A Parlour for a Plague

My cat hell begins tonight.

Poor Sebastian is on the prescription kibble from hell. For his autoimmune system, the same one that destroyed his eyes.

He hates it. I don’t blame him. It stinks. It’s also terribly expensive. It makes him unhappy.

Lately we have compromised because I’m not sure that hating his food is much of a life to try to preserve. So, I get good quality wet food and he has it for dinner reasonably often.

There’s a no wet food night tonight.

There will be antics, grumpiness, wails. Then he’ll gobble the kibble from hell angrily and come to wherever I am and vomit it up at my feet.

I feel ya.

Sistah!

This breaks my heart for both of you.

Well, he still has a pretty good life. He now gets lots more cuddles and games as I’m not at work all the time. He has a whole backyard to enjoy....I know he likely hasn’t a lot more time, so I make sure he’s bathed in love

How old is he these days?


(and has he ever shown interest in garlic or liverwurst....as my beloved feline Arthur did?)

The woollies are both 9, they turn 10 on January 14th.

They would both happily eat food with garlic, but it’s toxic to cats. Actually, they DO get a bit of garlic when they eat my leftovers.

Previous cats have also enjoyed a bit of chocolate, back when I didn’t know THAT was toxic to cats.

Both love fruit...they fight me for my apples and mango! They like nuts, too.


Sebastian has been known to drink wine and scotch and soda! Until I worked out what was happening.

Most of our cats have enjoyed some white tea, too.

Mine quite like vegetables, too...and salad.

He’s never seen liverwurst. I don’t eat it.

Our dog Ruby has been dealing with cancer since May 2019. I just came home from a 4 day hospital stay for my ridiculous surgery where they nicked my spleen trying to clean up adhesions and scar tissue, so the spleen had to go. We noticed poor Ruby started to look a little green and lethargic. Mr. G'bag took her to the Emergency Vet and they discovered a mass on her spleen that was bleeding and they took her spleen out that night. When the tests came back the mass turned out to be an aggressive cancer and they gave her between 2 to 4 months............We've made it almost 18 months but I think our time is running out. She just finished her antibiotics for a UTI and the Vet told us her liver isn't looking so good. She called it mottled......................It's very distressing, all of us who love our animals dread these situations....We are thankful we have had so much more time, and we decided since her time was going to be short she would be allowed more goodies. I guess what I'm taking a long time to say is that after her diagnosis we decided quality of life was more important than longevity. So occasionally we scramble some eggs, or toss chunks of meat in her kibble and we soak her kibble in beef broth.

We lost her sister 3 years ago from the same cancer, but she simply laid down and died. The tumor grew on her heart and she didn't show any signs of illness until about 2 hours before her heart stopped.

If you don't think it will hurt, maybe you can mix some tasty protein in his food. You are the best judge of what to do, but something special every so often is Devine. I hope Sebastian feels better...poor kitty.

Thanks Gb. Sorry to hear about your dog. Glad you have had extra time.

I’m already breaking the prescription kibble only rule with Sebastian. I do try and make with it stuff that’s good for him.

Last vet visit he’d suddenly developed a heart murmur too.

Viola has had hers all her life.

Meanwhile I had my hearing/hearing aid check yesterday and, again, I’ve had a big drop in hearing. I now have 45% hearing loss.

My current hearing aids were adjusted yesterday, but oh boy, I hope this precipitous drop doesn’t continue!

I was on a plateau for a number of years and apparently I could plateau again.

Who knows?

By the way, anyone here with hearing loss who won’t wear a hearing aid....being deaf and not doing what you can about it is increasingly looking as though it’s linked to dementia.

I read this a few years ago and my hearing guy commented on it yesterday.

Next issue will be if I can scrape together enough in a year or so to get better aids.

I don't have dementia. I just wish the rest of you would quit mumbling.

I think you didn’t feel they helped you much Roger?

Or did you just not ride out the uncomfortable phase?

It’s a bit rough for a few days all right! I just wore the things all day as soon as I got them and it was a quick phase for me, but I know I was advised to wear them in slowly. I just figured the faster the better....

I’ll never forget the horrid cacophony when I got back to work and it was lunch time! It was like being in a noisy factory for about three days! Who knew chewing was deafening! That turning a page of a newspaper was like a hurricane! That the birds screamed and yelled constantly! That Sebastian saying hello was like the shriek of a leopard jumping on its prey!

Rodney has an appt at the end October to be fitted for new hearing aids. He went deaf in his left ear when he was in his 40's after numerous bouts of Mieniers (inner ear flair ups causing dizziness, nausea, miserable feelings, steep temporary hearing loss...that eventually becomes permanent). They gave him a transmitter for his left ear that sends sound to the better right ear. They help but they are not perfect.

He needs a new set because Ruby found the transmitter earpiece and chewed it into oblivion. I'll see if I can't find a picture of the kind he wears and post it on Facebook, I have no luck at all posting pictures on A2K.

By the way, his hearing aids don't help in noisy restaurants or places where everybody is talking.

Right now, I can't follow conversation without them. As Gb notes, they do amplify so much extraneous noise that they are useless in some situations. I've been through several pairs, and the noise control is improving, but as I'm also continuing to lose hearing, I don't wear them unless I expect to be involved in conversation.

I think noisy backgrounds is where the more expensive aids have an advantage

I took out a loan for my last pair, because hearing was essential for my work, and I was still well and truly working.

I’m starting to save for my next pair. My health cover will give me a thousand dollars or so towards them, and the government will help out, but if I want good ones, I’ll have to fork out.

I know so many men, in particular, who refuse to wear them. Many of them are deaf from playing in bands. I guess they don’t think it goes with the image?

Oh Roger....good to see your rat back!

I have to say, I love removing them at night.

We have a mega school being built across the road and I can be blissfully immune to their 5 am starts.

The loud music that annoys others is nothing to me.

When the corella flock comes in summer for months I can sleep in peace.

My dad is deaf as a post, it’s excessive build up of earwax and he can’t clean them out himself because of lack of mobility. The NHS and local opticians have temporarily suspended ear syringing during the pandemic.

It makes it very difficult, one is either shouting or whispering. I think he just likes complaining, the miserable git.

I saw my kidney doc earlier today. In some respects. I'm doing well. In others, not terrible but not great.

I'm borderline anemic and malnourished. I assume that this was from weeks of eating little or nothing. However, I thought that eating three meals in the hospital might have counteracted this. Who knows. Maybe it did. Who knows where I started.

The doc is strongly encouraging me to gain weight. Huh? Yes, this latest episode caused me to lose about 20 pounds. I'm now at the weight I was in when I was in junior high school. Of course, I don't look like I did in junior high school. Everything his moved down a few inches.

I'm doing what he tells me, and stuffing my face at every opportunity. The problem with this is that when I'm full, I don't breathe well. Can't a goil catch a break?!

As an aside, I had two table lamps in my living room for the past ten years. One dropped dead a couple of weeks ago. The second one dropped dead two days ago. I've been hunting for the right lamps online. Found a pair. Who knows when they'll get here. In the meantime, I'm living with a sixty watt bulb in the living room and trying not to fall over anything.

Sigh.