2004-11-01

New logo this month, this one created by the lovely Pinky. Adorable, no?

* * * Stephen King’s new book is coming out November 21st. It’s entitled Faithful : Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the 2004 Season and he wrote it with Stewart O’Nan. Now. You know I love the hell out of Stephen King. But I can’t really think of anything less interesting in this world than a book about baseball. Fuckin’ yawnsville. I’m going to break my record of buying every Stephen King book that ever comes out, I guess. * * * I’m not going to tell you to vote tomorrow, because either you are or you aren’t and me telling you to vote isn’t going to make you jump up and yell “Holy crap! She’s right! I do need to vote!” and then run out of the house to do so. But, still. You know you wanna. * * * Yesterday, our anniversary, how did we celebrate? Why, Fred took Spot to the emergency vet while I stayed home with the spud. Spot, who was on medication for ringworm, an antidepressant, and an antibiotic, was looking more and more like a zombie as the week went on. Toward the middle of the week, we realized that he didn’t seem to be eating very much, if at all, and Fred thought that was due to the fact that he’d twice caught Spot in by the food bowl and grabbed him up to give him his medicine. Fred started doing things like opening cans of tuna, putting a little in a dish and carrying it to wherever Spot was. Spot wasn’t interested, but as soon as Fred would walk away one of the other cats would dive in and gulp down the tuna. Spot also wasn’t interested in baby food either, but Miz Poo lost her mind when she smelled it, and howled until Fred gave her some. When I was cutting up raw chicken on Thursday, Spot came out from his hiding place under the couch and came into the kitchen, where he howled at me until I started giving him pieces of chicken. He ate more than I’ve ever seen him eat before – usually he’ll eat a piece or two of chicken and then go along his merry way, but he probably ate three ounces of raw chicken altogether this time. We worried about him a little and talked about him, and Fred got up every ten minutes to check on him, but we figured the medicine was just making him loopy. Fred skipped a dose of the antidepressant on Saturday and Spot perked up a little. But Sunday his color just didn’t look right, especially around his mouth and he was moving so slowly that it was painful to watch. He was visibly thinner, and he’s not an overweight cat to begin with. Fred finally decided to take him to the emergency vet and I offered to go with him, but he suggested I stay home since we had no idea how long it would take. An hour or so after he’d left, he called to tell me that the vet tech had told him Spot had a bad heart murmur – a 4 on a scale of 1 – 5. He said it was something he was born with, but that it could probably be treated. When the vet came in, she said that it was really a 3 on a scale of 1 – 6 and again, it was something he’d been born with. Now, I have a hard time believing that over the course of 9 years, 5 vets, and regular checkups, not one single person has said “Did anyone ever tell you he has a heart murmur?” I mean, come on. I made dinner for the spud and went out to get a salad from Sonic (dinner was spaghetti made with ground turkey and I cannot abide the idea of eating ground turkey. I used to eat it just fine and then one day my gag reflex kicked in and I could no longer even stand the thought of it. So when Fred and the spud have spaghetti, I get a salad from Sonic because Sonic salads are excellent and also that awful Ami mentioned the awesome Sonic ice in a thread over on the Smart and Sassy forum and I had to see what all the fuss was about, and now I’m addicted to the Route 44 Diet Cherry Limeade. Damn you, Ami!) for myself, and then I talked to my mother for half an hour or so, and the entire time I was waiting for the phone to ring and Fred to tell me that Spot had irreversible liver damage, was in horrible pain, and the vet had made it clear that someone who loved their cat would put it to sleep. But the phone never rang, and then I heard the garage door go up and I walked into the kitchen. Fred walked through the door with a handful of paper and an x-ray, and it looked for all the world like the carrier was empty, and my heart just sank. He just looked at me and then went upstairs and I looked through the pile of paper he’d left on the table and saw “enlarged heart” and “heart murmur”, but didn’t see the word “euthanasia”, so I considered that a good sign. I finished up the conversation with my mother and went upstairs to see what Fred was doing, and he pointed to Spot, and I could see that already Spot looked like he was about 100 times better. His color was much improved, and he didn’t look quite as skinny. Fred said they gave him quite a bit of fluid via IV. “So, did they figure out what was wrong with him?” I asked. “They think he was reacting to the medication,” Fred said. Well, hell. I could have told them that. So for now we need to keep him off the medication and keep an eye on him. Hopefully he’s going to be okay, though the vet did say that his heart murmur might get worse as he gets older so that’s something to keep an eye on. Oh, the kitties. How they do like to make us worry! * * * Spot in the sun. ]]>