The time I stay offline for a day and a half....
((((Sammie and family))))
Windsparrow, high creatinine is a classic sign of feline kidney failure. You want creatinine to be 2.5 or under -- 2.5 what, I'm not sure. BUN (which I think stands for Blood Urea Nitrogen) is another key kidney value -- you want that to be under 25 -- again, I'm not sure 25 what. If Sammie's in the early stages of kidney failure, the primary treatments are subcutaneous fluids and low-protein diet.
When Teddy was first diagnosed with kidney failure, we managed to make sure he, and neither of our other two, got his low-protein food by close supervision at meal times. Max especially had a much better sense of "my food" than "your food" or "let's share the food." But after a while, everybody either got the picture or got into the habit of eating from the plate set before them.
On the other hand, we only supervised at feeding time. So it was fairly easy for anyone to eat from someone else's plate an hour later.
I'm the last person to be saying this, but your vet should be able to show you how to do sub-Q fluids. It's definitely a two-person job, and three is ideal.
Windsparrow, ~ma for Sammie.
I burned the stew out of the back of my hand tonight. Besides oral painkillers, is there anything else I can do for the pain? It seriously hurts when I take my hand off of the ice pack.
askye, I don't always love doing my job because I'm human and I too get cranky like today, but I love my job. I hope you find a job that suits you and that you love, and I'm sorry that jerk made you feel crappy.
Lemon juice. A paste of baking soda and cold water. Bactine.
ChiKat, a quick search shows you shouldn't use the ice for more than an hour at a time, reapplying if necessary after the area has warmed up again.
I usually use aloe for my burns.
ChiKat - cover it. It is the air getting to it that makes it hurt. I had a friend that burned his hand - and he wore a latex glove over it for a few days. Kept the air off - so no pain. ( smaller burns can be covered with bandages , of course)
Happy birthday Amiee. A home for your birthday - you must have been very good this year.
Sorry R is not a good friend, askye
Skipping ahead to wave hello from Alabama and the snail-slow modem connection at my mom's house.
Mom is doing better than I expected, as far as holding up under chemo. We won't really know anything about her prognosis for awhile yet. She still manages to exasperate me by having political and cultural views so much more conservative than my own. I feel guilty for being exasperated, what with her being sick and all, but I'm just not going to pretend to agree, for example, that we should have a mole in every mosque in America because they're surely plotting something against us. But I do avoid fighting. I just said, mildly, that I wasn't going to support treating anyone's mosque in a way I wouldn't want my church to be treated. Her reply. "Well. You're of a different generation."
Anyway. It's a rough visit in some ways, but not as tough as I'd expected.
On a lighter note, Annabel was resisting being put into pajamas tonight, and I had to sort of pin her loosely with my legs to keep her from running away. She flung herself against me, crying, "No! No! My freedom! My FREEEEDOMMMM!" (I had no idea she even knew that word.) My reply: "Sorry, William Wallace. I'll be your English oppressor this evening."
I see someone needs to have a chat with Rudy Guiliani. He'll set her straight.
Context for people not in Natter - we were discussing this old gem of Rudy's today:
"Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."
