Mother is cutting our food again. Sol Duc and I would rather eat through the day whenever we feel like it AND out of each other’s bowls. She picks up my bowl sometimes! Then the other bowl is empty and there is NOTHING!
As you can see, I continue to offer my favorite things in exchange for food. Mother took platy, but she just rinsed her in the sink. I got her back when she dried. Sometimes if I drop toys in the puddle, the little ants come. They do not taste good. They are not good food. Sol Duc and I persist, though.
I may put the finger box back on the small noisy sky thing setting. Since Mother won’t give us more food. She did get a new water thing. I am not sure about it. I would rather have food.
Ho hum. Mom is on the finger box again. She sits and stares at it and her fingers tap it all over. Sometimes it is noisy, too and she sings along!
My sister and I know how to lock it with the tiny fly thing, just like they look up in the sky. Much to our dismay, Mother has figured out how to unlock it. She got frustrated the first time.
We don’t want her to spend too much time on the finger box!
This two weeks has been stressful, with confusing changes. Mother comes home daily with smells of another cat. About a month ago she began rushing around and moving many things. Sol Duc and I were locked out of a room on the main floor and then out of a room on the lower floor. Then Mother continued to hurry and she even washed some of the rocks. Why would she wash rocks? We were concerned.
Then people came. Three people. One was large and he chased me! His name is Trey, he is loud, he knows my name! I ran!. Mother would pick me up and she even handed me to him. Then he was very nice and less loud and patted my belly appropriately, but after he put me down, I still did not like when he would chase me with loud noises!
There is a small female person and a less small female person, Joanne and Camille. They both held me but they are quieter and did not chase me. Trey and Joanne stayed in one of the shut rooms and Camille in the other! We asked to investigate, but were refused. This is confusing. They left after two nights, gone! Mother seemed to enjoy them very much. Trey called me “cat brother” but I am not so sure.
Mother still smells of the other cat. Daily! She left for three nights and Dennis came in. He does not stay for the night, but he is good. We miss Mother.
Mother came back, but today was more frightening. She put on our harnesses for outdoors and we went in the carriers. But instead of letting us out when we got outside, we went in the car! Then we slid forward once. Mother said, “I was trying not to hit a deer, sorry.” We cried, Sol Duc and me. Mother brought the carriers into a place with many frightened animal smells. Another woman took the top off my carrier. She and Mother talked, a lot. She gave me two shots. I let her. She let me get off the metal table. I got in the carrier with my sister. It is very small but if we squeeze together, we both fit. The other woman laughed and said, “I can’t believe they both fit in there.”
Mother put us both in the bigger carrier and brought us home. We are very very happy to be home.
I have two desks on my main floor, and use both. Sol Duc likes the office desk and Elwha likes the other one. Sol Duc tucks herself under the lamp. I think the paw tuck position radiates peace.
My cats are pound kitties, rescues that were still half-starved kittens when they arrived. They were supposedly six weeks old when I got them, so born in August 2021. This photo is from February 2022. They are still exploring and fascinated by water and faucets and showers. They are doing cat research. Meanwhile, Long Covid research continues.
This is a report on a study which started in October of 2020. “Participants were actively followed for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSβCoVβ2) infection. In the study, Hannah E Maier, PhD, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and colleagues compared the prevalence of symptoms and symptom severity between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.” People were enrolled for a year as they got infected, with demographic and health information recorded as they enrolled. They turned in information every two weeks and had blood draws every two months. After a year they were invited to continue for a second year. 3375 were enrolled, more than 1370 filled out Long Covid forms, and 1007 of the 1370 were vaccinated. Long Covid was defined after 90 days.
“At 30 and 90 days post infection, 38% and 13% of individuals reported persistent symptoms, and 6% and 2% reported β₯5 symptoms, respectively. Fatigue (19%), cough (15%), and cognitive dysfunction (12%) were the most commonly reported symptoms at 30 days, whereas loss of smell/taste (8%), fatigue (6%), and cognitive dysfunction (5%) were the most commonly reported symptoms at 90 days. The mean score of symptom severity was 3.6 and 3.9 at 30 days and 90 days post infection, respectively.
At 90 days post infection, 8% of vaccinated individuals reported persistence of any symptoms compared with 27% of unvaccinated individuals (relative risk [RR] = 0.31; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.22-0.42). Similarly, vaccinated individuals were less likely to have β₯5 symptoms compared with unvaccinated individuals (RR = 0.34; 95% CI, 0.15-0.79).
Furthermore, vaccinated individuals had significantly lower average symptom severity scores at 90 days post infection compared with unvaccinated individuals (relative severity [RS], -2.70; 95% CI, -1.68 to -3.73).“
There also was more Long Covid in the pre Omicron group than Omicron and beyond.
This study is community based and most of the patients were not hospitalized. Overall it has a lower estimate of how common Long Covid is than studies in hospitalized patients. It is reassuring that Long Covid symptoms and prevalence are lower with vaccination, but some people are still severely affected even with vaccination. Vaccination does not stop Long Covid completely though I certainly wish that it did. Mixed good news, but vaccination still looks like the best bet other than moving to a bunker permanently.
On Monday I walked with a group of friends. First I walked down from my house to the coffee shop, walked with them, walked back. It was cold but I was well layered. I want to see if I can up my exercise in spite of Long Covid and muscle weirdness. The initial reaction was fatigue. I took a nap on the couch from 2 to 6 pm and then went to bed at 7. I woke at 5. Fourteen hours of sleep.
That is not totally reassuring. Tuesday I did not feel particularly sore or tired. Wednesday, though, was bad. I started have muscle aches all over and I could not get my hands or feet warm. I lay down under an enormous pile of blankets and eventually went to sleep, starting at about 2 pm. I woke at 9 pm and then went back to sleep, warmer but aching, until 4 am. So that is another 14 hours.
This morning nausea and headache, but less soreness.
So, here is an article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44432-3 about the post-exertional malaise in people with Long Covid. They took people with Long Covid, matched them with people who have recovered from Covid-19, and then did muscle biopsies in both groups before and after maximal exercise. Results? “We show that skeletal muscle structure is associated with a lower exercise capacity in patients and that local and systemic metabolic disturbances, severe exercise-induced myopathy and tissue infiltration of amyloid-containing deposits in skeletal muscles of patients with long COVID worsen after induction of post-exertional malaise.”
Both groups were healthy before Covid-19 and physically active. The study uses many different techniques to measure muscle oxygen use and look at the muscles themselves at the microscopic level. As previous studies have shown, none of our current imaging, like x-rays and CT scan and MRI, can see the problems. This is at a microscopic and cell level in the muscles.
So I am having a post-infection or Long Covid flare the last couple of days, because I pushed too far against my limits. They have not done brain studies but the suspicion is that something similar has been going on. I have been spending a lot of time contacting temp companies and doing job searches, so I am going to take a few days off from that as well. Let the brain and muscles heal.
I still think of Long Covid as immune system PTSD, where the immune system is trying to protect me from further infection, though not necessarily in a way that I like. If the immune system makes me stay home and rest, well, I shouldn’t catch anything, right? Our immune systems are as diverse and complicated as we are, so the patterns are highly variable.
My immune system can’t bamboozle me. It wants me to stay home and take it easy. I get the message. Have a wonderful day.
Cats respond to drugs differently too. Sol Duc is quiet and contemplative on catnip. Elwha, well, guess.
The hummingbirds were very hungry in yesterday’s 17 degree weather. At first Front Anna looked disheveled and fluffed up and miserable, but she cheered up considerably after breakfast. I filled my squirrel chewed bird feeders too. I put a warm scarf on each of my desks in front and we had a nice day of cat tv. My house was built in 1930 and it is not well insulated. Usually it’s not bad, just cooler upstairs, but in this cold it comes through all the walls and windows, storms or not.
But the cats watched the feeder tv quite happily. I took them out in harnesses and they decided to come back in quite soon. I don’t think they minded the snow, but they did not like the cold at all.
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
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