Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Shadow

Back to normal?

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Shadow is in fine fettle. So fine, indeed, that he hopped on the kitchen counter, which he is not allowed to do. He likes drinking out of sinks, but normally, he ignores that one. I had to give him his last dose of antibiotics, which was a chore. I gave him his breakfast first. 3/4ths a (small) can of his normal wet food. He scarfed it down and then I grabbed him to dose him. Which he was not a fan of.

Side note: It is snowing. Big fat flakes gently wafting to the ground. We only got a few inches yesterday, unlike most of the state that got up to a foot (and maybe more). We got maybe three or four inches, but I’m just happy to have snow at all.

Shadow struggled as I tried to dose him, even though I had him scruffed. (Grabbing him by the back of the neck as a mother cat would, though she would use her mouth, obviously.) He was happy about second breakfast which was the rest of the small can of wet food, a tube of ground up meat, several Temptations/soft treats. I also put some salmon, but he’s no longer interested in it because it’s been a few days and it’s cold. Plus, all the juices are gone. He ate all the treats and the ground-up meat and about half of the wet food. I gave him several of the soft treats. He seems to self-regulate when he’s done eating, but he’s definitely eating much more than he normally would.

I think it’s partly because he’s ravenous from being sick, but I wonder if it’s also just that he’s not been getting enough in general. He does have a bowl of dry food from which he can free feed at any time. I’m committed to giving him more food because why not be spoiled even more in his older years?

He’s back to normal. He’s meowing when he needs something or when he just wants attention. He has a lively step that was absent when he was sick. He snuggles with me when he’s cold and fucks off when he’s had enough. Right now, he’s snuggling in one of the cubbies in the big cat tree, which is one of his favorite resting places.

It actually reminds me of when I came home from the hospital. The first few days, I was just exhausted and didn’t  want to do anything. That’s how Shadow was when I took him home from the vet. He was lethargic and didn’t really want to move. He ate a bit, but he was more interested in sleeping. That was partly because he was pumped full of drugs as I was when I came home from the hospital.

I did not have a leaky bum, thankfully. That was one thing that was under my control. Having to force liquid antibiotics down his throat every 12 hours was not fun. The first few times, he didn’t have much strength to fight it, but as he got better, the anger grew stronger.

I found the best way was to scruff him from the back and jam the syringe between his lips. One quick squirt and we were done. At least that was how it worked in theory. In reality, he would wiggle or turn his head at the last moment. I dribbled the liquid down his cheek more than once. One time, I didn’t manage to fill the syringe properly. Another time, I didn’t depress the syringe the whole way. In general, though, I got the hang of it by the last few days.


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Life is good

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It’s 9:00 a.m. and I’m watching the snow fall steadily outside my window. The first real snowfall of the winter, though there were a few flakes on Friday. The trees, bushes, and everything outside is coated with the white stuff. Watching snow fall is meditative and soothing to my soul.

Shadow has had his second breakfast after his third-to-last syringe shot. That was a rough one, which is probably attributed to the fact that he’s so close to 100%. I bought a bunch of things to tempt him at the co-op, and he gobbled down the pate I bought there. Or as they call it, the ‘cate’ (with an accent on the e). Right now, he is sitting by his water bowl. I don’t know why, but that’s his life right now. Just as I typed that, he left. Who knows why cats do what they do? The point is that he is eating heartily. His first breakfast was two-thirds a can (small) of his normal wet food.

Side note; I am exhausted. This last week has been a whirlwind, and my body is letting me know that it is not happy with me. It’s also because I ate a bunch of things I normally wouldn’t, which is a no-no when you control your diet as I do. I have tried to be up early enough to feed my cat and then have some space between that and giving him meds.

He has been devouring his food–once he actually starts eating. I’ve been having to get creative in order to get him to eat, which is why I think his nose is stuffy. Once he takes that first bite, he usually gobbles down whatever is in front of him. There are things he prefers to the others, and I’m trying to figure out what is his favorite.

In general, he does not like things that have been refrigerated. I can heat them up by putting hot water on them, but he’s not pleased if I microwave them. I know that I’m catering to him, but I am fine with that right now. Plus, he has lost over four pounds in the last decade. He can afford to gain some of that back.

I feel guilty for not taking him to the vet before this, and I’m relieved that he’s been given a clean bill of health (beside this cold or whatever it is he’s dealing with). He’s an older gentleman cat, and I resolve to take him to the vet at least once a year for a checkup.

My body is acting up on me. I think it’s finally relaxing after a week of chaos, but it’s not happy about the stress. In addition, I ratcheted my sleep schedule dramatically in one direction, so my body is not happy about that, either. I used to sleep from 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. Now, it’s about 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. or so. More or less. It was in part to match with K while she was here and also to be able to give Shadow his antibiotics at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.


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Micromanaging my cat

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We are on Day 6 of my cat being sick. Well, kind of. I mean, it’s the sixth day after he got sick, but we can quibble as to whether he still is or not. He’s mostly back to normal. He’s got the pep in his step and he’s meowing when he wants something once again. he’s fighting me when I try to squirt his meds (with a syringe) in his mouth.

Side note: I hate having to give him meds. The look of betrayal in his eyes breaks my heart. Plus the horking sounds he makes as he tries to spit it out is…not pleasant. Sometimes, he’ll eat the treats I give him afterwards and sometimes he won’t. I learned to give him his food before I dose him and not after. I have to do it twice a day, 12 hours apart, BTW. I also learned that doing it while he’s asleep is good because I can get it in him quickly, but it’s bad because it disoriented him. I don’t like doing that.

I only have to dose him four more times. That’s not bad. And, honestly, he has dealt with it fairly well. Yes, he gives me a look of betrayal when it happens, but he will let me pet him a minute or two after. He won’t come into the bathroom where the syringe/vial are, but that could be because K was here this weekend and he was discombobulated about that. He did let her pet him, though, which was good to see.

I’ve been watching him like a hawk for the past six days. The first day was terrible. He was so lethargic and I was moping around, waiting for the next day so I  could hear from my vet. Shadow was so lethargic. It’s hard to explain how I know that when cats sleep so much on the daily, but there is a difference.

The last few days, he’s been chatting away and his voice, while still high and squeaky (as usual), is stronk. Demanding, even, which makes me happy. I would rather him be feisty and full of fettle than limp and lethargic.

He strides with determination rather than walking listlessly. He is talking to me again rather than just remaining silent. Best of all, he is interested in food which he wasn’t for two days. That was the scariest of all as he’s very food-driven. I mean, I know most cats are, but he does NOT skip a meal. In fact, he will let me know precisely when it was time to be fed.

That’s how I know he’s really sick, by the way. When he won’t eat. I was freaking out because the last time this happened, it was really serious. That’s why I did the whole slate of tests because I wanted to rule out everything serious. It was such a load off my shoulders when I was told it wasn’t the big three we were fearing (diabetes, hyperthyroidism, renal failure). It turned out to be a bug or something like that.

He’s been getting better little by little every day. (Warning, graphic). He hadn’t been pooping much since then. Part of the original issue was that he was spurting diarrhea dots everywhere. He was peeing fine, but his back end was having blockage/leakage.

Once he started the antibiotics, the diarrhea dried up, but he wasn’t pooping , either. He was still peeing fine. The last two days, I found small nuggets of  poop (one a day). Small, but firm. And no diarrhea. Peeing fine. Today, he had a proper poop, and I was so relieved. I don’t think I’d ever been so happy to see a piece of his poop.


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Watching over Shadow

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I crashed hard last night because I’ve been so worried about Shadow. Even with the clean bill of health, he was still sick. Yes, it wasn’t any of the big three things I feared, but he’s still not at his best. Yesterday. I made the mistake of giving him his antibiotics (last night) before feeding him dinner. In addition, I messed up and dribbled it down his neck the first time, didn’t get the liquids in the syringe the second time, and finally got it in him the third.

He was not happy about it and stalked away. He did begrudgingly accept several Temptations (truly the manna of cats) afterwards, but nothing else. Before this, he had been snoozing on my legs, but he went elsewhere afterwards.

Later, he would let me pet him and leaned into it. He wasn’t interested in food, though, which made me anxious. He has lost four pounds in ten years. Maybe I’ve been underfeeding him. He does have a bowl of dry from which he cat eat at any time. That was one reason the vet thought it might be hyperthyroidism or diabetes. Maybe it’s just he’s getting old.

This morning, I decided to feed him the first thing. Normally, I would do Taiji first and then feed him so he wouldn’t meow at me as soon as I was awake. I just want him to eat, though, so I went to feed him. He eagerly trotted after me and meowed. That revived my spirits as I dished out 2/3rds a small can of wet food (twice as much as I normally feed him in the morning) and poured a healthy amount of hot water around it. It’s his favorite way of eating wet food. I mushed the wet food so it would be easier to digest. Actually, I started with roughly half a can and he scarfed that down. I added more wet food and more water. He kept eating. I put more wet food and warm water (the rest of the can), and he finished up the water, but left most of the food behind. In general, he was more about the water than the food, but he did eat some chunks of wet food. And all of this was without me having to dot the plate with Temptations.

Then, I waited half an hour before giving him the antibiotics. This time, I scruffed him and got it in his mouth in one go. He wasn’t happy about it and did not want treats afterwards, but he did allow me to stroke his head an hour later. So he’s not mad at me; he just didn’t like it. Which, I can’t really blame him. I wouldn’t want some giant grabbing me and squirting liquid meds in my mouth, either. Especially when I wasn’t feeling well to begin with and I didn’t know why.

He seems a bit lethargic, but it’s hard to tell because he’s a pretty chill cat in general. Cats sleep up to fifteen hours a day, anyway, and he’s a champion sleeper. Right now, he’s in the computer room and sleeping on the papasan. That’s one of his normal places to sleep, so it’s hard to say if he’s feeling normal or not. He lifted his head as I went to stroke his head, which was his way of saying he wanted me to stroke him under his chin. He had that dreamy look in his eyes that he gets when he’s really feeling the pets.


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Good news for my main man, Shadow

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Yesterday, I wrote an ode to my cat, Shadow, that bordered on elegiac. I was prepared for the worst because the vet had mentioned three awful things it could be. Renal failure, diabetes, or hyperthyroidism. They did blood work and took X-rays, which they had to send off to get interpreted. They were going to call me back today with the results.

I gave Shadow his antibiotic this morning, which he did not appreciate. Nor did he eat anything. I was worried, obviously. I went to Cubs to buy things for K’s visit, but also to get a few things to temp Shadow to eat–including Temptations. It was Greenies that I had in the house and while he’s fond of them (but would not eat them yesterday), he is crazy for Temptations. They really are like crack for cats. The other things I bought for him was rotisserie chicken (well, that’s for me, but he likes it, too, especially the skin) and turkey slices.

When I got home, I put pieces of turkey, chicken, and chicken skin in a bowl and brought it into the living room where Shadow was snoozing on the back of the couch. He perked up when I approached and I placed a bit of chicken before him. Nothing. Then chicken skin. He liked that. He also liked the bits of sliced turkey. A lot. I gave him several of those, and he made them disappear. When I opened the Temptations bag, he was definitely interested. I gave him two and he gobbled them down.

I went into the kitchen to spoon out some wet food and put warm water on it. I put several Temptations on top of that. Shadow had followed me into the kitchen (a good sign), and he immediately ate three or four Temptations from the top of the pile before licking vigorously at the slurry. (I mushed up the wet food). I kept adding water, so he ended up eating most of the Temptations and a lot of the slurry. He didn’t directly eat the wet food, but he took in quite a bit from lapping away at the slurry. All in all, he probably ate about a fifth of what he normally would (but adding in the chicken skin and turkey….math is hard). That’s not great, but it’s better than yesterday when he would not eat at all.


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Not ready to let go

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A decade ago, Shadow was really sick. He was yowling as he was peeing and he refused to eat. I asked his foster mom what I should do, and she said to take him to the vet ASAP. I took him late that afternoon (first appointment I could get), my heart in my throat.

Today, I woke up to Shadow yowling in a similar way. As any cat companion will tell you, you know the different meows of your cat. There is the ‘I’m hungry’ meow. The ‘I’m bored’ meow. The ‘pet me now’ meow. Then there’s the ‘I’m in distress!’ meow. The last is the one you never want to hear as it’ll break your heart.

He was straining to poop, and it was clear he was constipated. He would strain and nothing would come out or just *warning, graphic* drippy diarrhea. There was one medium-ish nugget of diarrhea, but no actual poop.

I tried giving him Temptations. Nothing. Wet food with hot water (his favorite way to eat it). Nothing. I will fully confess that I have not taken him to the vet since (I know, I know), and I found out that the place I used to take him to had no record of him and was not taking new clients at this time. I know vets have been slammed, so I understood. But I didn’t like it. Obviously.

Animals can’t tell you when something is wrong. Cats are especially good at hiding their pain, much to their detriment. He was fine yesterday. He ate normally and peed normally as well (checked the litterbox this morning). But he’s vomiting clear liquid and has done it several times. In addition to his drippy butt, and it’s clear that I needed to take him in.

I found another vet with stellar reviews and 2 minutes from my home. I talked with the receptionist and set up an appointment for 1 p.m. This was at 9 a.m. or so, and 1 p.m. was the soonest appointment they had. As I was making the appointment, Shadow wandered by and howled.


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My miracle cat, Shadow; part two

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black cat with eyes mostly closed
This is not my best side!

Shadow. My best boy. This is post two of my paean to my miracle cat. My boon companion for the past fifteen-plus years.

I no longer think about Raven every day, but he is still tucked in a corner of my heart. It was such a shock when he died, I had a hard time accepting it. My sweet and gregarious, playful and high-strung, loving boy with a swagger. He was so full of life–and then he wasn’t.

It was hard on me, but it was much harder on Shadow. I tried to explain what happened, but of course he didn’t understand.  His lifelong playmate, brother, and friend (though also sometime competitor when it came to food) was gone in the blink of an eye.

For six grueling months after Raven died, Shadow grieved. He looked around for his brother and couldn’t find him. When I went out back to smoke, Shadow would stretch his front paws up on the sliding glass door and just howl mournfully. The entire time I was outside. He could see me, but couldn’t touch me, which bothered him tremendously. He had lost his brother, and he did not want to lose me as well. When I  was inside the house, he stuck close to me. He wanted to be in the same room no matter what, which was not like him at all. I hated seeing him so sad, but there wasn’t much I could do about it other than love him and reassure him that I wasn’t going anywhere.

Six months or so after Raven died, Shadow began to change. He started meowing at me for his breakfast, which he had never done before. He was more outgoing in general, which was not like him. At all. He stayed out of hiding when people came over and while he would not necessarily let them touch him (except my brother and Taiji teacher, and Ian, of course, his favorite human other than me), and he was not nearly as skittish as he’d been in the past.

Side Note: While he had been a nervy cat in general, he has never cared about vacuum cleaners or fireworks like most other cats. His brother hated both. What I realized, however, was that Shadow is like me. He freaks out over little things, but the actual big things? Nah, son. I ain’t got time for that. I’m cool under pressure because of my PTSD, which it seems is the way Shadow works, too. He’ll jump at his own shadow (pun semi-intended), but he won’t even flinch if I vacuum next to him. Sometimes, when he was younger, he would jump up from a deep sleep and race around the room in a panic before settling down again. That was so much like me, it hurt.


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My miracle cat, Shadow; part one

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I have a black cat named Shadow. He is sixteen years old. He has been with me since he was nine months old. Let me tell you the story of his life.

Many many moons ago, I  was perusing Petfinder for two black cats, siblings, in my area whom I could adopt. I didn’t know much about what I wanted as I hadn’t had cats since I was a kid, but what I did know was that they had to be a bonded pair of black cats. Little did I know how many black cats would be available to me because they are the last cats to be adopted. Whether it’s for superstitious reasons or that they ‘lack color’, they’re often unadopted while their more colored kin are snatched up.

I looked through hundred of pictures getting more and more depressed. So many unwanted black cats, it broke my heart. I found a pair of brothers named Raven and Shadow. Their foster mom had written clever bios and Shadow’s said that he was psychic and knew I wanted two black cats. There was something about his eyes that made  me fall in love. Raven was written as playful and more people-pleasing, which also appealed to me. They were going to be at the Petco in a city near me for an adoption event the next day, which felt like kismet to me.

I went to the Petco the next day, my heart in my throat. I could not wait to bring them home so I was crushed when there was only one cat in the cage. The foster mom handed Midnight to me and draped him around my neck. He looked so unhappy and his foster mom explained that she had made the mistake of putting him in the carrier before Shadow. Shadow took off and could not be found anywhere. Since he hated the events so much and they hadn’t had a sniff in the months prior, she decided to leave him at home. This was the last adoption event she was going to take them to, anyway. She had decided to adopt them but was so grateful that I wanted them.

I left Midnight (whom I renamed Raven) with her and bought everything I needed. I went to her house the next day with a friend to pick up the boys. Once again, Raven readily went into the carrier, but Shadow hightailed it out of there. He’s exceptionally good at disappearing, and it took fifteen minutes or so to find him.


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Being challenged physically and emotionally

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Day three or four of waking up with a migraine. I’m lucky in that I can stand reading and writing when I have a migraine, but I have to keep all the lights off and any sound I have on low. Even then, I have a low level thumping in my brain and a general queasiness. Still, I consider myself very fortunate that I can function at all when I have a migraine; I know many people can’t. I just went to the store to stock up for Snowmaggedon (current prediction 7 to 12 inches, but it’s been all over the place), and I’m exhausted. That’s the downside to trying to operate while migraining–it takes everything out of me. Again, I’m lucky that I can function at all, but now I’m down for the rest of the day.

Is this my life? For the past few years, I feel as I’ve been operating at 75% or less* more often than not. I have a few days or weeks of feeling good, and then it all comes crashing down around me again. I know I need to get a thorough slate of tests, but I’m just…so tired. Going to the doctor is an ordeal for me in the best of times, which this is not. Why? For a plethora of reasons. Let’s start with the fact that I had thyroid troubles since I was young. I was hyperthyroid, though I didn’t know it at the time. I just new I was hot and cranky and couldn’t sleep. There were other reasons for it, of course, but the big one was discovering I had Graves’ disease when I was a tweener. Back then, it wasn’t really well understood (this was in the mid-eighties), and they treated it by shoving pills down my throat. I’m not sure what they were, exactly, but I was taking 27 pills a day. Nine pills three times a day. That didn’t work because my whatever levels were extraordinarily high. They decided they needed to go to the nuclear option (literally?) of radiation. They were quite forthright about the fact that they were giving me their best estimate, but that radiation wasn’t precise. Most likely, they were going to give me too much and destroy my thyroid. This is exactly what happened, and now I have to take a pill every day for the rest of my life.

During that time and thereafter, I had to get my blood drawn quite often. It was on a monthly basis for a while, and I have terrible veins. Again, this isn’t something I knew before I had to have my blood drawn so regularly, but I came away from it quite wary of anyone poking me with a needle (except my tattoo artist). I have many negative memories of that time, including the (male) nurse who insisted he could find my vein from inside my arm and kept wiggling it. It hurt like a motherfucker until I wanted to punch him. He kept saying he wanted to not poke me again (to prevent further pain), but at that point, I would have welcomed a thousand extra pricks. I mentioned that he’s male because the other time I had a really difficult poker was after I was in a car accident. The person doing the MRI was a man, and he was pissed that I hadn’t been poked already before I got to him. He was grumbling the whole time he poked me, and I ended up bruised and sore.

Side note: I am keloid. This is yet another thing I learned through experience. This means that I scar twice as bad as other people, and any time I got my blood drawn, I ended up with a massive bruise that lasted several days if not a week. I still have to get my blood drawn every year, and I tell the phlebotomist to use a butterfly needle and take it from the back of my hand. I don’t know when I learned this was a thing, but when I did, it was a life-changer. I remember a feeling of awe as my blood flowed with ease from the back of my hand. And, the prick was nothing–I barely felt it at all. I still have a few phlebotomists who insist on doing it the old-fashioned way first, but they always come around to the butterfly needle in the hand trick.


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Shadow, my little cat ambassador

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all the love.
My favorite pic of brotherly love. (S, left; R, right.)

Shadow and I are a duo and have been for almost three years since we lost his brother, Raven, suddenly one cold and grim Saturday night. I’ll never forget it, and I think about him every day. Sometimes, only for a flash, and sometimes, for longer, but he’s still in my heart.

Shadow took it badly. For six months, he clung to me in a way that he had never done before. He was more my aloof cat, wanting to be near me on his own terms. He would disappear for hours, only showing up when he wanted to. Raven was more a ‘I need to be on you’ cat, and it was hard to adjust to once he was gone. Shadow would cry out for him, and any time I was outside to smoke, he would put his front paws up on the sliding glass door that separated us and howl.

He’s changed in other ways. He never used to meow at all, but once Raven was gone, he became more vocal. I slowly realized it was when he wanted food and that he had let Raven do it before. Once Raven was gone, Shadow took it upon himself to let me know it was breakfast or treat time. It didn’t matter how many times I told him he would get both regardless–he still meowed. He still does. He’s also more assertive and confident, though that started when he first met Ian, and he’s more affectionate as well.

Anyway, my father, who has never shown any interest in my cats while Raven was alive, has taken quite the shine to Shadow. It started either last year or the year before. Year before because it was when they were in their apartment. We went to visit my niece and her then-boyfriend, now husband, and their adorable Shibu Inu. He was a puppy then, which meant he was highly exuberant. He was all over us because puppy energy, and my father was not happy about it at all. I could tell by the set look on his face, and on the way home, he commented about how nice it was that ‘we’ had a pet who was quiet.

First of all, it’s MY cat, not ours. Secondly, there’s nothing wrong with a puppy being a puppy.

This summer, my father has really become enamored by Shadow. I mean, Shadow’s adorable as fuck, but I don’t get why my father is so fascinated by him or why now. My mother said it’s because it’s in contrast to Raven. Her words (paraphrased): Raven got on everything and was noisy. You didn’t have to worry about Shadow taking your food (watch your meats, though), and he was quiet except when he wanted food.

Yeah? I guess? Raven was his own cat, but he wasn’t doing anything extremely untoward (including, unfortunately, stress-peeing outside the box). One thing I loved about him was that he was bull-headed, and he didn’t follow the (cat) rules. When he was a young cat, he loved sitting on top of the refrigerator. It gave me a heart attack every time I saw it, so I read up on what to do to deter him. There was a suggestion to put down a piece of cardboard with loops of masking tape on it because cats don’t like tape on their fur. I followed the suggestion, and the next morning, there was Raven sitting on the tape loops with a, “What now, bitch?” look on his face. I also couldn’t do the squirt gun thing because he liked the feel of water on his face (he drank from the tap). He once started gnawing on a Prozac pill I dropped before I could wrestle it from his mouth (and I did get it out), and he loved to chomp on dental floss.

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