And the winner is—

Congratulations to Reader Wil in the Netherlands for winning a signed copy of Vicki Lane’s The Day of Small Things and many thanks to everyone else who entered the drawing!

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Well, I’m $1,300 poorer but now we know a lot about Hamilton’s health.  He has good skeletal condition and no masses (X-rays), a heart in very good working order (echocardiogram), normal blood pressure (do they use a tiny cuff?), and no sign of anything in his blood (full workup).  After a daytime blood sugar curve and an overnight curve (14 total prick tests), we’ve come to the conclusion that his insulin needs have changed rather dramatically, which is apparently not uncommon in cats.  Tuesday night at the vet’s, he had another seizure-like episode but, lo and behold, his sugar had dropped to 54 and was still no higher than 84 three hours later even after eating and having some sugar water.  To put that in perspective, I have low blood sugar crashes when I get down around 69.  Poor Hammie, no wonder he was having this attacks—the cat couldn’t get up on his feet.  So now, we’ve changed the time of day he gets his insulin and cut the amount in half.  In about a gazillion years, the cut in insulin and syringe costs should make up for all these tests.  Oh, well, you can’t just ignore their ailments, can you?  At least we know he isn’t likely to die from a heart attack

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Mouse CPR

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Teeny Reviews x 2

Green Witch
Alice Hoffman
Scholastic Press, 2010
ISBN 0545141958
Hardcover

“Loss does different things to different people…I have planted a garden, reached out to my neighbors, begun to write down my story.”

It’s been a year since teenaged witch Green’s home was destroyed by the Horde, a group of terrorists who hate any kind of progress and will destroy it if they can. She’s working on rebuilding, finding and helping displaced folks, and moving forward. In particular, she seeks Heather (a school friend) and Diamond (a young man who taught her to love again). Along her journey, she meets several witchy women who teach her how to continue her path of growing after loss.

My only complaint is the book’s so short! With lines like the following, I could read several hundred pages and be content.

“Dreams are like air. They never leave you. It takes less than nothing to begin.”

Hoffman understands grace and brevity and she’s created a masterpiece in both. While this book is labeled 9-12th grade, I can see Green Witch as an excellent read for anyone dealing with loss.

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Cats have been much on my mind in recent times.  I lost my Molly back in June  ( http://www.cncbooks.com/blog/2010/06/20/the-loss-of-an-old-friend/ ) and have been bonding more with my other two furry friends, Sugar and Spice, who had, I’m ashamed to admit, taken something of a backseat to Molly.  Then, there was the relocating of Annie’s two kitties, Sassy and Trixie, to St. Augustine and the hilarity of Trixie’s initial pathological distrust—DOOM! DESPAIR!—of the porch.

Lucky, one of my brother’s two feline children, started losing weight and it was rather dramatic.  When you only weigh about 6 pounds, losing more than one is really noticeable.  We’ve found that her thyroid is out of whack and, after a month’s worth of medication, we got the report this week that she has regained a half pound.  Yay, Lucky!

Now our beloved store cat, Hamilton, is sick and we don’t know what’s going on.  Periodically, he starts to cry, as if in pain, and drags his back legs, apparently having some sort of paralysis.  Two vets are working on him and their initial thought was that he might be throwing a clot.  That doesn’t really fit the scenario of being “normal” for several days after each episode but they suggested putting him on an aspirin regimen to see if the attacks continue.

(Note: aspirin can be deadly for a cat so DON’T do this without a vet’s direction.
Don’t think Tylenol is OK either as that is definitely fatal to cats.)

Several years ago, Hamilton had surgery twice for a problem with his urethra and it was widened.  He’s had no evidence of that difficulty recurring.  He’s diabetic but is doing so well that his insulin dose was cut in half a month ago.  These new symptoms don’t appear to have any relation to his diabetes.  He had lost more than a pound in 4 weeks, not normally a bad thing in an overweight cat if the weight loss happens over 6 or 12 months but definitely alarming in such a short period; the next thought was that possibly his thyroid isn’t working correctly.  So, we did blood work.

Two days later, he had had another episode and the blood work came back normal for everything.  Now, we’re taking the next step, X-rays to see if there is a clot or some kind of mass the vets can’t feel.  Wednesday is the big day and we’re keeping our fingers crossed.  Lord knows we don’t want to get really bad news but we can’t fight this when we don’t know what “this” is.  Please, keep Hamilton in your prayers.

Sandy herself tells the tale in her blog post How Mr. Piggles Rewrote My Book on Poe’s Deadly Daughters (which, by the way, is a blog you ought to read on a regular basis if you’re into mysteries).  Animals played a significant role in the writing of the story and our own wonderful Hamilton, furry lord of  all he surveyed, was part of that.  Sandy has a great picture of Hammie on her post, a picture I have lifted so I can share it with you here.

Isn’t he just the handsomest fella?

Now go get Broken Places so you can enjoy Hamilton’s foray into fiction—not his first but certainly his most intriguing—and add Sandra Parshall to your list of must-have authors while you’re at it.

Hamilton

Hammie (our overlarge, fluffy, gorgeous Maine Coon with his own extensive fan club for those of you who never had the pleasure of knowing the big guy) moved right on in to his new home and has pretty much taken over.  Apparently, he has everybody in the house in the palm of his paw, no surprise to any of us who’ve known him the last 9 ½ years.

Hamilton

And the catnip carrot he got as a present at his farewell party?  It inadvertently led to another catnip treat falling  into the paws of the other cat who lives in the house, a cranky beast aptly named Crazy Cat.  After his initial frenzy, he then fell into the expected happy daze, a state his people have never witnessed in him before.  Perhaps there’s something to be said for the occasional stupor when you live with a Crazy Cat.