Miss Daisy's Ailment

For the last four or five years Miss Daisy has suffered from ibs.  Ibs in cats is not easy or fun to deal with.  When she has an outbreak, as I call it, she has urgent diarrhea and often doesn't make it to the litterbox.  This can go on for days, until she is horribly dehydrated.  Usually it does not go on very long, thankfully.

She's been to many many vets and finally put on steroids, sometimes in combo with antibiotics, because small intestine bacteria overgrowth goes along with the diarrhea, and those do the trick.  Her vet, on the coast, sends them during the year, but she must be seen once a year at least. Her last visit was late spring.

I thought this last bout would be her last.  She's very old now, and never was a big kitty.  She eats plenty, too much sometimes I think, too fast, but that's Miss Daisy and she keeps her optimistic nature even when really ill.  But the meds once again turned her around quickly although I had to give her fluids for a few days, her depletion was so great before the turn around.

 I hate giving her sub cu fluids.  She turns and twists, as usual, with any type of medicating attempts.  With fluids, I try to scruff her with one hand, hold her off anything solid so she can't twist, and quickly give 60 cc push fluids.  But I'm old now too, with some arthritis in my fingers, so holding her like that is not as easy as it used to be.

I had hoped to finish the School Road colony.  There is allegedly just one cat left.  The old couple trapping I thought were going to trap yesterday and I thought had left traps there tied open with food in them so it would be an easy finish.  Why not just get it done, I figured they would understand, then the two boys in my garage, the only two going back, could go home also.   But yesterday, I called them, and they had not set any traps and didn't answer later when I said I'd go do it, if I just had their friends number and address, but I didn't hear back.   I don't know what is going on.

I have seven reservations Monday and if all goes as planned five are now filled.  Things rarely go as planned, but as it stands, a mother and daughter, both feral, will be brought down from Sweet Home.  I'll pick up the last kitten needing fixed on a Lebanon street.  A stray mom who wandered up to a rural home very pregnant will be fixed and her kittens hopefully will make weight to be fixed Thursday.  And a Tangent female, left behind by someone and now cared for by someone else, will be fixed.   That leaves two openings.  For the last cat or cats at the School Road colony, if they are going to set traps, which I have not been able to determine.

Star in the back and Gemini up front, the two School Road colony boys in my garage waiting to go home.

I sure hope Star and Gemini can go home today.  They can if that last cat gets caught.  I'm not holding them beyond tomorrow however either way.  I'll take them to my barn cat placing friend otherwise..

I have no more reservations for feral fixing, after tomorrow, until mid September.

So the old couple either trap their friends remaining cat and I take the boys back, or they don't, and these two will go north.  They're already fixed.

Either way they get to move on with their lives.

Raven is making great strides but is uncomfortable in a house with so many cats, and clings to me for security.  She's quite loving and likes to be on my lap but i have a dozen other cats who want to be on my lap also.  I need to find her a good permanent home.  She's very athletic and smart.

Raven atop the frig.  She likes it up there, can watch the goings on and feel safe doing so..

Meanwhile, wildfires rage in Oregon, the largest being the Chetco bar fire down near Brookings on the south coast.  For awhile, the entire town was on Level 1 evacuation alert.   It's now exceeded 100,000 acres so is declared a Mega Fire, a declaration that allows more allocation of resources to fight it.

Here's a news report on the fire.

There are many other fires burning in Oregon too.  Smoke is often in the air from the fires when the wind blows certain ways.  At least we're not experiencing damage from a hurricane, as Texas is.  I am unable to spend time contemplating the devastation wrought by fire and flood.   If the affects are horrific on humans, think about the animals and what happens to them.   This is why I distract myself from thought of such disasters.