I'm going to have headaches for a month.
Friday
Wednesday
Cat update.
Short story: Yay!
Medium story: We're apparently still in the woods, but we have reason to be optimistic.
Full story: So, on Monday, they did an x-ray and some blood work. The x-ray showed what appeared to be one normal-sized kidney, and one small kidney. The small kidney looked to be about half the size of the normal one. This is not good. Her bloodwork showed that she only had 25% kidney function over all, or, about one-half of one kidney functioning properly. That's not good either. 10% function and under is considered kidney failure. Basically, this didn't bode well for the state of her kidney tissue which, if damaged, was ... well, damaged. In which case we'd be looking at a kidney transplant ... and, we wouldn't be getting a kidney transplant. Basically. That would just ... anyway.
On Tuesday, the news took an upswing. First, she seemed to be responding well to the antibiotics. She wasn't straining to urinate, and her kidneys didn't seem tender. Then they did the ultrasound and discovered two things: 1. Her smaller kidney is much larger than it first appeared. It's slightly smaller than the other one, but not close to the half-size they were expecting. 2. Her kidney tissue looked healthy. It looked like regular, functional kidney tissue instead of damaged, dead kidney tissue. So that's awesome. The vet sounded surprised and happy.
Today (Wednesday), they got the results of her culture, which showed that the antibiotic she's been on is already the best one. So that's good. However, her kidney levels haven't gone up at all. That's not good. However, because her tissue looks good, the vet is "optimistic" that she will get better, she just needs a little more time. I asked him if he'd seen that happen before and he said yes, many times. So, that's good.
She got to come home today, since there's nothing that they were doing for her there that we couldn't theoretically do at home, namely, giving her antibiotics and giving her fluids. This means that twice a day we have to give her oral antibiotics, but that's nothing new. I've medicated many a cat in my day. It also means that we have to give her a subcutaneous drip twice a day, which is really very quite new. I guess we'll see how that goes!
We'll take her back in on Monday to check her blood.
So that's her kidneys. In regards to her heart, she has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It's genetic. This is the thing you will hear about on the news when an otherwise healthy teenager suddenly drops dead in the middle of a basketball game. Lily has no outwards signs of it, either in her behavior or in heart sounds, so if her innards weren't already being photographed for other purposes, we never would have known about it. You know, until her spontaneous heart death at some point in time. So, that's not good. But now we do know about it, which is good. And we can drug her up for it. That'll have to wait until her kidney issue is resolved though, because (of course!!) the heart medicine may have adverse kidney effects.
Apparently my cat has more medical problems than I do.
Medium story: We're apparently still in the woods, but we have reason to be optimistic.
Full story: So, on Monday, they did an x-ray and some blood work. The x-ray showed what appeared to be one normal-sized kidney, and one small kidney. The small kidney looked to be about half the size of the normal one. This is not good. Her bloodwork showed that she only had 25% kidney function over all, or, about one-half of one kidney functioning properly. That's not good either. 10% function and under is considered kidney failure. Basically, this didn't bode well for the state of her kidney tissue which, if damaged, was ... well, damaged. In which case we'd be looking at a kidney transplant ... and, we wouldn't be getting a kidney transplant. Basically. That would just ... anyway.
On Tuesday, the news took an upswing. First, she seemed to be responding well to the antibiotics. She wasn't straining to urinate, and her kidneys didn't seem tender. Then they did the ultrasound and discovered two things: 1. Her smaller kidney is much larger than it first appeared. It's slightly smaller than the other one, but not close to the half-size they were expecting. 2. Her kidney tissue looked healthy. It looked like regular, functional kidney tissue instead of damaged, dead kidney tissue. So that's awesome. The vet sounded surprised and happy.
Today (Wednesday), they got the results of her culture, which showed that the antibiotic she's been on is already the best one. So that's good. However, her kidney levels haven't gone up at all. That's not good. However, because her tissue looks good, the vet is "optimistic" that she will get better, she just needs a little more time. I asked him if he'd seen that happen before and he said yes, many times. So, that's good.
She got to come home today, since there's nothing that they were doing for her there that we couldn't theoretically do at home, namely, giving her antibiotics and giving her fluids. This means that twice a day we have to give her oral antibiotics, but that's nothing new. I've medicated many a cat in my day. It also means that we have to give her a subcutaneous drip twice a day, which is really very quite new. I guess we'll see how that goes!
We'll take her back in on Monday to check her blood.
So that's her kidneys. In regards to her heart, she has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It's genetic. This is the thing you will hear about on the news when an otherwise healthy teenager suddenly drops dead in the middle of a basketball game. Lily has no outwards signs of it, either in her behavior or in heart sounds, so if her innards weren't already being photographed for other purposes, we never would have known about it. You know, until her spontaneous heart death at some point in time. So, that's not good. But now we do know about it, which is good. And we can drug her up for it. That'll have to wait until her kidney issue is resolved though, because (of course!!) the heart medicine may have adverse kidney effects.
Apparently my cat has more medical problems than I do.
Distraction.
I'm just now getting around to doing that picture thing that Jess had in her blog roughly eight billion years ago. I meant to do it, but it looked very labor intensive.
Categories:
1. favorite food
2. hometown
3. favorite color
4. celebrity crush
5. favorite drink
6. dream vacation
7. favorite dessert
8. what I want to be when I grow up
9. name
10. what I love most in the world
11. one word that describes me
12. username
Categories:
1. favorite food
2. hometown
3. favorite color
4. celebrity crush
5. favorite drink
6. dream vacation
7. favorite dessert
8. what I want to be when I grow up
9. name
10. what I love most in the world
11. one word that describes me
12. username
Monday
Some sound meant to convey some sort of emotion.
My cat Lily is sick. Kind of very, as it turns out. "... but not hopeless," the vet added. Which does not help at all.
She has an infection in her kidneys. The best guess we have is that bacteria from her mouth (she's had chronic gum infections since we scooped her up as a malnourished kitten) moved around through her bloodstream, and landed there. She also has an enlarged heart, which has nothing to do with that. Just for kicks, I guess.
Right now she's in the kitty hospital, where she will be at least until Wednesday while they give her broad spectrum IV antibiotics. They're doing some cultures to see if a more specific antibiotic should be used. Tomorrow they will ultrasound her kidneys and her heart. All this is just as expensive as it sounds. I hate that this is even a factor, but there you go.
I think I'm burned out on pets. I can't keep on loving them if they're going to keep dying. And, as a certain Fountain of Gold noted, cats die. They don't even live very long.
Not that anything is certain right now. I mean, she could be fine. It's possible. I'm just very freaked out because I thought I would have years until I had to think about this. At least it's not cancer this time.
P.S. Please feel free to continue to give me hair advice.
She has an infection in her kidneys. The best guess we have is that bacteria from her mouth (she's had chronic gum infections since we scooped her up as a malnourished kitten) moved around through her bloodstream, and landed there. She also has an enlarged heart, which has nothing to do with that. Just for kicks, I guess.
Right now she's in the kitty hospital, where she will be at least until Wednesday while they give her broad spectrum IV antibiotics. They're doing some cultures to see if a more specific antibiotic should be used. Tomorrow they will ultrasound her kidneys and her heart. All this is just as expensive as it sounds. I hate that this is even a factor, but there you go.
I think I'm burned out on pets. I can't keep on loving them if they're going to keep dying. And, as a certain Fountain of Gold noted, cats die. They don't even live very long.
Not that anything is certain right now. I mean, she could be fine. It's possible. I'm just very freaked out because I thought I would have years until I had to think about this. At least it's not cancer this time.
P.S. Please feel free to continue to give me hair advice.
Saturday
The white stripe.
As I may have mentioned once or several times, my hair has a fair amount of gray in it. My first gray hair was discovered by my friend Jennifer as she was sitting behind me in English class. It was the length of a normal hair. I was 16. When I was 19 I realized that there were, you know, quite a few, so maybe I should do something about it. I plucked the ones I could find. I cut that out a few years ago as it might have made me bald.
Happily, the majority of it is in the front, and I've developed a sort of stripe on one side. I say happily because while I imagine this would freak out some people, I think it's neat. I look like Rogue. Or sometimes you can't really see it and I just look like a person with hair.
My sister has been taken many opportunities to tell me that I need to get it "covered up". I hate that. Aside from the fact that I have never dyed my hair (at least with anything other than lemon juice and sunlight), I don't want to start because I have to "cover up the gray." I mean, what am I, old? Actually having gray hair doesn't make me feel old. Probably because it doesn't make me look old, which I understand is the chief problem with it, societally. It just makes me look like what I am: a young person with gray hair. Having to run to the hairdresser's because my roots are showing, though, would depress the hell out of me.
A few times I've wondered about dying it hot pink or something equally bold. Because if I'm going to dye my hair, I want it to be clear that it was because I wanted to, not because I had to. I never followed through on it because: 1. I tied up with the logistics, even though I could probably just ask Annika, and 2. I'm worried that the establishment might freak. (I KNOW! Shit, maybe I am old.)
I mention this because GUESS WHAT. I'm getting my hair done next week! At a very skilled and expensive place! FOR FREE! And whilst there, I am totally going to get my hair colored. I'm so completely nervous*. What should I have them do? I don't want them to ruin my youthful gray.
*I'm more worried about this than the fact that I'm getting approximately 16 inches of my hair cut off, just to put this in perspective.
Happily, the majority of it is in the front, and I've developed a sort of stripe on one side. I say happily because while I imagine this would freak out some people, I think it's neat. I look like Rogue. Or sometimes you can't really see it and I just look like a person with hair.
My sister has been taken many opportunities to tell me that I need to get it "covered up". I hate that. Aside from the fact that I have never dyed my hair (at least with anything other than lemon juice and sunlight), I don't want to start because I have to "cover up the gray." I mean, what am I, old? Actually having gray hair doesn't make me feel old. Probably because it doesn't make me look old, which I understand is the chief problem with it, societally. It just makes me look like what I am: a young person with gray hair. Having to run to the hairdresser's because my roots are showing, though, would depress the hell out of me.
A few times I've wondered about dying it hot pink or something equally bold. Because if I'm going to dye my hair, I want it to be clear that it was because I wanted to, not because I had to. I never followed through on it because: 1. I tied up with the logistics, even though I could probably just ask Annika, and 2. I'm worried that the establishment might freak. (I KNOW! Shit, maybe I am old.)
I mention this because GUESS WHAT. I'm getting my hair done next week! At a very skilled and expensive place! FOR FREE! And whilst there, I am totally going to get my hair colored. I'm so completely nervous*. What should I have them do? I don't want them to ruin my youthful gray.
*I'm more worried about this than the fact that I'm getting approximately 16 inches of my hair cut off, just to put this in perspective.
Sunday
Local girl survives weekend in freezing woods; subsisted on cookies, she says.
There is an article about Neko Case in this week's edition of the New York Times Magazine. MY SPHERES ARE INTERSECTING AND I DON'T KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS. And unlike in most instances where I say that and I really mean, "My feelings about this matter lean towards the negative," this time I really don't know! I mean, on one hand there's yay, but on the other hand there's a lot of ???.
In other news, I sprained my ankle and it's still impressively swollen and there's some bruising. But I can walk okay. Also, I discovered that 280 East has a lot of things in common with Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
But aside from that, I had a nice weekend. And there were cookies!
In other news, I sprained my ankle and it's still impressively swollen and there's some bruising. But I can walk okay. Also, I discovered that 280 East has a lot of things in common with Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
But aside from that, I had a nice weekend. And there were cookies!
Saturday
I did this same thing last week!
[Begin Spoiler for Battlestar Galactica. The one that was just on. — Highlight to view]
Goodbye, Felix. You were too good for a hardscrabble life of fleeing from killer space robots. I'll miss you.
[End Spoiler]
Goodbye, Felix. You were too good for a hardscrabble life of fleeing from killer space robots. I'll miss you.
[End Spoiler]
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