Some Serious Purring

Today I feel compelled to do a post on my sick kitty, Phantom. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that the majority of my posts involved kitties until Phantom decided to start his own blog (Here).

Phantom was diagnosed with liver cancer last June and heart disease last March. It has been a year since he first started showing signs of his illness and it has been a long, hard journey.  He has been to at least 4 local vets as we have moved from Birmingham, Alabama, to Pensacola Beach, Florida and finally to the Tampa/St. Petersburg area.

 He has also been to two different oncologist starting with Auburn University small animal clinic and finally Bluepearl in Tampa and Clearwater. All have been excellent and very supportive and I appreciate every one of them for taking care of Phantom even when there was very little hope and his prognosis was poor.

We've tried two different chemotherapy drugs as well as some holistic herbal things. These have prolonged his life and given him a great quality of life for several months. He was very, very sick last June, but until this past week he has been doing really good. Eating, playing, bullying the other cats, catching dragonflies, monitoring the food situation - just being normal Phantom.

He has been very brave throughout the journey with all the vet visits, blood work, medications, but now we may be nearing the end of the journey.

I still have hope, but the vets say there is nothing left to do. His liver is failing, if not already not working. He has had to have subcutaneous fluids given almost daily since Friday and I'm having to syringe feed him.

He is still being very brave, but his poor little body is so weak.

This blog post is for him. I am so very thankful he has been a part of our lives these past 9 years. He has been the best kitty for my son and me.  Phantom has missed the boy since he went away to college three years ago. Maybe this is his way of saying, "I've done my job for the boy, now I have to go."

Cadence will miss him too. He and Phantom have been together since they were both kittens. Cadence and our other cat, Ed seem to know that something is wrong. They haven't been eating much the past three days either.

I am still hoping and praying for a miracle, but now I don't think it's going to happen so I have to be prepared too.

We are just going to love Phantom and keep him comfortable until it's time for him to go.

He's beautiful and the best cat ever!

What Makes This Cat Tick?

This is the first time I've seen this cat stay on his back so long.  After taking some pictures of him, he was still showing his stuff so I managed to video a short clip on my camera.  He stayed like this for probably another 15 minutes.  Don't know why.  We couldn't really tell if he was stuck or not.  He's such a goofy cat.

This pose reminds of one of those Felix the cat pendulum clocks where the cat's tail twitches back and forth.

These are some of the pictures we took of him in this very odd position.

Hauling Out The White Clothes and Shoes

 You can't open a door around here without this cat running out.  And I thought I could condition him to think that every time he gets out he would get a bath when he comes back inside.  He hates baths, but I still have some work to do to get him to make the connection.  Outside = Bath.

I think I can officially start wearing all my white dresses and shoes now that it's after Easter.  I never wait until Memorial Day.  It's already hot here in the south.   I wear white year round except shoes and summery dresses like the one I'm wearing here.  I chose to wear pink Tory Burch sandals today though instead of white ones.  I thought a contrast would be better.

This is one of my favorite white Free People Dresses.  See Phantom trying to get past me to run down the steps and off the porch.  Don't worry, he didn't make it past my leg.  I'm faster.  I love his tuxedo!

While I was running errands today I stopped in Lululemon's and spent way to much on athletic wear.  I don't feel too bad about it since I wear work out clothing everyday for almost the entire day, except going out or sleeping.  My friend at styleodyssey.blogspot.com turned me on to them when she was visiting over Christmas holidays.  She warned me that I would get addicted and there would be no turning back.  She was right!  I love it and I'm not getting paid to say that.

Even the Lululemon bags are way cool.  Or should I say "Hip".