Saturday, August 20, 2011

FIRST Trip Away in a Year...

Well, nearly.
Tomorrow, with no need to sit and stare at him I am heading out on an overnight!
It is odd, leaving him alone, but honestly, just this week, I have been wondering if I had him a little over medicated. I swear, I can't tell you how happy he was looking this week.


I do notice his back, behind his slightly bony hips is a bit greasy. It used to look like he couldn't groom back there. He would hate for me to pat back that far on his back, but when the meds kicked in, he was much more docile. Off meds he just seems spunky! He has been chasing my heels and talking up a storm! He asks for food, but doesn't seem unusually hungry or thirsty. He has been laying around but less sleepy! It is odd that making him sicker seems to have made him happier. He lolls around on his back, purrs like mad and has a much brighter personality than recently.

I am hoping that the act of being on medication, although it helps his health might actually not making everything so good . . . Like when I was a kid, I had allergies. The meds made me function, as in not sneezing on everyone, but I was seriously dopey! Like that!!

So we shall give a fuller report when I return to see what a couple of days have produced.

Wish us all luck!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Sitting and Watching....

I have been literally sitting and watching him.
I am trying to figure out when he is going to start getting sick.
It is a hard thing, waiting for the old enemy to come in and take over my boy, as I have worked for two years to relieve his discomfort and distress caused by the disease.

First day he kept waiting for me to ambush and medicate him. He was disappointed. He was also lucky, as I was very preoccupied. I have a spec (that is art talk for "nobody has paid me, but if they like it I MIGHT sell it") portrait pending. So far, the client has rejected my first design and I am in the middle of the second. I will post it all when I get approval!

Monday I had to run over to my subject's office to snap a fast session for the portrait because I want to be in a show which has a Friday deadline for submissions. The Dude was unimpressed.
My first version was rejected and I am in the middle of finishing then photographing what I hope will be an approved version.

Yesterday I participated in the Arts and Business Council breakfast awards. I donated a gift certificate and finished a demo of one of the organizers.

I was able to participate in a really fun morning, schmoozing with fellow artists of all ilks! They sat me with the ballet and some children theater folk. Brought me back to my professional puppeteer days!!!

Last evening I probably hallucinated that the Dude was losing weight. He was mellow the first two days and even on day four, I see a couple of his old symptoms showing up.

His Feline Hyperesthesia, which is like hyper sensitivity to everything . . . basically the name for his heebie jeebies referenced earlier in my blog . . . is starting with occasional twitching. His foot, a little, like shaking an ant off three or four times. His back, a couple of ripples. And his old snotty mood when I pet him below the mid back. He used to rip into me when I would rub ANYWHERE near his hips. Now he is just letting me know it is not a good idea.

There is a little more grump today and I bought all the cheap fatty canned food I could. I want to be sure it is only the lack of his meds, not some other issue and I want him as FAT as I can get him when he goes in....

So.

Really it is boring but tense around here. On with art as a distraction!

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Good Bye To the Bottle. Can Your Rescue Use It?

For close to two years these little bottles have been keeping the Dude from crawling the walls, yo-yo-ing his weight up and down and allowing him to find a good life. Tonight will be his last dose if all goes well.

The nifty thing about this process is that it only kills cells that make thyroid hormone. The gland that is supposed to is regulated elsewhere and when the tumor cells start going crazy, spewing out the stuff, the gland is told to shut down. Because it goes dormant, we regulate the amount in his system with this drug. And it works well.

For two weeks ahead, we want the bad cells to do their worst! The radioactive stuff seeks ONLY these kinds of cells and chews them up. Also, just in case ANY of the normal cells are functioning, we try to drive them way underground by the sensors in the pituitary shutting the spigot off hard because of all the yuck from the bad guys. We want ALL of the medicine out of the system so the treatment can do its worst.

After the three hot days, when the cat is actively radioactive, before the half lives start breaking the iodine down, the levels will drop as the treatment clears out. By the time the bad cells are gone, the nuclear missiles are too. When the all clear sounds, the dormant gland will be awakened again and there may be a few odd months of him starting to regulate his own levels.

They tell me not to panic for three months. There is no exact prediction, but way into the 90%'s of the cats come out with perfectly normal thyroids. It is rare that a healthy thyroid is damaged by the process. Apparently if the thyroid comes out underfunctional. (hypo) it was already damaged for some other reason. We x-rayed him to be sure no physical abnormality kept him from having it work.

Fingers crossed I will no longer need this half bottle again!
I am going to send this post to as many local cat rescues as I can. This is a good three or four months of normal for a rescuer who has a sick kitty and can use a little help.

IF any of you know a rescue that needs this, drop me a line and we can meet up when my vet says The Dude is good to go. All the generous people that have helped me needs a bit of passing it forward. THANK YOU ALL.