We lost Fleurp and Twee within two weeks of each other (and pretty major TFK news)

 

This post is breaking my heart.. If your heart is too sensitive for Fleurp and Twee's story, you can scroll down to the last paragraph where it says "Major News" which I put in bold.

Fleurp:
Earlier this year, Fleurp was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, so we were giving her medication twice a day to help with that. Her levels weren't going down well so we had a medication increase. She is not an easy cat to tend to as she had many opinions and all of them told her that she absolutely positively did not need my help. She hated when I shaved her each spring to help manage her anemia and she hated it when I started giving her fluids every other week or so as she was old and her kidneys could use the help.. She would react like I was biting her and fight to get away. Even trimming her claws was often an exercise in how much I could do before she lost her patience with me.. (most of the time I got them all done, but not always)

She changed when we moved out of Maine. She was a social cat before, but in the years since moving here she separated herself from us most of the time. In the first house we moved to, she almost never left the mud room/kitchen. She rarely came down the hall to go to bed with us.. Her world became very small.  When we moved into our current house, 90% of her life was the kitchen or living room windows (the two rooms are barely separated with a double door arch way).  She seemed happy and totally content. She liked it when we catered to her desires and gave her "candy bars" often standing on the island demanding them.

She spent 10 years becoming anemic once or twice a year. Mostly in the spring but occasionally in the fall. We aren't sure why but she would have a very dramatic shed from winter to summer and I know a lot of fur can impact nutrient absorption (which is why we did what we could to shave her so she consumed less) but it wasn't perfect. She still had issues.  I knew she would most likely not make it to 20+ years, but I never guessed that her thyroid levels would damage her heart.

It started with diarrhea that was gross and smelly, she stopped eating. I took her in for an exam and tests and more bloodwork. Her liver was seriously compromised. My vet suspected her heart was an issue. I took her home to try to fix what we could but we couldn't. I took her back to the vet (on July 11th), thinking there was more that we could do to pull her though this, but after an exam, it was clear she was suffering. We considered taking her to a specialist for further diagnostics in hopes of finding more answers that we could treat, but knowing Fleurp's willingness to bite, her hatred of traveling and being poked and prodded, and the only slim chance there was a better answer, we opted to let her go.

Was it the "right" call? I have no idea.. but it was one made with a whole lot of love.. we wanted to do right by her.. and we felt it was the right decision at the time, and that is what matters, that is what I hold on to.

Twee: 
Twee does not do well with changes to The Crew. Her first loss was Emmy. She was a young girl then and hardier, and there were many other cats for her to hang out with, but you could tell she spent some time being lost. She and Ollie never really got along (he was far too grumpy for her simple nature) so his passing wasn't as hard. He had been the ruler of The Crew so everyone was a bit lost when he left us, but we didn't notice anything specific with her. When Jack passed, Twee became quite despondent. She ate, but not nearly enough and we almost lost her too. We ended up taking her to an emergency facility, where she spent the weekend (and a lot of money) before she was well enough to come home. 

When Fleurp passed, I had been saying for years that Twee wasn't going to be with us much longer. She was 18, 19, 20 years old and had stage two and then three kidney disease. Before Fleurp started with the diarrhea I noticed that Twee was losing weight and I really didn't like how she was looking so I took her to the vet for some bloodwork to see if there was anything else that might be done. I was kinda hoping it was her thyroid.. but it wasn't. Her kidneys just couldn't do their job and she was feeling miserable.  I tried antinausea and appetite stimulant but it didn't really help all that much. (Sadly, pilling her diminished her quality of life.. with the fluids I know that this life style wasn't that sustainable) and I tried to prep my husband for her eventual end. He was in complete denial. I'm not sure which was worse, Twee at 20 or Kit at 9..  When Fleurp passed, Twee really started to go down hill. I pulled out every single thing I could think of.. 

He wanted to try more things, but I had given it my last ditch effort. I said we could try for a second opinion and he glommed on to that so hard but I explained the chances were that we would put her through more stress to potentially get a short amount of time with her. In the end, he realized that it was time. Thankfully my vet lives right near by and was willing to come to the house.

While we both appreciate not being serenaded by Twee singing opera at 11pm and 3am on a regular basis, they are both missed terribly.  Not only did we lose both cats within two weeks of each other, but going from five cats to three was quite dramatic. 

And to top it all off, we are in the midst of a major life change. The Catman is being transferred from VT to NC. This is something that has been bandied about for a couple of months. What is horrible is that we were so incredibly worried when we moved from ME to this area because Kit was absolutely horrible at traveling by car.. even a 10 minute ride would make her drool horribly for hours. She was a tiny cat and it was really worrisome. When she developed cancer and passed away within a week of diagnosis, part of me was relieved that we didn't have that added stress. Her situation was clear cut. She had a cancerous growth that was incompatible with life. Her inability to travel hindered our ability to get her additional care. I worried about such a huge move with two elderly and medically fragile kitties and wondered what we were going to do.  Part of me yells at myself for "giving up too easily" because of the real potential of moving 12 hours away and not wanting to put either of them through that.  I am sure in time I will forgive myself for making two pretty clearly correct decisions because on another level I'm relieved I don't have that added stress of moving them, but I don't think it will be any time soon.

Major news:
We are going to Raleigh NC for about six months while he is in training, so we are looking for a place to live. We are going to rent a place while he is getting up to speed and then we are going to look for a home and move to Charlotte where his work wants him. This means some serious down sizing and renting a storage unit so we don't have to get rid of EVERYTHING and have to rebuy it in a few months. I am downsizing a lot of my crafting supplies and what not.. it is very very painful for me. I am getting rid of a LOT of my foster supplies since I won't be fostering next year unless he trains quickly and we get into a home faster.  I'm getting rid of a lot of my own cat things because I own far fewer cats and don't see us adding any for at least a year (see the last unless).  A twelve hour move to a two bedroom apartment is a far cry from a 2 hour move to a three (plus) house with a full basement and huge amount of storage (first house - second house had more of both things).  As someone who has attached a lot of emotions to the things I have chosen to own, letting so much go is a really painful process. I am working on giving away what I can't sell, sell what I can, and hopefully it will pare us down enough to be comfortable. but going from an 11 room house to a two bedroom apartment.. yeah.. ouch

Big goings on at Casa de Gato

Well, we moved again. I know I know.. but the house we initially purchased was not working for us. We had originally bought it with huge renovation plans but we couldn't get anyone to really give us a serious quote on it. We had a few people out to the house to give us an estimate and discuss our plans but they would walk away saying they would get back to us and never did.

We had another house on our short list when we bought this one and we picked this one because it was cheaper and had central air conditioning. The other house had a better layout for us. My husband and I talked about all of the things we wanted to do and when we made a pro/con list it seemed it would end up being cheaper if we could move. We went back to the other house to see if we were remembering it correctly and we were (for the most part) and so we put our house on the market. Showing a house with cats and foster kittens.. well .. it didn't go well. So many people who came to see the house hated cats or were allergic.. they didn't like the purple bathroom or the blue bedroom, etc.. We did our best to 'de-cat' the house but it was beyond stressful for all of us and no one was interested.

Our second choice house sold. We found a third that was really cool. We needed to add a room or two to the basement, but it was do-able and something we could easily do ourselves. Unfortunately, that one sold too. We took one last look at the houses in the community we are in and were about to give up and stay when we stumbled upon a house that was foreclosed on. We didn't look at it the first time around because they put only five photos of the home and they were all blurry. We figured it was a lemon. With this being the last home available that we hadn't seen we thought 'oh what the heck" and when we walked in the door I was trying to figure out how to make an offer. I love this house that much.

Fortunately, we hadn't refinanced the first house to put the equity we had from the house in Maine and we were able to swing a purchase before a sale, but the whole thing happened so quickly that our heads are still spinning. We are now in a frantic rush to finish getting out of the last house so we can paint and remove all of the cat furs and hopefully get it sold ASAP.. because we are so financially bound right now it isn't funny. If we can sell it and get out from under the loan we will be doing very well, but right now things are very tight.

We moved a few days ago and all of the cats were confined to the bedroom

We are fortunate that the cats like each other enough to do this, but after a few days they were totally over the whole 'one room' thing and were itching to escape. I wanted to get carpet runners or treads for the stairs before letting them downstairs, but without a door that was very hard. I thought I was clever using the baby gate.

Skippy busted right through it and soon after Fleurp did too. I thought as long as it kept Muffin safe (because she has a hard time with stairs) I was good but a few minutes she went strolling past me downstairs as well, so I gave up.

The cats did amazingly well during the move. There has been some stress, but the Feliway plugins and the CBD seem to be keeping things on a pretty even keel.

We are still very much in flux here, not fully being out of the other house and being exhausted as both houses have three floors of "stuff" (oh my goodness I have way too much stuff) but soon we should be settled and things can start to get back to normal in a way it never was at the last house because there were too many what ifs.

I did move with the six cats and the four foster kittens. The kittens adjusted very well, they were a little nervous at first but once they got their bearings they were loving the new digs. You will too, and I will show those off later. As you know those kittens went back to the shelter to be adopted. I hinted at having a mystery guest earlier in the week...

Yup, Michaela is back at Casa de Gato, and she brought her new minions with her. They are killing me with the cute and I've been dying to share videos of them over on Facebook. Unfortunately, they did not want to be contained in the basket, so this didn't last very long. They all escaped the first night, well except this one

I found him in the basket all by himself, well except with the unicorn. Michaela wouldn't pull him out or put the others back in, so she brought him a couple of toys to keep him company (he was sitting on top of two other toys) which I found to be painfully adorable. I removed the basket after taking the photo so he wouldn't be all alone again.

Now, we just need names.. 

Moving was made a little easier with Chewy.com #chewyinfluencer

As I mentioned last month, I was offered a few items in October through the Chewy.com Influencer program that I thought would be beneficial to have when we finally moved. I must say I do believe they both helped a lot.

After the two hour drive to the new house and realizing that Eli now has a meep meow that sounds a lot like a meepy car horn that is a few car lengths back, I carted all of the cats into the house. I originally was going to set them up upstairs but I quickly realized that was not going to work. Which is sadly why I don't have a great photo of the Feliway Comfort Zone which helps with stress behaviors by calming cats. When I moved the cats and put them in the master bathroom, I moved the plugin down there.

You can see it in the outlet by the sink. You can also see a plate of the Tiki Cat Food. I know that cats won't eat when they are stressed but since several of my cats are highly food motivated I was hoping that this would also be a "good thing" and it would help calm them.

They all came out of their carriers pretty quickly - thankfully because I didn't think six would fit in that bathroom - and were investigating. When they were finally released from the bathroom the bed was up and they were feeling better about things, but they were not ready to leave the bedroom. Jack would often go back to the bathroom where the Feliway was and sit in the carrier underneath it. It felt like he wanted to "go home".

So, I unplugged it and moved it into the kitchen where we wanted to feed them.

In fact, I liked the Feliway so much I bought a second one - along with a whole bunch of litter

Moving with Cats

It has been a week since I packed up the cats and we traveled to the next stage of life. .. wait, really? how has it been a week already.. goodness, gracious..

Anyway.. We still have a lot more to do. We are still not out of Casa de Gato. I still haven't come up with a name for the new house, We still need to put CdG up on the market and sell it (*fingers crossed that goes well*) and you shouldn't be shocked to learn we still have a ton of boxes to unpack and that doesn't include the ton of boxes I don't plan to unpack for several months or more (they belong to my craft room and I don't have one of those yet)

We have several huge plans for this house, most of which require an engineer to see if the structure of the house can handle it. We also need to do something about the spot on the floor that is causing the ceiling above it to crack. All of this needs to wait though.. we have to finish moving first.

About the actual move..

I packed up the cats and attempted to get them out of the house before the movers showed up. Because the movers showed up half an hour early, I didn't quite pull that off. I was able to secure Eli and Twee first - very important - and got them in carriers and then usually everyone else is pretty easy. This time, however, Muffin decided she didn't want to go and found a way to open up the closet in my office that was hiding behind a stack of boxes that took up the entire length of the sliders. I had to move all kinds of boxes to get to her. When I finally got her out, the movers walked into the house freaking her out even more. She does not like being seen by company... I think she thinks they are going to steal her away.

I finally got them all in the car along with important things like litter and medications and we headed off. Interestingly, they quieted down really quickly. Normally we have to take the highway north to get to the vet half an hour away and they have words the entire way. This time by the time we got to the highway headed south they were fairly quiet. I would hear them occasionally, but in general, they sat and listened to my audiobook.  About halfway, Eli developed a new trick. He found he could mew in such a way to sound like a car horn. I was on the highway all by myself, so I kept looking in all of my mirrors to make sure I wasn't missing something.I had to shake my head when I realized what he was doing.

When we got to the house I originally intended to set them up upstairs, but I quickly realized that was not going to work (the floor has not been cleaned and was full of drywall dust) I had to cart them all back down the stairs and I put them in the master bathroom. Unfortunately, the bathroom door didn't latch and the knob came off when I tried. Fortunately, they had no intention of leaving, but even so, I found myself checking on them quite frequently and sitting with them trying to calm them. Once the movers were finally gone we made the bed and opened the door. They came out and investigated the bedroom and then went and sat in their carriers as if to say "Okay, let's go home"

It took several days for them to feel comfortable enough in the room to try to investigate the hall. Twee, Fleurp, and Skippy were quicker to adapt to new rooms than Jack, Muffin, and Eli. Muffin has had the worst time of the six. It hasn't been too bad but she was the most resistant to eating in the kitchen and it took her the longest to climb up on the bed and sleep out in the open.

We are at the point where all the food is being fed in the kitchen now (as opposed to in the bedroom or in the hall right outside the bedroom) and all six cats are currently in the bed with us (I mean literally, as I type this). I have opened the door to the upstairs and the 'youngsters' are thrilled when I let them up there. The "elders" are still a bit nervous. It will probably be a week or two before I feel comfortable letting them into the basement (not that there is anything wrong with the basement, it is quite nice, but too much territory too quickly can be overwhelming for cats)

So far, *knock wood*, Jack has been fairly stable. I was giving him supplements to help his bladder and he has yet to pee outside the box *knocks more wood*. Twee is currently having a bit of an issue. She was very quiet all day yesterday and had a small bout of diarrhea. I think she is upset because her daddy isn't spending a lot of time at the house yet and she misses him.. at least that is what I hope it is.

I need to get established at the local vet. I suppose I should call them and make sure they even want me as a client (you know, the whole raw feeding minimal vaccines owner)

Anyway.. so far, so good, and I'm glad things went as smoothly as they did. Once we are fully out of the other house and we have a lot more boxes unpacked, I'll introduce myself to the local shelter. Hopefully they'll have kittens..

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful that this Thanksgiving has us all together. Last year we had just lost Kit and the pain was so fresh. May this Thanksgiving find you will all of your loved ones and may you all still be together next year as well.

The calm before the storm

Today is the day. Wish us luck..

Because you *KNOW* they are going to sing the song of their people the ENTIRE two hours it takes to get them to the new house..

Have we moved YET!?!

Jack is so over this moving thing. He is sick and tired of his stuff disappearing in boxes and he wishes that his people would just sit down and pay attention to him.

Muffin is enjoying the boxes and wishes we would just leave them alone.

Skippy is enjoying all of the 'new' things going around. I have a feeling he is going to LOVE the new house. At least I hope that is the case.

No one was freaked out by the quilt that I brought to the house to soak up the scent there for a week. In fact, they climbed right up on it and went to sleep.

Fleurp and Travelin Jack are having a conference about traveling so far. I hope that  Fleurp is prepared because it is happening in the morning. I've got everything they need (except the cat trees) ready to be packed into the car in the morning one they are in. Paws crossed that two hours isn't too hard on them.

Watchin X-Files with the lights on

We are watching the roach episode now, which is one of the episodes we like a lot, that and the one with Charles Nelson Reilly.  Not sure what caught Fleurp's attention about the credits to the previous episode, but I couldn't resist capturing it.

It looks like the cats are starting to feel the stress of the move. I took yesterday off from packing and did my best to make myself available for snuggling and love. They took me up on it frequently and flagrantly. I am hoping now that we aren't taking full days away from the house once and twice a week they'll relax a little. I know the stacking of boxes in the guest room and my office is not helping. There will be some nip parties going on and rescue remedy will be applied liberally if I suspect it isn't getting better.

Speaking of nip, I walked into the kitchen the other day in the middle of the night and heard a scraping sound. It was a slow *scrape* pause *scrape* and I was a bit weirded out wondering what it was. Turned out that Eli had found himself a nip nanner and was giving it lots of love..

Happy National Bow Tie Day with Skippy - and an announcement

It is National Bow Tie Day again, one of my favorite holidays because I get to dress up Skippy and take silly photos of him. Skippy has a pretty extensive bow tie collection because I keep a bow tie on him full time. I don't know why I put a bow tie on him the first time, but it is just seems to fit him, and now when I take them off he just looks so silly to me... kinda like when your friend takes off their eye glasses.

Instead of showing off his entire collection again we have an announcement to make.  We are leaving Casa de Gato. Taking our cue from several other great online cat personalities like Waffles, Sauerkraut and Sarah Donner, we are going to be moving. My husband was given a promotion to work in Vermont, so we are moving to be closer to his work. We haven't quite settled on a house yet, we have been looking at them since May and it has been incredibly draining on all of us. It has been 12-14 hour days driving out, looking at five or six houses and not finding anything we both really love. We have been in this house since before Twee was a baby, so we have a LOT to pack up and deal with.. (although interestingly, I've already moved once since starting this blog)

Skippy is loving it because I haven't let my cats into my office in quite some time. There is a very good reason for that..

Skippy thought these were super fun to play with.. I'm currently tempted to just sweep them up and throw them away so I don't have to pack it. Packing has been a bit of a challenge too... if you have ever had a cat and a cardboard box, you know what I am talking about.

We are hoping to make our decision this week. We are going out on another house seeing this week and we really believe we'll have a decision when we are done. Then it will be a big push to finish packing and then there will be the moving, but once there I will be working from home so we are expecting things will be awesome once we are settled; it is just the next few months that are going to be chaos. I am not sure if I will be taking anymore kittens until we are in the new place, but if the move takes a while I probably will as kittens are stress relief for me.

Two sodas we found when we stopped for refreshments while house hunting

So if you have noticed I haven't been as active online, that's why. I'm hopefully going to be back on top of things soon.

Yes, Fleurp, we'll bring you too

And the move progresses

So on Friday afternoon, we packed up the kitties and brought them to the new house. I put all the carriers in the kitchen in the AM, then after we signed, I came home and packed them up. at one point I had a choice between grabbing Muffin or Ollie. I grabbed Muffin, which was the wrong choice.. Ollie ran downstairs and hid in the basement. I was afraid I was going to have to leave him behind.. but after a few moments of ignoring him he peeked around the corner and I nabbed him.

I brought them over and put them in the back bathroom.. after we set up the bed I let them out into the bedroom they had a lot of fun exploring. they were a bit nervous.. but on the whole, not too bad. After we had all the major appliances over and a majority of the boxes, we let them out into most of the rest of the house.. they are having a blast running down the long hall. I haven't let them into the back bedrooms or downstairs yet.. and I won't until this house is cleared out... which hopefully will be in a few days - MAN we have a lot of stuff. The only problem at this point is Ollie keeps wanting to get into the garage..

So far they have been really good. We've been anal about keeping the 1 litter box clean, and we haven't had a single accident. Hopefully, we'll all be completely settled in soon.

and the results are in

it was just a pocket of fat.. so Emmy is A-OK.. just needs to have the stitches removed in a few days.

we are packing up the house, because we are moving in a couple of weeks.. the cats are completely enthralled with the packing process. Jack is trying to eat all the tape.. and Muffin is trying to jump in each and every box.