The Inner Child Keeps on Growing

Our cats are confusing us.

Bob had a bit of a limp when we went away to Wiscon and yesterday I noticed that when he jumped down from my arms he was avoiding putting his rear left leg on the ground until he'd walked about a bit. So, as pennski has an early finish today she was going to take him to the vet.

This morning Snowy walked into the kitchen making complaining noises, and favouring the same leg! I touched the side of the leg and she really wasn't happy and then proceeding to walk out of the kitchen through the hall and out the cat flap making slight growling noises. You know sometimes you pass people in the street and they seem to be angrily muttering to themselves? That's exactly what she sounded like!

So it looks like pennksi is taking two cats to the vet this afternoon...

We saw comedian Simon Amstell at the Hexagon in Reading on Friday. He was funny in parts if not hysterical, although some jokes exceeded even my low standards of taste (Mr Amstell, where I come from we don't make jokes about rape). I love what he does on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, but I think being able to see his face close up that deceptive 'little boy' charm lets him get away with stuff that you can't at a distance.

This weekend was the first weekend we have had completely alone for some weeks. And that was wonderful! There was some gardening, reading, tv (end of season one of Battlestar Galactica), food, computer games, drafting a review. Pottering stuff.

The weekend was nicely rounded off by possibly Bob's most disgusting present yet. I think I've mentioned before his tendency to munch on rabbits? Well last night he came in just as we were about to go to bed, with a disembowled rabbit in his mouth; seriously the head was whole, but all of the fur of the body was left with no insides. It was really quite grotesque. Honestly, if he'd told us he wanted a glove puppet we would have got him a glove puppet...

Tonight we have watched the first two episodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya which is, even by anime standards, completely barking (even with the video release which puts the episodes in (sort of) chronological order, which is different from the original broadcast order). It's possibly brilliant, certainly mad and we're looking forward to more!

And as the company share price continues to edge its way down, work is a bit sucky, but it's been worse. At least I'm getting my bonus this year!

Fairly good news, folks! pennski took Josie back for a checkup today as her tablets run out soon.

She is definitely showing signs of improvement and we can cut down the tablet dose. We need to take her in to have another ultrasound a month after the original, which may help them narrow down exactly what the problem is now that some of the liquid is gone.

But that's a month! Given that we originally thought she was going to last out until the end of last weekend this is smashing news.

It's nice to have some reasons for optimism once in a while.

I've got Josie back from the vets and the impression is a little more optimistic than before. Basically she could have a tumour or it could be cysts, but she has probably got weeks or even months, rather than days as we originally thought.

We've got some tablets to give her which will help bring the liquid level down and make her more comfortable. Other than that we just have to keep looking after her until there is some significant degeneration, in which case we will have to take her back for another look.

So a slightly better picture than earlier.

Thank you to everyone who passed on their good wishes.

Latest news is as good as can be expected. Willow has passed urine which means that she doesn't have total kidney failure (which would have meant it was all over) but what they don't know yet is whether the kidneys are actually removing the toxins from the system.

The blood test showed that her toxin levels are off the scale, and the scale goes up to about 46 (don't ask 46 what, I've no idea!). For there to be any sign that they are able to work normally this needs to drop down to being under 20. So they keep her on the drip and take another blood test on Monday. The bottom line is, if this number doesn't drop at all then her kidneys are not functioning as a filter at all and we will probably have to have her put down. We will get another progress report from the vet tomorrow.

What is nice to know is that she has perked up a little bit and has responded to having her face rubbed, which she wasn't yesterday. Incidentally, a big thumbs up for our local vets; our cats have had various serious illnesses over the years and the Foxcotte vets have always gone the extra mile to give the cats loving attention as well as medical treatment.

What has come out of this is that Willow has probably had dodgy kidneys all her life and this is just the crisis point. Certainly she has always been fairly quiet and drunk a lot of water.

Anyway, we should have another update tomorrow afternoon.

So, who said you couldn't herd cats?!