Squishable?

Squoosh had to go to the vet today. It seems we have a bad middle ear infection. :-( Last night, I noticed Squooshable was tilting his head and holding it there, and seemed to be a lot less steady on his feet. I know he's still learning to walk somewhat, but it seemed like he was doing a little worse than Wednesday on Thursday night. So I took him this morning to the same nice vet that tried to help Puff, because I like him and I had to pick up Puff's ashes anyway, and Squooshable needed an FeLV test anyway. So here's what I found out:

1) Squoosh is pretty infected in the ear. The vet cleaned it up and has him on oral and topical antibiotics, going at the infection from both sides before it pops his teensy eardrum. :-( The good news is that I gave Squoosh his first dose of each around 2:00pm, and already he seems a little perkier. The vet said Squoosh will probably be just fine.

2) Squooshable is FeLV negative, though at appx. 5 weeks old, an ELISA may give a false negative because antibodies haven't been given a chance to form. Negative is definitely good, but Squooshable will have to be re-tested in a bit.

3) Squooshables don't like being tested for FeLV and red blood cell count; they holler loudly about it. But when brought back to Mom, they forget about it in a minute or two and start purring again.

4) Squooshable is more like five weeks old, possibly less.

5) Squooshable is anaemic. This is probably because when we were found, we had fleas on us that were as big as we were. But even though Revolution (like Frontline, but does ear mites & heartworm) is for 8wks & older cats, you can put a smaller dose on younger kittens if they need it--and Squoosh needed it. He has ear mites bad, too. :-(

6) Squoosh is a people person. :-) We purr at Mom, vets, techs, and anything else we think might benefit from our love.

I've learnt other things about Squoosh, but the only other one I remember is that we could also be named "Squishable", 'cos that's how they'd spelt it at the vet's. So I'm debating: Squooshable? Squishable? Hmmm...

And Squoosh (Squish?) gives kitty kisses. :-) And is dizzy from the infection and therefore bops his little snout on the bottom of the dish, or the floor when he lunges down to eat. Ouch!

So I got Squoosh back home, dosed him, took a quick shower while I gave him time to react horribly to the Revolution, antibiotics, or anything else (I am so paranoid, it's sad), and then dashed off to yet another meeting. This one I didn't mind going to--it's hopefully going to make the Summer more fun. Yay. Naturally, I hope my ideas win out because I like them more, but...either way, I'm good. :-)

Then I decided that if I went home, I'd just bother Squooshable, who needs to sleep, and worry, and piss my other two cats off by only paying attention to Squoosh, 'cos I'm paranoid that he's going to die. So I went to a movie. I haven't been to a movie in ever. I mean seriously. It's been at least a year. Maybe more. And I felt negligent as hell, but I figured it was best for all of us. Squoosh sleeps, I get occupied by something else for a few hours.

I just can't stop apologising for going to the damn movie, can I?

I went to see Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, which is one of my longtime favourite books (series, really). I'd only just found out about the movie like, a week or two ago. Shows what a rock I live under.

It was pretty good overall. Considering I've read the books probably twenty times at least over the years and seen the BBC show and heard the radio program, I was expecting Hollywood to completely screw it up. Thankfully, they didn't. It's not the BBC show, but it's good in its own right. It deviates a little from the book, but that's to be expected. So I was happy. :-)

And I came home, and Squoosh was a little perkier and stuff. And not dead. So that was even better.

Let's hope it stays that way.