Tag Archives: cats

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View

I took this somewhere along the 1217 mile trip with two cats from Port Townsend, Washington, to Grand Junction, Colorado. Idaho, I think. This a view rest stop as I drove up out of a valley.

Elwha and Sol Duc weren’t too sure about the trip. We started with them in the back and a net between the from and the back. I had to stop within an hour because they could get by it. Elwha wanted to ride by my feet and Sol Duc under the seat.

So then I set up their crate in the back seat and put both cats and the catbox and water into it. They didn’t love it but it worked. I would put their harnesses on and then put them in the carrier to go in to motels.

It was pretty exciting to check into a motel with two cats.

A new place to explore each evening.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: panorama.

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Change is confusing!

I am Elwha, cat.

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.

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Driving Lily

I was driven yesterday. I have an ill friend. She is currently in a “rehab”, aka “nursing home”, in Sequim. I drive 40 minutes to be with her at an hour appointment. Afterwards we check in at the nursing home and then I drive her back to her house, 40 minutes again. That is where Lily is. Lily is her cat. My friend was in the hospital for six days and now the “rehab” for two weeks. My friend wants to go home. Lily is miserable. She misses her person and hisses and swipes at me. I was driven to take my friend to see her cat.

Lily let me pet her yesterday because I brought her person home. However, the whole thing was a near disaster. My friend has been trying to get stronger, but she is not stronger. She is weaker. She has three steps into her house. We were there for about three hours. She sat to wash the cat’s bowl in the kitchen sink and Lily was very very happy to be near her. My friend was then tired enough that we had real difficulty getting her out of the house and back in the car. I used a bath stool to let her stop and sit about every four feet. She was using a walker, but could barely walk. She sat in the doorway of the house and talked about crawling. However, those muscles in your upper legs? Those are some of the biggest muscles in the body, and if you can barely walk, scooting or crawling is not feasible either.

We made it to the car without having to call an ambulance. I’m pretty strong for my age and size, but I’m not strong enough to carry her alone.

Poor Lily. I don’t think I dare try to get her in a cat carrier and she’d probably cry all the way driving and anyhow, the nursing home would need a shot record.

Lily will have to put up with my care for now.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: driven.

I am not my friend’s doctor, I am just a friend.

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Less Long Covid if vaccinated

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.

https://dgalerts.docguide.com/ncov-home/article/lower-long-covid-prevalence-symptom-severity-in-vaccinated-individuals

This is a report on a study which started in October of 2020. “Participants were actively followed for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) 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.

The study is published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases: https://academic.oup.com/ofid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ofid/ofae039/7585852. The quotations are from the DGAlerts article.

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art installation naming contest

Ladies and gentleman and others, my friend Liz wants help naming the art installation that she put in my yard!

Who can tell me about the chain?

The hat is clearly from either a witch or a which, I’m not sure witch.

Have at it. Let’s see, the winner will receive a prize which Liz and I have to figure out…..

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Cat Collapse Disorder

Boa cat is 11. We got her and Princess Mittens when my daughter was 7.

Last summer Princess Mittens was killed by a car in front of our house. We were looking for her the day after she went missing. A neighbor said, “There is a cat dead across the street. I’m sorry.” Yes, it was Princess, all stiff. We put her in a box and brought her in the living room. Boa came in, and went stiff legged, arched and fur on end and backed out of the room. She had been crying and looking for Princess and she stopped then.

The next morning we dug a hole and buried Princess in the back yard. Boa joined us and watched. She avoided the living room for 24 hours and then was ok.

Without her companion, she is more social. Princess was the one who would come into the middle of a party and lie down as equidistant from all the people as possible. Boa would rarely venture out in company but now she is social.

In January she started dropping weight. She didn’t look right. By March I worried. I changed her food first, to an all protein, no corn, no GMO one. In May she went to the vet. She is an indoor outdoor cat. I let her out for a while when I am up writing in the hour of stupid early and the hour of insomnia and the hour of convalescence. Both cats would return when I clapped, because that meant I was locking the door and might not open it again until I returned from work. No cat door. We have a family of raccoons and they can get a bit exciting in the house.

The vet said fleas and parasites and maybe we should do a whole bunch of things including antibiotics. I negotiated by phone from Portland. My daughter promised to pat Boa while I was gone. She’s a bit cat allergic, so usually she doesn’t. She said, “Can I wear your clothes if I am going to pat Boa?” Well, good idea. She wore a cat-patting outfit and then promptly changed.

Anyhow, Boa is still thin but better. And so why would she have fleas and parasites and general awfulness after we’ve pretty much managed her the same way for 11 years? Grief, I think. I got terribly ill after my sister died and then after my father died. I think that grief lowered her immune mechanisms and she was just prone to everything. And why did I switch her food? I don’t think that cats normally eat corn or much vegetable filler, and so I wanted her nutrition to be as normally cat like as possible. Also, this spring she caught and ate 7 mice and two birds and she has never done that before. I think she had realized that the cat food I had for her was not ok. Since I switched foods, she has not brought in any catches. She also thinks I’m a bit dense, but you know….

I used to think those people who bought organic for their pets were nuts. But I can change my mind.

But reading about honeybee collapse disorder, it’s not one mechanism: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0006481. It looks like it’s multifactorial. Do GMOs bother honeybees enough that then they are more likely to get parasites and mites and whatever? Or maybe the bees are grieving…..

The picture is from 2005. Boa is the black one and Princess Mittens is the black and white tabby.

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ZZZzzzzz

Z for ZZZzzzzz…. shhhh, everyone is asleep after the Blogging from A to Z Challenge and I am tiptoeing my last contribution in during May…..very quietly.

Yesterday morning Boa cat brought a mouse in the house. I heard it squeaking and protesting being played with before being eaten. Then Boa called me insistently, with her mouth full of squeaking mouse. I started down the stairs and she dropped it and it ran into a closet. She lost it.

I tried to find it, gingerly. I had to get the recycling out of that closet anyhow, because Tuesday is recycling day. I picked things up rather carefully. I found the mouse once but it skittered away in the closet again before Boa grabbed it and I was not about to grab it. Sharp teeth.

Last night Boa brought the mouse into my bedroom and tore around, chasing it. I think. I am not entirely sure whether Boa really did bring the mouse in or whether it was a dream. If it was a dream, it was very convincing and had five parts or more. And then I dreamed or heard crunching.

There is a pile of paper knocked over on the stairs. I have not checked my room for mouse feet or a tail. In the night I hoped Boa would keep the mouse on the floor and not bring it up on the bed. She didn’t.

The cat in the picture is not Boa. It’s Princess Mittens. She was about a year old and stood at the open back door growling at the terrible things in the back yard: a doe and two fauns, there to steal the apples. Princess Mittens was hit by a car last summer, at age ten. Boa misses her but would never ever admit it.

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And there: I am done with the A to Z Challenge! Sleep well, everyone!