Facebook has been reminding me of my epic, life threatening, cat bite.
This is what I was doing hours before Pyret bit me.
I got cold, put on my Aby hoodie, and goofed off with Logan.
Well, to be fair, he fit really well in the pocket.
Logan was such a little sweetheart. I know, Izaak is almost as good…but I still miss Logan everyday.
Today, Angel had a follow-up visit to the vet to check on her eye
This is Angel at the bus stop. It’s a two-bus, half hour trip to the vet…sigh. If I was still in Boston, my vet would be on the first floor. But I digress.
Angel’s a pretty good traveler, except she tends to yell a lot.
When we got to the exam room. Angel was not sure she wanted to leave her carrier.
Angel had some spicy commentary about having to be at the vet at all.
Still, overall, Angel was pretty calm. Until Dr. Brigetta came in. Then stuff got real.
First, Angel got some eyedrops.
Angel had had ENOUGH long before Dr. Brigitta was finished examining her. Angel got several eyetests, including one that measured how many tears she produced in a measured time period. That one was actually pretty cool.
She still has vascularisation in her eye and will need another course of eyedrops. Awesome. Wow.
When the examination was finished, Angel got treatos.
Angel got all the treatos.
Then, we were homeward bound.
This is on the bus ride home.
Angel walked part of the way home, but she kept wanting to go into the bushes.
I am glad she was on a leash…Extracting cats from bushes is a pain.
At the end of the day, Angel was more than ready to go home. And yes, she also knows where she lives.
If you are a regular follower, you know the story behind Angel’s eye. You may also remember we took Angel to Angell Hospital to see an Dr. Biros, an opthalmology specialist.
Back then she was diagnosed with open chronic inactive keratitis with corneal scarring, a result of her early Feline Herpesvirus that took her left eye as a kitten.
So, this morning Angel and I took the long bus ride to Min Veterinär.
“Wait, what? I was just here yesterday!”
She waited in her carrier for the doctor and her assistant to come in.
First they put some drops in her eye to dilate her pupil.
Then the lights were dimmed.
And the doctor shone a light into Angel’s eye to examine the cornea.
Then we decided to check her blood to see if there was anything systemic going on.
First, of course, we had to shave her leg.
Tomorrow is her 14th birthday, and I don’t think she’s ever had her blood tested. Even without any eye problems, it’s a good idea to see if there’s anything else we need to worry about.
And then we were done.
She was a very good patient.
Then, we had to wait for the bus back home.
We had just missed one bus, so we had a 14 minute wait for the next one. I let Angel out to get some air.
She was good, and went back into her carrier when she was finished exploring (not that there’s much to explore at that bus stop).
When we got off the bus at home, I let her out again. She walked part of the way…
…and rode part of the way.
After two trips to the vet in two days, we were both happy to get home.
Apparently, her previous open chronic inactive keratitis has been activated. The doctor prescribed Dexmethasone drops, so hopefully that will deactivate her keratitis.
When we were planning on breeding Lorelai with Io, I was wondering what the chances were that they might have a fawn kitten. I consulted the Abyssinian Database’s colour breeding chart.
These are the possible results. The males are on the top: Sorrel not carrying dilute (bbDD) and Sorrel carrying dilute (bbDd). The females are on the left: Blue not carrying cinnamon (BBdd) and Blue carrying cinnamon (Bbdd). Io had produced fawn kittens, so we knew he carries dilute. So…the big question: Does Rory carry cinnamon?
With the pandemic and all, I didn’t want to send the test all the way to UC Davis, so I found a European lab that offers a test for the Cinnamon gene. So I ordered a test and swabbed Rory’s cheeks.
Izaak helped to make sure the paperwork was all in order before I mailed it off.
About a week later, the results came back…and, unfortunately, Rory is BB, so she doesn’t carry cinnamon. Depending on the male, she can only have ruddy or blue kittens…but her kittens could possibly have fawn kittens.
Remember back in March, when I discovered Angel was down to two teeth?
Well, guess what?
Yesterday was claw-clipping and general grooming day (where, among other things, I brush everyone’s teeth apart from Angel), and I got the idea to check Angel’s teeth: And, not entirely to my surprise, I found that Angel is now down to ONE tooth.
Sigh…I wish I could find one of them. I guess she’s just swallowing them.
Three years ago today, my life changed: I was bitten through the finger while giving Pyret a pill.
Being new to the Swedish medical system, I stupidly went to the local clinic (Vårdcentralen), even though I was well aware of how serious a cat bite is, especially on the hand. I just thought that’s what you were “supposed” to do. The doctor I saw was Spanish, and spoke little English. I tried to tell her it was serious, but she waved me off with just a prescription for penicillin.
I didn’t know that I could go straight to the hospital. I thought, then, that you had to be referred by Vårdcentralen (although, to be honest, that worthless “doctor” should have known to send me there straightaway). Now I know I can go to the Akuten (emergency department) if I need to. Twenty-four hours later, I woke up screaming in pain so badly Björn almost called an ambulance.
They bundled me into a room, pumped me full of antibiotics and morphine, and got me into surgery as quickly as they could.
This is me just after the first surgery. Within a week, I would have two more operations to flush the bacteria out of my tendon sheath.
I also had a lot of morphine. The pain involved with repeated hand surgeries is insane.
The brightest part of my week in the hospital was the two evenings Björn smuggled Logan into my hospital room.
<
One time when a nurse came in, we hid him under my blanket.
He was good and held still; the nurse never knew he was there.
<
After a week in hospital, I was released, but still had several wound checks and dressing changes. When I first got home, my hand was in a plaster cast. I was also still on penicillin and painkillers. It seemed to be healing nicely, but on my last wound check, 20 September (the same day Alfred was neutered), the nurse noticed my finger seemed red and hot. She sent me back to the hospital, and they determined that, despite still being on antibiotics, the infection had managed to return. They wanted me to have surgery immediately, but I had to go to pick up Freddy, who was literally at the other end of the bus line.
It took a really long time to get him (I ended up taking a taxi for part of the return trip), gathered my things and got back to the hospital just before 17:00. Apparently, I took too long to get back and they weren’t able to do the surgery until the next morning.
This last, fourth surgery was the most painful. They put more stitches on my palm than on the previous surgeries, and the skin seemed to have been stretched more than the other three.
It also bled a lot more than the other three operations.
A month after the first anniversary of my bite, we were at a cat show in Västra Feölunda and ran into Göran, the recovery nurse after my first surgery. His sambo breeds Cornish Rex, and we (used to) see them at shows frequently. He asked to take a look at my hand, and I made a comment about being lucky I still had a finger.
“You could have lost more than that,” Gören said. “I could have lost my hand?” I asked.
“You could have lost even more than that,” he responded. And that was how, a year later, I learned that I could have died from this bite! Even with as much as I know about cat bites, I never thought it could have been fatal.
This is how it looks today. It’s still very stiff and it sometimes aches and feels crampy. I’ll never have a normal hand again.
So, again, the moral of the story is: If you are EVER bitten by a cat on your hand – and especially your finger – GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM as soon as you can!
WARNING! This post features photographs of bare cat nipples!
Tomorrow will be a month since we brought Lorelai home from sleepaway sex camp. And…I still can’t tell if it worked.
One of the main signs of pregnancy in cats is the “pinking up” of the cat’s nipples. Unfortunately, according to one of my cat breeding books. But it also says that some cats don’t pink up until later in their pregancies. Grrrreeeeaaaaat…
This is her nipple on 26 July. Doesn’t seem any pinker, but stupid me, I never checked them before now. But one good sign is she hasn’t shown any signs of being in heat…and as you might remember, her heats are quiet, but not at all subtle.
This was on 5 August. I still can’t tell.
And this is on Thursday the 13th. Seems pinker? Maybe?
These last two are from today. They seem pinker, and they were easier to find.
Meg, Molly and Anne think she is pregnant, especially since she hasn’t gone back into heat at all.
She hasn’t gained any weight yet, and she definitely isn’t showing…so I guess we’ll just have to wait a little longer.
I have an exciting announcement to make…in two weeks, our Lorelai is going to meet a lovely gentleman called Io, who just happens to live with Alfred’s breeder, Karin.
We don’t know if Rory carries Cinnamon or if Io carries dilute, but it looks like a very good match. Of course I will keep you posted…but our Rory is going to be a mom!
(Edit: Someone asked about Io. He is a year old, sorrel, and he LOVES kittens. Her Somali, Iris, got out while she was in heat and met a handsome black tom. Io helped her care for them.
He also loves to go outside on his harness and leash. Because kittens’ temperaments are influenced by their father, even if they never meet him, these are two of the reasons I chose him. And since we already have a relationship with Karin, it was kind of a no-brainer.)
A couple of weeks ago, I posted about our upcoming annual check-up at our veterinarian.
As always, getting there is half the “fun.” It was particularly difficult because people in Sweden have no sense of distance, so I had to stand most of the ride to avoid getting to close to people.
I think this was Dashiell’s first time in the stroller. He kept trying to pop through the top.
The vet is far away, but it’s an easy trip by bus (easy, but long). We just have to change buses downtown.
Luckily, this time we didn’t have any competition from stupid human strollers.
Angel was first up. She’s completely healthy, but Dr. Brigitte wants us to have her good eye checked because she thought it looked a little cloudy, more cloudy than usual. I need to remember to make an appointment with the eye specialist for an examination.
Alfred is also healthy, and I was surprised I didn’t get a lecture on how he needs to lose weight. He got some vaccinations and a prescription for Prednisone to treat his asthma. This is him on the counter…trying to get into the treat jars on the counter (Freddy? Protip: they aren’t in the sharps bin). Lorelai came after Freddy; since there was a social distancing rule (rare for Sweden), only one of us could be in the examination room, so I have no photos of her. She got a vaccine, and we discussed her future kittens.
Izaak also needed some jabs, and one of them was a new Suprelorin chip.
Unlike last time, Zak was not very cooperative. We actually had to purrito him.
When it was all over, we had to wait a bit to check out…and met a curious dog who looked a lot like our neighbour, Bruno.
When we got home, we were so exhausted and stressed that we all crashed in the bedroom (myself included). Taking five cats to the vet during a pandemic is stressful!
I have been very frustrated at the fact that Sweden doesn’t think masks work to control Covid-19. The State Epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, has said repeatedly that “masks don’t make sense” and has literally scoffed at the very idea of wearing a mask in pubic.
So, since I have been using my Izaak Baby Yoda and Zak Toothless as my Facebook userpic and cover photos…I took out a little of that frustration by putting masks on their faces.
Didn’t work. I am still frustrated. And I am still wearing my mask.
Okay…maybe claw clipping isn’t exactly “medical,” but it does contribute to a cat’s health and wellbeing.
Our lot don’t exactly enjoy getting their biweekly claw trim, but they usually handle it well. After all, they have been getting their claws clipped every other week for as long as they’ve lived with me. Alfred, however…
…is not a fan of getting his mani-pedi. Usually, he sits quietly and self-soothes with purring, but yesterday he decided to squirm and pull faces.
It may have been the audience. Björn came in the bathroom to talk to me and captured Freddy in action.
In case you’re wondering, I always sit on the edge of the tub facing in when I clip claws…that way, the end bits just go down the drain when I’m done.
Yesterday, Alfred and I went to the veterinarian to see how his lungs look after pneumonia.
As I have said before, it’s a two-bus, almost hour long bus trip from our house to the vet. And we had lots of hang time waiting for the transfers.
This is at Resecentrum. I love this shot.
When we had a bus transfer wait of more than ten minutes, I let Freddy out of his carrier.
Goofball.
But at the vet we got good news: Freddy’s lungs are completely clear.
Not only are his lungs clear, it also looks like he doesn’t have asthma. So that’s great!
Much like Jacoby, Freddy loves to sing the song of his people when he’s outside.
This IS an Airport, Please Announce Your Departure: Aeroplane Ear Posting.
After the vet visit, we stopped off a DjurMagazinet to stock up om raw chicken necks and raw meatballs.
Of course, Freddy helped me pick out the raw food I bought.
Of course, Freddy made friends when we were on line for the cash.
That’s Freddy’s superpower: making friends wherever he goes.
Yesterday, Alfred and I went back to Min Veterinär to have Freddy’s blood tested again while he’s still on his Amoxycillin.
While we were there, I asked them if they could send me Freddy’s X-rays from last week. And here they are. You can see how cloudy and grey his lungs are. I just wish I had gotten X-rays, too, so we could compare. We are going back to get a second set of X-rays on Monday, just to see if his lungs look better.
We want to breed Lorelai later this year, and the breeder who bred Alfred now has a lovely sorrel (red) male. But before we can mate them, we need to know Rory’s blood type to prevent Neonatal Isoerythrolysis (It’s kind of like the Rh factor in humans).
So, I figured I could do it myself. I mean, I’ve done my own blood type in high school, so how hard can it be? I found a test from Genomia, a Czech company, and bought a test kit.
The kit arrived on Wednesday. I was excited to do the test!
The instructions were fairly straightforward…except for how to get the blood out of the cat being tested.
The only way I could think of to get blood from Rory was to clip one claw too short. I felt really bad about that, but it worked.
The test only took a few minutes…
…But the result was very clear: Rory is blood type A. Most cats are Type A, so that’s just one hurdle cleared for Rory to have kittens.
Last week, I heard a cat let out a loud YOWL, and when I went to see who it was and what was going on, I discovered Alfred collapsed in our bedroom doorway.
I found him collapsed and floppy, drooling and gasping for breath with his eyes locked in a thousand yard stare.
It may seem silly, but one of the first things I did was make a short video of him. I sent it to Meg, Molly and Anne, and also to Freddy’s breeder, to see if they had any idea what could be causing it. I also rang our local vet (and was lucky to speak to our regular vet, because this happened at 16:16 and they close at 17:00) and also the emergency vet in Jönköping.
The emergency vet was prepared for us if we decided to drive there that evening (Björn didn’t get home until 19:00), and I made an appointment for Freddy for the next day at Min Vetrinär.
I didn’t know what to do apart from just being with him.
After a little while, I got him to sit up again.
I made a box for Freddy so I could move him – and take him to the emergency vet if necessary. Of course, Izaak jumped right in with him.
When Björn got home, Freddy was doing a bit better, so we decided he’d be okay until the local vet appointment (those are the photos you saw yesterday). We kept an eye on him all night, and this is how he looked in the morning. When we got to the clinic, they tested Freddy’s blood, and we took chest Xrays (Unfortunately, I was unable to get photos of those). Turns out, the video I made was very useful for the vet to see. She diagnosed him with pneumonia and prescribed Amoxycillin. Which is ironic…since I was also diagnosed with pneumonia and prescribed Amoxycillin. We even started our meds on the same day, and we have the same schedule, one pill three times a day. It’s actually kind of great having a medicine buddy: It helps me remember when to take my pill, and when to give Freddy his – because it’s the same time!
As you may recall, Lorelai is on birth control pills. I give her her pills every Wednesday.
But…I messed up. As you may also recall…Christmas was on a Wednesday.
Björn’s brother, Örjan, came for Jul and stayed overnight til Christmas. I forgot it was Wednesday…because it was Christmas.
I remembered to give her her pill the following Wednesday, New Years Day…but it was too late. I woke up on 2nd January to Rory trilling and Izaak yelling at Rory.
Apparently, she was nagging and pestering Zak, since he’s the only whole male in the house. Not that she didn’t flirt with Dashiell and Alfred…but Zak was her main target.
As you can see, he “assumed the position,” but his bits were nowhere near her bits. He was simply trying to get her to shut up and leave him alone! It’s all set now; I had the advice of my friend Anne, and got her to go out of heat, and all is well again. We do have a prospective suitor lined up for her later this year. All in all, my mistake was actually a good thing. I now know that it only takes a week for her pills to wear off and to get her into heat. I know that she knows what to do. And she doesn’t spray or yell her head off…she just trills. All of which is very useful information.
Here’s a little video of the little hussy.
The Daily Abyssinian...and Singapura 