I haven't gone to bed yet. I haven't managed to get to bed before 6am in over a week, and before that, I hadn't managed before 4:30am. Which means I then oversleep (despite every alarm I use) and wake up feeling blech. (Or more blech, given my allergies/asthma are going unusually nuts from kitty shedding season.)

Whoosey is sick -- her immune system evidently is messed (like Bastian's) so she's on round II of antibiotics for a nasty inner-ear infection. During all of this, not only has she had little (or no) sense of balance, she started losing weight since she couldn't eat much without becoming nauesous for a whie. She's eating fine now, but is having to pull herself up from being underweight. :-( I'd push to have her held at the vet for more aggressive care, but at several hundred per day (not counting the initial several hundred for testing) right now it's not possible. So I'm quite worried about her, that maybe she has permanent brain damage or won't make it or something.

Max was doing great, and got a great "report" when we took him in for a recheck. However, now he's starting to need more fluids, which is a sign his kidney function is declining. Dammit. Worse, fluids put a strain on his heart, which already has a significant murmur, and thus puts him at risk of developing congestive failure. No, thanks, let's not do that, okay?

Bastian got over his first round of illness, then started developing another...got him back mostly under control, but the dreaded vein in his right eye (signals cardiac stress) was back for a while. (I'm hoping it's not there right now.) Given there's zero funds for hospitalization, him showing any signs of trouble is terrifying.

We were set back about a hundred dollars last month because the vet staff kept failing to send the refill permission in to the online pharmacy, forcing me to buy through them (including their $20 "fee" per prescription pickup) twice plus pay next-day shipping for the online medication.

Speaking of which... I was wondering why the anti-clot medication I ordered (way ahead of time) wasn't here yet, so I went into the online tracking...it was cancelled. As it turns out, this is because the above-mentioned payment to the vet dropped my bank account a few dollars below the cost of the anti-clot medication plus shipping. Which means I was also hit with an "insufficient funds" fee. No, they couldn't notify me, because with the kind of luck only I tend to have, we changed our phone number at around the same time.

If I could scream in frustration, I'd be doing it right now.

I just re-ordered that medication...so his medication is way the hell up in Calgary and we're already in the backup supplies. Great. I haven't figured out just how I'm going to handle this situation, though first I need to start going through all of the old bottles, and hoping desperately I can scrape together enough to last till it gets here. No idea what I'll do if it doesn't; I'm already giving him 5.25 units (instead of the 6 I'm supposed to) in order to make it last without going too far. Guess I'll price in-country Lovenox and hope someone carries it for less than the going rate...

Ugh, time for W's antibiotics, then I really do need to get some sleep. Maybe if I set my cellphone to screech near me at a certain hour it will wake me up, since I should call the pharmacy to make SURE they'll ship it today. The pathetic thing is that this is just the feline aspect of how life is a big fricking mess for me at the moment: other things are matching it. No matter how hard I try to plan everything well in advance, something goes wrong and derails it. (Generally in a way that sets off a wild domino effect, crashing other things in the process.)

Tags: bastian, fuckups, prescriptions, vet problems, whoosey
Current Mood: stressed out!!!

Whoosey and Bastian are both on Clavamox for the nastiest upper respiratory infection I've ever seen... No idea where it came from, but it seems to go from virtually no symptoms straight to ear/nose/eye gunk -- and in Whoosey's case, moved to the inner/middle ear. So I have one little miserable gray cat (who has a history of catastrophic heart problems when sick) sneezing, pawing at his ears/nose, and .and a little tuxedo kitty that looks relatively fine but keeps staggering/falling sideways. :-(

I mentioned to a clerk last week that all of the canned food is used for hiding medications, and she introduced me to chewy kitty treats that you can hide pills in called Pill Pockets. I had assumed in the past that they were just a silly gimmick, but got a baggie anyway just in case. Glad I did...they kick ass!!! Seriously, if you have a cat or dog that needs pills, try these things. If it's a big pill, like some of the ones here are, just cut it up into tiny fragments. :-)

Of course, that's not going smoothly here, either... Whoosey isn't interested in that particular flavor/scent (I'm going to buy and try their "chicken" variety today) -- so I'm still having to force-feed her meds. Bastian originally was wild for the Pill Pockets, but then I experimented with loading a few, and so of course he bit into the pill fragment a couple of times...suffice to say he's willing to nibble a little bit of a pill pocket now, but doesn't want to touch them enough to actually take a pill.

So I'm off to get another flavor of pill pockets, more food, more potassium (we're out), and generally try not to scream at (or smack) everyone in sight, because stress/worry plus being up until after six in the morning giving a sick cat antibiotics that he doesn't want (after a couple of weeks with similarly fucked-up hours due to kitty stuff) = psycho-Moggy. :-p

Tags: antibiotics, bastian, pill pockets, sick cats, whoosey 3
Current Mood: crappy

More thrilling (seriously) non-eventfulness in our house so far...

I read about how Menu Foods handled the tainted food, and that certainly pisses me off... ( Behind a cut for disturbing content )

I'm now sorting out who does (Royal Canin) and who absolutely doesn't (Natural Balance) buy from them -- not sure on Canidae-Felidae yet. I really don't care whether it's the same facilities; I don't want to support Menu Foods, period... Brands that do are off my shopping list, and all companies I use will get a letter explaining why I will/won't be buying their products in the future.

In happier news, I just discovered Halo Pets food at PetCo the other day -- they make the recipes from The New Natural Cat, a book I've used as a kind of kitty bible for a long time now. They say on their site: "no chemicals, artificial flavors, preservatives, by-products or fillers" and that they use USDA-approved human-grade ingredients. I have to check, but I'm pretty sure that it fulfills the requirements for a prescription-level heart/kidney food, which I've totally failed to find in a brand that isn't also scary.

My cat chores currently take *so* long (about two hours) that it's almost unbelievable: on top of food/water/litterboxes and giving Bastian his meds 4x/day, I'm also having to feed Max every few hours since he dropped weight during another refusal-to-eat period, plus giving Lysine to Whoosey, Boo (Black), Chai, and Max. PetCo's register is often helpfully giving me "$2 for doing our phone survey" coupons, though, which keeps the canned-food bills under control, at least.

Oops, it's 3am, time to get moving... yay, BED!

Tags: bastian, boo-black, chai, chores, felidae, food, food recall, halo pets, lysine, max, natural balance, royal canin, whoosey
Current Mood: busy

Just a quick hello... I have a pile of paperwork, a computer I must teach how to fax, kitties to care for, and I need sleep.

Oh, whiny note: Bastian had his cardio recheck today, and now he doesn't smell like himself. I hope he changes back soon, it really disturbs me when I can't recognize each cat by the scent of their fur. (In fact, that's one of the things I miss most when away, and dread losing forever at some point.)

Tags: bastian, cat scent, whoosey iii
Current Mood: stressed