BUZZ BUZZ Once There Was...

( Visas wants to tell you something. )

Friday's strip. So, my apologies to those of you seeing this twice on your buddy list.

SHE's HOME! It's not pretty, but the Doctors assure me that she's doing better than usual, that her face hair WILL grow in, that the bruising will pass, and that the swelling will go down.

( Under )

Thank you for all your kind wishes! I'm gonna go and feed her some more gooey food. :D

i stayed up til 10:30 b/c i didn't wanna take Visas' food away too early. she can't eat after midnight tonight. (well, after i go to bed, b/c i'm not waking up just to take the food away.) She goes in to get her little eyeballs removed. To be fair, they're not really 'eyeballs' so much as 'squishy bits that can't clean themselves properly and so get infected and smell of toe jam.'

It kinda helps to think of it that way. I still feel like a monster on principle.

"Yes, Hello! My name is Sarah, and I paid people lots of money to take out my cat's eyes!"



She'll be home by tomorrow night though. Home and safe. And hopefully without her eyelids shaven and sewn shut.... I haven't wanted to think too hard about what she's gonna look like 'post-op.' PLEASE let them use fancy surgical glue. Eye-stitch kitten would make me cry.

I "had Thursday off."

I KNOW i did. My calendar tells me so. and yet... i've not managed to do ONE damn thing i promised i would do with my spare time today! Except for one thing: Getting Berlioz and Visas Murr to the vet.

Kitty report!

Visas Murr:
1. NEGATIVE for feline Leukemia and other badness! yaaay! she's being socialized with my other cats now.

2. Her eyes are MUCH less swollen, but her inner eye-lid is still tightly closed over the fairly deep sockets. So the doctor still can't tell me what's up with her peepers. We'll finish up the course of eye-goo treatments and try again on the 15th of July. Maybe she will have not only ceased the swelling thing (this is going well) but also OPENED her eyes all the way (not so likely.)

3. IF we cannot see that other eye, the Doc (who's a general practice small animals vet) wants to send me to a kitty optomologist. Not that Visas will get glasses or anything, but the doc feels that what we're looking at is microphthalmia-- where the eyes of a kitten are unformed or undersized, but there ARE lumps of flesh present that could be eyes. ANOphthalmia is the more severe form, and there would be no eyes. But yes. With microphthalmia, there can be painful complications (depending on the level of development the eyes have.) The optomologist would be better able to tell me if Visas' tear ducts are completely functional, if she would be prone to infections, or if she's going to have problems with detaching retnas, slipped lenses or other badness.

4. Visas is gaining weight in a healthy, steady way.

5. She's alert and playful...and likes to climb. She's better at UP than DOWN.


Berlioz

1. Got his rabies vaccine and a clean bill of health.

2. Needs a tooth cleaning, since he's up to his eyeballs in tartar (metaphorically of course) and has a bleeding spot on his tooth. Kitty may need a filling.

3. He's also overweight. Officially. I've been advised to switch to a lower-calorie cat food. Which is of course, more expensive. *sigh* it's like people food. If it's good for you? it's PRICEY. but i know looking at Yzma, SHE could stand to lose some weight too. so I'm resigned to dumping more $$ on catfood.






There are pictures. They're on my computer. and One of the 500 things that I just didn't have time for today was to resize them so i could post them either on photobucket or in a gallery here on Livejournal or something.

Things that remain un-done:

1. kitty pictures.
2. rpg forum posting.
3. next chapter of the fanfic.
4. cleaning the downstairs bathroom.
5. vacuuming my room.
6. calling the U of B academic advisors and getting the actual list of requirements for what i WANT for my major.
7. drawing stuff for several people.
8. Tshirt design promised my friend Rachel.
9. doing more lj icons of ?! characters.

and about 20 other things that are on the to-do list on my desk... which, i'm at "the studio" ...which is just the working half of kevin's bedroom in the basement.

His nap is over! time to go back to work. i've got INKINGS to do!


See y'all!

okay. took it to the vet.

1. it's not a boy. the little flap of skin is some funky female kitty thing and boy cats have balls from birth, their testicles don't 'descend' or anything. AND i should have looked for myself instead of asking the girl if she was sure. I feel a trifle silly.

2. since it's a girl. I've named her "Visas Murr" (Visas Marr) if you watch too much star wars stuff, you know who that is. But for those of you who DON"T keep track of all the sith lords and their apprentices... Visas Marr is a beautiful woman and the last of her race. Her peope look human, but have no eyes... they perceive the whole world around them with The Force. for more info, hit google.

3. Her eyes are so swollen shut, that the vet could only see the one. Apparently the lense is horribly deformed. The vet believed it's congenital--not the result of disease or cruelty. I was given some goop that should help the swelling go down. On Thursday, i'll take her back and the vet should be able to SEE the second eye. Who knows, she may have some or all of her vision in the second eye.

4. She was MASSIVELY dehydrated. They put some fluids under her skin and instructed me to feed her moist food mashed into a gruel using the kitten formula as a liquid. Since she was so dehydrated, they couldn't take a blood sample to test her for feline leukemia and the like. Since she'll be back and hydrated by Thursday, they'll test her then. Until then, we've gotta keep her separate from the other cats. it's transmitted via 'mucus membranes' so they can't share litter boxes or food/waterdishes and shouldn't lick/bite/nose/butt touch one another. Not until Thursday, anyways.

5. She doesn't have ear mites! ... but she's got loads of bacteria. So she's got ear goop in addition to eye goop.

6. she had her first de-worming, and i've gotta give her another oral dose of the stuff in 2 weeks. They didn't find any intestinal parasites in her stool, but better safe than having 3 cats with poo-bugs.

7. She met Kevin, Kurt, Sally, Mandy, and Blue yesterday. She was a very nicely behaved young lady/sith-kitten. No one got force-choked or peed on.

8. Berlioz is taking her arrival well. He's curious, but not hostile. Yzma let her displeasure be known with a bout of hissing, but that only happened once. She's been subdued and very carefully NOT paying attention since. Kane (the white, blind husky) thinks he's got a new toy. Frankie (the long-haired black mutt-dog) thinks she's become a mommy. Given the chance, she will lick the WHOLE kitten clean.... or just sloppy-wet... "clean" is an exaggeration.

9. Visas Murr loves her food, and today, she's been a bag of wiggle. She loves to play... but we have to do it by sound. Still, she's a vigorous string-subduer when you've got a stiff bit of cord you can 'tap' on the table top. My aunt and I both think her bout of playfullness is an excellent sign.



I'll be taking pictures later this afternoon. You'll see her tonight some time.

Thank you for all the well-wishes!

okay.

So i'm walking to work and i pass this girl holding a YOUNG kitten to her chest. I remark in passing, "Nice Kitten!" She turns and says, "Do you WANT IT?!"

Apparently she got the kitten from a friend who found it in a box on the sidewalk. She loved it but lived with her boyfriend who turns out to be allergic. She was scared to take it down to the shelter b/c ...drumroll please... the kitten is blind.

How do you WALK AWAY from THAT?!

I invited her into the store and proceeded to call and beg and pester everyone i've ever known in the baltimore area that's a soft-touch for animals. I called my aunt first off, hoping that she'd agree to let me keep it. I've got the gate across my room and it's young enough that the other cats shouldn't give it shit. She wasn't there.

almost 2 hours of calls later... NO ONE wants this poor little guy! I called her back. She's hesitant. Then I say, "He's blind."

She says, "Take it home."

:D!!!!

So i've spent some time bonding with the little man. Bought him some kitten formula, fed him from a bottle. Cynlee suggested i spend some more time getting his eyes cleared out.

Thing is...?

His one eye looked like it had grown shut or just never really been open. His other was leaky and mostly closed and far too DEEP (if that makes sense) for there to be a fully formed eye in it. If you didn't look closely he just looked like he had his eyes shut most of the time.

But I took Cyn's advice and LOTS of warm-water cotton balls later... He can open both eyes. Not very far. And both his eye balls are very deep in his head and seem to be massively underdeveloped. HOWEVER! He seems happier b/c he can blink. He took to the bottle right away, spent most of the evening sleeping under my chin and actually put his head down into his water bowl and drank like a big boy just before I tucked him in.

I'll have pictures later. Promise.

He's a tan tabby with deep chocolate swirls/stripes. His chest and paws are white. His nose fur is reddish brown. He's also about as big as a face wash cloth. The girl said she thought he was about 3 weeks old. He's DEFINITELY not been fed enough, so when i take him to vet tomorrow (11am appointment!) I'll be able to ask all kinds of "how do i take care of him," "is he contaigious or was he just born deformed," and "how long before i let he and my other cats socialize?"

I've decided to call him "MURDOCK" after "Matt Murdock" the blind lawyer working in Hell's Kitchen by day and saving the world from crime, villainy, and injustice by night as the DAREDEVIL! Too many comic books, prolly. But while he's little, we can call him "Murr" and when he grows into it, he can be "Murdock." That's a fine, distinguished name for a big, loafy male cat. and i do intend to help him grow into a big, loafy male cat.