sunday with the curtains open

if you remember from a few posts ago, mom has had a corneal ulcer. this is really painful, and mom had a lot trouble trying to be comfortable while it healed. a big part of what she needed was dark because her eye was so light sensitive. our curtains were closed for a long time.

this morning, she opened them! it's raining, but beautifully green on the golf course.

btw, last night when she was washing the leftover gel-goop out of her eye, she came real close to just snipping the sutures and pulling them out herself. i had to remind her that the v-e-t's supposed to do that. she almost didn't listen to me, but i got real LOUD (MRAW!), and gave her a BIG head butt. she restrained herself, and the stitches are still there. she's practically counting the hours until her appt on tuesday.

obviously

mom didn't get her stitches out on wednesday. she's a little bummed. there's nothing wrong...just have to wait to get an appt with the doc who put them in.

there are two docs that work together: the cornea guy and the eyelid guy. mom's seen both of them. the cornea guy pronounced her well, and she has to wait to see the eyelid guy. so tuesday around 1:30 the little sutures will come out and mom should be able to open her eye completely.

New picture tomorrow - we hope!

Mom has ANOTHER doc appt tomorrow. This makes 17 in 5 weeks. She's hoping that she'll be able to post a picture of her eye without the sutures tomorrow night. She was wondering if the needle/thread holes will close or if she'll have the equivalent of pierced eyelids? if she cries, will the tears come out of the holes?

it's a school day

i decided that mom should teach us a lesson about eyes.

first, she's going to show you a picture of her right eye.

if you click to biggify, you'll see the bruising from the injections, and the sutures from the tarsorrhaphy (the accent is on the second syllable). tarsorrhaphy is the suturing of the eyelids to protect the eye.

when the picture is biggified, her eye looks wet because mom uses antibiotic eye drops. now she uses two that alternate on the hour, plus an additional one every four hours. until this past monday, she was using two that alternated on the half hour, plus one that was two times per day. she's a fan of the polder digital timer that she wears around her neck to help keep track of her dosing schedule.

the tarsorrhaphy was done so that mom's eyelid wouldn't scrape across the healing corneal ulcer. before she got her eyelid sutured, she would open her eye after sleep and her eyelid would tear open the ulcer again.

mom's v-e-t said that women who have gone through labor and childbirth say a corneal ulcer is more painful. mom believes that.

here's the lesson: most eye injuries heal in one day. if your human has an eye irritation that lasts longer than one day, insist that she/he go to the v-e-t immediately.

(mom knows that her eyebrow is in pretty sad shape, but she's not about to tweeze or wax while she's got this going on...)

It's all Mom's fault

Mom's got a black eye. The outer edges of her right eyelid have been sewn shut to protect her eye so it can heal from a corneal ulcer. It's been ridiculously painful, and Mom lost her sense of humor for awhile. Now that she's feeling a little better, she's thinking she would have made an awesome zombie for Halloween!

We'll post pictures when she finds the camera cable.

cleaned up the house

yesterday was sure busy! i spent lots of time snoopervising mom's work of cleaning the house. except when she got the sucky monster from uncle jerry's (he lives right next door). i don't like the sucky monster. truth be told, mom doesn't like the sucky monster either.

somebody got mom a 'cup cozee' from http://www.mysistersbag.com/CC-Cats.html. it's really cute...kitty faces! (mom needs to re-learn how to embed links into posts. i'll go pull out the book for her...i'm so helpful!)

cool and lovely

can you believe...mom turned on the heat this morning! it was delicious! i tried very hard to convince her to stay home in bed. she turned me down...something about needing to buy kitty food. at least she has her priorities straight!

thursday afternoon

sometimes mom takes naps with me. she puts her arms around and hugs me tight like i'm a teddy bear. i like this a whole bunch, and i purr and purr. i think she's getting to scoop me up to take a nap with her in just a few minutes. i am a lucky cat!

mmm. naps. cuddly naps. Zzzz

first day of autumn

and the overcast weather we had over the weekend is GONE! it's supposed to be nearly 90 today and tomorrow!

it feels pretty good...and it cools down so nicely in the evening!

The rainy season

Hey, it's almost autumn. Here in Seattle, that means the rainy season is almost here. 'Wait!' you say. 'Isn't it always rainy in Seattle?' Actually, it's not. It rains more in lots of other places: Chicago, Houston, NYC, and Miami all get more rain than we do. Out of 365 days, we have 140 days with measurable rain. Ok, it does put us in the top 20, but we're not first. We are in the top 5 for overcast days though. The ones that come before us are Anchorage, Forks (for those vampires, don't ya know), Astoria, and Olympia (WA's fair capitol city).

Mom says for many Western Washingtonians, the overcast days are vital. People relax and settle back into their slower paces when it's overcast. It's cooler, and many people breathe sighs of relief.

As a kitty, I'm breathing a sigh of relief as we get closer to those cooler days. They're calmer. More relaxing. Mom's more likely to make a lap for me.

Mom will talk some about Seasonal Affective Disorder soon.

Mom's forgotten

Mom's forgotten just almost everything she knew about how to use the formatting language for this blog. I wonder how long her learning curve will be?

There have been major changes in our lives here at the Fuzz Factory. My little sister Lucy found a new home late last winter. Mom knew that Lucy needed more than either she or I could give her. We're not very energetic, and Lucy wanted to play. Actually, she needed to play.

We've developed a new activity here. It has a few casual titles, but probably needs something more official. One casual title is 'lean on Mom's face'. Another is 'press my chest fur against her nose and glasses so she has trouble doing anything but loving on me'. My favorite place for this activity is when she's semi-reclined on the couch. It works in bed, too.

Besides that, Mom has developed a new technique for grooming me. We avoided the dreaded 'lion cut' this year because she and Uncle Jerry groom me at least one time per day. The grooming is done in three stages. I love all of it. It starts with a small black plastic brush. I fill it with fur several times. Next is the Zoom Groom. That is the coolest thing ever! Finally--and who would ever have thought to do this?--Mom uses a lint brush on me. The last loose furs are picked up with a delicious gentle tugging. My furs are soft and shining when we're done. I'm not called 'handsome boy' for nothing.

That's about as far as we'll go for now. We'll see what happens tomorrow.