December 13, 2013 by Texas

Milou Is Home!

A good update on Milou: not only did the surgery go well, Milou is healing well (and defecating normally) according to the vet, so the humans were able to bring him home today. The vet thinks that since he defecated normally immediately after the surgery, there are chances that he doesn’t have a megacolon! We’re keeping our paws crossed.

The humans visited Milou yesterday at the vet and although his (but)tocks were obviously bothering him (he has quite a few stitches and has been shaved on a good part of his tocks and the base of his tail), he seemed alert and happy to see his human.

He is now back home with a cone to prevent him from licking the stitches (which he tries to do despite the cone).

Thank you all so much for your support. Your are all so very good furriends and this is the best gift Santa Paws could send us!
Again, I apologize for not visiting (and answering to your comments) yet. My human will help me hopefully starting tonight and tomorrow.

Sending you all lots of purrs!

December 10, 2013 by Texas

Update on Milou

Just a quick update: the surgeon called and said the surgery went well and Milou should be okay.
They are keeping him until at least Friday but the humans should be able to see him on Thursday.

Thank you all so much for your purrs and purrayers. Milou surely felt the love!

December 9, 2013 by Texas

Milou Monday: Milou is at the Vet for Perineal Hernias

No Mondays are for Memories today, as the humans brought Milou to a specialist vet today to try to find out whether he had a megacolon and what could be done about it.

Milou in a box | Texas, a cat in... Austin

Again, thank you so much to everyone for stopping by and leaving links, advice, purrs, and purrayers. My human has learned a lot more about megacolon now! I hope to be able to come visit you again soon, as things get a little less busy.

The diagnostic today was that Milou has perineal hernias that have to be repaired. Basically and to keep it simple and short (may veterinarians forgive us!), the muscles that help the feces get out through the rectum are not working properly now, so Milou needs a surgery to repair them. The vet surgeon will use some other muscles in the pelvic region to repair the perineal hernias.

The vet could not say whether or not Milou had a megacolon yet though. Right now, he will only get treated for the perineal hernias (which is already a lot if you ask me). The vet surgeon is hoping that this will solve Milou’s problems and that he doesn’t have megacolon.

So the humans left Milou at the new vet today. He will get “cleaned” of all the stool currently in his colon before he has the surgery, maybe tomorrow, but most probably Wednesday. Of course, we are thinking a lot about him and we will be purring for him! I will keep you updated as we learn more.

Here are a couple of pictures of Milou, Kitshka, and I goofing around a few days ago! We are eager to be able to play with ~~(and chase)~~ Milou again!

Texas & Milou | Texas, a cat in... Austin

Milou & Kitshka | Texas, a cat in... Austin

December 3, 2013 by Texas

Update on Milou’s Health: It Might Be a Megacolon

Hiya everyone,

As I mentioned here and there (for those who have been following me for some time), Milou has been going to the vet regularly for the past two years, due to constipation issues. We tried adding fibers and the vets prescribed laxatives, and it helped for a while, but it now seems that the problem is more serious than that.

Milou, on his human’s lap

Milou has to go to the vet almost once a week to have an enema. With Thanksgiving, our new vet even taught the humans how to perform one just in case.

Our vets in New York diagnosed IBD or cancer (they had to make a biopsy to know for sure, but the humans decided not to go for the biopsy because it was a very invasive surgery, Milou is 14, and at the time he had lost a lot of weight if you remember, plus the vets told our humans that the treatment would be more or less the same anyway).

Our vet here in Texas thinks that Milou has a case of Megacolon: basically, Milou’s colon is dilated so much that it cannot process the poop out anymore. Feces stay stuck inside and become larger and very dry and hard.

According to our vet, there are but two solutions: a surgery by a specialist vet to take away part of the colon (the dilated part that cannot function anymore) or… the worse solution ever. Neither my human, nor me can resolve ourselves to write it here :-(

Milou has an appointment with a specialist vet next Monday. In the meantime, the humans are doing some research on the health issue. If any of you has had this problem in your furry family, please feel free to share how it went. Thank you in advance.

This is not a furry nice time of the year, in some respects. There are several kitties that need purrs, including our furriends at Brian’s Home. We too are purring for them.

Graphic by Zoolatry

October 1, 2013 by Texas

Kitshka the Brave

[Furriends: my human is a little bit busy these days, so we might be slow to visit and comment, I am sorry about that. I will do my best though! But I cannot guarantee the human’s best! Thank you!]

Kitshka had to go to the vet last week, because she had her vaccination deadline coming and the vet didn’t want to do it at the same time as the rabbies booster when we went all together. It’s a little sadistic to make a kitty go to the vet twice in a month, if you ask me, but of course the humans didn’t object. Can you tell Little K wasn’t pleased?

Kitshka at the vet

Kitshka was as brave as a Ladycat can be though. She explored the place and waited patiently until the vet came. 30 minutes later. My human generally doesn’t like to take pictures at the vet but the humans had plenty of time to kill!

Kitshka at the vet

I gotta teach her to growl, really.

If you are wondering what’s in the closed jar, it is a heart with heartworm. I know! I don’t know why some humans would keep this either!

September 8, 2013 by Texas

Life Goes On With A Song

If you are furriends with me on Facebook, you might have seen that our humans took us to the vet for our rabies booster yesterday.

At first we were a little worried we were going on a road trip again. And vet or else, we made our complaint heard in the car. The three of us sang the “The Warrior Songs of our brotherhood & sisterhood in three-part harmony”, as Spitty purrfectly put it.

Want to hear it? No problem! Turn the volume up and wait until the end (it’s less than one minute long) to hear the three of us together.

Can you tell who’s who?

The high-pitched one is of course Little Kitshka, the lower one is Milou. I’m in the middle!

Feel free to use it as an inspiration next time your humans take you to the vet!

My human, who prides herself of having recorded our performance, has not recorded my solo performance in front of the vet! Rock-Hiss-N-Growl is its name! I wish I could have shared it with you too!

Other than that, we are all doing fine. I am, er, a healthy – cough – 14 lbs. Milou has gained back some weight too, and is now a little more than 8 lbs (back from around 6 lbs). The surprise is that beautiful Kitshka is already 9 lbs! The vet and the humans seem to think it’s a lot for a one year old kitty. But Little (hem!) K is fit and doing a lot of exercise. Also, the humans aren’t exactly sure what her cat father was, only that he was a long-haired kitty (the cat mom is a shorthair). So it might be that her cat father was a massive kitty? What do you think?

That said, she’s always eager to push me out of my bowl to eat my food!

Well, my furriends, I gotta go now. My human and I have some planning to do for my blog.

Wishing you all a great Sunday!

April 25, 2013 by Texas

Milou Update – The Power of the Purr

Thanks to Ann of Zoolatry for the graphic

Hiya furriends,

So we have partial good news!

The vet has made the humans wait all day to get back to them because he was doing a surgery (but not to Milou!).

Milou has been doing better. He is eating (now, that’s our Milou!). But the vet wanted to keep him another night. If he’s doing as well until tomorrow, the humans will be able to bring him home!

Of course, the inflammation problem will have to be dealt with later, but right now, this is good news!

THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone for their purrs, prayers, thoughts and get-well wishes! I knew that Milou would be able to feel all your love!

Thank you!!

April 24, 2013 by Texas

Quick Update on Milou

Thank you so very much to all of you who left get-well wishes and purrs and prayers for Milou.
Thank you also to Ann of Zoolatry for sharing the info with this beautiful graphic of hers.

We are very moved by all your purrs and thoughts and I am sure Milou can feel the love!

He is spending tonight at the vet again unfortunately. He is still not eating and is on IV. The infection also reached the kidney :-( So the vet will have to cure him of the infection before checking what’s wrong with the intestines.

Hopefully, we can get him home tomorrow. I will keep you posted. I might not post anything other than an update tomorrow.

Thanks again for your support.

April 24, 2013 by Texas

Worried Wednesday – Purring for Milou

Hiya everyone!

I had planned a Wordless Wednesday but it won’t happen because we are a little bit worried about Milou.

He has not been feeling too well lately. First he has lost a lot of weight and that’s just not Milou. So the humans took him to the vet on Friday and it turned out he has a urinary infection.

Another problem is that he has inflamed intestines. It might be the inflammatory bowel disease, or something else that we all hope it is not. A biopsy is necessary to know more.

In the past 24 hours, Milou has barely eaten but he drank a lot. It is very unlike Milou not to eat. So the humans were really worried. So he went back to the vet yesterday and the vet kept him in observation for the night.

We are quite worried and are purring for him. We cross our paws for better news soon. I will keep you updated.

February 21, 2013 by Texas

VBP Thursday: A few days in the life of me

[Still not sure what VBP is? Check here.]

Posts on my bloggie have been sparse (VBP) again; visiting my furriends’ bloggies has been barely possible. Truth is some things happened in the past 2 weeks that I want to tell you about.

About two weeks ago, on a Saturday morning, I regurgitated (VBP) my food twice or thrice (VBP). My human thought I might have caught a bug (!) or something and rushed me to the vet. Truth is my stomach and I were upset because an evil suitcase had appeared.

Anyway, the visit to the vet was quite a thing. The nice vet had a new assistant which I decided I didn’t like (remember there was the suitcase in my human’s bedroom). So I was not really nice. But I had nothing to do there! I wanted to go home and I wanted the suitcase to disappear!

The vet gave me some fluids and sent me home asking the humans… kitties, hold on to your scratching post… asking the humans not to give me food for 24 hours! 24 HOURS!! I thought I would starve! And I almost did.

The day after, on Sunday, the human gave me my first food in 24 hours of forced starvation… and she took her suitcase and left for 3 days to sunny California, the home of some of my furriends (Sparkle, Savvy, Spitty…) without asking if I wanted to come or send a message for them.

The human: Texas, I went there for work, I was in a delimited area in south Los Angeles, and I didn’t have much time even for myself!

Don’t bother reading the human’s excuses. Excuses, always excuses.

Then she came back on Wednesday morning, very early. I was very happy! Not an hour passed, she caught me, put me in my carrier and took me to a photo shoot!

The human: Texas, it was the Westchester Magazine photo shoot, remember? You asked your furriends to vote for you, and they did, and you were selected.
Texas: And because you have no time for me, I wasn’t yet able to tell them!
The human: We are telling them now.
Texas: Pfft. Back of disrespect. AND airplane ears (I think you like airplanes, don’t you?).

Anyway, it was kind of a dark place with some very bright spots, with HUGE lamps. It was kind of scary. And there were TWO pawpawrazzi! It lasted about 10 hours [The human: less than one actually], and there were dozens of dogs to force me to comply [The human: the next animal to be photographed was a dog, and arrived about 10 minutes before we left].

The human: Am I complaining that they took a picture of the two of us while I was just “fresh” out of the plane, which means not really ready for a photo shoot?
Texas: Who cares? I’m the star, am I not?
The human: You did behave like a little star, yes ;-) I couldn’t even take pictures of the photo shoot to show your furriends, because I had to run after you all the time. Not to mention the photograph had to take pics of you lying on the floor because you were hiding under the couch!
Texas: Hmpf.

I want to seize (VBP) this opportunity to thank again all my furriends who voted for me in the Westchester Magazine Pet of the Year Contest. I am one of the ten pets of the year and I will be featured in the March or April issue! More on this as soon as I have more news.

Here are last week’s pawticipants. As always, click on the bluey badge at the bottom of this post to enter your link for this week. And don’t forget to grab the badge! Thanks to everyone!

We had three links this past week from bloggies that entered their URL but did not pawticipate (we could not find any reference to VBP in any post). It would be unfair to pawticipants to post the links of bloggers who do not do a VBP post. So, if you don’t see the link to your blog, yet have entered one, you can post the link to your VBP post in the comments. If we have missed it, we will add it. Thank you for your furry understanding =^.^=
If you have any question regarding VBP, you can check the simple rules here and don’t hesitate to leave your questions in the comments!

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