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Ares Helping at the Computer
This is Ares’ idea of a good time. He loves to help at the computer, especially when the weather is cool enough that he wants a bit of extra warmth.
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Rebels at the Gate
I suspect that Ares and Artemis are rebel spies looking for weaknesses in this Star Destroyer. Sadly, I don’t think they’ll have too much trouble.
Making Star Destroyers is hard. (Read the “hard” with the appropriate whine.) The basic structure was easy enough, but I’ve tried twice to make the bottom panel work right, and it just won’t go. The Emperor wouldn’t tolerate me for long, that’s for sure.
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Duncan on the platform
We have a platform in our bedroom — a shelf, really, that cuts across an odd corner in the room. The cats LOVE this thing. Here’s Duncan with his head over the side.
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Friday Cat Blogging
Here’s Artemis contemplating the paper I’ve been working through over at Galaxy Girl. Sometimes I wonder if she’s got a better handle on it than I do.
And here are the boys — carefree, and without a thought in their heads about physics or astronomy:
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Cats and Pills
Posted by barb on Jun 29, 2005 in Cute Pets
A word of advice: The next time the vet gives you a prescription for your cat, and the vet’s assistant suggests that a pillgun might help, don’t think to yourself, gee, she’s just a small cat, and we’ve got two adults in the house, how hard could it be? Don’t be an idiot. Just get the pill gun.
Andrew and I have been struggling with Artemis for the past two weeks, giving her two pills in the morning and two in the evening. More than once it has ended in tears. She refuses to swallow, she drools, she holds the pill behind her tongue and spits it out… Frequently the first pill would go better, but not always, and there was always a bit of a struggle.
When we picked up a refill, and saw that the vet had reduced the pills to one pill twice a day, I was tempted not to get the pillgun, but in the end decided to get it anyway. Last night and this morning, we shot the pill in and she swallowed it right away. No tears. No drooling. No hiding the pill behind her tongue.
What f***ing idiots we were…
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Not good news
Posted by barb on Jun 21, 2005 in Cute Pets
The news from the vet wasn’t good. The prednisone may have reduced the mass a bit, but not as much as he would have expected. But, it looks like it is cancer. He said that we’re probably talking about months not years.
Today sucks.
Anticipation
Posted by barb on Jun 21, 2005 in Cute Pets, Random Thoughts
Artemis went to the vet’s office again this morning for her follow-up X-ray. Last week, the vet called me after the X-ray was done and he’d looked at it, even though I had an appointment to pick her up later in the afternoon. Today, I’m expecting him to call again, though he hasn’t yet. The phone rang while I was eating lunch, and the butterflies in my stomach were unbearable, but the call was a wrong number. Needless to say, I’m a bit of a wreck — I’ve been less productive today than on the day before a vacation…
Fingers crossed, and happy, healthy mojo to Artemis!
My Little Girl Needs Lots of Mojo!
Posted by barb on Jun 14, 2005 in Cute Pets, Random Thoughts
Artemis was at the vet again today — her second day in a row of X-rays. Yesterday we took all three of the kids in for their annual check-ups, and we mentioned that Artemis had been breathing heavily occasionally for no apparent reason, and the vet wanted to look into that more. So we left her there for the afternoon to get X-rays of her chest.
When I picked her up, I found out that there wasn’t anything obvious on the X-rays. There was one interesting thing, but it wasn’t causing her heavy breathing. Apparently when she was little — likely when she was in the womb — something happened that caused her chest to get dented inward, and so her rib cage has a noticeable divet. Her abnormality, though, makes reading her X-rays a bit of a challenge, because much of her anatomy is moved around from where it should be.
They had also looked for fluid around her lungs, and found nothing. In addition they gave her a diuretic, but I can’t remember what that was suposed to do. Before we left, she got a shot of steroids, which would to help the vet determine if the cause of her heavy breathing was asthma or allergies.
I took her back this morning for another X-ray. When I went to pick her up, the vet said that they saw a mass in her chest cavity, up near her heart (which is further up than it should be, due to her developmental abnormality). He said that it could be one of three things: (1) nothing at all, but it looks weird due to her odd anatomy; (2) thymoma, a cancer of the thymus; (3) lymphoma.
The next step is to figure out which of the three things it is. To do this, we’re giving her prednisone for a week, and then she’ll have another X-ray next Tuesday. If it’s (1), then nothing will have changed, she won’t have cancer (at least thymoma or lymphoma), and we won’t know what’s causing her heavy breathing yet. If it’s (2), then the prednisone should reduce the mass, and, with further prednisone treatment, may put the cancer into remission (if not, thymoma is frequently operable). If it’s (3), then the prednisone should also reduce it; however, it may also cause chemo-resistant cells to form. So, if it’s not (1), we’ll need to figure out with of (2) or (3) it is; and if it is (1), then we still need to find the cause of her heavy breathing.
I’m not sure which cause to hope for, though. With (2) or (3), we would at least know the cause, but it would be cancer; and with (3), even on chemotherapy (which the vet assures me is not as bad for cats as it is for humans), best case is that she’ll be around another year and a half. With (2), though, they can frequently get it into remission. With (1), she won’t have cancer, but breathing problems can also arise from cardiac problems…though I don’t know if he’s ruled out allergies or asthma…
Artemis needs all the mojo you can send her.
