A Couple of Reminders for Me

Don’t worry, Hamlet’s okay. But a little herpes flare-up this weekend brought a few reminders of other cats the past three years. It’s been less than a year since we lost Mr. Max and heading to the Sunday farmers market when Hamlet was definitely not feeling well, and with his lack of socialization difficult to treat, was a little difficult. And some reminders for myself this weekend too.

This weekend included a brief reminder of memories from the past three years, and also a reminder about myself.

Hamlet wasn’t feeling well

Hamlet occasionally has a herpes flare-up and he did this weekend. He’s okay now but this one was a little more involved than most.

Everybody gets 500mg of lysine in their food each day, but when I see a few symptoms in Hamlet they all get 1000mg and that seems to ward off a bad one. The flare-up always involves a goopy eye and sometimes nasal discharge, some nasty poops, vomiting up a bit of liquid, and maybe missing a meal, and it usually runs its course of a day or a day and a half.

Hamlet’s socialization

Hamlet is the least socialized of all the cats here. He and his sister came to me in 2014 because they resisted socialization with the rest of their rescued colony’s kittens, yet they were so terrified in the barn home found for them they wouldn’t come out of their box in the crate or eat much or even use the litterbox. Homeless Cat asked if I could give them a chance since I managed to socialize many other difficult kitties. It took months in the foster room to get them to trust me and three tries for them to adapt to the rest of the house, a total of 18 months before they emerged, mostly keeping to each other.

Ophelia was timid but very friendly with me and when an adopter came along she did well in meeting them, moving there and integrating with their other two rescued fosters over time. They were planning to take Hamlet next but he hadn’t advanced in socialization even without his sister, as I hoped he would, so he stayed. Within minutes of discovering she was missing he sidled up to Jelly Bean who was like the fun uncle of the siblings and took him right in, and so did the rest of the siblings, and Basil and Bella too. He had his family.

For most of his time here he interacted with me at a distance, including hopping up on the bed after he thought I was asleep and, rather than cuddling up to any of the others, quietly kneaded on my back before settling down curled up against me. A very delicate relationship which I honored hoping to keep the amount of trust I had with him and build on it. When he needs some medication like an anti-emetic or Famotadine I crush it and add it to the food for all four of them to make sure he gets his dose because they trade off dishes in the kitchen.

Turning to me for affection

Since we lost his ninjas he has turned to me for affection and company, slowly become a little more trusting but very affectionate and even talkative—he looks at me with his tail in the air and meows a soft meow. He sits with me at the table and hops up on my desk stopping in front of the monitor with a meow, expecting pets, and when I say hello to him he always comes over to greet me. I’ve been planning how I’ll get him into a carrier for his first trip to a veterinarian since he was TNRd in 2014.

This herpes flare-up

This bout began Saturday morning though he ate breakfast, but the vomiting of liquid was a little more frequent and seemed to exhaust him and completely wiped out his appetite. I crushed the anti-emetic into some butter and tried to press it between his teeth on the side of his mouth—because he doesn’t understand licking butter off of something—he gave me a little fight and even a little nick on the hand with his claws, and a little later hissed at me. I did my best to communicate my intentions to him, visualizing him well, and me petting him and some great food. He seemed to take it in, didn’t run but didn’t come near.

And he was hiding, natural for any cat but one less socialized would feel totally vulnerable and even more self-protective. He ended up under my big worktable downstairs, a favorite hiding place so I leave it accessible because I know I can find them there. I moved a few boxes and he took off for the upstairs. Then I blocked the basement door to keep him out because I’d never find him there. That effectively ended me preparing any merchandise for Sunday too.

He was okay in the morning, up and moving around but not eating, looking miserable and exhausted, but maybe a bit of the anti-emetic had taken effect. Sometimes this runs its course but he was still kind of hiding as I tried to determine which veterinary option I had for Sunday would be able to handle him probably totally flipping out even if I could get him into a carrier in his weak but frightened state. I left the food out with anti-emetic and Famotidine in each bowl just in case.

Heading to the farmers market, reminders of many recent memories

I was already having memories of the many Sunday summer mornings I headed off for the farmers market or a few other events at other times of the year, knowing I’d be gone for at least six hours, leaving a kitty who was sometimes in really poor condition, not knowing what I might find when I came home, thinking my way through all seven of them: Mewsette, Jelly Bean, Giuseppe, Mr. Sunshine, Mimi, Basil and Mr. Max, remembering their faces and all of them together. But the money I made from sales paid for their care. I never lost one of them while I was away, and hoped that would hold.

I left at 8:30 a.m. but a few times almost went home, just a few minutes away, to check on him, but just kind of reached out to him and checked in, about the same.

When I got home around 4:00 that’s about what I found, Hamlet in a little safe place in the bottom of the cat tree in the kitchen and not happy but accepting my pets, but not treats. His cubby had an opening to the level above and I managed to reach down from the top and sneak a little transdermal appetite stimulant into the tip of his ear while I distracted him with a flashlight at the bottom opening, and just let him rest, wishing I could give him other medications and some fluids which I’d do with any others.

A while later I left and got one of his absolute favorite foods. I let him sniff it in his other safe place in my office and his eyes lit up. I dished it out in the kitchen and I could tell he was moving that way because Sienna in the doorway seemed to be encouraging someone. He walked in past her and slowly cruised around as he does before meals. I put a small amount in a dish so it didn’t overwhelm him and he was very interested, but he did not eat that I saw. I left it all out overnight.

Monday morning he looked better so I think he ate a few bites at least. Even just a little bit of food would help calm his stomach and lessen the acid reflux from the vomiting, which seemed to be over, and possibly the herpes was running its course. He did eat a bit of breakfast with more medications in it.

I had an appointment (more on that below) so I left after I fed them. While I was out I asked Ingrid King to see if she had time for a reiki session for him, and she did, before I got home at 2:00. Hamlet was sitting on the steps by the office cat tree and got up when I came in, walking toward me. Sometimes he runs past me into the kitchen so he’s not “trapped” in the corner of the room, but he didn’t run. He walked up to me with his recent greeting, plumy tail in the air and looking right up at me with that soft meow. And he expected more affection and attention for the rest of the evening.

Today he’s good, though I still sense a little digestive upset so I’m still adding meds in addition to their regular supplements to all the food. I’m guessing it was just a herpes flare-up and not something else in addition or instead. I’m grateful we pulled through this one but it’s even more urgent to get him to a veterinarian for an exam, and to continue working on his trust so that I can find a non-food way to medicate him. I know gabapentin would work for him, but even with that a cat like him will put up a struggle.

So for me just a brief reminder of all our losses since 2023, and so many memories are still with me.

My Monday appointment, reminders for me

About my appointment…I had a biopsy of some calcification in my breast, the first that’s shown up in all my years of mammograms. These are typically benign but need to be biopsied because on their own they are not dangerous but can indicate an underlying change in tissue that could be or could become cancerous. If it isn’t benign you proceed with treatment as necessary, but if it is benign the area gets marked with a little microchip.

I feel intuitively that this is not a problem, but it’s a little mark on my record to remind me I’m getting older and my body isn’t as invincible as it’s always been for me.

I had heard horror stories of others’ breast needle biopsies and I’ve never had one at all anywhere on me so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I have always gone to a smaller independent hospital in my community where all my family members have gone for care, my nieces were born there, my mother actually died there, and I had my first and second surgeries ever, my hip replacement and gall stone removal, at that hospital. It’s a wonderful place and I’m so glad it’s so close. The breast care center has always been respectful and caring, and this procedure was a breeze, I’ve had worse blood draws.

I had planned to work on my posts Monday after I came home because I was to rest after biopsy, but with Hamlet feeling better and the test over with I realized I’d lost sleep, it was hot, and I was very sleepy dozing off now and then, not getting much done. Got to bed early, and that was nice.

My results were benign, yay! Wednesday I have a Doppler circulation test and next week I have a needle biopsy of a cyst on my thyroid, though. And I’ve had several other tests since March.

I had no health issues up to menopause in 2014-2015 after which my blood pressure began to climb from 90/60, my thyroid went a little wacky, I needed glasses, I had cavities for the first time, my cholesterol quadrupled from total 72 though I maintained my same plant-based diet, I just felt like I was falling apart. All those conditions and cancers, Parkinson disease and more run in my family. I’ve been lucky to avoid them all till far later than they affected my family members, but I know what I’m in for.

A few years later the hip replacement and gall stone removal, and now I’m taking my blood pressure each morning. The only way I’m bringing it down from a moderately high level is to get to bed earlier (before 2:00 a.m.) and sleep a little longer (six hours instead of five). I’ve always let myself work as late as I needed to but curtailing my bedtime it really can’t all be done in one normal day. Hence the missed blog posts and catching up days later, and no social media, as I try to get control of my schedule.

What would happen to my kitties if something happened to me? I have a plan, but I’m working to keep that from going into action any time soon. And I still have a million ideas I have to make into real things.

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Pet Loss in the First Person

From the time I began writing about my experiences in pet loss, relating what I was feeling and thinking about it as I moved through grief, readers have thanked me, often in private, for my honesty, grateful to know another shared their feelings as they moved through grief, or helped them make a decision. 

Thank you for following our grief journey after losing three members of our feline family.

I hope sharing our experiences have helped you in some way, as sharing my experiences with you helps me.

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