A Test for Indigo

I want to take Indigo to the veterinary for a new fructosimine test. Lately, she has been carrying a lot of litter about with her - between her paw pads, I suspect - even bringing it to bed at night, which is exasperating. After this had been done for three nights, the reason why the litter was clinging to her more now than before occurred to me.

If her insulin dose is no longer controlling her diabetes, it would increase the amount of glucose being released by her body through her urine, making it stickier. I have noticed recently that Indie’s water-consumption has gone up, another sign of diabetes - or, in this instance - of less control over it. She is a difficult patient from whom to draw blood, so I have been able to test her only once in the last week, but it registered a higher number than has been the case in the past.

All these symptoms indicate that her current dosage of insulin is now too low. Because she is tough to test at home, a fructosimine exam is necessary. I hope to take her in to the hospital soon.

No One's Permission

I find Sable’s progress fascinating. She has started coming up on to the bed (not while I am in it) on her own now. Previously, she did it only when Moxy was also there. It was as if he was her permission; if she saw her friend doing it, she knew it was acceptable for her, too. Now, she doesn’t need that permission.

Rather than jump up, she will risk rushing past me if I am at the computer desk and hurrying up the stairs at the foot of the bed. Yesterday, she was snoozing with her head turned away from me. I could have reached out and touched her, though of course I didn’t; I don’t want her to worry that I will try it every time she closes her eyes.

Part of her will probably always miss the outdoors. As she enters her elder years, however, the wider world will become more dangerous to her. But she grows more at ease with her inside life every day, finding her place, and thinking, ‘This is my house, too,’ and needing no one’s invitation to make herself at home.

Watching Them Watch

I always enjoy seeing the cats take an interest in their surroundings. I think of all those living with me, Moxy and Valkyrie are the most alert most often to what is going on in the neighbourhood. They love watching the birds, the dogs across the street, people going by and, sometimes, just a leaf fluttering about (that’s usually Valk).

There’s nothing like watching a cat being entertained.

The Direction of Age

It seems that I have written a great deal lately about Neville’s aging. I think it comes from keeping an eye on him and his health a little more than I do on the others. Thus, I see the changes that come rather more often to an old animal than would to a middle-aged one, who has settled into a routine arrangement with his body.

Every morning, Neville walks his slow way down the corridor to the cat-room, which I open up as I prepare everyone’s breakfasts. There, Nev eats from Millie’s hard-food bowl. She has a different kind of food than others do; she’s used to it and, while the supply that came with her lasts, she will receive that. The Nevsky seems to like it.

But many days, he stops at the bedroom, the door of which comes first to anyone walking down the corridor. He sometimes comes in and wonders where the food-bowl is. I have to re-direct him to the cat-room.

This is a slight confusion, but one nobody else suffers. Neville’s mind is still strong, I believe, but I think he can become confused if he thinks of other things than the task at hand. He handles every other chore and desire well, but I see a bit of fog creeping in at the corners of his mind. Even so, to paraphrase what I once read, dementia isn’t forgetting where the food is, it’s forgetting what it is. The delight my old lion expresses when he sees his soft-food bowl being carried to him every meal shows that he’s a ways from that stage yet.

Another Unpleasant Time for Valkyrie

Valkyrie went to the veterinary hospital today. She has been pooping liquid crap for a couple of weeks now. I haven’t taken her to the doctor sooner because in every other respect she has been well. She runs and plays, is active and alert, is eating and generally being herself. I tried eliminating different foods from her diet, as the start of food-trials to determine if one kind is causing a problem, but so far, that has not worked. And if it were something in the nutrition that is bothering her insides, then it is a sudden change, as she hasn’t been eating anything new.

She is currently eating a gastro-intestinal food which, surprisingly, she likes. It is being laced with Metamucil - or a local brand of that product, since I couldn’t find a variety of Metamucil that wasn’t flavoured. To my further surprise, Valk is eating that, too.

We will keep her on this routine for the weekend, and see if there is any improvement. Though I am pleased that she is eating the veterinary food, I have my doubts as to whether this will cure her problem.

As an aside, it was difficult to take a picture of Miss V at the hospital as she was nervously on the move the whole time.

Sources Confirm...

At the grocery store, I ran into an acquaintance who used to live in the Cosy Apartment’s building, and who remembered Sable. She was pleased that I had Sabe with me, and that she was friends with Moxy. The acquaintance told me that she recalled that Sable was a kitten at the time of a specific house-fire in town. That was in 2013, so this puts Sable’s age at twelve or thirteen, depending on how old a kitten she was at the time.

Ferals have an average life-span of six years. Sabe’s life had been extended no doubt by the food she received from the residents of the apartment building she frequented. And if she is twelve or thirteen now, she may yet live an insider-cat’s lifespan, and perhaps, with luck, when she is very old, she may let me pet her.

Too Good to Last

I have determined that, while most veterinary supplied food is detested by all cats, there are some items that everyone likes, everyone to the exclusion of the one for whom it is meant.

Neville is usually served Recovery soft-food, but others, especially Valkyrie, will consume all of it on offer if she has a chance. That I understood. But it seems that Neville’s gastro-intestinal hard-food, which I credit, at least in part, for reducing his vomiting, is a favourite of other cats, as well. I have seen Sable eating it, and now have witnessed Indigo making one of her rare excursions from the bedroom just to indulge her taste for it. I knew something was up when whole bowls-full were disappearing while I was at work: Nev doesn’t eat enough to accomplish that and, if he did, would leave half on the floor, the result of his largely toothless - though ultimately successful - attempts to eat.

I want to leave this food out, so that Neville can nibble during the day. How to keep those who don’t need it from vacuuming up the expensive delicacy in his stead is the unanswerable question.