Selenay's Ramblings

I’ve been trying to work out how to start this post for a couple of days, but there is no good way to do it so here it is.

After we got the news in my last post we had a couple of bad days, but then Kate settled a bit and started eating. Two weeks ago she had another steroid shot, which really perked her up: she was eating everything in sight (so many “little spoonful”s, so many), had enough energy to be playful at times (she caught a bug and we had a couple of sessions chasing shiny spots on the floor), and became more sociable than she had been for a few weeks. It was almost like having the old Kate back for a while.

On Tuesday evening, after family zoom, she marched up to the sofa as I was settling in with my pre-bed tea and demanded to be picked up and put on my lap. I ended up going to bed super late because she wanted a long snuggle.

On Wednesday morning, she wasn’t at my bedroom door yelling for breakfast so I knew something was wrong. I found her under the sofa and she was clearly not feeling well, so I let her totter off to settle on a blanket while I called the vet and got a telephone appointment for 12.30 (argh, lockdown).

Around 11am, it became obvious that she was deteriorating fast. I sat with her and called the vet, managed to get an in-person appointment for an hour later. From what was happening, I suspected a stroke.

When we got there, the vet confirmed she’d had a stroke and her back half was paralysed. We made the decision to put her to sleep.

It was all very peaceful at the end. They let me have a few minutes to say goodbye, then the vet injected the anesthetic and Kate went to sleep while I talked to her and stroked her.

She was a good and affectionate cat to the end. I’m so glad that I got those two weeks of almost normality and that long cuddle with her on Tuesday. Having the end come so suddenly is a bit of a blessing. I’d always said that I’d let her go when she was ready but I was worried that she’d fade away slowly and I wouldn’t be sure about whether I’d got the timing right.

On Wednesday, I knew when I found her under the sofa that she was ready. We got some good time together and I was there with her to the end, which was all I wanted for her. She was such a great cat and a part of the family for twelve years.

Annie and I are adjusting. Ish. It feels strange not having Kate pop up to narrate her day or demand food. I keep expecting to see her sitting on the box in front of the patio door or trotting up to claim my lap whenever I sit down in my armchair. Annie is currently my shadow cat - I think she’s finding it a bit lonely not having her sister around. Hopefully she’ll get used to it in time.

We’re sad here and it’s been tough finding the right words, but I’ve got a lot of memories and photos, so Kate won’t be forgotten.

I don't have a Kate icon. I should fix that.

For the last couple/few weeks, Kate has been off her food and loosing weight. It took a while for me to realise that it was a consistent thing (which I'm feeling guilty about right now), because Annie was cheerfully hoovering up whatever Kate didn't eat and Kate has always been a bit here and there with eating when the weather is fluctuating a lot.

But at the weekend, I had Mum over for lunch and she confirmed that Kate is definitely looking thin so yesterday we went off to the vet.

I was hoping it would be a bad tooth that could be extracted. Not that a bad tooth has stopped her eating before - she was still eating happily right up to the incident where she required three teeth out and a week of antibiotics! But her teeth are fine.

Her tummy doesn't seem to be hurting and she isn't in any discomfort. She's drinking and using the litter box and her heart sounds okay.

The vet weighed her and she's lost a lot of weight, a scary amount as far as I'm concerned. My round cat is a thin cat!

(And unfortunately my thin cat is currently a round cat 😂)

The vet thinks it's either hyperthyroidism or chronic kidney disease, but with the appetite issue, it's more likely the latter. She's dehydrated and losing weight, but not showing signs of lethargy and she's still got the agility of a kitten.

Next week, the vet is going to do some blood tests and hopefully confirm what is going on. I regret googling the CKD, so I'm going to try not to think about it.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to get her to eat more.

I'd already noticed she was happier eating wet food than dry food and changed her usual feeding plan a few days ago. Now I'm experimenting with giving her three small wet meals a day, to see if I can encourage her to eat a bit more that way. I'm going to try her on a higher calorie food, too. And there's some food that's largely gravy/broth that I'm going to try adding to her food, because she's much more interested in the gravy on her food than the actual chunks. So that will at least get something into her and it will help with the dehydration.

I'm also now having to give Annie her own meals separately and defend Kate's food from Annie, because Annie does not need to put on any more weight. Also, Kate is letting Annie eat her food without protest, which isn't a good sign for my cat who usually steals half her sister's food.

So this household is now a worried one and kitty mealtimes have become a slightly fraught experience for me. I'm trying not to panic and just wait until we have the test results before I totally freak out about the long-term implications of this.

I know they're twelve and they won't live forever, but I'm not ready to concede that they're old yet. I'm not sure they are, either, judging by their behaviour!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American f-listies! Hope you're all having a good day however you celebrate it :-D

Today is my Friday and I'm relieved because my office is so empty this week. There is tumbleweed rolling past my desk. It's ridiculous. Ugh. I'm trying to pretend that it's not a Thursday in hopes of not getting Thursday'd. I suspect this to be a vain hope, looking at my inbox.

Kate was hilarious when she came back from the vet. Thankfully she didn't need extractions because she had a gum overgrowth thing the mimicked gum-line cavities. They cut away the excess gum so it can't cause cavities in the future and she's in no pain from the procedure, which is awesome. She was a total drama queen about the bandage on her leg from the cannula ("Have you seen my paw? It is a poorly paw. Look, poorly paw. I'm limping. My paw, it is poorly") and then pulled the bandage off half an hour after I got her in the door and her paw was *fine*. Drama queen.

Annie hates Kate right now. She's a foreign interloper kitty who smells wrong and Annie hateses her, yes she does. Also, Annie got a taste of being an only child and loved it. Kate is not needed.

Annie, you're a doofus. And can you please stop hitting your sister? And can you maybe eat something even though Kate exists within fifty feet of your bowl?

Being a cat mommy is hard work sometimes. Cats are eternal toddlers with temperaments to match!

There have been no threats of mobs and pitchforks yet after I posted That AU yesterday! I'm oddly disappointed. It weirded one person out (so far) but that's it. Huh. All my flailing and panicking that fandom would hunt me down and kill me was for nothing.

Let's see how I do with Marvel Big Bang then *rubs hands together and cackles*

I'm not entirely sure how to react to this next thing, but mother has taken it upon herself to educate my father in the Marvel ways before the Avengers arrives next week. He'd seen Iron Man already so last night she sat him down with Thor. From the sounds of things, Captain America is next Monday's treat for him.

Mum, you are confusing. You question my life-style choices when I see a movie more than once and then volunteer to watch a movie twice in one month yourself. QUIT BEING ME. It's disturbing.

Unless this is because of the gratuitous mud fight? And I did overhear her remarking that "that's the guy from Hurt Locker and Bourne", which is leading me to suspect that we have a Jeremy Renner fan lurking in my house. Fahre, don't say a bloody word :-D

Tonight we are declaring it "Fuck this vegan cookery lark" night and taking dad out for supper to our favourite sushi place. There are going to be many such evenings, I suspect. And I have terrible burger cravings so I may try to tempt them to the gourmet burger place one night because there is a lentil burger there (and I'm not going to ask what the binding agent is because NO).

In other news, Dad finds my interactions with Kate highly amusing. It's the times that I use her as a bookstand and call her a horrible evil cat, isn't it?

Today is my Friday and I get a four day weekend so everything is good :-D

There was also no cat barf to clean up this morning. That alone is amazing. Tonight we're going to the vet to pick up some stuff that will hopefully help them with the hairballs that seem to be the issue (they were on hairball control food before Kate's diagnosis) and I'm going to try that over the weekend. If we're still having problems next week, it's back to the vet I go. Poor kitties.

Poor, expensive kitties.

I've got three fics in various stages of editing now. And only one actual WIP that I'm in the process of writing. It feels a little weird. So over the weekend there is likely to be something new started - I've got two ideas buzzing around my brain right now to work on.

That may be it for the day.

Except.

Oh, yeah.

TWO SLEEPS UNTIL NEW DOCTOR WHO!

:-D

Yesterday my mother caught my Annie-cat in a compromising position with my shower cap.

Even she admitted that the cat was making love to the cap. OMG, mother!

Actually, the biggest oddness about it was that Mum hadn't caught Annie with my shower cap on previous visits. That cat is frankly embarassing if she gets her little paws on my shower cap.

Kate has now taken to sitting in a particular spot in the kitchen at medicine time, waiting for her 'treat'. And shouting if I'm late. Tonight there is no more medicine. She's in for a big disappointment.

There are days when I am deeply concerned about my cats and my relationship with my cats.

It is Friday and this is an utterly brilliant thing because I'm so incredibly tired that I might fall over soon. I'm just hoping that I can get eight hours of sleep tonight so that I feel a bit less ick.

Tomorrow my main job of the day is to make a batch of savoury muffins. Then I'll probably spend some time writing and get some reading done. I'd really like to get Marvel Big Bang finished this weekend and get a certain chunk of the AU I'm writing done.

See, I have goals. Muffins and fic. These seem like good goals :-D

( Cut for cousins and university stuff )

On the less happy front, my Kate cat has decided to take after her human mum in the wrong way: she has inflammatory bowel disease. Just like her human mum. IDEK.

So, antibiotics for a week (the same stuff they give to Crohn's patients, just to rub in the connection!) and a special diet that is less strain on her bowl to get the inflammation to settle. We're going back in a month to review her progress.

We are treating this as rather hilarious. Particularly as we apparently decided to flare at the same time :-D

Now when she's being yowly and grouchy, my main thought will be "I know that feel, cat".

This household, man. What is up with all of us?

She also has a cavity. So when her bowl has settled, she gets the fun of a tooth extraction. Kate is proving to be a very expensive cat this month. And I can't feel annoyed because I know that she probably doesn't feel great.

Annie spent most of yesterday telling Kate off because she was gone for an hour and came back smelling wrong. I have no idea how Annie will react to Kate being gone for a day for her tooth!

Cats. Why do we put up with them?

Right, the cuddles.

ETA: Bowel, not bowl. Jeez, you'd think I could manage to spell a word that I spend so much time writing down and discussing with medical professionals.

Today I am working from home due to the complexity of trying to manage mother's bible camp needs (she's snacks and drinks lady), my work schedule, my Humira schedule and our plans to see Bourne Legacy tonight.

Just...don't ask. Ugh.

Unfortunately that means I'm working at home. Without my lovely air conditioned office building. Ugh. Just ugh. And the team is back building a house across the street which today involves a lot of drilling and a lot of nail guns. Joy.

At least the cinema will be cool and blessed with air-con :-D

On Friday I have to take Kate AKA Miss Stinky Butt to the vet. She needs to be checked over to see whether the stinky butt (actually, stinky poo) problems have a source or whether she's just being really stinky for no good reason. Poor baby. I'd feel more sorry for her and the vet thing if she wasn't being randomly stinky a couple of times a day. Yurch. As painful as I suspect getting medicine into her will be (and as painful for my bank account as it will be) I'm almost hoping there's a curable parasite in there.

The joy of being a cat mum. They cost money, are forever demanding attention and sometimes they stink your entire rec room out.

Then they wander over with their favourite toy in their mouth looking utterly adorable and you forgive them everything because d'aaaaw.

Yesterday I had my most productive writing day in years. Over 3,000 words split between two fics.

Unfortunately none of those words were on the marvel_bang. Oops?

Yesterday it was horridly hot and muggy when I got home so I made the (at the time) sensible decision not to hop on the exercise bike because I was fairly sure that I'd expire.

Today my back is locked up and bitchy so tonight, despite the heat, I shall have to bike for a while. Ugh.

My Annie-cat is determined to induce heat exhaustion in both of us by insisting on cuddles and extensive draping every time I sit down. I tried to deny her but she gave me the pathetic look and the tiny 'mew' noises so I gave in. The poor thing is fluffy as heck and probably cooking in her coat, yet she insists on cuddles with her warm mommy so that we can both be even hotter and more disgusting.

What a silly cat. Kate is being sensible and "hell to the no" on the cuddle thing. She's normally my deeply stupid and silly cat, so this is an odd turn-about.

Remind me of how much I dislike this kind of heat when I'm complaining about snow and shoveling in January, OK?

I managed to finish chapter two of the Big Bang yesterday, add another scene to the insane AU and may have started a teeny fluffy fic that fits into the Damage Limitations-verse. The fluffy is because fluff requires no plot and thus is relaxation. It also does not need me to keep count of the Coulsons, Natashas and Clints in a scene or figure out how to differenciate which one I'm referencing.

Remind me after this, only one of each character in any given story. Never again with the alternate universe story-lines.

You know those weekends where you have loads of plans and a time table that, if followed perfectly, will ensure that you get everything done?

And you know how plans always fall apart due to miscalculations like running out of mince meat and cats knocking over the Christmas tree?

Yeah.

The good news is that it was only the little tree downstairs and it was easy to fix. The tree is now being hidden under the stairs unless I'm at home and awake to supervise.

And I've got more mince meat marinating so the mince pies for the work thing on Wednesday can still happen.

OK, yes, no cards got written and I'd planned to have the pies made and ready to bake so that Tuesday evening would be less fraught...

I love Christms but I always get over confident about my plans. At least my Yuletide fic is pretty much done and will be uploaded tomorrow. How is everyone else doing on the Christmas insanity?

Please don't let that be a cat with a bauble that I can hear...