, since he hangs around the house the most, and tends to stay and watch me when I’m moving about. So far, no go. He simply will not let me come closer. *sigh*
Oh, that reminds me. I heard from the Cat Lady today. We now have an appointment at the vet for spays and vaccinations. The two left among the inside cats are Tissue and Big Rig. She had slots for 2 females and a male, but the only male we’d be able to bring in is Potato Beetle, and he’s not around right now.
The appointment is for Aug 3, and they’ll be coming home with us after. Right now, she’s focusing on spays and neuters more than adoptions. No one is looking to adopt right now. The shelters are all full from so many “pandemic pets” being surrendered. !!!
Once the indoor ladies are done, and the yard mamas have weaned their babies, the next thing to do will be to start trapping yard cats to get them done. I expect that won’t happen until much later in August or even September. As long as it’s before the snow flies. Otherwise, trapping is more dangerous for them, due to potential exposure.
The Cat Lady has been in and out of hospital lately, and told me she’s been really missing Cabbages while she’s away! It’s so funny. Before they took in Cabbages, she didn’t like calicos, and preferred male cats, but Cabbages has completely won her over. 😄
I’m not surprised. Cabbages has a way of worming her way into people’s hearts! 😁
I just got back from taking Potato Beetle to the vet, and we’re much relieved!
The poor thing did NOT like being there. The vet quickly found a wound on the leg he was favouring – one we were never able to spot – but he had to be sedated before she could shave the area and get a good look at it.
Part of the area was already hairless from a scar, but hidden in the fur were two puncture wounds. One is barely visible in the photo. She thinks the critter that did it (and I have a good idea which one it was!) hit a tendon while yanking the way critters do. My guess is that one fang basically got hung up, causing more damage than a simple bite would have done.
The vet gave him a thorough examination and spotted another wound.
This was on his other paw, and probably causing him pain, too. She was thinking he probably had a hard time deciding with leg to limp with! It’s an older wound, though, and scabbed over, so she didn’t want to poke at it too much.
After a cleaning, both wounds got some antibiotic cream on them. Then, because as friendly as Potato Beetle is, he’s still very much a yard cat, he was given a 14 day antibiotic. He also got a 24 hr pain killer. We talked about the possibility of a pain killer we could administer at home, but that’s just not going to happen. He’ll have his 24 hrs of relief, and that’s it. We’re not going to torment him, trying to give him oral medications.
She also put a gel on his eyes so they don’t try out, since he wasn’t blinking while sedated. The sedative should wear off in a couple more hours.
I had arrived about half an hour early, but they were able to get us into an examination room right away. By the time we were done and I was paying the bill – which was quite a bit lower than we feared – we were leaving just minutes after the actual appointment time. Bonus!
For the next few days, we’ll continue to keep him in the sun room, continue to keep the wounds clean and use antibiotic cream on them. He should recover just fine. When I brought him into the sun room with the cat carrier and opened the door, I left him be and brought the food bowl closer. He actually got up and left the carrier, but kept slumping down every few steps. I put him in the soft pillow nest we’ve got for him in there. He rarely uses it, but it’s in a box and is a more secure spot. I’ve also left the cat carrier in there for now, in case he wants a “cave” to curl up in once he’s more active again.
In other good news, today turned out to be a very lovely day. While my phone’s animated display thinks we’re snowing, it’s been a lovely, sunny day. We even reached a high of 5C/41F. Things have been melting away quite nicely.
As for tomorrow’s cancelled court date, my brother chose a reschedule date that worked for him – in November. We should get a letter in the mail, confirming the date. Maybe over the next few months, our vandal will realize he has no case and withdraw the file. I doubt it, though. He’s doing this out of maliciousness, not reason. Whatever. It’ll work out. I’m just bothered by the fact that my brother keeps having to book days off work for this, and nothing is moving foreword.
I might still make the drive, though, if only to get to a Walmart or something, and hopefully find another big bag or two of kibble. I was only able to get one big bag, locally. The Walmarts have been out of stock on cat kibble a lot, too, but at least I’ll have other places I can try. We’ll see how it works out.
For now, I’m just happy that Potato Beetle was not hurt too badly, and should heal up soon. :-)
There weren’t a lot of cats out and about when I did my morning rounds, which was a bit of a surprise.
I only spotted seven at first! Then Potato Beetle showed up, wanting into the sun room, so I let him.
With a bit of concern. He seemed to be limping a bit.
With the new snow on the ground, I can’t get to some of the areas that I normally check as part of my rounds, so the necessities were finished quickly. I decided to take the time to dig out the burn barrel, since we’ll need to fire it up before things start melting away.
This area had been almost completely clear of snow before the storm. This is all new snow.
After digging out enough space to move around the barrel without getting too close while it’s lit, I also dug a path to the spare fire ring, and took the snow off the dry wood and kindling we have on the grate we use as a spark shield in the summer.
After a quick check of the roof, I dug out (almost literally) the roof snow shovel and used that to take as much snow off the sun room roof as I could. Hopefully, there won’t be too many leaks into the sun room when the rest of it melts.
While in the sun room, Potato Beetle came out of his warm spot on the bottom shelf, which is when I could see that yes, he was limping. A lot. He was avoiding putting weight on his front left leg at much as he could.
Damn.
I’ve called the vet and we now have an appointment for him for Wednesday at 7pm. They are now open 7 days a week, for extended hours. They are even open over Easter weekend, but are so booked, that was the earliest she could fit us in. She did put us on the cancellation list, just in case.
*sigh*
Hopefully, the funds set aside for my new glasses (which apparently won’t happen, since I’m not allowed to get an eye exam) will be enough cover it.
So that is set for Wednesday evening, then on Thursday, I have to go to court to deal with our vandal’s vexatious litigation against me that he filed, after I applied for the restraining order against him.
Hopefully, the judge will throw it out for the ridiculousness it is.
*sigh*
Well, until then, we will continue our Easter traditions. Today, we are assembling our basket. We’ve decided not to take it to the church for blessing, and will just bless it ourselves again. When my mother told me her church was doing it and what time, I talked about possibly bringing our basket in. She then launched into a long diatribe about how she hoped I wouldn’t bring that big, big basket I had the last time we were able to get our basket blessed. Apparently, in her mind, only small baskets are acceptable. No one has big baskets, so bringing a big basket is somehow uncivilized. Clearly, she forgets some of the big baskets people would bring to the church we used to go to when I was a kid. Ours could be considered small in comparison. Not to mention the ones with all the decorations hanging off the handles, and the bottles of win, etc. What she’s completely forgetting is why we do basket blessings in the first place. Instead, it’s become yet another thing to show off to other people, and judge other people for if they do it “wrong”. I don’t want her attitude to ruin one of our most symbolic and deeply meaningful traditions. When I called her last night and updated her on things (my nephew and his family were on the road at the time; they have since arrived safely!), she brought up getting her own basket ready, then asked if I’d be bringing ours. Phrased in such a way that she clearly thought I would not, and that the restrictions (there are none) were the reason.
Since I am driving my mother to my brother’s on Easter, the girls are staying home to celebrate it with my husband, with our traditional brunch, using foods from the basket.
I heard from the Cat Lady today. Now that Turmeric has had time to recover from her surgery, it’s time to put her profile up on the adoption list at the Cat Lady’s new rescue site. She was asking for a little write up to include, so I got one of my daughters to make one up. She’s much better at that than I am (and funnier, too!).
I also too a more recent photo of Turmeric, since the last ones I sent her were from the trip to and from the vet, so they weren’t the most flattering! :-D
I disturbed her cuddles with her mother. :-D
The Cat Lady also sent us a photo of Cabbages.
Her phone’s camera takes much better pictures than mine does!
Don’t you just want to boop that little pink nose? <3
She was cooking more chicken for Cabbages at the time she messaged me. That cat is really living the high life with them! I’m so glad they ended up deciding to keep her themselves. They fought so hard to save her life!
This morning, I managed to introduce Nosencrantz to a cozy spot in a shelf by my leaning sheep (a large stuffed sheep I use as back support when sitting up in bed). It made for an excellent photo angle!
She is such a beauty!
She even stayed there a while, where she could watch the activities in the room, but I think it’s just too exposed for her liking, and she was soon back in her cubby hole behind the night stand.
Also, she had to put up with the beast overnight.
I barely managed to shot of Turmeric’s nekkid belly.
For a cat that’s just come out of surgery, she got really active once the drugs wore off.
We’re supposed to watch if she’s going for the incision, and put her in a cone or a shirt, if necessary. She seems to be quite enthused about licking her shaved belly, but as you can see by the silver still on the incision, she’s leaving it alone. All the sliver around the incision is licked off, but not on the incision itself.
We kept her closed up with me overnight for observation. She got a bit of solid food, and there was no throwing up or anything of concern. Unfortunately, her presence meant trouble for Butterscotch and Nosencrantz. I caught poor Nosencrantz peeing in the new bed I made for her because Turmeric wouldn’t let her get at the litter box. :-(
I needed to do laundry today, anyhow.
So… it was another mostly sleepless night. At least there weren’t any all-out cat fights. The surgery did slow her down that much. Overall, Turmeric is recovering very well, and I was able to let her out and about again this morning.
Which will give Butterscotch and Nosencrantz a bit of a break, at least.
My goodness, what a day today has turned out to be!
As I dropped Turmeric off at the vet, it was just barely starting to snow. There was no snow at all as I drove home. I did, however, see 11 deer in the field by our hamlet’s fire hall, and more during the drive in!
The weather forecasts have been all over the place. Previously, this week was supposed to be about 8-10C warmer than right now, but those forecasts slowly dropped. Then we were told to expect 6-10cm (roughly 2-4 inches) of snow, then less than 1cm of snow and rain. This morning, when I checked before heading out, it was again saying 6-10cm. After dropping Turmeric off, it was saying 6-12cm.
Looking at the weather radar, I could see a huge system swirling counter clockwise over Eastern Canada and the US – many states look like they are getting walloped with rain, while snow was hitting South Eastern Canada. As usual, we looked like we’d be getting just the edge of the system.
By the time I was heading back to pick up Turmeric, the snow was falling much more heavily, though there was still some rain in it, too. Visibility was quite reduced.
I left a bit early so that I could stop to order some anniversary pizza. There’s a brand my husband and I haven’t had since we were in high school, so we couldn’t remember if we even liked it anymore. After placing the order, I went to pick up Turmeric, who was doing just fine.
Getting her was faster than the pizzas, so I waited with her in the van.
Would you look at those cracked out eyes!!! I put my phone right up against the door, then used voice to take the picture. The command I usually use is “smile”. She had been looking out the holes in the sides, but when I said “smile”, this is the look she gave me! :-D
I talked to the vet about getting more of the painkiller, just in case, but the dose is so low, and for only 3 days, she suggested I wait. If we were doing more cats soon, it would have been worth it to get a bigger bottle of the stuff, but the next cat we get done, it is likely the Cat Lady will be picking her up, and keeping her for the recovery period, instead. The stuff might expire before we use much of it, so the vet suggested waiting and just using what we have left. If we run out, we can get more.
Once we got the pizzas, it was a careful drive home. The roads weren’t that bad, but this would be a bad time for a deer to suddenly appear out of the blowing snow.
I had about 45 minutes before I headed out again, to pick up the freezer pack of beef. Time enough for supper!
The pizza was very good. I would definitely order from there again.
Due to the road conditions, I left early.
I just had to open the window to get a picture while at the stop sign. As usual, the camera cleans the shot up automatically, so visibility in real life was poorer than it seems in the photo.
The good thing is that the days are longer, so it was still light out. When we picked up our quarter beef, back in December, it was pitch black out at this time.
We met up at the parking lot of a grocery store, so I took advantage of that and went in to pick up some cake and ice cream for our anniversary, too.
Oh! I see our usual 3 deer, including the piebald, walking up our driveway on the security camera. Thankfully, they are the only deer I was seeing this evening.
Before driving home, I checked the weather conditions, and it was still saying to expect 6-12cm of snow – but for the first time, the word “storm” was used.
We shall see what we actually end up with.
I messaged the family to let them know I was on the way, and asking someone to meet me when I backed the van closer to the house, to avoid the big lake of water between the house and the garage. I got some confusing responses about a delivery. No, not the delivery of meat I just picked up. A delivery for my husband, at home!
It was very confusing.
After I’d left, they got a phone call from a delivery driver, letting my husband know he was in our little hamlet. My husband told him I was already out to pick up the delivery in the town to the North of us.
The driver was very confused.
So was my husband.
It turned out to be the pharmacy driver, with prescription refills for my husband.
We didn’t order any refills.
It seems, now that the bubble packs are made in the city, they simply fill his prescription refills automatically, then send them out to the pharmacy in town. Since we always get them delivered, and today is delivery day, they got sent out. We haven’t even been charged for them yet, or I would at least have gotten the transaction notification from my bank app.
Once that was straightened out, my younger daughter went out to meet the driver and pick up the package. Due to the nature of some of the drugs my husband takes, there was a paper for him to sign, so my daughter was going to take it in for him to do that, then bring it back out again.
She described to me what happened, herself. Since she was just popping outside briefly, she was wearing her house sandals. As she turned away from the driver, bag of pills in one hand, the paper to sign in the other, her foot went onto slush on ice, The next thing she knew, her foot slipped, spinning her into a pirouette, before she fell, slamming into the mud with one knee and the hand holding the paper, as she kept the bag of pills high in the air, so it wouldn’t hit the mud.
The driver, of course, was quite alarmed, but thankfully, she was okay. The mud was soft to land on. ;-)
My husband signed a very wet and muddy paper, though.
Poor thing!
Needless to say, it was her sister who came out to help me bring the box of meat, and the bag of cake and ice cream, in.
Meanwhile, we continue to have a mix of rain and snow. Looking at the weather radar, the system that looked like it was going to just brush past us, is now right on top of us. We, however, are warm and safe inside, and well stocked. No need to go anywhere for quite a while, if we don’t want to.
The long range forecast has us at just a few degrees above freezing with more snow and/or rain, off and on, for the next two weeks before things turn spring-like again.
Tomorrow, we’re planning to start the next batch of seeds. I think that’s the perfect activity to be engaged in, with the weather we are having right now! :-D
With Nosencrantz insisting in spending her days tucked into an empty shelf behind my nightstand, I decided she should at least have a bed. So last night, I quickly crocheted one for her.
Before I was done, Turmeric was isolated in my room with me, Butterscotch and Nosencrantz for her fast. B & N were not impressed with the company. Turmeric is one of the cats that has been the most aggressive towards them. Particularly towards Nosencrantz. So they were both hiding in their nests, while Turmeric roamed the rest of the room.
Which is why Turmeric got to test out the new bed, first!
It looks so tiny compared to her from this angle. Trust me; it’s large enough for a cat to curl up in! :-D
When the girls did the evening cat stuff (which is when they get wet cat food), Turmeric was tucked into the bathroom until B & N were finished eating.
It was not a good night.
Normally, once the other cats are closed out, so that B & N can at least get some wet cat food, uninterrupted, that’s when they come out and eat, drink, use the litter, and play.
I don’t get a lot of sleep these days.
They couldn’t do that as much, last night. Of course, there was no other food once the bowls with the wet cat food were cleared away. Just water. At least three times during the night, I had actual cat fights happen as Turmeric went after Nosencrantz! Poor thing. Then, when I wasn’t breaking up cat fights, I was fending of Turmeric attention, as she decided the best way to get at Nosencrantz’s cubby hole was by first snuggling my face and licking my nose (because noses are delicious, apparently), then making a dash for the opening behind my night stand.
So adorable and nasty, at the same time!
I finally got some sleep, just in time for my alarm to go off. I had given myself extra time, so I figured I could set my timer for half an hour and still have time to get ready to go.
I think I forgot to hit the start button.
An hour later, I woke up and had to start scrambling! I didn’t have time to do the morning cat stuff, though once I had Turmeric in the carrier, I had enough time to put food out for the outside cats – startling away several deer in the yard – before we left.
Turmeric wasn’t too impressed with being carried, but once in the van, she settled down very quickly.
She even took a bit of a nap.
What a face.
Drop off time was for when the vet clinic opened, and I got there early – though when I checked my phone, the appointment was for a half hour later. I hadn’t needed to rush so much! No matter. They had no problem taking her when they opened.
My daughter usually has been doing this part, since the mask thing because an issue. The restriction is lifted, but there were still signs all over, stating that they were a “health care facility” and required masks.
They had zero issue with my maskless face.
The paperwork was done. The Cat Lady and her new rescue are covering the cost of the spay, while the tattoo is a clinic freebie. The pain meds for afterwards is not covered, but we might still have enough left over from when Beep Beep and Fenrir were done. I checked the bottle when I got home, and I think we’ll pick up more, just in case. The doses are low – especially for such light cats (Turmeric weighed in at just over 5 pounds) – but I’d rather have extra than not enough.
As I write this, she should be out of surgery and recovering. We’re set to pick her up at 3:30, though they’ll call us when she is ready.
Today also happens to be my and my husband’s 34th wedding anniversary. He’s not up to going out for dinner, so I’ll be picking up some pizza on the way home, courtesy of my daughter. We’ll be trying a different place this time. I’ll have enough time to drop off Turmeric and the food, then head out again to pick up our meat order. I just got the invoice this morning, and will be picking up the order this evening.
Now that’s my kind of anniversary gift! :-D
We do get a giggle out of the fact that we’re meeting up in a parking lot to get meat, like it’s some sort of drug deal. :-D
It’s going to be quite a day for running around from town to town! Worth it, though.
I got a phone call from the Cat Lady this morning.
Cabbages finally made it in to the special vet to be spayed this morning, and she is recovering nicely. So that is good news.
The other good news is that we have an appointment for Turmeric to be spayed, early next month.
Turmeric will be coming back to us for recovery, while also being added to the adoption list with the Cat Lady’s new rescue organization.
That’s the good news.
The not so good news is that the organization she left, with them wanting to send Saffron and Nicco to BC being the last straw for her, isn’t too happy with her. As a large organization, they have access to lots of resources – and they are making it difficult for her to access those resources!
Which is making things more difficult for her in general. As you can imagine, things are incredibly stressful for her right now!
You’d think they would be more interested in rescuing cats and be glad to work with other organizations with the same goals, but apparently not.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. One of the things they did was stop accepting intakes through our local vet. The vet was taking in “too many” really sick cats, and the bills were really high, so they basically cut off that clinic temporarily.
Well, guess who is the vet that agreed to work with the Cat Lady?
Yup! Turmeric is going to the same local vet we’ve been using all this time!
They have become incredibly busy, though, so it’s hard to get an appointment in. I noticed a while ago that they have extended hours, and are even open on Sundays, which had been their one day off, a few months ago. Clearly, people are happy with this clinic!
The other news is with Saffron and Nicco. Using what resources she still has access to, she has worked something out with another rescue in the city. They have adoption facilities in a non-franchise pet store that is very busy. It’s not an ideal situation, but it’s still better than being sent half way across the country! She’s known the woman who runs it for 20 years, so she knows they are a good place. The fur-girls will be going there, now that they are recovered from being spayed. With how successful and busy this place is, she’s expecting them to be homed within a week.
I found out something else when she contacted me about the appointment for Turmeric.
While her new rescue organization has lots of support and is getting donations, most of this is being bankrolled by her husband right now. Thankfully, he owns a business that didn’t get destroyed by government restrictions over the past two years, and can afford it for now. So all the out-of-pocket stuff they’ve been doing has really been out of his pocket! So when we bring Turmeric in to be spayed, and will not be getting any bill for it, it’s because HE is paying for it!
What an amazing man. Her whole family has really been all in with her cat rescue operations!
All the more reason I want to help out with the fundraiser I’ve got through Ko-fi.
The only problem is, as with the rescues, not a lot of people are donating. I’ll keep the fundraiser going for a while longer, but if people aren’t interested, I’ll just shut it down and refund the (much appreciated!) donations currently made. Everyone is going through hard times right now, and I understand that they have priorities that are higher on the list than cats! We shall see how it works out.
As for myself, I’m just in awe of the Cat Lady, and all she is going through right now, trying to do right for the kitties.
We have another day that is turning out to be warmer than predicted – again, by only a degree! We were supposed to reach a high of 1C/34F but, as I write this, we are at 2C/36F, and for this time of day, we could potentially warm up a bit more before cooling down for the night.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling very well this morning, and one of my daughters was sweet enough to do the morning outdoor chores for me. It seems we all had rough nights last night, though with the girls, they are having issues with the roof leak coming in at one of their windows. They ended up having to move their computers (they have a double sided desk that they share) and other electronics. Unfortunately, one of the only 2 outlets in that room happens to be under that window, and it’s the only one that takes 3 prong plugs, so they don’t have a lot of choice on where to set up. For my older daughter, that means a delay on her being able to work on commissions.
The temperature changes fluctuating above and below freezing have been absolutely brutal on my husband. He’s had to resort to “take as needed” medications he’s been able to avoid for months, just to be able to stand up more or less straight. The down side is that one of those medications causes drowsiness, and while a deeper sleep may seem like a good thing, it isn’t when one is also on a water pill.
Among my disturbances of the night was dealing with the mess Nosencrantz made. She has been using the litter to pee in just fine but, for some reason, she prefers to poop in my closet, near where we’ve got a cat bed set up in an old laundry basket; one of her favorite places. I’d already resorted to using carpet cleaning powder on the area and leaving it there instead of vacuuming it up (the replacement band for the new vacuum cleaner still hasn’t shown up, so we’re not able to properly vacuum right now, anyhow). It seemed to be working but, last night, I discovered her pooping right next to the powder.
*sigh*
So at 2 in the morning, I was cleaning it up, adding more carpet powder, and re-arranging things stored on the bottom of my closet to protect some of my longer clothing, like my summer dresses, that the cats were mucking about with. Then, since I was up anyhow and she was cooperative, I checked out Nosencrantz’s surgical site.
The stitches they use are supposed to dissolve, but for some reason, only with Nosencrantz, some of them aren’t. We could feel them when brushing a hand across her belly, but this time I took a closer look. One piece with a knot at the end that stuck out seemed to be loose, so I thought I could gently brush it out – only to see skin being tugged in another spot!
After getting a better look at it in daylight, I decided to call the vet about it. They asked for a photo for a technician to look at it, so I sent this one – at full resolution, so the tech could zoom right in.
My daughter’s fingers are pointing at the 3 spots of concern. On the right, that purple dot is the knot. It sticks out surprisingly far. In the middle, you can actually see a stitch joining two reddish spots. On the left is another slightly reddish area. We couldn’t actually see anything there, but we can feel something. That spot seems to be the other end of the thread.
I got a response from the vet very quickly. The technician said that sometimes, stitches just take longer to dissolve. It should be fine, but if it seems to be irritating her, we could make and appointment and they would remove it.
So it still should dissolve away. Nosencrantz seems utterly oblivious to it, except when we are checking it. The slight redness is a bit of a concern to me, but it isn’t getting infected or anything, and the knot doesn’t seem to be catching on anything.
We decided not to take her in, but having been assured that it will, indeed, dissolve, I did snip that bit in the middle, and was able to pull part of it out, from the knot.
It was almost an inch and a half long! That doesn’t look at all like it’s in the process of dissolving, either. :-/
The main thing is that there is no longer a piece sticking out, and no loop tugging her flesh together, which is likely the cause of the redness we could see.
We will keep monitoring the area, of course, but I think it should be fine, now. We could have done it earlier, but I didn’t want to remove only part of it, if the rest of it wasn’t going to dissolve away.
I also have some news that I’ve been sort of waiting until I had more information to share.
There have been some major changes in regards to the Cat Lady that has slowed down the adoption process for a while.
The Cat Lady has left the organization that was covering most of the vet bills to get the cats spayed, examined, vaccinated, etc. There had been an intake freeze with the clinic we use, because of the vet costs of so many sick cats, but now there is an organization wide intake freeze. This organization is completely by donation, so I can understand that needed to happen at times.
The Cat Lady was also having issues with them. There was, of course, the usual issues that seem to plague any organization; gossiping, internal politics, etc. The final straw, however, involved out of province adoptions.
They wanted to adopt Saffron and Nicco out of province.
It would have meant a THREE DAY van ride!
The cats get stressed out enough just with a ride to the vet in the city! She couldn’t let them inflict that on Saffron and Nicco. Since they are still with her, instead of a with fostering household, she simply quit her job and is hanging on to them longer.
She is now going independent, and Saffron and Nicco will be the first cats up for adoption when her new website goes live. Cabbages is the model on her flier, though Cabbages is not up for adoption. Her daughter is too attached! She already has 10 foster families lined up, has the support of the local shelter, and just worked things out with a vet, but she has to get things live quickly. She’s picking up another 10 or so cats from the area this week! In the middle of all this, she was also able to get another pair of cats settled into a new forever home. She has placed a priority on getting our cats adopted out, though, so as soon as she can, she will be taking on the next pair of cats for a trip to the vet, recovery time, then adoption.
Now, we could continue to work with the organization she left, as they do have a lot of resources she doesn’t, however I’m not keen on the possibility of cats being adopted out of province, so we are sticking with the Cat Lady! Her organization is going to be specific to our region, too, not the entire province.
This is a huge leap, but she’s got 13 years experience in animal rescue, and clearly cares deeply about the cats, and where they get adopted to. I think she will do fabulous.
Which brings me to our ongoing fundraiser. I’d set a goal of $1500 to surprise reimburse the Cat Lady for Cabbages’ vet bills, knowing it likely would be more than that. I’ll be keeping the goal at $1500, but anything above and beyond will still go to the Cat Lady, to help with her new cat rescue organization.
If you would like to contribute to the fundraiser, you can go to the fundraiser page though this link, or click on the button below.
The Re-Farmer 