Hallucinating again...

Because this stuff I am giving him is untested and unregulated, I am flying blindly here, but I had a great day yesterday.

I decided he should get a chance to see the world outside the window so I took him out on a string and let him roll in the dust and bask in direct sun.... and grumble as I was not letting him run free or even very far as he would easily pull out of my little loop (I would NOT let it be a full slip knot so I stopped it from closing) but he was definitely enjoying.  Then RIGHT in and shove food plus med and right out again so he had mental residuals of excitement not force feeding.

And I remembered I had purchased some minced clams.  Was told cats love the stuff.  Poured a little on his open tin of cat food and he was SNARFING... not the whole thing, but large visible bits!
I can't really tell if he is being stubborn from my ambushes or actually anorexic.

BUT here is the hallucination.
I SWEAR his profile is looking normal.  I feel the hardness in his belly but from above, just walking by, he looks like a normal cat!
(The sellers of the DCA are not real good at advice and don't have a very thorough site for info, but they are good cheerleaders, saying that the WORST side effects are some neuropathy and if the tumor dies too quickly it can overload the animals system and cause organ failure.)  But as the prognoisis is so bad, we are double dosing and I swear, I THINK I see results.

Pat me on the head and say "well.. that is very nice..."  I don't mind being humored.

Bulking Up

I came home from a three day visit with my mother and there he was.

Hard to gauge normal, BUT I got to scratching his shoulders and there right where it should be, was muscle! His very bony sharp edged blades had definite padding now!

Two nights away and it was VISIBLE. His fur is thick and not doing his projectile shedding.

His new personality is a bit evasive. He loves to rub my foot, but not so much be petted. Perhaps it is defending himself from future kidnapping and banishment???

At any rate, Monday will be the last day of nuclear kitty litter.

I was asked to get another test at 30 days. He is looking so good, I may ask my vet if we can go 60.

We have some Christmas Art to do in the mean time!!

An Issue.

On the way home they were leaving me a message. The fur ball we pulled out was pinkish and it was not color from kitty treats, it was apparently a bit of blood.

We suspect ulcers. They wanted to inject an anti nausea and some tummy meds. The barfing is about parr for his usual behavior but the blood is not.

Nor is the fur ball. He throws about three a year.

Normally he binges, eats a lot of dry food, tosses it and comes back to it later (if I am not there.) I wonder if it is the actual vomiting or the stress that is causing him to eat then vomit. He was doing it a LOT before we took him in. When the disease kicked back, he was pretty hungry but not really good at telling what he needed. I understand that is a little normal for HyperT - all the systems run in overdrive. Good news it that it is putting on weight.

The question is why blood?

I am going back this afternoon, as I saved up my geiger counted minutes so I have about 20 more. Not at all sure if he is happy to see me or mad that I did this to him. They think he is improving. His attitude is tolerant of them much more that the last few days.

This is trauma. Actually as freaked as I am I really DO believe more for him. What have I gotten myself into!????

Early Call This Morning

Of course I freaked when the phone rang a little after 8.

All the news was good. He even stinked up his cage so he has eliminated through elimination the stuff he is supposed to.

He also threw up his food. That sounds awful, but he does that a lot. I think it is boredom. He chews on his dry food like I do potato chips. He is smart enough to barf it back. I gain weight and get migraines!

I was telling a friend online how, although my cat is not at all affectionate, occasionally demanding of attention, he has short interactions with me. He and I will check in. I hear him do a little mmmww under his breath and I say hi. He is sleeping in a corner too long and I will call out "Doood!" and he looks up, answers and goes back to sleep. He runs into my foot while I am sitting in a chair and rubs it. He HATES me to pick him up or pet him. It is ALL on his terms.

At night RIGHT about the time I doze off, he will plop himself on my tummy and indulge in quality petting. About five minutes and he is off.

When he first was getting well from the meds, he started falling asleep on me. THAT was so amazing! Living with a cat for 10 years that would LEAP on and leap off my chest (never my lap. That may have been partially due to his former 18 pound weight) for his own reward, actually being peaceful and happy enough to sleep with me, heartbeat to heartbeat. . .

I am going to bring a little cheese stick for him this afternoon. He has been called playful. That means I might wear my long sleeved shirt. We are not actively seeking bites or scratches while he still glows in the dark, but I bet he may want to express a bit of displeasure with his recent incarceration.

4:45...You All Will Soon Get Bored, I KNOW. . .

So the car is going to be fixed (yes the warranty is good) first thing in the 100 degree morning. I have a free trolley that runs by my house and about half a block from the shop so I can get it with ease as long as it is earlyish.

Couldn't wait any longer and called the Vet hospital.

He is now officially a kitty grump. She said he is quite the hisser. Every time she opens the cage to get in or out he has an opinion. But he has not resorted to physical violence! She is unscathed.

He urinated just fine and she will have her wonder poop tonight! He was always good at that!

It seems his cell mate, the little girl, is indeed curious but he wants NOTHING to do with her. (I just bet it would be different if they took her away . . . he seems prone to separation anxiety. LOUD mournful cries when the neighborhood wanders depart, but not so much when they are there.

So.

This is a little like watching paint dry.

Speaking of paint, I suppose there is no excuse not to get a big portrait started now. I have literally nothing else to do!

CAR (not CAT) Issues Today.

(SHOOT! I swear I just heard him chatting in the other room. Either my ears or my head need adjusting!)

I am waiting for the first day post-procedure update. And the day BEFORE I took him in, my car started hesitating on start and downright grinding for a while! So, with all required events done, I took it to a nearby shop to see if the repair we did on the EXACT SAME THING earlier this year is a parts issue and warranteed or something new! So today I am required to sit - not the usual finding myself sitting.

I am low on coffee and deep in post walk-back-home endorphins and started thinking about this whole amazing project.

If you read back, you will find that I knew he was sick for a long time. As an artist in a bad economy I went to a seminar on how to raise funds . . . thinking it would be for support between commissioned work. As an off handed remark, the presenter read (from the list of projects on a site) "dog needs surgery" and went back into funding books and high rises.

!!!!!

I am on a very lean cash flow. Knowing that The Dude could be CURED not just managed was always eating in my brain but my cash flow being so negative it kept being pushed down.

After I headed home, I did a LOT of research. I realized I needed to understand ALL of the variables. I needed a real and worthwhile way of presenting my need, of letting people know who we were and why it was worth their time and money!

I am a blogger in the minimum. That means I do have one really respectable blog to expose my pet art called the Dog A Day Art Blog. I did one painting a day for over a year. It included commissions but mostly I sat my easel up in a local off-leash and practiced until I had covered most of the AKC breeds. . . MOST I say. . . Without fail, someone will bring in an intriguing mix that I will guess at and find it is the newest exotic! I will say, my knowledge of canine subjects is amazing since the last dog to live in my house was in the mid 80's!

Looking through the files (I know I have more photos, but they are on FLOPPY DISKS!!!) of the earliest Dude pix, I learned he was a bit younger (and an even better candidate for the procedure!) and really enjoyed skimming the overview of his life.

I can talk!

I can ramble on and on about what goes on in my head so I tended to be concise in my art blog and allow my words to dribble a bit here. After all, this is a love letter to my best friend.

(Sorry, family and boyfriend . . . but the original Kid was when I learned how very important the life form that sleeps at the foot of the bed EVERY night is above and beyond the two legged wandering types!)

I had to cut my first posts in bite sized chunks, just so I could call it a blog and not a novel!

I then searched all of the funding sites to see what suited us.

For others interested in crowd funding, google it! I was so touched by the idea! The very type of rush I get when I donate a portrait to a charity event is not just the reciprocal promotion, but the physical warmth I get knowing I am doing something good and tangible! But asking for help instead of giving it . . . I just didn't feel right.

I recently started picking carefully charities I would donate to because I was literally doing 80% freebies and not paying the bills. I joked that I WOULD BECOME A CHARITY SOON if this kept up. And I found a lot of people were in my boat. That we WANT to be part of the solution. It is not in my nature to shake fists at the dark, I am a candle lighter. But wickless!

The first donation I tried to give back. It was big. I got a scolding from the donor who explained that they felt SO GOOD helping me, that they had watched me online for years and KNEW me as a painter. To help me when I needed help was enriching them.

That completely blew my mind.

I am rambling as usual, but I wanted to reflect on how very amazing it is to be on the other end. Many of us out here (being self employed means I don't qualify for unemployment insurance between commissions, means I pay all of my income taxes, not just the employEE share and don't show up on statistics. At best I am under-employed but for months at a time, it doesn't feel like I am a very good boss.) want to keep the bounty flowing. I know there is a sort of constipation in the economy. It won't grow if it can't flow! I save money but have had to sort of become a hoarder. The emergencies don't announce themselves early. The wee income I do have has not found its way into the flow other than the ABSOLUTE necessities for quite a few years. After the Dude is well, I plan on adding my $5's and $10's to crowd sourcing activities on a regular basis.

I know how much that tiny little will help! I thank all of you who knew it before me!

HEEBIES!

I was watching the Dude, and absolutely thrilled that he was not looking uncomfortable, did not throw up last night and really seems so good, if a little skinnier than I hoped, when tonight I saw the first sign of his heebie jeebies return...

He was kicking his feet, which he was doing a little, but the foot fight was a definite FULL BLOWN symptom... and today he did his little backflip, that starts this older video off...

BUT he is quiet, doesn't yell or hiss at me. He eats his food and his extra wet food.

WE ARE SO CLOSE and I am really happy to see him not getting sick!

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!

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.

The Spa?

Short note.
I have been posting on the YAHOO GROUP for "Feline HyperT" for more info and support since he was first diagnosed.
I just wanted to comment on the way they talk about the procedure. I like it!
They say he is heading to the kitty SPA.



OH does that suit him!

Updates! More news to come...

I was pet sitting all week for a friend so I have not been posting much.

I did get a friend to loan me a big pet crate. Radiocat says you need a pet carrier. I have found he gets a little too hot and hyper in his small carrying case, so I borrowed a small cat motel for him!

It is old and odd. As he is much more of a light-weight than he was, I hope he will feel a little more comfortable standing up and moving. The old reliable is nice and cozy and suitable for rushing him off in emergencies, but not really so good for allaying his fears. I figured as he is going to be taking a longer trip for the procedure to the specialty vet, I might as well make it as easy on him as I can.

More to come . . Photos! Updates! Stay Tuned!

What A Diagnosis Means.

When Dr. Delac got all of the tests back, she explained a lot of things, and basically told me that Hyperthyroidism is pretty common in old cats. Their metabolism gets boosted because their gland secretes too much. Apparently there are many causes from goofy thyroids to simple tumors to full blown cancer. She said her parents old cat had it and the radiation procedure was marvelous! It literally cured it. It was non-surgical so it did not stress them out physically in healing or potential infections. The older cat lived many more YEARS and was very happy. I was excited. Until I found out the cost. The number $1800 seems what I recall from the initial phone call to the Radiocat facility. JUST the facility. Not the added tests and scans BEFORE the procedure, nor aftercare.

No matter how good, how safe how easy, it was not possible to budget. As a self-employed artist, I am what they call paycheck to paycheck. Unless I have a stack of commissions (which has not happened since 2009) backed up, there is no budget, just paying the necessities.

But the doc was a good kid! She has supported my art career and we have been able to be sure he would be taking the twice daily medication for as long as he needs.

Until this spring. . . . .

He started really dumping pounds.

By the end of the cool months he was down to just 10 pounds. I would watch him and think of how life would be without him. It was like prepping for the inevitable. . . . . . I just couldn't. . . .

Who would I have to say almost nothing to at any time and spend 5 minutes coaxing a disinterested mew from? What would wake me up in the morning begging for the treats that came with the meds?

From My Cat - The Dude

This is a very seasick movie of a normal chat when I give him the treats he LIKES before and after the little syringe full of fluid that we have down to a piece of cake!

I had to take him back in when for two days in a row he chased his treats, and caught them, but spit them out. He stopped eating all together. FREAKED ME OUT!

Poor old guy tends to pant when upset and with the summer here, I did get a friend to drive so he didn't totally freak, but The Dude was not a happy camper. He was mad at me for a few WEEKS.

AMONG the options for blame, I feel that I was a bad mom because I had FORGOTTEN to shake the bottle thoroughly. (You know how. . . when the vet tells you all the stuff . . . and you nod, you don't actually hear?) I noticed this bottle had some particulates. I figured it was some coloring separating down and totally forgot hearing to shake it . . . so for a couple of months apparently, I had been dosing with less and less and the thyroid went wacky again.

I feel like a terrible mom.

Even since the blog started, he is improving a LOT. I don't feel his shoulder blades and when he sits on my tummy, I do get a tiny bit of air knocked out. Last month, I barely noticed him!

I have a call in today to recap and review and get more numbers so I can see if I am in a fools paradise. Apparently there MAY also be situations that he would need meds, even if the thyroid is fine. I am seriously feeling paranoid. Perhaps I am one of those people who has a hard time believing in good news. It seems impossible so I shouldn't get my hopes up.

My hopes are really high and today is just a plunk.

Finally We Got Something Tangible!

This sort of thing went on off and on for about 5 or 6 years. Summer was worst.

The clip is a wonderful 3 AM chat right about the time it occurred to me to bring my camera to the vet!

I have been trying to find the right images to give you the sense of panic when I finally took him in. So I made this before and after. No, the one on the right is not a baby shot. It was two years ago when I started getting better at focusing because I was afraid I would not have him around much longer. 7 years apart:

Whether those other trips to the vet should have shown an underlying disease (like hypo?) is really irrelevant because he was otherwise healthy, had a good life and all I could afford was the usual vet stuff.

This time I had a LITTLE help with a raffle prize I had donated to a charity and a CLIENT of my art in the mix. Finally I could get to the bottom of things. It was not a really pretty bottom, but the minute she saw the video she had a much better idea of the tests. She printed the sheets out (including videos which MY guy is now in the mix on YouTube) of the "heebie-jeebies" and sent off his blood to see what else may be the problem.

Life is so Hard....NOT!

He has a tall baker's rack that he used to camp on the top tier and just wait. Nowadays, it is the middle one and he bats my butt as I walk by.

This painting was a demonstration for the Fountain Hills Art League some years ago. His essence.

My old apartment had a window just the height of the clear table and he would sprawl the whole length of it. This was a photo of the two of us... he was two years old at the time... showing mom how nicely he fit on her new donation to the house.

He owned it... was upset when I would arrange art shows on it:

And was never happy to have his nails clipped. Our groomer always tried to trick him but...

(just for scale, that was an 18" Spiderman statue that William Whitaker turned a few of us on to in the early 90's. See below, The Dude was BIG)

About 2009, he dropped from 18 to 14 pounds. That is when we went to the doc.

A Story About His Dad.

Oreo.

His family kicked him out permanently when a younger cuter life form moved in. They had a baby and Oreo felt offended. Apparently took a bat at him . . . . So, he just was an outdoor cat. When they moved, Oreo didn't.

The little black female who I am sure was mom, was one of a couple of baby strays that had lived in my complex from when I first moved in the early 90's. Neither of these wild kids was fixed and it was after I had tried to get his step kids to foster care (The Dude, being all indoor, had me worried about bringing stray disease into his overly sheltered life.) with a long evening of traps and long drives to help... SCOTTSDALE STRAYS and their doctors are a really amazing gang. The whole group ended up too ill to save. His mom just was found dead, perhaps a heart issue, perhaps whatever the kitties had, but it was a real heart-breaker. Not just for me, but the overburdened rescue community. (I have tried to donate my art regularly and often allow them to use my images for fundraising as often as possible! EVERY community needs their stray cats and dogs cared for and it is a HARD job.)

Oreo.

He would get in way too many fights. Not only myself but his gang of foster families were taking him in to get stitched up and such. It was after a big tom with a big collar and fully displayed huevos started picking fights on a regular basis that the evil plan of just catnapping the new cat and having him fixed on the sly occurred to me in my dreams, that I figured to help Oreo at least but taking him out of the loop.

One day I put out his food, after calling the local vet and explaining that a neighborhood character NEEDED neutering and I would pay, I nabbed him and drove him down the road.

My favorite nurse nodded and together we walked bad to the doc and she said "neutering". Somewhat absentmindedly he prepped, anesthetized and Snip! Pop! He was out. The nurse gave him a distemper shot and when I got out the credit card, she just shook her head.

Off we scurried and I had him back at the food bowl in less than an hour, tail and foot in the air, trying to figure out what had just happened to him!

I just loved that guy!

And he would TALK TO HIMSELF

I see that in the very art post that I sold his portrait, I mentioned his odd habit of talking to himself and biting his feet.....

He would mutter a bit. He was not the Siamese that The Kid was, he had a regular cat voice. The original (when I first brought him home, all oozy and tiny, had a set of lungs that sounded like a siren all the way home!) was of serious Thai origin. Big "MEOWOW" in an oddly baritone. But the Dude, had his bird yammer, and a round mournful call when a cat would jump BACK over the wall.

I was used to cats talking... but his night antics were a bit distracting. Everyone used to laugh when I would tell them but he bit his feet, yelling at them all the time. Stood up, decided his tail was acting out of line, and fall on it an on the ground and wage war on himself.

Summers seemed worse but finally one 5 am, when he CHARGED into my bed, landed on my chest and HISSED right into my face, I decided when the vet opened, he was a-goin'!

Of COURSE he was the picture of health. Fat and sassy, the vet said it was "behavioral" . NO DUH!

For years I tried to figure what triggered it. He let up when the weather was cool enough to open a door and look into the night, but come the 100 degrees he would begin with long low rumbles and it would not let up.

He never actually injured himself, but he was hugely irritating to me and would look grumpily at me as if to say "YOU DID IT! NOW YOU STOP IT!" or something like that. He would telepathically yell at me. Like he thought I should speak cat!!!

A couple years later I tried again. I did figure his butt had something to do with it.

I have long hair. Longer than a woman my age really should (but I am an artist and I get special treatment :-)) OCCASIONALLY I could only describe them as streamers.....

The Old Kid made us give up icicles on Christmas because he would sparkle out both ends!

The dude liked to chew my hairbrush when I was gone.... you figure it out!

But that was not all. We thought it might be constipation.

So there was a year of Pumpkin. He really liked it for a while. Apparently (you cat fanciers should know this) a good source of roughage is pie stuff without the spices. It was going in and going out smooth as spit... but he kept yelling.

I finally got a good video of him. Two years ago, this was the ONE thing that helped the vet see he was in trouble. (My mom cried when she saw it.) Nobody believed it was all that bad. By the time I had this, I was not sleeping but one or two whole nights a week if I was lucky. This was taken at 2 AM:

Yeah, they call it Feline Hyperesthesia. Over sensitive and ..... well "Heebie Jeebies" says it all.

He Got Wide and Wonderful

This was one of the few from the best photo session. It was this day that the background image was referenced. He posed as a young man for the very first painting which SOLD to a friend on an internet art site THAT DAY....

Finally I had mastered that look of my impending demise!

This series even got me an article in Pastel Journal about my pet paintings. What didn't get published was a diagram of how the reflections in the room showed in his eyes.

My previous cats had been lucky to top out at 8 pounds. This guy was as big as a dog. I had a brief roommate with two miniature pups. He could not fit their harnesses. He was a great meatloaf of a cat.

A candid from those days:

I would use him as a model but he was never able to sit still. This is another view of his wonderful round jowls.

and the ever so flattering pose we ended up with from the session for the "Holiday Number"

You could fantasize he was a "Sumo" cat, but really, he was just wide.

And grumpy.

I do believe his demanding attitude was part of his charm in those days.

The Dude...Not Dude, or Mr. Dude..

Of course his teeth eventually grew in and I will say he was a bit calmer. JUST a bit.

It was not much of a joke, but I used to tell people his job was sitting around and plotting my demise. I have a clear glass topped table that used to be in front of a window. He would sit and stare at me . . . . resting . . . plotting . . . . .

And would be still and nearly statue-like until I pulled out the camera. Very few of my photos are in focus! He also messed with my mind a lot. If he could not come up with some sinister plot, he would MESS with me . . .

But that was perfect!

I am a bit of a hermit these days. I work hard as an artist, talk to myself and am up odd hours. The Dude gives me a reason to sleep through noises at night and hear the sound of my voice when I am tired of listening to the tv.

And this is the kind of cat that loves to sit in his bathrobe all day. When he was a teen ager, he would sit at the screen door and talk to his day (Oreo) out on the porch. He was a real shadow/mini me. I felt sorry that he had no friends. Lots of feline transients would hop over the fence. Including some siblings that his mom had behind our palm tree! We got them to rescue and while waiting to see if they were healthy and adoptable, the little wild kitty that I was sure was his mom, just died . . . . I have always wondered if her little high strung wildness was a heart defect. I am still afraid it may be a little of his issue. That is why I want to be sure he has all the tests before (IF) he gets his procedure!

. . . but I digress. . . .

By the time he was about two, he was as tall as his dad and had a lovely wobbly tummy that swung side to side when he ran. He hit 18 pounds and one of his favorite things was to jump on my tummy as I slept. . . . . .OOOOOPPPHHHH! He still loves to wake me up. Always JUST when I fall asleep.

His life was one of thinking too much and enjoying the time in between.

He IS The Dude.

The New Kid becomes The Dude

It was immediately apparent this little life force either 1) had nothing whatsoever to do with the first Kid or 2) he had paid his karmic sweetie points and was entitled to become a normal persnickety full blown feline, because in that black coat was a green eyed hyper cat.

Again, I fear my pictures may be stored on floppy disks, but his first amazing stunt was sitting here by me at the computer and picking up dimes ... or pushing them on to the floor, whichever seemed to suit him more at the time.

There is another little black and white movie doing flips across the rungs of chairs. He also played CATCH for a while. And I do mean a little while.

I would throw his favorite squeeky toy which was a purple nobby thing and he chased it and brought it back - for about two hours. He would finally run after it and sit and look at me, as if it was my turn to "have some fun". When it was apparent it was not my idea of a good time, he decided he was not going to spend all that time chasing either! And he would pant. Never met a cat before or since that overworked so hard. Little pink tongue going like mad. I wonder if his heart is good. I have more suspicions later.

He also used to be fond of girls undies. He would perpetually pull my panties out of open drawers. As he got older, he went exclusively for socks. I believe his stubby little teeth grew in whiter than expected and tended to astonish the vet because as I slept I would hear squeak/crunching noises as he chewed on his little napkin after eating.

He grew long and lanky and FAST! By the time he had used up his first big bag of kitty food, he was putting on a paunch. He ate kitty low carb for most of his life.

Kid Junior

What else would I call him?

I thought "KJ" would be cool. I knew Kevin Johnson, the present mayor of Sacramento and former Phoenix Sun and that seemed cool. He was so small, I could hide him in my hair! He was a tough cookie. We got him rice baby cereal and kitten bottles and he immediately chewed the nipples off.

When I took him in again for his baby shots, the vet laughed... well not laughed, sort of did an odd half smile that cracked me up! Like "what a guy." We had him on solid food immediately.

Because it had been a while since I was a mother, I was sort of lucky that I had the flu for a few days. I put him on my bed with me and he slept in a little box with a shoebox of litter and explored while I was awake. He also bit the HECK out of me! It must have been separation anxiety or something, he was a nasty little thing and I was a chomped up mess.

I have been told to always play with toys, not hands, but he would bite in my sleep! I took him to the vet and when we fixed him, the vet suggested filing back his baby teeth! They would fall out eventually and perhaps if I didn't scream all the time, he would not get such joy!

So for a few months I healed and I had a very funny looking kitten. (The days before digital and nobody had film! We are still scouring the closets for baby pix!) When I left the house for work in the first weeks I would put him in the tub. He had a little basket and there IS a photo somewhere of the cat in the basket I will find. He was no doubt severely traumatized by it all, but seemed to deal with it.

The first Christmas I sent out cards with this photo and the caption:

WHY WE ARE NOT HAVING A TREE THIS YEAR!