Feline Friday: Is this Narnia?

 Lily has always been fascinated with this corner cupboard. If I leave it open, as I am prone to do, she will venture inside. 

Our older kitty, Tinsel, used to go inside, too. 

Of course, this situation isn't sanitary at all. After she comes out (or is FISHED out), I have to wipe things down. I just don't know what the attraction is.

Maybe she thinks the corner cupboard is a secret passageway to another world, like Narnia.

Sorry, Lily, it's just Tupperware. 😊

Neem Oil to the Rescue

I've had my share of patio pot failures over the years but this summer, I have had the worst possible luck -- with a couple of notable exceptions: The crossandra plants I brought back from Texas seem completely immune to disease and have never stopped blooming. They have grown considerably and look so nice and healthy, with no effort whatsover on my part.

 

My hanging lantana baskets have also done quite well, while the lantana in a pot struggled and is finally coming back. Check out that beautiful black swallowtail! We've had a ton of butterflies this summer which makes me very happy!

 

Other than those plants and a handful of others, the patio pot season has been a dismal and perplexing failure. I have replaced many annuals and thrown out even more. As an example, every single plant on this baker's rack died. I still have basil and rosemary but both are replacement plants.

 

 You know it's bad when I don't even have pictures of the plants I had to toss...I was too angry and upset to even document the situation. Most of the plants seemed to start with brown/dried leaves around the stem base which progressed -- unstoppably -- to kill the entire plant. In pots with more than one type of annual, only the flowering annual was affected. In this pot, the pink spotted foliage is still doing fine. Here's one photo I happened to take.

 

The dragonwing begonias that were so spectacular last year didn't grow much at all after planting them. Last year's plants were ridiculously easy to care for and I couldn't wait to have them again! This photo is from last fall.

Unfortunately, this year's begonias were a total flop, even though they came from the same place, were planted in the same pots and placed in the same spot. They barely grew after I planted them and eventually withered and died, even though I cared for them in the same way as last year. The hanging baskets also succumbed to a similar plight. The two hostas are the only plants I have left on the front step. I'd like to get some mums, but do I dare???

My three hibiscus plants started out strong but then nearly succumbed to something which made the buds fall off and the leaves yellow. I tried watering them more, watering them less, more sun, less sun, fungicide, pesticide...nothing was working and I was on the verge of throwing them out.

In desperation, I tried treating them with with Neem Oil I had on hand from last summer and to my complete delight, all three have completely recovered. I only wish I'd thought to try Neem Oil on the other plants.

 

At this point, I've got just a few of the pots I started with but, thanks to Neem Oil, they're all doing well.

Here's hoping my success with Neem Oil might help out a fellow struggling gardening friend!

Feline Friday: The Great Outdoors

 We've had some beautiful weather here lately, making it a PURR-fect time for Lily to venture outdoors! I know I've said forever that I need to get her a new harness but I haven't managed to get that done yet. Cousin Rory in Texas has offered to give her harness to Lily since she is not allowed to go outside due to her slippery coat and speedy tendencies, so hopefully one of these days we'll be able to go back to Texas and get it!

 

 Meanwhile, wearing our too-small harness, we headed outdoors for a little walkabout. Lily still hates the feel of grass on her feet but this time she did a little better than usual. She stood in the grass long enough for a few glamour shots and even had some interest in walking toward the neighbors' yard.

 

   Ahhhh....those mysterious outdoor smells!

 

 

   Those weird and sort of scary outdoor sounds....

 

 Note the little paw lifted up! Soon she had had enough of the grass.

 

 

Lily made a beeline back to her PURR-sonal "sidewalk". The garden edging is a great catwalk and keeps the grass from tickling her delicate feet!

 Here's to a happy Feline Friday and more trips to the great outdoors!

 

Feline Friday with Rory

It's time to check in on Cousin Rory in Texas!

It will soon be back to school time so Rory's showing some spirit with her new "M" attire, representing her meowmy's new school. With school starting back up, Rory will be on home security patrol during the days.

She's already been practicing for her new job! Whenever she hears someone coming up the stairs, Rory smooshes herself as flat as possible until she sees who it might be.

NOTICE THE EARS!!!

I don't know why, but I find her expression here absolutely hilarious!

No worries, Rory is on duty!

Happy Feline Friday, friends!

Feline Friday

I'm pleased to report that Lily is finally doing GREAT following her surgery! Next week, it will be one month since the procedure. I'd say it has taken a solid 2.5-3 weeks for her to get back to normal. That's not bad for a 14 year old kitty!

 

I'll be honest, when she went through a couple of weeks of constipation after the operation, I was worried. I wondered if I had made the right decision in choosing the surgery, which I knew came with risks of chronic incontinence or constipation. I worried that the constipation she was experiencing was the result of the surgery and not just a temporary situation.

Thank goodness it turned out to be temporary and she is doing great now. It just took awhile for the anethesia and pain killer side effects to work their way out of her system. I can tell by her activity level that her little bottom is feeling SO MUCH BETTER. Those anal glands must have been terribly painful for her. I'm so glad we will no longer have to run to the vet every few week to to have them expressed.

Funny: We brought this old rug home from Texas when my daughter no longer needed it. It belonged to my mom and even spent a summer with Bailey when she was a camp counselor in Michigan. Lily has completely fallen in love with it since her surgery. I've washed it several times and she keeps returning to it. This is a terrible place for an old white rug but since she's enjoying it there, I'll allow it! LOL

 

In the past few days, she's been jumping, looking out the window, and playing much more actively than she was before the procedure. Before the operation, I noticed that she would walk a little bit and sit down...walk and sit down. Now she's trotting all around, free from pain. It is just so gratifying to see.

Even though she's in her golden years, I feel strongly that Lily deserves to have the best quality of life possible. Our vet didn't hestitate to perform the procedure on a kitty of her age, knowing that it would make her so much more comfortable. Although the recovery was a bit more stressful than I expected it to be (for both of us), I'm so pleased that she has ended up in a much better place!

The Card-Maker's Card Basket...

Perhaps you've heard the old saying, "The cobbler's children have no shoes." Well, the same could be said for this card-maker's card basket. It has no cards...just envelopes!

Have I stopped making cards? Nope, not in the least. In fact, since this pandemic situation started in March, I have designed and made 14 different sets of card kits for the store where I teach. One of these days, I'll share some photos of them. Suffice it to say that I've been making a TON of cards...just not for me! LOL

When I took a look at my card basket and realized there were no cards in it -- or at least none that I would want to send -- I knew I needed to spend a little time fillling it back up. 

 I don't send a lot of cards these days but I do occasionally need cards for sympathy, friendship, thank you, or similar occasions. So I spent a little time this weekend making a few cards from scraps.

In all, I made 9 or 10 cards for various occasions and I really need to make several more. I used a couple of different designs that I find work for most any occasion, leaving the insides blank so that I can customize them for particular situations that might arise.

These four cards were made with an old Graphic 45 collection featuring cats and dogs. Someone gave me a few pieces from this line and I've kept it to use for cards. For these two cards, I used the back sides of some of the papers. You'd never guess this line features our four-legged friends! I find with Graphic 45 papers in particular, the back sides are often just as useful as the fronts.

 I love the "C is for Cat" piece on these 2 cards from the same paper collection. I actually had a poster with that same artwork on the wall of my dorm room during my freshman year. These cards could be used as a "hello" or get well card for my cat-loving friends.

 

Now my card basket looks a little fuller and I won't find myself running out to buy a grocery store card or making one at the last minute. Truth be told, it was fun to make a few cards of my own and use up some older product. I really need to take more time for personal card-making in the future!

Feline Friday

Hello, blogging friends!

I'm pleased to report that Lily has made big progress in the last week and is almost back to normal. She started drinking water again on her own which was a huge relief. Who knew that constipated cats can stop drinking?

Although she's not "regular" yet, she is now able to go potty without duress. She is still taking stool softener and a motility drug but hopefully soon she can be taken off them. I've been stealthily mixing both into her food which is much easier than trying to get a pill or syringe of liquid into her.

On the downside, earlier this week I noticed that her lip was swollen. She has a zit on her chin which I'd had the vet check on her last visit, so at first I assumed it was due to that. 

 

Rather than stressing her out with another trip to the vet, I e-mailed a picture of her lip to the office and picked up a prescription for Predisone. Meanwhile I read online that Metamucil can produce an allergic reaction which causes the lips to swell so I've taken her off that and resumed her canned pumpkin program. We may never know the culprit but at least it appears the swelling is resolving.

It has been so great to see Lily getting back to normal. Without her painful anal glands, I've observed her to be more active, more curious, and generally more engaged than she had been prior to the surgery. The vet believes the impacted glands were very painful for her in recent weeks so although we've had some ups and downs, the surgery was clearly the right path for her. Poor girl has been having anal gland problems since 2012. It's been a long haul for her.

Now our next job is to get her to lose some weight. We're going to start by cutting down on the treats and eventually eliminating them. I'm totally responsible for her putting on a couple of extra pounds and feel badly about that. I'm hoping that she'll now be more active and playful which will help her take off a bit of that extra weight. Wish us luck!

Thanks for stopping by today. Have a great Feline Friday!

Feline Friday

 

Well, we've had a week of ups and downs around here. But it's Friday and I think I'm a little more educated and Lily's in a better situation than she was on Monday, so I'll take it!

On the plus side, Lily is recovering well from her surgery. Her incision site is looking good and the swelling has finally gone down. She stopped taking pain medication earlier this week and has been hungry and social as usual. Her activity level has been improving, and she has even played a few times. All good news!

The downside is that she's been struggling with constipation issues. I've never had a kitty with constipation, so I wasn't aware that straining can cause vomiting. Now I know that this is normal but at first it was alarming to witness. 

As a result of this, I've taken Lily to the vet twice this week. She's had a radiograph and been examined by two vets. The

general consensus is that her constipation is a temporary and was brought on by a few things: Both the anesthesia she had for surgery and the pain medication she took afterwards can slow down the intestinal tract. In the meantime, she's on a canned food diet (no dry food) so she's been drinking less water. So the poop that was in her colon her dried up and became hard to move. (More than you wanted to know!)

To counteract all of this, she's now on a stool softener plus Metamucil (I should say Meta-MEW-cil!). I've been mixing water into her food and occasionally giving her water by syringe squirted into her mouth. She's been able to go potty a little bit most days and the vet thinks it's just going to take more time to get all of that old stuff out.

Because she's been struggling so much, the vet suggested I bring her in for an enema yesterday. She was able to go potty a little bit after that procedure and I'd hoped that they would keep her until she was pretty much cleaned out, but she's so stressed and difficult to handle at the vet that they were anxious for her to go home as soon as possible. 

On the drive home, I started smelling a most unpleasant smell but it wasn't until I got her out of the carrier that I discovered that most of the poop that had been on the inside was now on her backside, legs, and feet. YIKES. While I assessed the situation, I confined her to the bathroom. It was clearly well beyond the scope of a paper towel clean-up and Lily wasn't taking any purr-sonal responsibility for the mess (TOO GROSS, MAMA!) so I put a few inches of warm water in the tub and bathed her. It's been a long time since she's had a bath and she tolerated this one remarkably well. I think she felt so yucky that she appreciated the clean-up help!

She stayed in the bathroom until she was dry and I could see that she wasn't going to have any accidents.

She had her dinner and rested a bit...

...and now she's all fluffy and clean. I'm hoping that with our new regimen, she'll soon be "regular" and we can begin to put all of this BEHIND us! 😌

Feline Friday: Successful Surgery!

Blogging friends, please forgive the lateness of this post! I've been totally distracted with Lily's recuperation and care and completely forgot to post this update.

Long story short: The surgery to remove Lily's anal glands was successful, and there was no sign of cancer! Hooray! After an overnight at the clinic where Lily has been labeled a "difficult cat" (read: impossible to handle...), she's now back home recuperating. I anticipate that it will be several days before she's completely back to normal but she's doing very well, considering the delicate surgery area.

Our surgery story:

She had to fast after 7pm Tuesday night and did surprisingly well with food restriction...until about 4:30 in the morning when she was starving like there was no tomorrow. I dropped her off at the clinic shortly before 8am and was such a blubbering mess that I could barely sign the paperwork in the parking lot.

 After she cleared the bloodwork test, her surgery was done that morning. I was instructed to call after 1:30pm to see how things went.  I was overjoyed to get the report that all had gone well and there was no sign of any tumors, as the emergency vet had feared. My clinic vets had not been concerned about that possibility but once the seed had been planted in my mind, it was hard to ignore.

After a quiet evening without Lily, I picked her up Thursday afternoon. The staff reported she had not been too happy to be there, which of course was no surprise given her bad behavior during regular appointments. She was none too happy to see me either! She growled and swiped the whole way home. Poor stressed-out girl.

  

When we arrived home, she ran out of her carrier and straight to her food bowl, which I took to be a good sign. Meanwhile, I read the take-home information which indicated she'd need an e-collar if she started licking the surgical area. I was hoping she would refrain, but of course that lasted about 5 minutes. 

So off I ran to PetSmart where I purchased this lovely inflatable donut which Bailey says looks like a travel pillow. If I'm watching her, she can go without it but otherwise she needs to wear it for 4-5 days. Licking the surgery area seems to be her main goal in life right now, and that's probably understandable.

 

I had barely inflated the donut when I noticed she was scooting. That can't be good, I thought, given that she was scooting directly on the surgery site. When I spoke to the vet, he realized they'd forgotten to send me home with her pain medication. Luckily I had a few doses left from our recent visit to the ER and have since picked up a large supply which will last us a few days. But even with the pain medication, she is still scooting. The best I can do is try to distract her if I see it happening. 

Scooting seems to be her second main goal in life right now.

My main goal in life right now is is to prevent it. So I was awake with her off and on throughout the night, trying to prevent scooting. At 5am, I gave up on that and fell asleep on the couch. And finally, she today she's relaxed enough to actually close her eyes and rest. When she's sleeping, she's not scooting. :)

Thankgfully, she has no mobilility issues and is eating normally. She's very excited because she gets to have ONLY CANNED FOOD with pumpkin for the next 10 days. 

 I'm not going to post a picture of her poor little bottom as it's just too painful for even me to look at, but I do need to keep a close eye on it. I sent over some photos today and the vet seems to think it looks good. It's just going to take some time for it to feel better. The vet says we just need to keep her comfortable for a good 3 days or so in order for the area to start healing, then she can lick and scoot as much as she wants. :)

The vet told me that her glands were full of "petrified" liquid. For some reason, the liquid in her anal glands doesn't stay liquid -- it hardens and cannot be expressed in the normal way. That situation must have been very uncomfortable for Lily, so I'm very hopeful that once she recovers, she'll have a much improved quality of life...as will her meowy!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!
jp and Lily