These fluids I guess are only available in the Netherlands, as its home page suggests.

The internal stuff, a fluid based on Articum Lappa, Carbo Mineralis, Calendula Officinalis, Viola Tricolor, Rhus Toxicodendron and alcohol, mixed with her food, would ‘fix’ things from the inside out, because a certain chemical imbalance could be a cause for a cruddy chin.

The other stuff we applied on the outside to clean the acne and her skin is based on Calendula, Aloe Vera and Hamamelis. Because this doesn’t have any strong distinctive smell as alcohol does, it’s even relatively easy to apply to her chin as well.

(Incidentally, before we bought this stuff, we already applied some home-brew lip-balm type of stuff that my girlfriend made weeks before, which was also based on Calendula, which is known for its skin-healing properties.)

Anyway, the first week things seemed to get better; then her chin seemed to get a bit worse for a few days, but then it really started to visibly clear up. In the end, disappeared completely and now her hair is slowly growing back on the bald patches.

So it seems to have healed completely! *knocks on wood*

Although rarely heard of (Google search — at the time of this writing 606 hits) it’s not an entirely uncommon condition though. Iterating through these results I hit this guys experience with the disease which linked to more detailed information on the condition right here.

I also found some more information on this page.

It’s yet unclear what exactly causes it, but it seems to be either because of stress, or because of an allergic reaction and the condition is potentially chronic. (No, not that chronic.)

It could be stress — she had a pretty rough procedure earlier this year (although that’s more than 9 months ago ago).

Anyways, we noticed it a few months ago and, of course, went to the vet. We were told to try to keep it clean (with some alcohol, for instance) and it should go away over time.

Well, it disappears allright — but meanwhile it appears again on the other side of her chin, kinda like ping-pong. Also, it is pretty tought trying to clean a cats chin with something ‘smelly’ as alcohol — cats don’t like that and start to struggle a bit so we couldn’t really ‘get at it’ so I guess that’s why it keeps re-appearing.

A couple of days ago my girl incidentally found something when she was in a pet store; something natural. Well, two things actually: a spray to clean her chin from the outside, and some drops to put in her food, to work on it from the inside.

We’ve been given her both for 2 days now and, well, the one thing I immediately noticed is that the cleaning spray (which is better used if you spray it on a cloth or something, to rub it on her chin — our cats hate spraying cans) doesn’t smell as strong as other stuff so you can actually rub her chin without her trying to get away from the stinky stuff. It seems like it’s actually healing better, though I won’t get my hopes up too much, it could be my imagination and 2 days really is too soon to say anything about it.

We’ll see…

Images, Pictures, Cats

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Animals, Pictures, Rabbits, Cats

What kind of pet-owners are these people?

I mean, when those people were sick, their cat probably kept them company the whole frigging day and now, even though these cats aren’t sick at all, they are getting rid of them, just in case?

The cat should’ve killed ya when you was ill, you sick motherfucker.

They’re obviously not even worthy to have a pet. Sad thing is, what will the animal-shelters do? What will the people do if the animal shelter refuses to accept the animal because they are overloaded…..

I sincerely hope the best for these innocent little animals.

It is sickening that we have to protect ourselves against nature. I hate to see a future where you have to have a frigging fence over your garden to protect yourself from ‘wild’ animals. If there are any left then.

I’m not an active environmentalist (although kudos to the people that are — without them this world would definitely have more extinct species), but it is surely sad to see the whole world getting fucked up by a few people out for more money.

The world would definitely be better off if we all were though….

Animals, Pets, Cats, Germany, Bird-flu

Not nice to look at, so quickly opened the basket again. Cat totally stressed out, as one can imagine.

We called the vet offce, and because the actual vet actually lives in my same street it was no problem for her to do a house-call to check our cat out.

So, at about 22:00 she came.

Drain removal
That’s quite an interesting procedure. She used this little sharp knife to cut loose the stitch near the drain itself, and cut the drain loose from where it was getting attached to the body due to the pus drying out and sticking to it. (Yeh, yuk).

Anyways, after that is done, the drain is pulled out. It was quite longer than I had imagined though.

So that was actually a breeze then, compared to the surgery itself.

Lab-results
This morning, my girlfriend got an email from the vet-office.

OK here goes. Apparently, the correct term for what has been removed are the mammary glands.

The diagnosis is mammary cystomatosis (“spongy breast” it seems to its nickname). It is something benign and that is positive. This likely means she doesn’t have to go through all this mess again. At least not within a few months anyways.

Update: I just counted her stitches by the way and, give or take a few, I got to 36.

Animals, Pets, Cats, Surgery, Recovery

Additionally, they are going to remove the drain that stick out of the stitch. (Apparently, these drains are there to prevent the wound from closing up, so that any pus and other fluid can leave the body so it won’t accumulate within, causing infections.)

Possibly, they will have some lab-results on the removed tissue, too.

Meanwhile, I’m a have to give her another anti-biotics injection in a few minutes.

That still freaks me out.

Animals, Pets, Cats, Surgery, Recovery

I tried giving her some water before, yesterday simply by shoving my wet finger in her face so she was forced to lick it. So at least a bit of fresh water in her system.

Catfood, from a can, usually has this juicy, fatty fluid in it.

I put some of that stuff on a little saucer together with 1 bit of meat, cut in pieces, and poured a little extra water over it.

We put it somewhere in the room where she could find it. Later, when she was walking around she found it and licked-up all the fluids. She did ignore the meat though.

Later in the evening, we put more of that catfood-stuff on a saucer and my girlfriend put some of that stuff on her finger and showed it to the cat that immediately started licking her finger and purring.

We left her alone for a while and when we got back she had found the saucer and licked / ate it clean, too.

So that seems to go lots better now. We couldn’t resist taking a picture of her at that point either:

Mimi, with her collar on to prevent her from biting the stitches on her belly. The stitches and drains
are pretty graphic and I feel like pimping my cat if I would show ‘m here so I won’t.

Additionally, the swelling in my finger which she bit is slowly reducing, so I don’t expect it has to be cut open and cleaned, or amputated or anything.

Animals, Pets, Cats, Surgery, Recovery

Hell, I’ve seen people bitten by even dirtier animals and they survived without going to the doctor.

For fun, I just started Googling a bit. On familydoctor.org I found this:

• You have a cat bite. Cat bites often cause infection. You don’t need to call your doctor for a cat scratch, unless you think the wound is infected.
• You have a dog bite on your hand, foot or head, or you have a bite that is deep or gaping.
• You have diabetes, liver or lung disease, cancer, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) or another condition that could weaken your ability to fight infection.
• You have any signs of infection, such as redness, swelling, warmth, increased tenderness, oozing of pus from the wound or fever.
• You have bleeding that doesn’t stop after 15 minutes of pressure or you think you may have a broken bone, nerve damage or another serious injury.
• Your last tetanus shot (vaccine) was more than 5 years ago. (If so, you may need a booster shot.)

Yikes — that’s 4 out of 6:

• Cat bite. No doubt.
• A bit that’s deep and gaping. If you consider 0.5 cm to be deep that is.
• Redness, swelling and a bit of pus coming out of it. (Hmm, the fever explains my sweaty night, though.)
• Never even had a tetanus shot as far as I can remember.

Hey, if pus comes out, it means the body is doing its work just fine, me thinks.

It it starts pulsating and getting any bigger, it may be a wise move to go to the doctor.

But I’ll blow up that bridge when I get there…

Animals, Pets, Cats, Bites

Of course, she was still a bit numb from the sedative and stayed in the travel-basket for quite some time.

Because of her big fat stitch — to prevent her to bite herself in that area, we had to think of a way to protect her belly from herself….. The vet suggested something like a sheet, some holes in it for her legs, and to put that on her.

Well, that didn’t go as expected: she freaked out and kicked it all of — including the big band-aid type thing that the doctor had put over the stitch.

I tried to settle her down after and then she bit me. Now, I know cats. I know nails, I know the type of hurt that can do to a human.

But I wasn’t at all prepared for this bite. Two large teeth, each shoved in my index-finger about 5mm deep. Top and bottom. Any deeper and she would be able to rip my flesh off.

I had to make a split-second decision, quickly grabbing her jaws with my other hand, trying to force them open. In that panic it’s pretty hard to figure out which way to move your finger to get it of the upper tooth, and then to get it off the lower tooth. But I managed.

My girlfriend though she scratched me…. But after seeing the trail of blood that I left she questioned that. I told her that she really did not want to know what happened because I know she would faint.

I quickly asked her for some fluid to clean bite wounds or other scratches but, well, if blood gushes out that fast I couldn’t imagine any of the fluid to reach the inner part of the wound.

So after recovering from that and calling the vet again, the best solution seemed to put on some kind of collar-thing around her neck, which is kinda hard to describe in English, but it prevents dogs or cats from hurting themselves. When we walks around, her head now looks like those lights in the Pixar logo.

She didn’t like that either.

She fought and kicked and got it off, once. The second time I put it on her (and luckily she was still a bit numb and sleepy so I actually could), it’s still on as I write this. *knocks wood*

So until 22:45 last night, she stayed in her travel-basket. At first we tried a box, so she wouldn’t jump out of it, but guess what she tried the moment we put her in that box?

After 22:45, she jumped out of her basket and started her marathon. She kept walking and walking and walking and … Until about 3 AM middle of the night.

Haven’t really slept either — awake an hour, sleep for a few minutes, awake for an hour again. But she did jump on our bed and lay in between us like she usually does.

This morning she even purred again. But I bet she’s still in pain.

At about 12 today I had to give her some anti-biotics too. By injection. Yes indeed. The vet gave me a couple of syringes, one filled with medicine. I have to give her 0.38ml injections every day.

So that was quite a scary, nerve-wrecking, experience but all-in-all it could’ve been a lot worse. Without any hassle or fight I could put the syringe in her neck and slowly inject the medicine.

Damn it took me a few minutes to relax — shaking as a mofo. Tomorrow same time, same thing. Yay.

As I write this, she’s still a bit restless. I hope she’ll settle down in a bit and sleep.

So… If you get kittens, sterilise as soon as possible and don’t give her contraceptives. That could prevent you from having to experience this stuff.

The whole drama of this all is that only one side has been done. And in the end, both sides have to go.

What has been removed is currently in the laboratory, so there is a very slight chance the tumour isn’t a bad tumour and don’t have to let her go through all this again.

Life can be dreadful at times…

Animals, Pets, Cats, Surgery, Recovery

Big fat stitch across her belly, almost from armpit to her hind-legs, a drain in it which drips some fluid and blood every now and then.

Not a pretty sight at all…

Animals, Pets, Cats, Surgery, Cancer

I hope the procedure’ll be a breeze for the vet and she’ll be OK in 2 hours.

Hang in there, Mimi.

Animals, Pets, Cats, Surgery

The female of our two cats, Mimi.

The Cat Pill
So we did give her the ‘cat-pill’, i.e. a contraceptive for cats. Thing is — long term usage of this ‘medicine’ can at some point, cause cancer in the milk-glands.

That is why, when we found a conspicuous lump in her chest back in January, we immediately went to the vet.

Spaying
The vet diagnosed a beginning, possibly cancerous, tumour and, considering she has been on ‘the pill’ suggested that it would be better for the cat anyways if she was to be spayed. That way — the hormones will stop producing, and the milk-glands’ tumours won’t grow anymore — or something like that.

So of course, we want the best for our little kitty (she’s about 8,5 years old, but still rather small for her size), so we made an appointment to get her sterilised.

That day, when we got her back, the vet did note, however, that she saw the lump and it did look like a cyst, so she cut that away. Coming home, our cat was all sleepy and could barely walk. This is normal after have anaesthetics and the next day she was feeling all better.

In the passing days, we kept an eye on the stitching to see if it didn’t bleed et cetera…

More Lumps
After 3 weeks however, we started feeling lumps again. Bigger than the one before and, importantly, more than before.

So we quickly made another appointment to check up on her — and this is, roughly, what we heard:

The milk-gland tissue is highly likely infected with some tumour. The vet explained that she could do a biopsy, but that could be totally meaningless because if the tumour was too small, she wouldn’t be able to get the tissue and the result would say nothing, because the tumour could still be there.

Also, waiting a couple of weeks to see how it develops seems out of the question as well, because if a tumour is a few millimetres small, it could’ve spread cancer through the rest of our beloved little cats’ body.

So, we could do a biopsy, hear she may be OK, but could still cancer be diagnosed at a later time.

What to do… what to do… Sit this thing out, with the risk of her getting seriously ill, or act now and try to do something about it?

“Doing something about it”, would entail removing all her milk-glands and surrounding tissue…

Scary, huh?

Large Operation
Although scary — it wasn’t really something to think about for very long.

Tomorrow she will have the first in a series of two major operations. This can’t be done in one session because they won’t be able to close the kitty up if they start doing the procedure on two sides at once.

What’s most bothering me?
The fact that she would’ve been OK if we spayed her years ago. She would’ve never have had a contraceptive then to begin with.

Another fine example of how short-sighted selfishness will slap you into reality in the long run: our selfish motives shouldn’t have gotten in the way of our cats’ health.

I hope she’ll be OK though…

Keep you posted as we’re riding this thing out.

Humans, Animals, Pets, Cats, Cancer

In a recent study at the University of Missouri, for example, levels of the stress hormone cortisol dropped among adults who, for several minutes, petted AIBO, Sony’s dog-shaped robot that responds when stroked, chases a ball and perks up when it hears a familiar voice. That’s the same reaction live dogs get. Unlike real dogs, though, AIBO didn’t prompt increases in “good” body chemicals such as oxytocin and endorphins.

I was already aware that petting pets is stress-relieving.

Some cats, however, can have a tendency to increase the stress at some times, i.e. by scratching at closet-doors in the middle of the night and meowing.
 
Animals, Pets, Stress

Jean Poole and her nine-month-old granddaughter were dozing yesterday in Poole’s mobile home in York County, Pennsylvania, when Poole’s seven-year-old cat, Princess, woke them up, meowing loudly.

Poole got up, smelled smoke and heard the crackling of flames. She went to check the wood-burning stove in the living room, and saw flames at the picture window.

Pets are cool.
 
Animals, Pets, Cats

	This is Dopey. Although our cats are house-cats (never go outside), this critter managed to escape from the house a couple of times, so he’s been ‘out there’… So he can be a bit annoying, meowing constantly, if he wants to go outside (or eat). Like many male cats, when you start petting him, you’re in for a fight at some point.
	This is Mimi, Dopey’s little sister. She’s usually very quiet and loves to play with tie-wraps.

I’ll post some more in due time, the better ones are on a drive in a dead machine. :]

Animals, Pets, Cats