Yes, I’ve been neglecting my blog. No, I haven’t been lolling about drinking margaritas by the pool.
I don’t have a pool any more, and I haven’t had a margarita for going on fourteen years.
Instead I’ve been dealing with pissy heroines and sick cats.
The heroine is doing very well, and I think the cats are finally on the mend. Except for Peaches (renamed Spot when I discovered she was a he) who has disappeared. Ditto, Squirt.
Peaches was/is a cutie, friendly and inquisitive. I’m hoping someone snatched him up and adopted him as opposed to some idiot driver speeding down the street and squishing him. And I’m hoping Squirt has just moved on to a yard of his own.
BB, Patches, T2 and Nose are still hanging out in my back yard. Bad Ass, unfortunately, is also still around.
Both my indoor cats have been sick. Mo had an eye infection. I got to squirt goop in his eyes for a week. Fortunately, Lee was home. Mo’s a big boy. It took two of us to get the job done. Lee held the cat; I squirted in the goop. Halfway through, Mo discovered he could make the process even more difficult by hiding his furry face in Lee’s armpit.
Then, while I was doing vet stuff, I decided it was time to update Andy’s shots. (Actually, it was way past time.) I took him in on a Tuesday to get the needle, and Thursday I took him back because he was sick. Diarrhea, inertia; my high energy kitty had pretty much taken up residence under the bed. Tuesday he complained all the way to the vet. Thursday he didn’t let out a squeak. He had a temperature of 105.
The vet hydrated him and gave him antibiotics, and gave me some kitty amoxicillin to dose him with at home. (Andy didn’t like the amoxicillin any more than Mo liked the eye goop.) A week has passed, we’ve been back to the vet two more times, Andy has lost two pounds, and he still isn’t back to his usual ornery self.
However, he is now moping on top of the bed as opposed to under it. And he’s started to eat again. His temperature is back to normal. He’s also started to sneeze a little. I have no idea what that’s about. Probably all the dust under the bed.
The vet thinks it’s unlikely this mystery illness is due to the shots. He’s probably right. Andy was fine til two days afterwards. And he’s had shots before with no aftereffects at all.
However, the timing is suspicious. Andy’s never been sick before. I suppose he could have picked up something at the vet’s, but he wasn’t rubbing shoulders – or noses — with the other patients and he certainly wasn’t down on the floor exploring the place.
If it was Mo who’d gotten sick, I’d think maybe he’d eaten something bad for him that had fallen on the floor. But finicky Andy doesn’t eat things off the floor.
I’ve been trying all kind of goodies to tempt Andy’s appetite. He just turns up his nose. Mo, however, is in fat cat heaven. I think he’s gained the weight Andy lost.
I really, really hate it when one of the cats is ill.
Maggie MacKeever, Novelist 