Callie Noos

"Dear Diary:

Today is Day 4 of captivity, and I just heard Dr. Vet tell The Mommy that he wants to keep me here all the rest of the weekend. Assuming that'll end up meaning at least most of Monday too, I'm looking at 6 days minimum in the joint... Gee, no one told me I'd have to do hard time!"

My poor baby. So the vet says she's still not really eating, and they're giving her fluids and stuff in IVs but not yet force-feeding her; but may have to. They've given her some meds, which have apparently cleared up some of the jaundice and helped her to (probably) feel better. The underlying problem is still being pinpointed but it appears to be centered in/around the gallbladder and doesn't appear to be pancreatitis.

He's hoping to be able to avoid exploratory-type surgery (as opposed to fixing-it type surgery, exploratory would be just to figure out what's really going on), and also hoping to avoid giving her heavy doses of steroids -- on the one hand, apparently steroids can potentially help some of the problem (whether the real problem or with just some of the symptoms I'm not quite sure), but on the other hand, steroids are bad and can have other lasting nasty effects.

The end result is things are still kinda up in the air, and they're doing everything they can, and my precious Callie girl has to stay away for at least 2-3 more days.

Thank you all once again for all the hugs and prayers and purrs and everything, they are all so very much appreciated.

Callie's Status

"Dear Diary:

Today is day three of my torture captivity confinement at Vet Jail... "

Yes, it's now day three for Callie at the vet's. Not a lot of new news; I just got back to the office from lunch and had a short voice mail from the vet that just said she's "doing better" but they are keeping her overnight again. He was leaving for the day (the office is basically closed on Friday afternoons) but *said* he'd try and call again later. We'll see. They're open on Saturday mornings, so if not today then hopefully I'll hear more in the morning.

I'm a bit frustrated, not so much with him specifically but just with not knowing. It makes me want to run over there (yeah, I know he's not there now, but work with me here...) and shake him and then run to wherever the expert vet person is and shake him/her and yell at them "I know you're also working on other cats/dogs and they're hurting and need you too and their mommies love them and are worried, too, and I DON'T CARE, MY CALLIE IS SICK AND SHE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANY OF THEM SO FIND OUT WHAT'S WRONG AND FIX HER!!!!!!!!!!" But I don't, because I know they are also working on other cats/dogs and they're hurting and need the vets too and those cats/dogs' mommies love them and are worried, too, and I do care.

So mostly I'm just ranting here, letting off some emotional steam, and sitting here continuing to worry.

I didn't bother to call in this morning to see if there was any news, because I figured he would call me if there was any. And it reminded me of a conversation my boss and I had just on Monday. We had a client that emailed to ask where such-and-such document was and when they would have it, and I made the comment to my boss that *that* reminded me of a line from a movie where they're trying to evacuate a city due to an asteroid fragment coming to whack it and the news people stop the FEMA guy to ask him if he really thinks the whole city can be evacuated, and he replies along the lines of, "Yes, and we'd have a better chance if I didn't have to keep stopping to answer your questions." [Bonus points if you can name the cheesy movie, the city being evacuated, and the actor who plays the FEMA guy!] So with the client, it would be "We could get it to you sooner if we didn't have to stop and reply to your question on when you would get it." And the whole point of this is that it's no use calling the vet for news, 'cause he'd have news for me sooner if he can keep working on Callie instead of having to stop and answer the phone to tell me he doesn't have news yet because he had to stop and answer the phone... So I try to keep that in mind and not bug them.

Okay, I'm rambling here and I know it...but I know y'all understand my need to. Thanks. Probably no new news later, but if I hear anything, I'll be sure and let y'all know.

And by the way, about that guilt thing about her being in pain and not knowing? Yeah, my head knows I shouldn't feel bad because cats hide their pain well. But try telling my heart that...you moms out there will agree. I should have known, I should have taken her in sooner, I should have...not failed her. Whatever. But don't worry, I won't wallow in it (too much). I'm doing what I can *now*, and that's all I can do...

Update on Callie

(FAUX UPDATE BELOW)

First off, thanks so much to everyone for their purrayers and good thoughts, it means a lot and is much appreciated.

I talked with the vet this morning, and things are somewhat still up in the air. They did run a low-level ultrasound yesterday, and there is some kind of blockage in the biliary tract (isn't 'biliary' just a gross sounding word all by itself?). Basically, something is going wrong down in the area of the liver, pancreas and gall bladder. He did say it doesn't look like there are any tumors, but other than that, it's still a mystery.

Because she's in pain (my poor baby! now I have Mommy guilt for not knowing she was in pain), they have to anesthetize her for the ultrasound and he didn't want to knock her out too long yesterday, that's why only a low-level scan. He has an expert helping him review that info, somebody in some other office so it's being done by email/web interface, and he suspects that vet will want a more in-depth ultrasound done. Gotta love technology, though, when consults -- at least initially -- can be done relatively instantaneously without the patient having to go back and forth between doctors' offices or back home and out again to offices.

But even with the limited info at hand and not knowing for absolutely sure what will need to be done, he was sounding kinda grim. It sounds really serious, folks. Keep them purrayers coming, please.

4:40pm FAUX UPDATE -

Not really much of an update, but I talked with the vet's office about an hour ago, and Callie was resting comfortably, taking more fluids. They were waiting to hear back from the other vet still on the ultrasound. She'll be having another sleepover there tonight. Hopefully there will be more and better news tomorrow.

Thanks once again to everyone for purrayers and purrs and hugs and all the encouragement. It helps. And thanks to Hansel and the Cat Blogosphere for posting about my Callie Boo. You guys rock. Srsly.

Emergency purrayers, please

(4:25pm UPDATE BELOW)

I may be jumping the gun here, but my sweet Callie could use some of the Cat Blogosphere's purrayers and good thoughts. I dropped her off at the vet this morning because she hasn't been herself for the past few days -- laying/napping in the same place for hours, sitting and staring off into space, not really eating or drinking, not doing her usual routines. I wasn't able to stay with her for an appointment this morning but didn't want to wait any longer for her to see the vet, so thought it would be best for them to have her for the day, to run tests and whatnot.

So I just got back from lunch to find a voice mail from the vet, who said she has jaundice, her white cell count is low (or was it high? in my panic, I've forgotten), and her liver *and* kidneys are 'messed up' (I think that's a technical term). They were going to do X-rays and an ultrasound to get a better idea of what's going on and how to treat her. In the meantime, I'm now worried sick about my poor girl. All that stuff going on doesn't sound at all good.

I'll keep y'all updated, when I find out more.

UPDATE 4:25PM - I still haven't talked to the vet, but talked to an assistant; they've got the x-rays but the assistant couldn't tell me the results, and they haven't done the ultrasound yet (sounded like they'd been having a crazy day there). They have given her fluids. The assistant said that Callie is pretty nervous being there, poor little thing. She's not real fond of strange people and places. She'll be staying with them overnight, too. My poor baby.

NOTE -- thanks to everyone coming by from the CB post. You cats are the best! There's an update posted today (Thursday), if you want to head to the Main Bloggie Page to keep updated on what's been going on.


Thanks ever so much.

Wordless Wednesday

Do you mind?!

Tuesday Tidings - Holiday E-Card Greetings

Holiday card - we gots it!

Well, sort of. This time of year is almost always extremely extra busy for The Mommy at the work thing, and this year is no exception. So sending out holiday cards by mail is one of those things that got dropped off the 'to do' list a few years ago to relieve a little stress. For that reason, we didn't sign up to exchange holiday cards with any of our blogging buddies even though we really wanted to.

When we saw Mr. Hendrix post about doing an email card exchange, we thought that was a really neat idea. Now, we understand most of you are doing real cards and don't have an electronic card prepared. And it doesn't seem fair that you would have to both use your printer and ink to print our card *and* send your real card with your postage to do an electronic exchange. But rather than just say we'll only exchange email cards with those that have electronic cards, we decided to post our electronic card for anyone who wants to see and/or print it. If you have an e-card too, let us know in a comment so we can be sure to get one! If not, don't feel any obligation to print or send anything, that's not the point of this. We just wanted to do *something* for the holidays.

Below is a small version of our card, and biggifying it will take you to a larger, but still smallish version. Click on this link to go to an even larger and better version if you feel like saving and printing it. It's supposed to be 4x6 size but we won't swear to the final version size...it's probable that it could be printed at different sizes depending on how you set it up. The Mommy isn't real proficient/knowledgeable about this stuff.

Happy holidays, dear friends!




PS - We told The Mommy she could pimp her other blog, Texas Wildflower, since she posted to it again today for the first time in awhile. If you like Hawaii photos (and other nature and similar photos, but today it's Hawaii), check it out!

Monday Memories

Today is one of those sad days at The House of The Kitty Krew. Today we remember A Cat Who Went Before.

(biggify to see the photos better)

Tigger was one of those sweet little kitties who just melted my heart when I first saw her as a little 6-week old kitten at my now-ex's mom's house when we were visiting her up in Ohio. We ended up bringing her and her brother, Felix, home on a car ride from Ohio to Texas, letting them sleep on a pillow in my lap with our dog in the back seat. Didn't matter that we already had 4 cats at home. With her striped markings, I already knew that 'Tigger' was the perfect name - not Tiger, but Tigger. 'Tig', 'Tiggy Tig', and 'Tigster' were some of my favorite nicknames for her; I find myself calling Ziggy those same things but with a 'Z', and they make me think of her as well when I use them.

Poor Tigger, for some reason she became the target of the other cats for chasing and picking on. It seemed to make a little sense in the early days, just because she was the new kitten on the block (along with Felix) and she wouldn't fight back much - she would tend to just run and hide. But even when she became the old cat on the block after the older cats passed on and Bugsy, Sassy and Callie and then later Roxy and after that Pixie came into the fold, she still was their target for chasing. So the poor dear spent a lot of her time hiding behind and under furniture. In her last few months, I let her spend the night with me in the bedroom a lot of the time so she'd have a few hours of peace. (With so many cats, I usually don't leave the bedroom door open or keep any of the cats in there with me - with all the crawling around and meowing and chasing going on, I'd never get any sleep if I let them roam around at will all night! )

Since she spent a lot of time in hiding, or at least in out of the way places when she was in 'public', she never became much of a lap cat or overly fond of being picked up. But she'd let me pet her, and she'd play with toys occasionally or with the scratching posts some, as a couple of the photos above show. Unlike Felix, who warmed up to the dogs at the old house just fine since he grew up with them, she never was fond of them and would run and hide from them as well if they sniffed at her too much. Don't get me wrong, she'd hiss at them or the other cats once in awhile, she just wasn't much of a fighter. Her brother Felix is about the only cat she got along with, and sometimes it seemed like he'd stand up for her if another cat was bothering her too much.

She started getting sick a couple of months before she passed on, with what turned out to be kidney problems. Still, her actual passing was unexpected as she didn't seem to be *that* sick in the few days leading up to her death. She was supposed to go to the vet the next morning for another test or fluids or something, I don't recall exactly now; but when I got home from work that day, she clearly wasn't doing too well, and later that evening she passed on in her sleep, laying next to me while I was on the computer.

Some say maybe she missed her brother Felix too much, who had passed on even more unexpectedly 3 months previously; that's always possible. In any event, I hope they're up there at the Rainbow Bridge, running around and having fun together, and that she's discovered that other cats aren't being mean when they come to sniff and chase; they just want to play and have fun.

Farewell, my sweet Tigger. I miss you and will always love you.