One remark I would like to make though – the day before we took her to the vet she scratched the area of the lump furiously which makes me believe that perhaps it was a ganglion. But who knows. This is Mary.

Since we came from the vet though, she has been acting strangely. Mary is not a very playful cat and only my husband ever seems able to get her in the mood. But lately, you look at her or move in her direction and she hops like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh and bobs her head back and forth like one of those cheap head bobbing dolls people tend to put on the dashboards of their cars. And then she would just attack the carpet. Last night it looked like she was trying to bite my husband’s pants.

Who knows where this behaviour comes from. As I said, this is Mary and there is a very good reason her name is what it is.

As mentioned in a previous post, Mary recently went to the vet to have her teeth cleaned. We made that decision a week before while the vet was giving her an injection as her skin flared up again.
Fortunately, Mary couldn’t associate the trip back to the vet for her teeth with me. My husband dropped her off in the morning and collected her again in the afternoon. All I could think of the whole day is “my poor baby, alone and scared and drugged in a place which doesn’t hold fond memories”. I couldn’t wait to go home to see her after work. I was expecting a drugged and goofy cat, but she seemed no worse for the wear. The vet said we should keep an eye on any swelling of the gums, but Mary didn’t have any issues afterwards: clean breath and clean toofies.

So why are we taking her back to the vet barely two weeks after her last visit?

I don’t know whether I am an overly paranoid human companion, but Mary has a lump in her neck. It isn’t something under the skin either, so it is not an abscess. The lump is connected to deeper tissue and we feel this warrants a trip to the vet. I would rather Mary hate me for a couple of days (or weeks, you never know!) than have her fall ill if we could have prevented it with early detection.

I think this time around I dread going to the vet as much as she does.

This leads to a bit of a concern regarding the cat’s collar – not only must an owner make sure the collar itself is stretchable, so it can easily slip off if their wearer is in danger of choking or worse, but it should also be ultimately able to tear or snap to get them out of a jam. That being said, the collar not being as fixed as it could be does lead to the more rambunctious feline losing more than their fair share.

And this presents a difficulty in and of itself – what about the tag?  One can only have so many collars around the house, especially with a cat that goes through them like most people go through underwear.  And of course there’s no way we would allow Mary out without a tag on her collar.  If she were lost and someone picked her up, they’d have no recourse but to deliver her to the SPCA, which (like many well-intended animal organisations) is animal welfare- and not animal rights-oriented, and largely a bureaucratic farce, so definitely not a place I’d like my girl to ever see the inside of.  This is assuming, of course, that those who find her have good intentions and aren’t just out to steal her for themselves.  And who wouldn’t want to?  You’ve seen her pictures, right?

To cut a long story short, the pain of having to have a set of pre-engraved tags, or having to rush about looking for an engraver and/or pet tags while her majestic-ness sits at home growing more inclined to pommel any people-flesh she sees exposed with her incredibly long claws while we sleep, is not conducive to a healthy cat-and-person relationship.

Imagine our glee (srsly, glee) at finding a little collar called the Rogz – it’s a little plastic tag doohickey that allows one to scribble/print down the relevant details and snap the tag together themselves.  Also handy if you need to change said details.  You can check out their site for more info (and no, we’re not getting commission from them, just appreciating the product), but the pic below gives an idea of what it looks like:

Plastic Rogz tags

The following images show Mary wearing her own Rogz tags – obviously they suit her rather… er… active lifestyle:

Cat and tag caught unawares

And from another angle

Waking with a camera up the schnozz

Cat, unamused.

So if you haven’t already, visit the site or subscribe to their feed – well worth it.

However, be that as it may, recently we found ourselves crossing this line with Mary.  Not for the reasons one would imagine, though – it was simply the least complex solution in order to stop our silly Siberian from over-grooming a wound.  The Victorian collar option was out, as the wound was outside the area, meaning she could still reach it with her hind legs.  We’d tried bandaging her paw, but that led to her toes becoming painfully sensitive for some reason.

As a last resort, we bought her a blue cat (or dog, more the humiliation…) shirt, tore off the very badly thought out sleeves – she could barely walk with them hampering her movement – and put the thing on over her collar.  Needless to say, little Miss Fluff was very indignant about the whole thing, but it paid off in the long run (+/- 3 weeks, cringe) as her wound finally healed.

Adjustments around the collar area.

Final tweaks around the collar area.

Finally shirt is on...

And not even a solid under-shirt scratch...

... can stop Mary keeping her distance from the those shirty savages.

When outside for the first time, Mary checks to see if anyone is watching her misery.

And like many before her, uses grass to feel better.

Heading out into the cruel world.

Finally at rest, plotting her revenge.

I was absolutely mortified! Firstly because she makes herself at home in someone else’s flat and secondly because she plays with someone else. Mary does not like to play with me. She plays with my partner yes, but not with me. I kind of feel betrayed to be honest. At least she is not a problem. I am thankful that the neighbour is not complaining about her spending time in his flat, but instead, that he welcomes it. I still can’t help taking Mary’s “disloyalty” personally. Should I?!

On a different note, we are back at the battle of the food. We managed to get our hands on a few precious pouches of that veterinary food, but that has run out. She now refuses to eat anything else. She will nibble on some biscuits, but pulls up her nose at anything else. We cooked her some liver, I even tried to simulate the vet food by boiling chicken and rice and making it in to a moosh. Not a chance. I bought her chicken loaf, but that is not good enough either. I am starting to get really worried because she is losing weight (and no she is not eating at the neighbour’s either).

Tonight we will go and get some fish. I am sure she will eat that. In fact, I know she will eat it. But that will also mean that chances are her skin inflammation will be back soon.

After all this, she still thinks the neighbour is better than us.

Damn cat.

The vet said Mary has allergies that causes her to self mutilate. Fabulous.

]]> http://www.maryqueenofcats.org.za/2007/11/15/i-wonder-what-she-is-trying-to-say/feed/ 2 http://www.maryqueenofcats.org.za/2007/10/14/mary-saves-the-phone/ http://www.maryqueenofcats.org.za/2007/10/14/mary-saves-the-phone/#comments Sun, 14 Oct 2007 11:32:01 +0000 Nikki http://www.maryqueenofcats.org.za/2007/10/14/mary-saves-the-phone/ I recently got a new Samsung U700 cellphone, which of course is not really such a good thing. I am a scatter brain and I have a tendency to forget things in places.

And so it was this week that I went to our copier/scanner machine at the office (which happens to be on the third floor and I work on the first floor). I had my cell in my hand and trying to operate the big scanning contraption turned out to be a bit of a hassle while trying to hold on to a cellphone. Thus I placed the cellphone on the floor by my feet, making a mental note not to forget it.

A while later I received a phone call from a colleague asking me whether I was interested in buying a phone. I informed him that I recently got a new phone but thanks anyway. My colleague was persistent. I decided to indulge him and asked him what kind of phone and how much.

He said it was a Samsung and it came in a camouflage sock.

It hit me like a ton of bricks: I forgot my phone at the scanning copier machine thing, on the floor.

I went to the third floor to collect my phone and asked my colleague how he knew it was my phone.

His answer? “The cat gave it away”. (I have a picture of Mary on my phone).

So all you cat lovers out there – it pays to have a picture of your cat on your phone!

The first visit entailed injections. We went to the vet to get more of her prescription food as she was all out, only to be told the food won’t be available in the country for the next 3 months as there is some or other problem with customs. We called around everywhere. All surgeries were out of stock. We fed her on ordinary cat food pouches. After 3 days, we noticed Mary’s irritable skin condition was back. This confirmed what the vet suspected: there is something in the food that irritates her skin. Makes one wonder what they put in it….

Anyway, so off to the vet we go. She got a shot to help relieve the condition. We were worse than dog poo. Oh wait hang on no, I was worse than dog poo because somehow this was all my fault. This put us in a difficult position. What is she going to eat? We can’t feed her ordinary food! The vet suggested some other food (which was ludicrously expensive, but there is no price on Mary’s health!), but madam rather starved herself for two days than eat it. We tried absolutely everything. We even bought her fresh raw fish. She just was not interested. We were desperate. We finally found a tin of food called Lucky Pet Supreme, containing whole pilchards or whole sardines in jelly. This she happily ate. I was worried at first that it was because she was so damn hungry she would eat just about everything and then as soon as her hunger were satisfied she would pull her nose up at it again, but so far so good! I don’t know what effect it will have on her skin because the injection lasts about a month or so, so we will just have to wait and see.

The next visit saw Mary stay overnight at the vet’s. She came in one morning with a fat bottom lip. Literally. By the evening the swelling had not gone down, so off we went to the vet. Somehow she hurt herself on her bottom lip and in the space of a day the wound developed an abscess which had to be drained. We had to leave her there overnight and pick her up the next day after work. It was painfully difficult to carry her to the cage and leave her there. I wanted to crack. My poor poor baby.

When we collected her the next day my partner and I were like little kids on Christmas morning! We could not wait to have kitty back with us again! She was equally happy to see us. All these visits meant she had to stay inside for a day or so after each visit – we did not want her to run away because she was upset with us (you never know with Mary!).

I am pleased to report that she is doing well and I sincerely hope it stays that way. I really can’t afford to lose the teeny bit of popularity I worked so hard to get!

But something happened last night that reminded me that I must make time to post on Mary’s blog at least once a week. Part of owning a cat means putting up with the fact that cats puke every now and again. Mostly they do this just after they have eaten grass or if there is a fur ball in their digestive system that is due to be expelled.
Unfortunately this is the part that I really don’t particularly enjoy – I have a weak stomach and I find cleaning up any form of bodily fluids (human or non-human) kind of gross. Okay fine, not kind of, just plain gross. I swear one day, if I ever have children, I don’t care how poor I am, I will hire someone to change nappies and mop up any bodily expulsions.

I woke up last night when I felt my left arm lying in something wet and cold. Upon closer investigation (which took about 2 seconds), I realised my sweet, sweet Mary puked on me while I was blissfully sleeping. I don’t know how on earth I slept through it as the racking and coughing and wheezing and choking sounds she makes as a prelude to puking is rather….. hard to miss or ignore. The worst is, it was mostly soggy biscuits with a teeny little fur ball all mixed together in gob.

After I cleaned it up, my partner said I should have taken a photo of it. I hardly think this is the kind of thing I want to be reminded of – looking at all the goo knowing she left that little gift on me while I was sleeping.

One look at her face though, makes everything forgiven!

Mommy’s pretty little puker

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