Well, of course it happened...

So, what do you think the difference is between this picture...

A)

and this picture?

B)

If you said that in picture A, Otis had piss up to his eyeballs, and in B, Otis had a catheter shoved in his peeps, you'd be correct! He developed the fated "urethral blockage" some time on Monday, and by last night it was quite clear that Otis was having some issues. I called the emergency vet and she told me that since it was so early in the timing of the blockage he could wait until this morning (which I'm sure he actually did NOT appreciate). So this morning I toted him in to get the news he did indeed have a "considerably substantial and very dense plug". He's got a kitty catheter, and will have his bladder lavaged for 2 days to try to break down the crystals and see if he can avoid having a peep-ectomy. Poor Otis. Lying there in the collar of shame, he didn't realize he could pick his head up and eat out of the food bowls. After a few minutes of hand-feeding he realized the collar of shame still allowed him to eat and his inner fat-cat was all about dinner!


Poor Otis, somebody kicked him in the penith.

My hair

Not too bad for when you got your hair did by yourself... with the help of your husband and the world's ugliest hair cap!

In the news...

Pooh King is continuing to slowly improve!  His joints are creaky (which has prompted a call to the vet to see if this is expected, if my expectations are realistic, or if he needs more meds) but he is getting up and down on his own and is walking longer distances more frequently each day.  I've discovered Pop-K is most comfortable on 2 Ultram every 6-8 hours... he even jogged about 10 feet yesterday (though that's strongly discouraged at this point) and Jason had to hustle to get him out of the woods because he'd taken him out without the leash, assuming he wouldn't hobble away from his side.  Ha ha!!!  He showed that boy!  Otis seems to be doing great other than NOT wanting to eat his very expensive food.  Fat bastard.  That shit costs a lot of duckets and he'd rather not eat what they promised would make him even fatter.  But, no peeing on the floor is good.

The story below (you know, The Force's Baby Brother?) was topped off by The Force bringing out a stopwatch to see how long getting his baby brother was going to take.  Our 'custody week' with him ended last night when we had to take him back at 7pm.  As we crawled into bed much later, I stepped on something on the floor next to my side of the bed.  I reached down and picked up the stopwatch.  Apparently, we had 15 hours and 40 minutes to get the job done.  That kid's all about speed.  We've got some other stuff to worry about before we go throwing a baby brother into the mix!

Oh boy.

The Force:  T, do you have a baby in your belly yet?

Me: (turns off vacuum) WHAT?

The Force:  Do you have a baby in your belly yet?

Me:  Ummm, no.  Why?

The Force:  Because I want you to have a baby brother for me. 

Me:  You would like that?  A baby brother?

The Force:  Yep.  I want a baby brother.  And Daddy's going to have a baby sister for me.

Me:  He is?  You want a baby brother AND a baby sister?  Both?

The Force:  Yes.  I want both.

Me:  Do you think you could handle that?  I mean, that's a lot of work for you.  You'd have to teach them, like, everything.  You know, how to walk, talk, play soccer...

The Force:  Well, I'm the best at soccer, so that's not a problem.  I can do it.

Me:  Okay, well, then what would you call your baby brother?

The Force:  The Force's Little Buddy.

Me:  And your little sister?  What is her name going to be?

The Force:  The Force's Little Sister.  (Rolls eyes like I'm a moron or something.)

Today after playing down in his room for a while, The Force came up the stairs with one of his winter hats from about 2 years ago on.  He'd dug it out of the bottom of a drawer.  He was in full "The Force's Little Buddy" mode, including telling me that The Force had told him he could play with certain things, but to be careful because he could be pinched if he wasn't careful. 

I can't wait to see Jason produce a little sister!

Oh no.

In twenty minutes, someone will point out that no matter how broke I am, this was a bad idea.  That person is likely to be me.

When it rains, Otis pisses on the floor...

So, for a while we've been having a bit of a urination problem.  Not me or Jason... not even Luke.  Well, I'm not even sure now WHO it was, really.

At first I thought it was Pooh.  I mean, given his advanced age, a little incontinence if I took too long to get home and let him out isn't really that unexpected, right?  So I steam cleaned the rug without complaining.  I mean, it's really my fault for not getting home faster or having the pet-sitter come to take him for a walk.  The basement has always had a "funk" that I attributed to its musty-damp-needs-a-dehumidifier smell.  But it got more intense.  Jason thought it was the litter box.  There was a spot on the mat that's under the litter box.  I changed the type of litter.  I bought a deoderizer.  We cleaned it religiously.  I kept steam-cleaning random urine spots.  But it didn't smell like cat urine.  Didn't ever have that pungent, rank cat urine smell.  You know how it smells when cats mark their territory.  You only have to smell it once and you know that smell.  It never smelled like that.

One day Jason and I moved my funky daisy wool rug, and found the source of the funk.  Big fat urine stain.  Oh, Pooh King!  I blamed it squarely on him.  Cleaned the rug, cleaned the carpet.  Cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.  Kept the rug on the porch so I could clean it from the backside. 

Then there were random urine spots downstairs after Pooh King got sick.  Some of the spots were tiny, some were pretty big.  NO WAY he could have made it down the stairs without having been found in a pile at the bottom.  And he definitely could not have made it back up.  Had to be a cat.  This was Tuesday night.  3 urine spots.  I blamed Oz.  Had to be girl cat behaving badly.  I wondered if I should take her to the vet and have her checked for a UTI.

Then yesterday morning, as I was getting breakfast ready, Otis was sitting on the rubberized "Welcome" mat that is now inside the door to keep Pooh from slipping on the tile.  I thought he was trying to Jedi-mind-trick me into giving him my breakfast... he was staring soooo intently at me and my bagel.  Then I realized a puddle of urine was growing around him.  He wasn't squatted to pee, it was just coming out of him as he sat on the floor.  "OTIS!!!"  I ran over and put my hands on either side of him, and he moaned that low, deep cat waller that only cats can do when they're in pain or are going to puke, then took a few steps, flipped onto his back and started licking his little weenis like it was killing him.  Okay, Otis's turn to go to the vet!

The good doctor checked Otis out, and with one squeeze of the bladder got Otis to piss all over the exam table.  (And apparently that's quite a feat since cats are notoriously difficult to MAKE pee.  They can usually hold it no matter what you do to them... we should all be so lucky.)  The diagnosis?  Feline cystitis.  The urine was analyzed and found to be full of mineral crystals and blood.  Poor Otis has been making crystals in his bladder (but not in his kidneys) and peeing them out just like razor blades, much to the dismay of his little weenis's urethra.  Thankfully, no stones or blockages.  So it's special food for Otis to help break down the crystals and distilled water ONLY as the likely culprit is the well water here.  That means all the pets have distilled water.  Pooh is on massive doses of steroids.  Do you know how much water that dog drinks?  Holy shitballs, Batman.

Poor Otis.  Pissing on the floor was probably tantamount to throwing himself under the bus.  I mean really, he knew he was either going to the vet, or I was going to kill him, and he was fine with either one.  Oz remains smug in all her glory as the supreme dumpster cat who does NOT piss on the floor.  And Pooh has hit his stride as a 'roid eater.  He continues to get stronger every day, is gradually transitioning back to his normal food, and is even eating scooby snacks again!  Whoo hoo!

POP-K makes the rebound!

Pooh got sick on Sunday the 5th.  Started out by not eating breakfast, then got lethargic, stopped drinking water, and by 6:30pm started to stagger around.  I started calling the vet from our office that was on-call but couldn't get in touch with her right away.  Finally got into the office around 8:30.  He had a positive "snap test" for Lyme's exposure, a fever of 105.5 and was dehydrated.  Took him home that night on the antibiotics for Lyme's and w/fluids, but wound up back the next morning with him having bounced back a little then spiraled down quickly.  He made no improvement with treatment, couldn't break the fever, and on Thursday morning as I was headed in the vet called to tell me he was getting worse and they had exhausted what they could do.  I had the choice to take him to an internal medicine specialist to see if they had anything else to offer, or I needed to put him down.  All the joints in his legs had started to swell and he couldn't get up on his own and could barely walk.  I drove him to NC to the specialist knowing that they might find something that could be treated, might find something that would make me end it for him, or might find nothing and would leave me in the same position of ending it.  I spent the whole 2.5 hour drive with him riding shotgun, head in my lap, telling him what a good dog he's always been and how grateful I am to have spent every minute with him, even when he's been naughty.  The vets were so great.  They laid on the floor to examine him because he hurt too much to lift him onto the table.  When the vet pushed on his swelled ankle joint, he didn't growl or whine, he just drew his leg back and looked at her with the saddest eyes, as if to say, "Please don't do that again, it hurts."  They could tell right away what a good dog he is and how much pain he was in.  Thankfully they quickly found that he didn't have Lyme's but had Rocky Mtn Spotted Fever, and that it had triggered "auto-immune mediated neutropenic polyarthralgia".  Basically, he had rheumatic fever in his joints.  Once they started treating him with steroids he started to stabilize, then slowly started getting better.  The fever broke on day 6, and he started eating again on day 9.  He started walking unassisted on day 10, and could get up on his own and being far less unsteady yesterday.  He's still pretty bony from going so long without eating and with the fever eating him up, but his personality is back, and he's back to being my good dog.  :)

You can buy my left kidney on e-Bay to help pay the vet bills.

Pooh doesn't have Lyme's Disease, AND HE DOESN'T HAVE CANCER, he has Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Nice.

I'm now feeding him baby food via syringe, and hoping that his appetite will come back while on massive doses of steroids.

Hoping.

Anyone have great suggestions on how to make a dog eat again?  Poor Old Pooh King, or POP-K as h++-+e's known far and wide these days, is slowly looking somewhat better.  He's drinking well and his eyes are clear, but he's still running a low-grade fever and he's not eating.  Not even bacon.

So help me, my peeps.  Help me food-bribe my dog.

We're back from the internal medicine specialist in Greensboro, NC.  Oh, that's right, we've been on a road trip.  On Thursday morning it was clear that Poor Old Pooh King (his newest nickname is POP-K) was not improving and was going to die if nothing changed.  So I decided to have him checked by a specialist to see if anything else could be done. 

After a thorough history and exam by the internal med resident, the specialist came in and had her suspicion of an "autoimmune mediated polyarthralgia of rheumatic nature" triggered by either the Lyme's Disease, or possibly metastatic cancer (no freakin' wonder it's 4 extra years of vet school, huh?) in about 5 minutes.  28 hours later, we were on our way home on high doses of steroids, still on the antibiotics, and with pain meds.  The prognosis is still uncertain, but we're fighting.

Hope?

Sleeping on the cool floor, using his bed as a pillow, fever "down" to 103.8, breathing easier, dreaming, and starting to chase dragons again.  3 antibiotics, an anti-emetic, an antacid, fluids, and some other stuff on board.

Oh, and he licked a little bit of ice cream, too.

Day 4

Drank H2O and wagged.  Small improvement.

Gimme a P...

Please keep your fingers crossed and your tails wagging.  Pooh King has been hospitalized since Monday morning (after a trip to the vet on an emergency basis Sunday night) and is fighting the good fight, but is not making much headway.  He's got Lyme's Disease (fucking ticks) and has sported a fever of 104.5 or better since Sunday.  It's not looking good for our hero, but we're hoping for a 4th quarter rally. 

My heart is broken so wide open I can't even see the edges of its millions of pieces anymore.  He's been my constant partner for 13.5 years, and I just don't know what to do without his happy, wagging, bread-stealing, treat-begging, cat-putting-up-with, toilet-blocking, car-ride-wanting, can't-be-more-than-10-feet-away-from-me-being self.  Please come home to be my bad dog again.  Please.

So, on the top of the list of things I never thought would happen?

• Moving back into an apartment.

Buuuuuut, guess what's about to happen?  Yep, you've got it.  Moving day is going to be Oct. 16... we hope.  Different complex than the last one, and a newly renovated unit to boot, which will be sweet since I won't have to worry about anyone else's funk or bedbugs. 

The long and the short of it is that this house, while pretty to look at, is too big, too labor-intensive, and is sucking the money, time and energy right out of us.  We're never going to get ahead if we stay, and we'd have to move next year anyway as the landlord had a 2 year cap on the house as a rental.  I know he really thought we would buy the house ('cause he's crazy and thinks I crap money), but it wouldn't suit us if he dropped the price by $100k... which would be a more reasonable price for the house than what it was listed at when he pulled it off the market for me to move into.  

So, who wants to come help us lift some heavy stuff?