That face belongs to Hope, my adorable and sweet little 7.5 year old Snowshoe cat.   Besides wanting to squeeze the juice out of her, I want to protect her always.  Wouldn’t you?  (If you are a cat lover that is).  And I’ve done a pretty good of that so far!

Last Friday, my husband and I moved into our new house.  We were very excited about this.  We really upgraded in our space, size, location.  We can’t get over how beautiful this house is and how fortunate we are to now own it.  Sure, its more to clean and more to heat in the winter, and yes, we have a driveway to shovel in the winter as well.  We thought the cats would LOVE it here … so much more space for them to run around in and stay away from each other when they want.  The wooded backyard … that is a cat’s dream!

However, there is the big foyer with the beautiful stairs:

Gorgeous aren’t they?  Yes, one of our favorite features.

Until …

You look down.  If you are scared of heights, its creepy.  If not, its cool.  Unless you are a small pet owner.

If you hadn’t noticed, the steps don’t have backs.  And cats often like to lay on carpeted things.  And squirm.

And sometimes, they squirm … right off the steps to the bottom of the spiral.

This happened to Hope.  She was squirming.  I saw this and tried to get to her, but I was too late.  The next thing I knew she was at the bottom, and landed on her side on the ceramic tile.   She wasn’t moving.  When I stood her up (I don’t recommend you do that, I am a trained professional) she fell right back over, so off to the emergency vet we went.

We knew she was alive, but she was very dazed and not moving, so all kinds of worst case scenarios went through our heads.  Spinal damage, neurological damage, a rib puncturing a lung.  We called the emergency vet while driving there and they were ready and took her back immediately.  After waiting an interminable amount of time, we found out that she is relatively okay.  She has a dislocated hip.  The x-ray showed that plain as day, but when when the orthopedic doctor looked at her, it was already in place.  We opted for an ultrasound to make sure that there was no internal bleeding and left her for 24 hours for observation.

We took her home the very next day, obtained a referral for a possible surgery, in which they would shave down the femur so that the hip could stay in place, and with orders to keep her on cage rest for 14 days.  If her hip stays in place, she will not need surgery.  But how can one know if she is caged all the time?

Anyway, she will not tolerate the cage.  All she does is cry, cry, cry and it breaks our hearts. Look at how sad she looks:

I finally let her out … she is walking fine, she runs around for a few minutes, then finds a place to sleep.  She is hardly an active cat anyway.

We’ll keep our eyes on her and get the steps corrected for safety.

I would just feel better if she would sleep somewhere other than the spiral steps.

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What?  Getting ex back?  What post talked about that?  LOL.

Anyway, some updates from my life.

Indy continues to improve.  The last ALT value was 131.  He just had another test yesterday, and we are hoping for that magic number of 100 or less.  I predict it will be 100 teens.

Joey turned 20 years old a few weeks ago.  I can’t believe that I have a cat that is 20.  He has been not wanting to eat and I noticed one day that he was having trouble chewing.  It went beyond just being picky.  I had also noticed a few weeks back that his breath really stunk.  Really badly, like nothing I’ve ever smelled before.  It was not the expected uremic smell from the kidney disease.  So I plop him on the counter by the good light, and open his mouth.  He fought me, but I saw what I thought was bleeding.  I called in my husband to help hold him down and I see a mass.  Pretty large, bulbulous and red.  Not bleeding though.  I also noticed excessive tartar on the teeth.

Not sure what to do, I took him to the vet earlier this week.  The vet was very concerned, but since he is so very old with compromised kidneys, we cannot put him under for a thorough evaluation.  The mass could be something really scary or it could be inflammation/infection from the bacteria on the teeth.  He managed to scrape some tartar off the molars and started Joey on antibiotics.  We’ll see if it looks any better when we go back for his acupuncture next week.

Me?  Well, I have only two more sessions of physical therapy left.  It has helped me build up some muscle.  Not sure though if it helped the pain go away or if it was a result of my stopping most intense exercise.  Was it the rest or the strengthening?  Or both?  I guess we’ll never know, but I am feeling a lot better. I still have pain when out in the cold that is probably a result of the arthritis.  I’ve been cleared to do my own lower body routines and cardio … except for running or jumping still.  I started taking a supplement for joint pain.  It’s not glucosamine/condroitin because I am not sure of their efficacy in humans, and they are made of shellfish, so they are not even vegetarian!  The supplement I’m taking is Zyflamend and I really think its helping.

See, I honestly believed that I had cats for pets.  They are small, they are furry, they have whiskers and they purr.  They also eat cat food, watch birds and squirrels, and love to kill some furry fake mice.  But … they really act like pigs!  Seriously.  We meal feed around here, so everyone except Joey and Indy, who get more due to their age, eats two times per day.  But ten minutes after a meal, if one of us goes into the kitchen, we are followed by cats who meow and think they need more.  After Joey finishes one of his mid-afternoon or midnight feedings, a bunch of them will rush the bathroom door where he eats so that they can fight over who gets to finish the food.  I love when Joey finishes it all, they are all like “What?  Where’s all the food?”

The constant begging … I mean, they get enough food, but they always want more.  Maybe vulture is a better word than pigs.  But it just cracks me up the way they go nuts for any food.  If Matt and I are eating, they watch us.  Fuzzy loves to run into the kitchen and leap on the counter under the cabinet where the treats are.  Then he meows and looks cute.  Sorry, Fuzzy, you are a bit overweight, I’m not giving you any.  And its really hard to resist him!  He’s so cute.

But then, I guess I have no room to talk, as I pigged out on a vegan cheese pizza for lunch.  I should have cooked half of it, then I wouldn’t have eaten it all.  I should have only eaten half of it, and wrapped the rest up.  But I was so thrilled that there was vegan cheese that actually tastes good.

Yes, that is what I said.  I found vegan cheese that tastes good! And…. its not soy based.

I bought it at Vegan Essentials.com and its called Daiya cheese.   I bought both a small bag of shredded cheese and a pizza using it by the company Rossini.  When I received the shipment, I opened the bag of shredded and tasted it.  I did a happy dance.  I finally ate the pizza today and OMG … you can’t even tell its vegan.

So for all you dairy-avoiders, I highly recommend Daiya.  It’s expensive.  Check their website for where to buy it.  You won’t be sorry.

The 21-day Vegan Kickstart Challenge officially ended on the 21st of January, and they took the content down.  I thought they’d leave it up.  I didn’t start on the first day because of travel and illness.  But I was wrong.  The first time this year.  I have a few more credits, so its okay.

Where does that leave me?  Well… the same place.  Trying to maintain as high of a level of vegan as possible, and trying to eat more whole foods and cook more.  I have a ton of cookbooks and assorted recipes, so I can still try making tasty new things.   I can ignore the complicated ones.  The challenge starts again March 1, so maybe I’ll do it again, and this time eat the food as “assigned” every day, except for the days there are foods I don’t like.

Yesterday, I have to admit.  I had cheese.  At first, it wasn’t intentional.  We had had plans to go to a friends house to watch a movie, and we knew that we would be getting pizza.  I had 100% intention of having either half a pizza or a small one ordered without cheese for me.  Last time I had pizza, I removed the cheese, and had three toppings and extra sauce and it was yummy!  However, during the day, my delightful husband offered to make macaroni and cheese for lunch and I said that that sounded good … totally forgetting that I was eating vegan!   So, I figured … what the hey and ordered regulation pizza.  It was white pizza too, which I haven’t had in a long time.

My stomach didn’t feel too bad, even with the extra infusion of heart shaped Smiley cookies.  Or two.  Or three.  Actually, I was fine, stomach wise, but my nose clogged up big time.  I didn’t actually feel bloated until this afternoon.   So now I know … if I must, only one serving of dairy per day.

In other GOOD news, I had a very nice physical therapy session today.  My therapist says I am doing really, really well and gettting stronger every day.  She said that there was no reason I couldn’t participate in a racing event in October (location to be determined).   I can do a smaller race running, if I want.  Or walk a half.  Or run half of a half and walk the other half of the half.  That makes me happy.  Long distances are out for good, or at least a long while, she reminded me.  I can handle this.  It’s not like I could run a half marathon anyway. 

And I FORGOT to mention that I did try one other recipe from the challenge.  It was a Sunday morning, and I received the day’s menu, which called for Sweet Potato Pudding for breakfast.  That sounded really good.  It has oatmeal in it which I figured would make it nice and filling.  I had to cook and then cool the sweet potatoes (yay for the microwave at times), then I mixed it in the blender.  I put it in a bowl, sat down, ready to savor it.  And it was delicious!  However, it wasn’t cutting it as a breakfast for me.  It was truly a pudding, so therefore it became designated as a dessert.  Yay for dessert!  Using pumpkin would be equally delicious.  Adding the oatmeal is great … added fiber and even protein.  Not everyone is aware of how much protein is actually in oatmeal.  I ended up with a bagel with Better Than Cream Cheese.

I think for breakfast, it would have worked for me had I made oatmeal the traditional way and then mixed in the cooked sweet potato into the cereal.

I have been reading Wesley the Owl.  I highly recommend it.  It’s a very cute story and written well.  A fast, fun read.  Look for it on my sister blog later this week at jennreviewsthings.com.

Tomorrow, my Fuzzy goes for a teeth cleaning.  Wish us all luck.

He was referred to a veterinary internal medicine specialist, where he received an ultrasound, which was also inconclusive, and a fine needle aspirate of the liver was sent out for cytology.  At this point, we were looking either at cholangiohepatitis or cancer.   And the cytology didn’t help.  The first order of business was to treat for the cholangiohepatitis, which is a long course of antibiotics.  If the liver enzymes stabilize, then its likely the hepatitis and NOT cancer.

Thursday, I received a call from the veterinary center and guess what?  His ALT was down to 160!  Yay!  The antibiotics are helping.  Not that I needed bloodwork to tell me that, as he has returned totally to his kitten like antics and his very very large appetite. 

This is my bad boy Indy

Now for the Vegan Challenge.

Saturday was my weigh in day and I was down 2.2 pounds.  Yay.

Friday food was good.

*Breakfast was oatmeal with maple syrup and peacans

*Lunch was leftover couscous confetti salad

*Dinner was out and I had bbq seitan pita with fries and a salad

Saturday, well, I did remain vegan except for some accidental mayo, but healthy wasn’t as strong.

*Breakfast was hash browns and an English Muffin

*Lunch was at Burger King … a BK veggie and small onion ring

*Dinner was Domino’s pizza … no cheese, extra sauce and black olives, onion and spinach

But that is not overcomerable (is that a word?) … I will do better this week for sure, and I hope to make a return to doing cardio.

And I really wish I could get pictures into this blog!