Confused

Let me just say that I find it interesting that a state that is characterized as conservative and Christian would overwhelmingly vote for a man who was asked to resign or be voted out (as Speaker of the House in '97) by the Republican leadership due to the mess he made when accused of ethical wrongdoing, and more importantly had affairs with each of his wives before moving on to the next one.  Really? I'm confused. How does he represent conservative Christian values?

Rainy Voting Day

***second post of the day***

Today is the SC primary. Saeed and I did our civic duty and went to vote. It has been a gray, rainy day, but we made the most of it. After voting we went to the Bombay Grille which has excellent Indian food. Then we made a stop at PetSmart (imagine that) and headed to Winthrop Lake to commune with nature. It's actually been a lovely day.

Our voting place is the clubhouse in a neighboring subdivision called Laurel Creek. Two of the doctors in my office live in Laurel Creek and the clubhouse was where another doctor's daughter had her wedding reception. It's a nicer venue that the elementary school we used to vote at.

 The smiling man seated on the right is our neighbor, three doors down. We always see him working the voting tables.

Ta da! Now for some Indian food.

 A few years ago when I still had really long lunch breaks I used to drive up here (Pineville) to get their takeout for lunch. Talk about being addicted!

 Usually the rice goes on the bottom but I went the wrong way through the buffet line. Hey, I was just following everyone else! They had (L to R) saag channa (like saag paneer but with chickpeas), a super yummy cabbage dish, an even yummier cauliflower dish (gobhi makhni), a dish with peas (it's under the rice), and dosa. You can see one of my dosas top left already dunking itself in the tamarind chutney. To the right is the coconut chutney. They also gave unlimited naan. The dessert (no pic, I was too busy slurping it down) was one of my favorites: mango custard. I could go again for dinner.

Why are you taking my bleeping picture? Notice the cucumber/tomato/onion salad on Saeed's left. It was almost just like Salad Shirazi. 

 At Winthrop Lake there were just as many sea gulls as ducks. Maybe it's all this rain; they thought they were at the beach. We sat in the car, listened to the rain and Anoushka Shankar's album "Rise" (see below), and drank fresh coffee from McD's. It was lovely.

Water draining from the soccer fields straight into...

 ... the lake.

Now we wait for the primary results...

Anoushkar Shankar talks about making "Rise":

Etta James RIP

I only recently discovered Etta James. She's very important in the jazz world but I don't listen to jazz. I discovered her in this crazy music video I posted on FB a couple of months ago. She's the vocalist you hear when the guy is pushing the rock up the mountain. The world will surely miss her incredible voice.



I love this music video:

SC Primary

South Carolina's primary is this Saturday. We are one of the states that allows all people to vote in the primary regardless of one's political affiliation. We've certainly had a lot of ads on our TV and radio stations but the most amazing bombardment has been the number of messages on our answering machine. I think one day we had 9 messages from candidates telling us why we should vote for them.

Above you see the announcement that our local (Charlotte) NPR station will be having a discussion at Winthrop Tuesday night. It will be hosted by Mike Collins, a WFAE personality, and a Winthrop political science prof. They will address the political implications of the SC primary results and the emerging issues for the 2012 presidential campaigns. People who come will have a chance to discuss topics that are important to them and how they would like the presidential candidates to address key issues facing the country.

It's so funny to me that dinky little South Carolina even has such an important role in the presidential primary. Let's hope we don't embarrass ourselves.

Do I See Something Solid?

I'm almost afraid to say it out loud but after six days of FortiFlora there does appear to be a somewhat more formed piece of waste amidst the pudding. I hope it's not just a case of wishful seeing. It's sad to think about what makes me happy. :-)

Tail Chasing

Although Banu may still be creating chocolate pudding in the litter box she obviously feels much better. These two videos show the Banu I remember from before her illness:

I walked up on her doing this so I only recorded a couple of seconds:



Then she came back and did it again. Interesting how she pauses to listen to Bailey (neighbor's dog) bark and then decides it's not important:


Personally, I think she's really cute. :-)

Banu Update

We are still trying to get some würstel in the litter box instead of chocolate pudding. My thoughts are that Banu needs a return of the good bacteria in her intestines that the antibiotics may have removed. After checking with Shirin and the Internist they agreed that some probiotics wouldn't hurt.

Shirin had given me some FortiFlora after a previous diarrhea episode (remember when Obi gorged himself on the canned food when I gave it to him the first time?) which is a probiotic that is also supposed to make food taste good. My concern was that it is a powder that works best if sprinkled on wet food; Banu isn't eating wet food.

 I sprinkled it on the dry food Banu is currently eating and after some cautious sniffing she did eat it. Of course Lupe is eating it too but that's OK.

My sweetheart seems to be feeling OK. Here she is very content with a full tummy and a sunny spot to curl up in on her favorite chair.

She also has a shaved spot on her arm where they placed the IV line. Once you remove all that puffy fur you can see how skinny her arm is.

So join me in the following chant:             Würstel! 

Würstel!

Würstel!

Banu Update

This morning we gave Banu her last batch of medications. We've been restraining her twice daily and forcing various medications down her throat since she got home from the hospital. I'm not sure who's happier we're done with those meds, Banu or us! She is SUCH a good patient though. None of our other kitties would have put up with this the way she has.

Although one of the meds, an antibiotic, was anti-diarrheal (she began having diarrhea when she was in the hospital) she has had diarrhea throughout the week. I remember when the triplets (Frosty, Calvin, and Layli) were kittens and were on antibiotics for a coccidia infection which causes diarrhea, they were on an antibiotic so long we began to wonder if the antibiotic eventually was the cause of their continuing diarrhea. When their antibiotic was discontinued their diarrhea resolved. I'm hoping for the same result with Banu. It's not bad diarrhea (more like ketchup than water) and she always puts it in the litter box, but still, I'm ready for some nice solid little würstel!

The most important thing in her recovery has been her resumption of eating. She has always been a dainty eater and still is, but we hear her crunching every day. I have three different crunchy dry foods available for her to pick from but she hasn't eaten any of the canned food I've offered her, not even the Fancy Feast. I guess I will never get her back on the healthy stuff I switched all the kitties to in the fall. Since that's what she was eating while she was sick she may even be classically conditioned against wet  food. Oh well. Although she's still very thin it's nice not to feel her every vertebra jutting out from her body.

So we'll see how it goes now that she's off all medications. Kreuzen Sie Ihre Finger, dass ich kleine Würste im Litterbox wieder finde!

Update On Banu

Let me begin by saying that Banu is pretty much back to her normal self. I can't be happier about that, and yet we still don't really know what happened and so we really don't know what to do to make sure it doesn't happen again. We may know more after next week's ultrasound and blood recheck.

The cause for her weight loss is unknown. Yes, I did change the kitties over to a healthier wet food (the GI Internist said it's an excellent food) and maybe she didn't like it and eat enough of it but she did eat it every day until the day she quit eating altogether and I took her to the specialty clinic. As you all know her liver was hyperechoic on ultrasound and the working diagnosis was that she had hepatic hyperlipidosis, a liver in which fat cells have replaced many of the normal liver cells.  Hepatic hyperlipidosis can be caused by a cat that quits eating and the rapid weight loss that causes. It was crucial that she begin eating to help turn this around; hepatic hyperlipidosis can be fatal. Banu would not eat at the scary clinic so they let us take her home to see if she would eat for us. She did and it's a good thing. If she hadn't eaten on her own she would've needed a feeding tube inserted as well as a biopsy. I bought her some yummy kitten chow and some Fancy Feast; she's happily eating the kitten chow for now.

Of course she was also given a slew of medications. If I try to analyze what medications were given to Banu to be able to guess at what assaulted her liver I would guess some sort of infectious process. Other than the fluids she was given at the clinic she is on antibiotics, vitamin K, and an appetite stimulant; to me the more meaningful meds are the antibiotics. Technically she doesn't need the appetite stimulant any more since she's eating on her own and per their instructions I will probably stop that and watch carefully to make sure she continues to eat. Where did this possible infectious agent came from since she's always indoors? Shirin said probably it would have come from her own digestive tract. If a duct (for example a duct coming from the liver) has some bacteria going UP it back into the liver, that could cause an infection. It should be a one way street leading DOWN to the intestines. So the interesting question for me is, what would have caused this backup to occur? A new anatomical defect?

I hope they can answer some of my questions next week but I realize they may never know. With medicine it's often a case of "we're not sure but you're better now so we're done" and I'll take that if I have to. I just hope this episode is over and not a temporary reprieve in a longer illness. It may also mean that I should feed her foods she really likes instead of a food that's really good for her. We'll see.

Here is Banu this morning on her favorite chair in the sun. I know it looks like they shaved her leg but that skin actually goes across her abdomen & side and they had to shave that to do her ultrasound.

Closeup. Shirin is that Banu's undercoat or just where they shaved at a higher level?

A very happy girl with a drop of water on her chinny chin chin.

Other than Banu's first half day home we haven't separated her from Lupe. Lupe is LOVIN' the new yummy food options! Fortunately she's still eating the healthy wet food too and I hope she doesn't gain too much weight.

October 2011 Visit

Right now Banu is in ICU at Carolina Veterinary Specialists (liver issues) and I'm going up there to visit her in just a minute, but yesterday I managed to pull this post together and want to publish it before I forget. I saw many sub-folders in my photographs folder from family visits, so I decided to randomly picked one and put up the pictures.

This was the visit that Cyrus got hooked on Saeed's information about the brain. Even though it was an adult textbook he wouldn't let it go, and continued to search through it for pictures of the brain.

Who knew he'd be SO interested in the functioning of the human brain?

Not wanting to be left out, Kai proceeded to pull books off Shirin and Gabriel's bookshelves and bring them to me as gifts. Thank you Kai joon.

Every few hours Shirin had to attend to her patient. She doesn't often bring patients home over the weekend but the owner of this kitty couldn't make that final decision to euthanize and Shirin couldn't leave him at the office all weekend so...  Here she is feeding him through a tube that is inserted into his esophagus. Poor kitty was ultimately euthanized.

On a happier note here is Earl, the crazy nearly blind cat who now lives with S & G permanently-ish. He was very sick when Shirin first brought him home but through her administrations is healthy and happy (and crazy.) This is BEFORE he climbed up a tree and fell to the concrete. Crazy Earl.

I love his toe fur tufts. You can see them if you click on the pic.

Satin was still called Smootz in October. Satin was named after a character in our favorite books from A Song of Fire and Ice series. His fur is really satiny too.

Satin took his blue ball and went up on Shirin and Gabriel's bed for a nap.

Kitty TV.

Uh-oh, look out Earl. Somebody is coming after you!

I had to save him. I thought he was enjoying being in my arms. Obviously he just wanted to get the the TV wires!

The cat hunter with a guilty look on his face.

Cyrus always takes the best pictures of me. I think it's because you can't help but smile a genuine smile when you're looking at a kid.

Or not.

He likes it when I'm silly.

Tummy aches always get better with mommy rubs.

Cyrus wasn't down long. A trip to the park on a gorgeous fall day will make anyone feel better.

We were pretending to be pirates that day. Here he continues to walk the plank.

This was his ship. It had a water slide. Not bad!

Now wish Banu luck that this is something that can be treated. If she's not better tomorrow after IV fluids, antibiotics, and medications, they will need to do a biopsy tomorrow. Could we possibly have another cat with cancer? Hope not.