Three is the Magic Number

Friends, I'm sorry I couldn't update you yesterday as to the outcome of my vet lady people visit, but my human couldn't get Blogger to work again, so we simply couldn't post. Before I get to that though, a little ramble first.






To begin with, you should all go back and check Tuesday's post. The HG has left a comment, and just to reitterate, she is so, so thankful for all of your support. It really has meant a lot to her.





To the Katnip boys, let me assure you that you neither need to be a girlcat nor have ever had girlie bits to pretend that you're having kittens for the sake of conning more stinky goodness out of your peoples. Remember the mantra, "Peoples are stupid". They won't even realise that mancats can't have kittens. Actually, if you combine kittens with tapeworm you might be on to a real winner! Have a care though. Sometimes peoples get the urge to worm you if they think you've got 'em, and that requires foul tasting medicine forced down your throat. Not fun. Nah, I'd go with the kittens myself, even if you are a boycat.





Random Felines, those boys are already wrapped round my paw! Dogman looked after me at Christmas, and even though he said he wasn't a cat person (does such a thing exist?), me and the human knew that wasn't true. When she came back, it was to find me on his knee being hand fed the finest tuna... So much for him not being a cat person! Now he even makes up songs for me and miaows at me and everything! As for Mark, well, he said he hated all cats cuz he was allergic, but apparently he has no reaction to my floof, so he picks me up and cuddles me and gets sad if I don't come say hello to him whenever he comes in the house. I don't think I'm gonna have any trouble getting them to do what I want them to do! It might be glorious being rid of that over-bearing, stinky goodness rationing human for a couple weeks.





Hannah and Lucy, the human says that she doesn't know whether we'll be keeping a babycat or not. She says if one of my babies is particularly stunning then maybe, but if not, then we may let them all go to forever homes. She doesn't want to end up with eleventy zillion big cats in the house, you see, so needs to be selective about what she keeps. I'm not convinced though. I know my human better than she does, and I bet she'll end up keeping one for us. I don't mind either way. I'll have more babies, and I know eventually I'll get to either keep one of them, or keep a grand baby. As long as my human's around for me, I'm happy! Tori, the spray is a vinegar one that takes the lingering scent of imbedded weewee out of the litterbox. The human hasn't tried it yet, but will let you know when she has.





Mom Paula, that show sounds fascinating! The description of these pictures are too, although I'll confess that the human's eyes leaked the first time she read it. However, she does agree with Zippy and crew that they are very educational. Whicky, I'd love Oliver's help! Keeping babycats clean is a full-time job, so any help is welcome! Tell him I'll need him around 27th of June if that's all right.





Wow, that was more than I thought it would be! Anyway, on to the news from yesterday. You remember I said that I'd be going to see the nice vet lady people to have a look at my yummy tummy and see how many babies I have inside me? Well, we did just that. The human put me in the PTU that straps to her back, and off we started. It takes about 15 minutes to walk to the vet lady people's place, but it's a nice walk. It's past a kid's playpark and then up a little path with trees and hedges on either side. Even though there were loads of birdies to watch, I still remembered to complain loud and long occasionally about my incarceration. I mean, how dare she! I was admired by quite a few humann kittens on the way though, but I'm thankful of the mesh separating me and then so that their sticky little fingers can't touch me!





We didn't have to wait long when we got to the vet lady people's, and in we went. When she took me out and looked at me, do you know what the first thing she said was? "Well, she's certainly got nice boobs!" Friends, if I didn't already have a tortie face, I'd have turned bright red!I mean, it's one thing to look at the nimples and say I'm pinking up, but for someone to out and say that I have nice boobs? And she's a lady people! That's wrong on so, so many levels! Have you ever had anyone say anything as outrageous to you as that?





She proceeded to feel my yummy tummy, and I sat nice and still for her while she did it. She said she could feel at least three babycats in there. Now before you all get excited, even she says this is no guarantee. Vets can and do frequently get it wrong, and this should be treated more as an indication of the size of the litter than an exact number. Babycats can hide behind one another for one thing. For another, not all babycats make it to term and some can be reabsorbed by the mummycat. At least we know it's not a singleton kitten though. That's what the human was worried about. Singletons grow very large, and as we Persians have large heads anyway, it would have made birthing an absolute nightmare. Three is about right to keep babies a decent size without making it too hard for me to push them out, so we both hope the vet lady people is either right, or had underestimated the numbers of what's in there.





So there you have it! Three babycats at least... Hopefully! And we can be expecting pretty much any colour too. Boys can be red or seal colourpoints both carrying dilute (if you'd like, we can explain colour genetics in another post as it's very interesting, well, for the human at least), or blue or cream colourpoints. Girls can be either seal torties like me carrying dilute, blue-creams (also called blue torties), red carrying dilute, or cream, all colourpoints. The only thing we can't get are seal or blue girls. All of them may carry the chocolate gene as I do. This is something very, very desirable in a Persian. This is why it's very good to have your mommacat as a dominant tortie carrying dilute, cuz it means you can have just about any colour of babies, unless, of course, you mate her with a seal or red stud boy who doesn't carry dilute. Dilute is the thing which gives more colour possibilities... I'm gonna stop now, else I'll explain genetics in this post alone! If any of you would like to know about them, then just tell me and I'll get the human to work up a post.





Ok, onto the link. Remember that one with the pictures of babycats? One of you made a really good suggestion which was to give peoples the choice, i.e, put the link, not the pictures on the blog. That's what I'm going to do. Please, if you don't want to see pictures of babycats at different stages of development in the womb, please don't click this link.





Well, friends, that's all for today, cuz the human's just put down my breakfast... I'm off!







PS: The human here. I have amnaged to mis-label something and I'm trying to delete a label from the list so that it doesn't comxe up as an auto complete every time I type my labels into Blogger. Do any of you know how to do that?

Wednesday Winners and Other Things

Well, I don't really know what to say about the winners. They are super cats, and peoples of course. They won last week too, and were the only ones to enter this week. Nevertheless, congratulations to you all! The human promises she'll post them to you, Karen, when all the Christmas madness is over.





We're a bit disappointed that the give away hasn't been more successful at generating interest. Because of this, we're going to take a break with the last two weeks until after Christmas. That way, it gives peoples a chance to get the holiday business out of the way. hopefully then they'll come and visit us and enter! Super congratulations to you, Karen, and your furries. It's awesome to win twice! Double the fun, eh?





Now, I told you I'd tell you about the human's arm today, and I better had, as she's whining that it hurts to type, and please can I be concise instead of rambling as I usually do. Rambling? I do not! I speak nothing but words of wisdom, and sometimes griping. no wonder she thinks it's rambling when it deals with all her shortcomings.





Anyway, her arm. Peoples, I have learned, have vets too, but they call them doctors or GPs which stands for general practitioner. I've always wondered why peoples feel the need to have multiple talk noise words for the same thing. Doctor? GP? General practitioner? Personally, I think vet is quite appropriate. So, she went to her vet when I was at mine, to be tested too to see if they could help us find out what the mr Bug was. They stole lots of things from her. Peepee, even poop! How disgusting is that! She allowed them to do it, didn't even spit or anything! I vow that I will work on her training for this.





Ah, where was I? Oh yes, stealing. They also stole some of her bloods, not once, but lots of times. They took four lots of blood in two separate lots, but the second time, when the needle was coming out, it really hurt, and the human's bloods kept coming out lots and lots even though they shouldn't cuz the stealing was done. When they went back inside to hide again and stopped coming out, her arm still hurt really badly, but she thought nothing of it. It's happened before when they've hit the muscle, and she knows it goes away in a day or two.





It's now been five days since they stole her bloods, and rather than getting better, the arm is getting worse. She can no longer get it all the way straight, and is having to take tablets to keep the pain at a manageable level. It hurts when she picks me up, and she's finding it difficult to do things like type or hold a pen for signing things at the work hunt. She even struggled to get my food open last night! What good are thumbs if they don't work propperly? This worried me enough that I insisted she went back to see the vet again. She says she's gonna call early tomorrow morning and try and get in to see him before we all head off tomorrow evening. I hope they don't have to amputate. It would be very inconvenient to be burdened with a human that couldn't open food for me.





In other super exciting news, our Secret Paws partner wrote to us today, and it's Hannah and Lucy! They said they made their people send a package on Monday, and we are very excited! I made my human go to the post office today to see if it was there, cuz if it was, we could have told you all about the super things inside. The human said I could open it early cuz I wasn't gonna be around for Christmas. Unfortunately though, it wasn't there. Hannah and Lucy, if it arrives tomorrow, is it Ok if I open it? Then I can take toys with me to Dogface's new home! If not, I can wait until after christmas. Your choice!





Now to a matter super important. Friends, I have a problem. I need a manly mancat to come visit me right here, right now, and I can't find one! I've been shouting and shouting for one, but they don't seem to be able to hear me, and the human says she's not taking me to see my man friend who owns his own house cuz I'm still having pudding poo and she doesn't want him to get sick and anyway, I said I was going with Dogface and I can't do that if I'm with my man friend. Ah, but all that doesn't matter now. My promises to Dogface are nothing compared with my need.





I've left him signs in both of my litter boxes. Many ladycats scent mark (peoples call it spraying) when we want to find a mancat. This surprises a lot of humans. They think it's only mancats that do it, but it isn't. Where many ladycats spray on people things, I won't. Firstly, if a mancat does come, I don't want him interested in people things. I want him interested in me! Secondly, it wouldn't be polite to scent mark the human or the things she calls clothes or the sofa where I sleep. After all, I wouldn't like it if she marked me everytime a manpeople came here. I'd stink!





With all this in mind, I choose to mark my boxes instead. I do this frequently, probably about once every half hour or so, and when I do, I shout and shout and shout no matter what time of the day or night it is, just in case he's listening. He hasn't come though. What am I to do! Friends, is there any way you know of to smuggle a mancat in here? More to the point, are there any mancats out there who would like to come, um, see my place for a bit? The human and Dogface are leaving tomorrow, so we could have all the house to ourselves! Mancat, Mancat, wherefore art thou Mancat! Maaaaaaaancaaaaaaaaat!!!

Human Merrits?

Friends, I don't mean to startle you, and what I am about to say may at first seme ludicrous, misled, even a little insane, but I have discovered today that the human species have merrits. More than that, they have initiative. I didn't want to say that right off, cuz I feared some of you would be so shocked you'd drop where you stood. Better to ease into it slowly. They do though, or at least, mine does... Or should i say did. Why, I hear you ask? Cuz she sprung me from prison, that's why. And she says she didn't even need a rope concealed in a pie to do it! I don't know what ropes or pies have to do with anything, but humans are weird. I accept this.





As you know, I had a sick tummy again last Friday which meant I had to go to the vet peoples. What you don't know is that this was code for I have to go to prison. I really hate the vet prison. A PTU is bad enough, but at least you know you can get out of that in a short while, and at least you're in it alone. At the vets, the PTU doesn't move and is bigger and called a cage, but there are just so many other cats and nasty smells and the litter in my box is different and it isn't even my box and, well, the list goes on. As if that's not bad enough, peoples will periodically come, take you out of the PTU that isn't a PTU, then poke and prod at you until you're blue in the face with swearing at them. not that I'd swear, of course. It's not my fault they interpretted my gentle "get off, you fat, blithering idiot" as swearing. If they can't speak felinese, it's not my fault, is it? They should have studied languages harder at school. My human speaks it, so there's no excuse.





The vet peoples always insist on thieving too. This time they stole my bloods a few times, and they started poo pinching too. I held out for as long as I could, friends, but when you're there for days, when you gotta go, you just gotta go. The idea of them stealing that disgusts me so much that I try and hold back where I can, so I only went once since Friday, and that was hard, I tell you, as I've been eating like a horse and there just isn't room for any more in there!





I heard my human talking to the vet peoples a few times on the phone, but finally, today, she got the message; I want to go home. I know she'd been trying to bust me out of there for ages, cuz I could hear the vet peoples saying I wasn't ready, but today they said they wanted to keep me in just for another poo sample. The uman said she wasn't happy with that, and would happily collect a sample at home so that I could get out of there. I don't know what else she said, but my heart leapt, then dropped as they hung up the phone and didn't come get me straight away. I was so, so disappointed.





Here's where the strange part comes in though. After a while, they did come and get me for no discernable reason. They put me in the PTU and brought me to a little room where the human was waiting. I don't know how she did it, but she did. Perhaps they're just so afraid of her that they daren't refuse to hand me over when she's there in person, or perhaps it had to do with the fact that the human had a prearranged pick up time. I'm with the former.





Now, sit down, friends, cuz there's another shock in store. When I saw the human, I went crazy. I mashed my face on the front of the PTU, I called to her. In fact, I was so vigorous that she was worried I was going to hurt myself. This is all part of the conditioning though. I had to reward her for good behaviour in busting me out so that, next time, she'll remember the good things she got and will come bust me out again. So I put up bravely with all the rubbing and the chin tickling and the scratching and I may even have purred for her and I may even have really smushed her hand with my face, but if I did, it's all part of the conditioning. Oh it's a hard life being a trainer.





None of the results have come back from my stolen bloods, and the human is going to steal some of my poo whether I like it or not, so we'll have to keep you informed once we know more. We would, though, like to extend heart felt thanks to everyone that came to wish me well while I was in prison. It means a lot to know that there are so many out there purring for you every day. We're so sorry to Amy and her House of Cats that we didn't do a propper post to say thank you for featuring us in Friends on Friday. Amy, we both really appreciate it!





To make sure the human is put back in her place, I bit her when I got home. I rolled on my back, pretended to show her my yummy tummy, then grabbed her with all four feet and bit. I had to do it before she got to thinking that all that purring and smushing was to be the norm. Carrot and stick, trainer friends, carrot and stick. I'm lying on the self heating heating pad which is her lap right now. Kind of her to make it available for me. Not so kind that there's no food down. She says that I'm having nothing but stinky goodness for the next few days. That means though that it can't be down all the time, cuz it goes bad quick. It's to give my tummy a rest and let it recover from all the bad stuff it's been doing. Well, ya don't hear me complainin', do ya!

An Update on Tia

The human here again with some good news and some bad news.


Tia is doing as well as can be expected. Since she's gone in, she hasn't thrown up, but she also hasn't pooped, something which we were hoping for so that we could send off more samples. She was dehydrated and ill enough that they put her on IV fluids straight away yesterday, but her vein blew this morning, so they had to take her off them. They decided to see how she'd go without them in light of this set back, and she's been managing Ok with eating little and often, and drinking. She lost 250G of weight since her last episode with Mr Bug, which isn't so good, but she's alert and watching the people at the vets, so she isn't as lethargic as she was. They were giving her opiates because she was very uncomfortable, but when the drip came out, they stopped too, and she appears to be managing.


Preliminary blood work shows nothing abnormal. A couple of the levels hint at dehydration, but we knew this already. A more detailed blood screen is due back on Monday, so hopefully, that coupled with my own tests will give us more of an idea.


The vet said they wanted to keep her in at least until monday so that they could collect the poo sample, but I wasn't particularly happy with this, as I find Tia copes better at home. She poos more regularly, eats better and is much less stressed. So far, poo samples have been sent a total of five times (from the dog, me and her) and not one of them has showed anything positive, so I don't think it's justified keeping her in an extra few days for the sole purpose of getting another poo sample, as I doubt it will show anything. I told him this and he agrees, so if she manages to get her temperature down to a more acceptable normal rather than in the upper range of that, and carries on maintaining her fluid intake on her own without throwing up or having the runs, she will be allowed to come home tomorrow. Boy am I glad of that! If she doesn't get any better though, they'll keep her in regardless, which I agree with.


I spoke to Dogman today to work out whether, in light of this, he will still have her for me at Christmas, and while I was talking, I had a thought. If this bug is indeed a zoonotic one, this next few weeks poses the optimum opportunity. I will be in Ireland and Molly will be in her new home. Two of us will already be out of physical contact with each other, so if I can do the same for Tia, hopefully this bug will have a chance to run its course, and when we all see each other again, we will not be infectious. Dogman's mum has had Molly to stay with her numerous times, and Dogface says she would be more comfortable with a dog than a cat. Add to that that Dogman was here the first time Tia got sick, and knows what to look for in time to get her to a vet, and you come to the conclusion that it would be better for Tia to be with him. His house is also an awful lot more quiet too.


As he's happy to have her, I'm going to ask his mum if she'd mind having Molly for the two weeks I was planning to leave the pair of them with Dogman. If she says yes, this is two solid weeks of isolation from each other. it gives us the best chance of overcoming this thing totally. I'm going to have help too, as Dogman's friend is coming to collect us all in his car, and he's said he'll help me bleach everything with a strong solution to hopefully kill the bug, whatever it is. I'm going to arrange to have my carpets cleaned on the same day, and will see if I can get hold of a steamer to do the soft furnishings like the sofas, bed etc. Then it will have two weeks of no living hosts, and while I know this might not be long enough, it's still better than nothing.


So that's where we are today. Things are as good as they can be, I suppose.

What a Day

The human here, and I don't have the heart to write a very long, entertaining post, so I'll cut right to the chase. Tia is once more at the vets. She had diarrhoea twice this morning, and threw up three times inside a quarter of an hour. She didn't even finish her wet food, something unheard of. I rushed her down straight away, and she's in for treatment again. I have no idea how long they're keeping her this time, but I'm heartsick of this. It needs to stop.


I've spent all day phoning national zoonosis organisations (the disease is zoonotic, as it spreads between species). I've also been to my own doctor to demand further testing as I had a relapse earlier this week. I had to fight tooth and nail to have any testing done at all. By the end of it, it had pretty much degenerated into a screaming match, but thanks to my medical background, I got my own way and the tests have been done. There's definitely an infection there. Urine shows increased leukocytes, but I need to wait for the others to come back.


I am so, so worried about this. I just wish we could identify what it is. I'm running out of options now, and I don't know where to turn to next. Sorry this Friday isn't more cheerful.

Bad, Bad Human

She's doing that thing again, you know the one where she doesn't be a good secretary for me? That one. She says she's been stupidly busy all weekend, and has just been too tired to post. Rubbish, I say.


We've had an eventful weekend. Dogface got sick again. She had to go stay with the vet peoples on Saturday, and she's only just come home today. So it seems that Mr Bug is back. He's come to visit the human a little bit, but not me yet, thankfully. He obviously knows that if he did, I'd whap him good! So he avoids me.


The human has also been doing more of the papers that she calls job applications. They seem to take a very, very long time to complete. It makes me mad that she spends so much time writing on papers that I can't see the point of, yet she won't give me ten minutes a day to write a post! She says that she's looking ahead to the future, that she's trying to make it better for us. I find this hard to believe. With such a limited capacity as peoples have, I'm of the opinion that it would tax their brains too much to try and predict the future, but they will insist on trying, silly things. She says if she gets any of these jobs, we can move to a new house, but how exactly this is supposed to be better, I don't know. She says it brings her closer to her old friends, but all that means for me is less lap time. I'm not sure I'm keen on that idea.


One thing I am keen on though is Santa Paws. I got my person who I'm giving stuff to today, and me and the human are very, very excited. We've started shopping already! We have a question though. when you send off your gift, are you sposed to put something in there that tells the person who you are, or does it stay a secret for ever and ever and ever? I ask cuz I don't want to do something naughty... Gotta be nice to make sure you get gifts from Santa Paws, after all!


Hey, have you noticed my side bar? Clowder helped me put up lotsa goodies called site counters. They're one of the few peoples invensions that I can see a use for. They let us see how many of you come to see us every day, and that's pretty neat, isn't it?


We're all out of stinky goodness too. The human ordered some ages and ages and ages ago, but when the parcel came today, it had everything in it that we ordered sept the foods. I'm very upset about this, but nowhere near as angry as the human. She's furious, and has written to ask the company why they didn't send it. Good human. It's acceptable, even encouraged, to get righteously angry when my foods don't turn up. Ah well, guess it's more tuna tonight instead. how shall I manage! I don't know, but manage I shall. Somehow.


Until tomorrow. I don't know if I'll have a Tortureshell though. Too risky if I wanna be sure of getting gifts. I'll bide my time till January. Um, I mean I'll never have a Tortureshell again, Mr Santa. Never!

Saturday Stuff

Yet again, it's been a while since we blogged. The human says she's feeling less driven to write lately, because we're not sure how many peoples are reading us any more. I've explained to her the fact that it's a vicious circle. If she doesn't write down my dictations every day when I give her them, peoples are going to read us less. She displays her stupidity with worrying regularity, does she not?

Well, it seems as though the competition has been a resounding flop. One cat is interested in the give away so far. To be honest, this one even took me aback. I was expecting that, like every other competition on the CB, we'd have lots of entrants.

The human and I have been thinking about this a lot over the last week, and have come to a reluctant conclusion, which we'd love to have proved wrong. It seems as though others visit blogs to look at pictures rather than to read what's written there. Wordless Wednesday is a classic example of this. Puss-Puss
also seems to be coming up against the same problems. She is one of the most wise cats I have ever come across. She studies peoples behaviour and offers insights that I, even after living with peoples for all of my life, haven't considered. Yet, since Whicky's post on the CB about her drew readers, I've been the only one to go visit her and leave comments on a regular basis. Is it coincidence that she often posts no pictures either?

My human says I'm starting to sound whiney. I resent that comment, because everybody knows that it's Dogfaces that whine, not us more sensible cats. For her sake more than yours, I'll clarify (we cats understand how it is, so I'm sorry I have to take a moment to spell it out for her slower brain). I am not saying that other peoples and cats leaving comments defines whether I will continue blogging or not. It's just that it's nice to know that writing is appreciated, that's all. I was considering having a CB event encouraging all of you to post one post which tells a story without pictures, but I tried that with my Tortureshell, and it had one participant for one week. I guess pictures are just the way to go.

Anyway, enough of my self pity. I have some exciting news. This is all very hush hush at the moment, but we could be having a celebrity guest star on here very soon, who has tentatively agreed to having a regular slot. When I say celebrity, she's a celebrity only to certain peoples, namely one Bug. You'll have to keep your eyes peeled for more information though. I'm bound to say no more until contracts have been finalised, and treat fees discussed and agreed. Oh, I hope she's not too expensive! I love my Dreamies too much to part with lots of them.

My human has the day off the work hunt today, which I'm loving. It meant we got to stay in bed much longer this morning. She's put a new blanket on there too, so it's really cosy and warm now.

We had another trip to the vet peoples yesterday. Dogface had to go for her hydro, and I needed to have a scan to see about those kittens. I decided that I would cooperate this time. It was the vet man people who saw me when I stayed in hospital. He was the one who got me better enough to go home though, so I guess he's not quite as bad as the others. I stayed nice and still for him, and even tenderised his arm a bit with my claws, to show my affection, you know? Well, I can't have him thinking I'm a totally easy patient. It gives them a false sense of their own importance, makes them think they can get away with more than they have a right to.

The worst bit about those scans is the horrible gel stuff they put on my yummy tummy. Even though this vet man people was good enough to clean most of it off, he's nowhere near as thorough as we are. They never quite manage to get it all, and I'm forced to do it myself. It tastes yucky, and feels nasty when it's on my fur. There's always something unpleasant about going to the vet, isn't there?

As it turns out, I do not have kittens in my tummy, but am continuing to produce milk. Oh, I do so love playing games with my human. It keeps my days interesting. The vet peoples say it's because my hormones are probably all over the place from when I was with my man friend. Honestly though, if you other ladycats had seen him, your hormones would be in a whirl as well. He's quite the handsome picture. Why do peoples feel the need to state the obvious? It's hardly rocket science that I'd still be thinking about him.

The Admiral
would be quite proud of me, I'm sure, for I sang my heart out both on the way there and on the way back. I did Christmas songs. I did old old favourites like Three Blind Mice, I did classical opera, and when I got really frustrated, I sang "Tia Claws are Coming to Town" right into my human's face through the bars of the PTU. In her usual thick-headed way though, she took no notice, and just asked me to be quiet. I also took no notice. The human is not to be listened to when she is in one of those "what I say goes" moods. It's not good for her to have these delusions of grandure attended to as though they were true.

So, we're back at home. Dogface is sleeping as usual, I am thinking about sleeping and the human is tippy-tapping away, for once, being a good secretary. Happy Saturday to you all, and happy winning on the competition... Hopefully.

Female Friday

Well, there's big news today... Or maybe big news. It has to do with my vet visit.

So, the human went to the work hunt as usual this morning, and she says she had a very, very busy day. She had some products arrive to show her patients, and there were lots of them which meant a lot of unpacking for her. When she got home, she was, as usual, tired. She knew she had to take me and Dogface to the vet though, so she didn't even try to go to sleep like she usually does.

She was proud of herself cuz she managed to get a sample of the fluid that was coming from my infection on a piece of gauze so that they could have a look at it and see what colour it was. When it was my turn to be looked at, the human showed them the stuff, but it had no colour! They couldn't find any lumps or bumps or anything, and everybody was very, very confused. My human had to show them the place that she could feel under the skin. Her fingers are really good at finding small places. Eventually, they managed to find a little hole in my skin, and when they touched it, the fluid came out! It was white. The vet was a bit perplexed, cuz there was nothing to indicate that I was holding fluid. She asked if I had had my ladygardenectomy, and when the human told her no, she got very excited.

She flipped me over and had a look at my, oh, the word is not one for a ladycat to say! I'll call them what my human's cousin called them when she was just a very small peoplekitten. They looked at my nimples! I say they cuz there was a nurse there too who was good at tickling me. Even though she was good at it, I didn't like them touching my nimples. My human can do that, but only cuz I trust her.

Anyway, all the other nimples were producing the same white stuff, although in lesser quantity. The vet lady people flipped me up the right way again and had a feel of my tummy. She says she could feel something hard in there that definitely wasn't a full bladder or poopoo. She said she thought I might be pregnant.

My human got all excited then too and made her voice go all high and squeaky and surprised. The vet lady people and the nurse took me off for a scan after that, but I'd had enough. I know that when they take me away from the human they're going to do horrid things to me like collect my poo and steal my furrs and my blood, so I just wriggled and wriggled and wriggled. The end result was that they couldn't tell if I had a kitten in my tummy or not. If you ask me, that's the way it should be. Don't these vet peoples thhink that a cat deserves privacy? I know the answer. When they stoop to collecting poo, they don't know the meaning of the word, let alone the concept!

They wanted to put me to sleep and do a propper scan, but the human didn't want me to go through that, not when I'm just getting over mr Bug. She says she wants me away from the vet peoples and the chance of infection because my immune system is still recovering.

So we know at least that I don't have an infection. The hole is an inverted nimple apparently, so the human can stop worrying. Now all that remains to be seen is whether or not I have a kitten in my tummy. The human is going to take me back again when Dogface goes next Friday, just to let someone else have a feel of my yummy tummy cuz by that point I will be five weeks pregnant and they will be able to tell better by feeling if I have any babies in there. She doesn't think she's gonna let them do the sleepy scan on me as long as I'm still acting as though I'm well.

She phoned the lady people who is owned by my man friend to tell her. The lady people was very surprised and says that she really doesn't think me and the man friend got, ah, friendly. I'm not saying whether we did or not. A gentle ladycat never kisses and tells! You're just going to all have to wait and see.

Apologies

Yes, they are needed. That human of mine is slacking on the blog front! She says it's cuz she's so tired. After having two weeks of being sick, she says she's not used to going back to the work hunt and working hard, long, busy hours to get the moneys for my food. I tell her it'll be Ok, she'll get used to it soon. She says she always intends to blog for me when she gets home, but by the time the evening comes, she's so tired that she usually falls asleep on the sofa with me for company. When she wakes up, it's time for bed, so she doesn't have time to use the computer. Today I've made her type for me before she starts snoring.

Nothing terribly exciting has happened around here, sept that I got a new nip toy! This one is a mousie with a very, very long tail. He's fun to bite and kick and throw, but only for a little while. He's not the carrot, but he's a reasonably good substitution.

Dogface is doing Ok. She hasn't been sick or anything since we got her back from the vet peoples. My tummy thing isn't doing so good though. The human thinks I have an infection from where they put the line in to give me fluids. Under my right armpit sometimes gets very wet and there's pus there. It only happens about once every two days or so, and it never gets swolen in between. The human can't feel any lumps or anything under my skin. She actually thought I was dribbling on myself the first time it happened. That would explain my furs getting wet. Dribbling? Does she think I'm old or unclean or something? I, don't, dribble! The nerve of some humans! The only reason she worked out what it was was because when she was stroking me, my fur went from dry to wet right under her fingers. That soon shut up her talk about dribbling. Dribbling!

She has to take Dogface back to the vet peoples on Friday for her hydrotherapy, so she says that I can take a trip with her then to get checked out. The infection isn't causing me any pain that she can see. It definitely isn't stopping me whapping my ping pong balls around anyway! For now, she's going to try and get a sample of the pus on a bit of gauze next time it decides to esplode, so that the vet peoples can see the colour of it if they need to. She has warned me that when I go to the vet they might have to do more shaving to look at my skin closely. I plan to make a token protest about that, because having my yummy tummy shaved is bad enough, without my armpits being done too! They wanna shave me, they're gonna have ta fight to steal my furs.

I think it is my friend Hestorb who sings all the way to the vets whenever her people takes her. I've decided to try this this time in the car. If you have any requests for favourite songs, get them in now and I'll do my best to work them into my repertoire!

Thoughtful and Tired

I'm the thoughtful one. The human is the tired one. She says she needs a holiday after all this sickness. She just can't seem to get her strength back, and is sleeping a lot. It's Ok though. I don't mind. I help her sleep.

We didn't blog yesterday, but that was for a good reason. We are so sick of telling you about sad things, and there was more sadness yesterday, well, on Friday actually. The human said she wasn't going to blog again until she had something reasonably good to tell you. Late late on Friday night, well, just after she came back from hydro, actually, Dogface's runny poo bum returned. Later that night, she started to be sick, and threw up six times in twenty minutes. The human just burst into tears. It was all over the carpet, everywhere. Dogface doesn't stand still when she pukes, you see, and it was so late and the human was so tired of all this that she just hung her head and asked herself if she could cope with any more. Then she got down on her hands and knees to find the puke.

This is no fun when your eyes are broke. I know because I've watched her clean a lot over the last few weeks. She has to get dirty before she can get clean. What I mean is that her hands have to touch the puke so that she knows where to wipe. She has a weak stomach too, so she ended up adding to the mess herself. I felt quite sorry for her, but my paws aren't built for holding peoples wipey things, so I just watched and stayed well out of the way.

The human tried to call the on-call person at Guide Dogs for help, but conveniently, bearing in mind it was a Friday night, his phone went straight to answerphone. So the human took matters into her own hands and called the pet ambulance. We couldn't go in a taxi because Dogface kept throwing up, and there was nobody else to help. She was stupid once by accepting a car ride to the vet with a stranger, but at that time of night, she knew she couldn't risk it.

The human put me in the bedroom then, cuz she didn't want me walking through the puke and getting re-infected. I heard the ambulance manpeople arrive, and when he saw the human and the state she was in, he agreed to help her clean the kitchen floor which was also flooded in puke, when she asked him for help. Thank you, nice ambulance manpeople!

They took Dogface to the vet, and she was almost puking all the way there. When they took her temperature, some runny poo even came out on the thermometer, so the human was surprised Dogface hadn't gone on the floor in the vet's office. Needless to say, they kept her in.

We've only just got her home, and the human is frustrated. As soon as she got there, the symptoms disappeared. It's very weird. If we got sick as soon as we came home, then took a day or two to get better at the vets, the human would think that it was something in the house making us sick, but we don't do that. We are fine for all different amounts of time when she brings us home, then we get sick, then clear up straight away when she brings us to the vet. I do it because I don't want them to poke and prod me, and am smart enough to realise that if I don't show them runny poo, they won't do much. But to imply that Dogface is just as smart is ludicrous! Everyone knows Dogfaces are stupid. So there's gotta be another reason.

The human is starting to think that the vet peoples don't believe her any more when she brings us in, but she says she's going to keep going anyway if and when it's serious. For now, Dogface is sleeping very, very deeply on her bed, an I am indignant. I have a small spot on my tummy that is oozing pus from time to time, so the human has decided to bathe it in salt water. Do you have any idea how disgusting that stuff is to lick off? Well, she obviously doesn't! She even syringes it on so it gets right the way down into my furs and against my skin. That means an awful lot of extra work to rid myself of it! Human, you are a pain in the neck!

She also through my catnip carrot in the bin. I can't believe she did this! She says it's soft, furry and gets damp when I chew on it, so she's worried it could be harbouring the bug. It gets thrown around the floor, so if that's where it's living, it's a good place for it if it jumps onto the carrot. My cube and tunnel went too. I don't really care about the tunnel, and she says she has more cubes in the special room where Mummycat used to live, but I can't have one until I'm all better and Dogface has stopped trying to ruin the carpets, and the human's stomach! I still have my ping pong balls though, so it's not all bad.

The human goes back to the work hunt tomorrow. I think I'm really going to miss her. She's been my constant companion for the last few weeks, after all. I guess I need to battle on with it though. After all, my food is important, and so are her moneys!

Finally Friday

The human loves Fridays because they mean that the next two days are days she doesn't have to go to the work hunt. So you can imagine my confusion today when she said "Oh, it's Friday. That means I get to go back to work on Monday!" What? I was confused. How could she change her mind like that? She says it's because she's had too much time at home, but all I can do is shake my head. Peoples are so inconsistent!

I'm secretly glad that she's considering going back to the work hunt though. Even though I know she was staying at home to look after me and get well herself, it's a bit of a worry that she hasn't gone in in ages. The longer she stays at home, the less moneys she will have to swap for my foods at the place where they take the moneys.

I didn't make the human post for me yesterday cuz there isn't really much to say. We're all just sleeping a lot. Dogface has managed to stay awake a little today, but me and the human make our eyes shut every time we snuggle.

The human is also a little worried today. She thinks my runny poo has come back. She's not sure because it's so liquid that it just soaks straight through the litter so she doesn't know if it's pee or poo. I'm too polite to answer the question when she asks me which it is. I'm Ok though. I'm not obviously dehydrated or anything, so I've told her just to wait and see how things progress. She's watching me very, very closely though.

Yesterday was the last time I got stinky wet food. The human says she was only giving me it cuz it's easier to digest and that I don't need it any more. I disagree though. It's so much nicer than the dried stuff. I am going to work on her and see if I can get any more out of her, but after the last fiasco with the home made chicken and turkey, she says she's not in a rush to cook up anything fancy. Who knows. I might get fish tonight!

We're in for a quiet weekend, I hope. There is a lot of strange howling outside the house which the human says is wind. It's a bit spooky late at night, and I'm kinda glad I don't have to go out in it. The human says it's very strong, and that if I went out it might even blow me over. The wind must be a very, very big thing! I don't think I'll go meet him until I get my strength back up.

Stupid Dogface has her fifth session of hydro tonight. The human doesn't want to go out of the house, but she knows she has to. She's been groaning about it ever since she remembered the hydro was tonight. That's what she gets for owning a stupid Dogface! She saw Dogface's bones vet when the human picked us up from hospital. He said that he didn't see a need to retire her, but Guide Dogs disagree. The human has a suspicion that they're retiring her more because she walks funny than because she's uncomfortable. It's bad PR for them to have a dog out that is less than perfect, and they know it. She talked to the HG about this, and the HG told her stories about her own experience with Guide Dogs that confirmed her suspicions. If the human didn't think Molly was going to a super home, she'd fight the retirement, but she knows Molly will be happier as a pet anyway, so she's going to let them think they've won this time.

Sensibly, she says she doesn't know if she'll ask for another Dogface once this one goes. She wants to see if she can manage without one. They're a big commitment, and if she can cope without making that, she's decided she will.

In any case, enough about Dogfaces. This blog is about me! I think I'm going to send some pictures in for the CB calendar. I'd kinda like to be a calendar cat. It would go with my top model show career after all, wouldn't it? Hopefully I'll get to go on April's page, cuz that's when my birthday is. Watch this space!