We got Freya’s biopsy results today, and everything looks good. The pathologist found no sign of cancer, so that’s a huge relief. The inflammation also appears to be a recent change — no sign of scarring, which apparently would have made it harder to get Freya back to 100%. So that’s good news.
For now, Freya will stay on one Prednisone twice a day, but we’ll take her in for a follow-up visit in three weeks. At that time, Dr. Ho might reduce her dosage to 1.5 Pred a day. And at this point it’s unclear whether she’ll need to stay on Pred for the rest of her life. Maybe yes, maybe no. For her sake, I hope she can come off it eventually. She loves Pill Pockets, though, so if she has to stay on Pred forever giving it to her really isn’t a problem.
Her appetite is back in full force, too. She’s already figured out the Prednisone — or, as she thinks of it, Pill Pocket Treat — schedule, and she’s not above asking for canned food when we sit down for lunch or dinner. I’ve never been so happy to be yowled at by a cat!
Freya and the rest of the crew are having a grand time watching the wildlife take advantage of the bird feeders we set up in the back yard. Of course, Chad and I probably spend even more time watching them than the cats do. It’s neat to see what birds are flittering around stuffing their beaks, and the squirrels are just a hoot! They look so guilty when they see us catch them at the bird feeders. We have to assure them that they’re allowed to eat out of them, too, and even then the squirrels usually just grab another nibble or two before slinking away. They don’t seem too keen on the cob corn so far. We might have to try some sweet corn or peanuts instead, maybe in the window-mount feeder that the birds seem to be ignoring.
We called our vet this morning because Freya hasn’t eaten much since we got her home. Just a little canned food Thursday evening and a few bites of dry yesterday. And she isn’t simply not eating. She’s running away from the food. Set her down front of it, and she’ll take one sniff then bolt off the opposite direction. Almost like she’s scared of it.
So we’re stopping the antibiotic now and starting the Prednisone tonight. As much as we’d all like to keep Freya on the Biomox for the full week as originally planned, Dr. Ho is concerned that it’s suppressing her appetite — and right now the most important thing is that she eats.
Everything I’ve ever heard from anyone who’s had a pet on Prednisone is that they pork up fast, so here’s hoping it gives Freya back her appetite.
Another one of Freya's favorite sleeping spots
For her part, Freya’s been happy and sweet all day. She slept in the bedroom with us last night, either curled up on the pillow above Chad’s head or curled up on the bed next to my chest. Thankfully we’re not allergic to cats, because those are her two favorite places to sleep. Well, when we’re there. When we aren’t, it’s on whatever piece of furniture is in front of the TV. At the moment, that’s the futon. When we need to find her, that’s where she is.
Well, until we got the bird feeders set up.
Around here, we refer to bird feeders as kitty TV. It only gets one channel, but the cats love it. Our last house was surrounded by woods, so we didn’t need bird feeders. Our yard was always full of squirrels, birds, chipmunks, and other wildlife. Well, except when the foxes were in residence.
This house is a different story. We’ve got some trees, but very few birds have made a habit of stopping by since we’ve moved in. And we haven’t seen any squirrels. “Get bird feeders” has been on our to-do list since we signed the contract for this place, so today we headed out to A.B. Seed at the Piedmont Farmers Market to get some. We’re not really bird watchers, but we asked my father- and brother-in-law last week, and they both recommended black oil sunflower seed and thistle. We picked up three different bird feeders — one that looks like a lantern, a clear one that mounts to a window with suction cups, and a thistle sock — and a squirrel feeder that takes cob corn. We also got a bag of thistle seed and a wild bird mix that’s mostly black oil sunflower seed, saffron, and pecans. We mounted the clear feeder to the French doors that open onto the deck, and put the rest of the feeders in various spots around the deck. Eventually we’ll either add more feeders or move some of these to different spots around the yard. The key is to arrange things so the birds and squirrels are easily visible from the windows and French doors.
As we finished setting everything up, we turned around to see a furry face right smack at eye level with the feeder mounted to the French doors. Freya, ready for the show to start. And wondering why it hadn’t already.
Those of you who follow me on Twitter have heard some of this, but I thought I’d do a full blog post to bring everyone up to speed on Freya.
Freya doing what she does best -- and most
About a year ago, our cat Freya started looking skinny — the same kind of skinny that our cat Adwen started looking about a year before we lost her to kidney failure. So we took Freya to our vet, Dr. Cecilia Ho at Cat Care Hospital, to get things checked out. Freya’s blood tests and urinalysis came back fine, but she was a little underweight. Probably from getting older, Dr. Ho said. It happens. Freya’s at least twelve, and as cats get older they get less interested in eating and more interested in sleeping, so they lose weight. To counteract that, we started feeding Freya extra meals and, eventually, even gave Freya canned food twice a day in addition to her regular dry. That helped, but whenever she’d start looking a little skinnier than I liked, we’d haul her in to the vet for a weight check and, if necessary, blood work and a urinalysis to make sure everything looked okay.
I knew we were being cautious. But I don’t have a problem being cautious when it comes to my cat’s health. When we adopted them, I accepted a responsibility to care for them, and I take that responsibility seriously.
Because of all this with her weight and extra feedings, we decided to board Freya with our vet while we were in New York last week instead of making our pet sitter come over 4+ times a day to feed her. Not to mention that if anything went wrong, Freya would be right where she needed to be to get healthy.
I’m glad we did.
Nothing bad happened while we were gone, really, but either Dr. Ho noticed Freya looked a little thin or she automatically weighs all her feline boarders. However it happened, she discovered that Freya had lost several ounces since we brought her in for a weight check last month. Now, “several ounces” might not sound like a lot, but when you only weigh 8 or 9 pounds, it’s a pretty significant percentage of your body weight. Dr. Ho did another blood panel, and this time Freya’s white blood cell count was high. Not life-threateningly high, but enough to be a concern, and enough to warrant further tests. Dr. Ho’s suspicion: inflammatory bowel disease. (Yes, cats can get IBD, too.) My fear: cancer.
(They also checked Freya’s thyroid, which looks fine.)
We picked up Freya from boarding Tuesday morning. We took her back for an endoscopy on Thursday. In that time, she’d lost another 7 ounces, taking her to just under 8 pounds.
I did have to smile when we brought Freya into the office and the vet tech said, “Freya! I’ve missed you!” She’s that kind of cat. Come to my house, sit on the couch, and Freya will curl up right next to you wanting to be petted. But she isn’t bossy about it — well, not really. If you start petting her and stop before she’s ready, she’ll grab your hand lightly with the tips of her claws and pull it back. But if you don’t pet her, she’ll just fall asleep. She’s easy-going that way. She purrs at the slightest touch. And she gets along great with everybody — which is pretty much how our vet described how she was during her boarding stay.
The scope apparently went well. Freya’s esophagus and stomach look fine, but she has a few pink patches on the walls of her small intestine. Dr. Ho said that’s what they’d expect to see with IBD. If it was cancer, it’d be bright red all over the place. So that’s a good sign. And her Pyloric sphincter wasn’t swollen at all, which is a common problem in IBD cats that causes more trouble. So, good news there.
They did take biopsies, and those are at the lab now. We’ll get the results Monday or Tuesday. Hopefully they completely rule out cancer.
For now, Freya’s on Biomox (amoxycillian) twice a day for the next week, to help her heal from the biopsies. On Monday, we start her on Prednisone twice a day “indefinitely.” Which basically means for the rest of her life, although Dr. Ho is starting her on a very high dose and will work her down to what works best for her.
I’m just hoping that “for the rest of her life” is a very, very long time. Years. Like a dozen or more.
I also hope that the Prednisone perks up her appetite, because I haven’t been able to get her to eat for anything today. Not dry, not canned. All she wants to do is curl up on the futon in the den and sleep. (Which really isn’t that out of the norm for her, anyway.)
I’ll keep everyone posted on Freya’s progress and the results of the biopsies. Thanks to everyone for your good thoughts and encouraging words.
P.S. I just went down to the den to check on Freya. She’s still asleep on the futon, but she had rolled over to face the other direction. High activity for her, lately!
It was his father’s fault. Dragging him to auctions and estate sales. Wedging him between boxes in the backseat on the way home. Infecting him with the stench of cotton rag and printer’s ink. Stuart’s fate had been sealed before he could talk. His father had trapped him in this business.
Each morning Stuart made the two block trek to the newspaper shop on Lee Street. The newsstand owner tied one of each city’s paper in a bundle when he sorted them, to save Stuart the trouble of pulling them from the shelves. Not that it was really worth it, but Stuart paid the extra two bucks for the man’s trouble anyway. Stuart took the same route back home, sometimes stopping for a cup of coffee and danish at a diner that changed management so often Stuart didn’t bother to learn names anymore. Not for the people who worked there, and not for the diner itself.
Stuart never untied the newspaper bundle until he got home. He settled in the recliner he’d positioned as close to the east window as he could, a vain attempt to make the task seem more cheerful than it was, then cut the twine and picked up the first paper. Pulled out the classified section and tossed the rest aside. Glanced at the Auctions and Misc for Sale columns, then moved on to his bread and butter — estate sales.
He lived like a vulture, picking scraps from corpses, selling them to the highest bidder to stay alive.
No one needed to bring a gift. The bride brought music. The groom brought words. And a lifetime apart had brought china and linens and two very nice toasters.
But nothing lasts forever, and wedding guests feel awkward showing up empty-handed. So each brought a box as covered with ribbons and bows on the outside as it was empty within. The best man directed each guest to the study at the top of the house, a room that only existed when it was needed. Boxes replaced books on the shelves that circled the study, spilling onto the floor like miniatures of Pisa’s tower. When the last spot was taken, the maid-of-honor shut the door. The room folded in on itself, collapsing into a wall remarkable only for the small, gold keyhole where a doorknob would have been, if there had been a door to warrant one.
As the years passed and the china broke, or the linens wore thin, or the toasters burnt out, the groom unlocked the room, unwrapped a box, and placed the worn-out whatever inside. The bride rescued the card from the crumpled paper at her husband’s feet and wrote a note of her own to the name penned inside.
By the time the guest received the thank you note, the china was unchipped, the linen was thick and soft, and the toaster was warming slices of bread to a perfect brown in the kitchen. And the box was torn at the seams, folded flat, and placed carefully in the rubbish bin for someone to take it away.
One of my favorite places to visit in Greensboro is the Natural Science Center. So on Sunday Chad and I headed out there to catch Sea Monsters in 3D at the NSC’s OmniSphere Theatre and to watch the tiger feeding.
The tiger feeding was first. When we got there, Kisa, the female, was napping on top of the tall rock structure in the covered area of the tiger enclosure, and her brother, Axel, was pacing back and forth along the fence. Sometimes as Axel passed one of the two glass-walled viewing areas, he’d stop and look at someone inside, or rub his head against the glass. He did that to the fence once, too, right in front of where I was standing.
As soon as they heard their keepers’ vehicle coming up the path, though, Kisa bolted upright and scurried down the rock wall. Axel stopped wandering and bee-lined for a spot at the front of the enclosure, Kisa right on his heels. Like a house cat who hears a can opener, these tigers knew it was time to be fed!
We’ve seen the keepers at NSC feed the gibbons before — they put food, fruit, and treats in empty cereal or popsicle boxes, then lean them against the fence around the enclosure so the gibbons have to work to get the tasty bits — but I wasn’t sure how they would handle the tiger feeding. Obviously they couldn’t go inside the fence with the tigers to offer them a steak, so, what? Fling hunks of meat over the top?
It’s actually much more clever than that and, like with the gibbons, is designed to stimulate them intellectually. The keeper takes ground up meat — as the keeper on the video explains, all parts of an animal ground up — and forms it as a ball at the end of a long, plastic tube. Then she sticks the meat ball through the fence, and the tigers eat it. The keeper goes to different spots along the fence, and even offers some of the meat higher so the tiger has to reach up to get it. Chad and I were about ten feet from the tigers — on the other side of a second fence that visitors aren’t allowed to cross for safety reasons — and as cool as it is to see the tigers do that on the video, it’s even more impressive in person.
One keeper fed the tigers while a second keeper told us a bit about them and answered questions. For example, I’ve always felt bad for the tigers because they pace along the fence. I thought they were bored. Turns out, they aren’t pacing. They’re trying to be close to people. Kisa and Axel were bottle-feeders. Their mother was rescued from someone in Ohio who wasn’t taking proper care of her or the other big cats he had. She gave birth to Kisa and Axel after arriving at a big cat rescue in Mebane, NC, but was too sickly to nurse them. The people at the rescue hand-raised Kisa and Axel until they were too big to be safe with people. Not that they would purposely hurt anyone, as the keeper explained. Just that as much as it hurts for a house cat to scratch you while playing, it’s much worse when the cat is a 400-pound tiger. But as a result of being bottle-feeders, Kisa and Axel want to be close to people, which is why they spend so much time walking along the fence. Because that’s where the people are.
What’s really interesting, for me at least, is that Kisa and Axel’s mother was rescued in Ohio six years ago. Chad and I were living in Ohio at the time, and I remember the news reports about tigers being seized from a private owner — and the pictures of the property. My heart broke when I saw them. But, although Kisa and Axel’s mother has since passed away, it’s heartwarming to know that she and her cubs got a second chance, and kind of exciting that it was here, where I now live.
Around the 3:30 mark on this video, you’ll see what looks like a fight break out between Kisa and Axel. Yes, I jumped. Everyone did. It was more than a little startling. But the keeper explained that they were just playing, much like house cats wrestle and play fight with each other. And, sure enough, a couple minutes later Kisa and Axel were laying down next to each other, not a growl to be heard.
In fact, when one of the keepers tried to get Kisa to “stalk” her along the fence — a type of play they do with Kisa so she’ll go inside easier at night, and without which she dawdles like a dog because she wants to stay out and play — Kisa and Axel completely ignored her. They were happy to stretch out next to each other in the mud and sun, occasionally licking the fence where a meat ball had been shoved through.
We also learned that Kisa paints. The keepers put non-toxic, washable kids’ paint on the floor inside a room and let Kisa walk and lay down in it. Apparently she likes the cool, slippery feel of the paint. Then the keepers let Kisa into a second room that has paper spread all over the floor. As she walks across the paper, lays down and rolls around, she creates artwork that the NSC later auctions to raise money to buy toys for the tigers.
Axel doesn’t like to paint, so they don’t make him. And if Kisa ever decides she’s done being an ar-teest, they won’t force her to continue.
All said and told, the feeding and talk took about 20 minutes, so Chad and I had plenty of time to walk around the Natural Science Center before the OmniSphere showing of Sea Monsters in 3D: A Prehistoric Adventure. But this post has already gotten much longer than I intended, so I’ll wait to tell you about that another time.
Oh, and obviously what the tigers ate during the feeding wasn’t all they get each day. The keepers feed them the bulk of their food inside in the evening. This feeding is just something the NSC does to keep the tigers intellectually stimulated. So don’t worry! These guys get plenty to eat and are actually at optimum weight for tigers of their breed and age.
Note: Today’s 100 Words was inspired by the board game Castle Panic. If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend it. Especially if you like cooperative games.
If you have played Castle Panic, this situation should seem very familiar. And you’ll probably be cursing the Troll King just as much as we do when he shows up!
A boulder bounced down the hill and smashed into a wall just east of Callum and Syrine, the fourth such attack the Troll King’s minions had lobbed at Ferrin Castle. Each stone had breached the castle’s walls, and each had been followed by a goblin brigade or a phalanx of orcs. Only the skill of Callum’s archers and the bravery of his knights had held the monsters at bay.
The stonemasons’ brick and mortar had long since run out, but men still scrambled to repair the breach with whatever rubble they could find.
Wasted effort, Callum thought. The advancing hordes would make short work of the repairs. The masons would do better to grab a sword or pike and ready themselves to defend the castle and those inside.
Two walls remained standing: the north tower wall, afforded the natural protection of Adalende Bay, and the wall on which Callum now stood, fortified against attack as soon as Callum heard of the Troll King’s march.
A blind woman and two guys with Mets baseball caps took the last three seats when the bus stopped at Penton, so Adele had been obligated to stand for the last 257 miles. She stayed in the back, pushing herself as flat against the wall as she could when one of the other passengers lurched down the aisle toward the bathroom. They walked past Adele without looking her way, without even twisting sideways to avoid her.
Adele could have sat in the bathroom, she supposed, with the door locked and the “occupied” flag shooing everyone away. But the toilets on Greyhound buses were filthy when not serviced regularly, and this one hadn’t seen more than a re-stocking of toilet paper since Tuscaloosa.
When the driver pulled into the Charlotte station, the other passengers pulled bags and purses from under their seats, stepping into the aisle when a gap in the column allowed. Adele hung back. No one spoke as they crowded toward the door, everyone more tired than patient.
Jakub inherited everything from his father. His dark eyes and stubby fingers. The little house in Stare Mesto, with the front room that his father had turned into a restaurant. Even the recipes that kept the place popular enough that Jakub could hire another cook and a girl to wait tables.
He’d inherited the gold-filled fusee pocketwatch that his father had carried throughout Europe while he collected those recipes. And he’d inherited the curse that came with it.
Every fall, as the chill retreated in a welcome respite to all but him, Jakub hid in his rooms, lips cracked and torn by a thousand arachnid legs, screams muffled by a thousand swollen abdomens, jaws stretched wide to let them pass.
Babi Leto. Those weeks in September when the days were warmer than the calendar should have allowed. Those weeks when Jakub locked the watch in a steel-strapped trunk, and locked that trunk in the restaurant’s storeroom, and prayed it would help.
A Navy peacoat dwarfed the girl who tapped Theodore Grayson on the shoulder, the hem at her knees and the sleeves swallowing her hands to the fingertips. “May I borrow your phone?”
The girl’s voice was as small as she was, but her eyes were huge. Like Grayson’s daughter. Her eyes had been like that.
“Harris, I’ll call you back, okay?” Grayson thumbed the phone off and handed it to the girl.
“Thank you.” She paced as she dialed, looking back at Grayson every few steps. But she kept her back to him once she started talking, and try as he might Grayson couldn’t make out more than a few words.
The call lasted less than a minute. As slowly as the girl had moved away from Grayson, she took even longer to walk back. “I’m sorry,” she said as she handed him the phone. “I’m so, so sorry.”
