Cats in Support of Dad

Jigsaw Puzzle, Esq., here, official spokescat for Talk With The Paws.

It is my honor to be the self-appointed spokescat.  Since I took the trouble to go to school and learn proper English, that should be my right, do you not agree?  I thought so.

Well, in our last post, Tigger informed everyone of the updates about purrthdays, and made mention of Dad's health.  He is not doing all that well--he's tired all the time, and it's no wonder:  his heart is very weak from all the heart attacks he's had.  He's not even 60 years old, and this trouble started back before he was 40.  The doctor said she honestly doesn't know why he is still here.

I must give Munchkin a shout-out here for taking it upon herself to act as personal 'nurse-cat' to Dad.  She sleeps in his room, often on his bed, and wakes him up if he starts having breathing troubles, so he can take his medicine for that.

We all want to thank you so much for your purrs and well-wishes for him, and I want to take this opportunity to let you know about the whole, big long story, for anyone who may be interested.

Mom has started a new blog, detailing his issues and all the things she and he are having to deal with.  
You can click here to visit that blog if you wish; it will open in a new window.
If you want to read from the beginning, all that happened, then start at the bottom and read the posts going up the page.  Blogger is supposed to have a function to put them in order,oldest first, but Mom said it is not working.  Mew.

Thank you very much again for all your good wishes, purrs, meows, woofs, and so on.

Signed, Jigsaw Puzzle, Esq.

It's February!

Mom has been furry bad abowt lettin' us write on our bloggie.  She said she's sorry, but she haz been too busy to set up the compooter fur us.

Dad is haffing sum seerius health trubbles, and mom iz tired alla time.  Iz dat any excuse to keep us frum our bloggie?  As cats, we don't fink so.  After all, we is s'posed to be da center of their world, right?  Cats first, then peeps.

Anyhoo...we is here today, and so we haz updates fur our furriends.
1)  Lil Miss Fuzz and Bobbie had their first purrthday back in August, 2012, on the 8th. 
2)  Nugget is gonna haff his first purrthday on  March 15, 2013.
3)  Patches is still hanging on, she's an old lady now, she was 14 years old back in September.
4)  Me, Tigger--I is insulted to be told I is turning into an old man--I gonna be 13 in April.  Dat's not so old, you finks?
5)  Munchkin is only gonna be 7 in April, but she is turned into a crab, allus hissin' and growlin' at da rest of da kittehs--'cept me--we is buddies.
6)  Jigsaw Puzzle is abowt 5 years old, we finks....he is a nice kitteh--he takes care of all da youngters--naps wif dem, gives dem baffs, and such.

And dat's all 7 of us kittehs.  Me, Tigger, I is tired of all da uproar wif new kittehs.  I don't want no more.  Mom haz to stop getting foster kittehs, cuz she tends to keep dem.  Dad sez so.  Good. 

We misses bisiting wif all our kittey furriends on da Blogosphere.  Mom is spendin' too much time writing artikles on her Hub Pages site.  She sez it pays her green papers.  Well, poo!  Since when are stoopid green papers more important than kittehs?

We finks she is just tryin' to not pay attenshun to how sick Dad is, on accownt of she's furry worried abowt hims.   So, she does stoopid bizzy werks instead. 
Any suggestions fur how to get more time on our bloggie would be furry much appurrsheeated.

Fanks you all fur reading, and sticking by us, even if we haven't been able to be so faithful....

Signed, Tigger

UPDATE ON NUGGET!

P.S. .....  

  Mom got an e-mail late this afternoon from the potential adopter, and Nugget is still here.  It seems that the little kitten he already has, has tested positive for FIV!
  Mom is kind of sad that the adoption fell through, after she had herself all geared up for it...but also very glad that the people were honest and told her, instead of just taking the little guy and exposing him to getting sick as well!

  Soooo.....maybe we're keeping him here, after all...purrrhaps it was meant to be....

Waving Bye-Bye To Nugget....(Mom is gonna Sniffle!)

Well, just when we all got settled in, and all the fambly bosses sitchooated again, and we thot Mom and Dad wuz gonna be keeping da little Nugget guy...along comes some dude that seed him on da rescue groop's adopshun site, and wants him.

Nugget

Mom is furry sads, cuz she really loves da little guy, and thot that now he's 6 months old, dat no one would want him, and she'd end up keepin him.  (Don't tell anyone, cuz we don' want Mom mad at us..but we all finks she already has plenty of kittehs in dis howse, and it will be good not to has a pesky little brat powncin' us and playin' wif our tails!)

But, she said he wuzn't s'posed to stay so long, and dunno howcome he is still here and his brofur and sisfur got snapped up right away when dey wuz all little tiny kittehs....  Anyways, we heard Mom talking on da talky-box to da rescue lady, and told her dat der will be no more fosters fur a while, on accownt of Dad has to has sum surguries...so it's just us regoolars fur a while now...Dat's a good fing, don' you finks?

But I guess dat's the way da catnip spills....

Oh--nip?  Did sumone spill sum nip?  I'm on it!

Signed, Bobbie

Hello--We've Missed Everyone!

This is Nugget, our latest Foster...

To all my dear, wonderful acquaintances from the CB...I have (obviously) been among the missing for quite some time, and the kitties have been deprived of their blogging privileges.

That is my fault, and I must apologize.  There are a number of reasons this has happened, but it has all been around personal issues.  Among other things, I have  had quite a time trying to get back into my Blogger account--none of my passwords wanted to work, and neither did the password reset link function.  I was going nuts!  (Short trip!) 
I was  delighted and dismayed all at once to discover, when I finally did get back in, that there were NINE wonderful comments on my last post, which was nearly a year ago!  Several months, at any rate!  I loved the comments, appreciated them (the delight), but I was dismayed to think that I had not seen them in a timely fashion, and offered a proper thank you and reply.

My husband's health has been a huge factor.  He's got multiple problems, and we've spent a year back and forth to doctor appointments, tests of one sort and another, all trying to find out when and if they can start fixing things for him.  The biggest problem was that in August of 2011, he had a heart attack, and had to have a stent placed.  That, in and of itself, was a simple procedure, and he came through just fine.  He's getting good at it--that was "only" his 13th heart attack, and his 4th or 5th stent placement.  He already had a coronary bypass back in 2001.
However, that bypass surgery caused a small hernia to form.  It was not a big problem either, at the time.  Fast forward to January of this year (2012), and he caught a bad cold.  He coughed so hard and so much that the hernia tore, and now reaches all the way down his belly, making it hard for him to get a deep breath.
Naturally, he wants it fixed.  Complication:  after the stent placement, the doctors want you on Plavix for a full year.  That is a blood thinner, so, no surgeries until that year is over.  
However, the tear of the hernia followed a fall in November of 2011, at which time he tore the rotator cuff in his shoulder.  It has been causing him excruciating pain ever since, so now, he is virtually housebound, there not being much he can do without pain or breathing difficulties.
Come June, he started a round of appointments to evaluate the outlook for surgery, and darned if they didn't find a blood clot in his heart!  So, they put him on a course of Coumadin.  (For those who don't know what it is, it is a very severe blood thinner, generically known as Warfarin--a.k.a.  rat poison!!)  Between that, the Plavix, and the baby aspirin they had him on, ALL surgery was a no-go!  

Meanwhile, we were spending the last year jumping through hoops and filling out all manner of duplicated paperwork and stressing out to the max to get a mortgage modification so as not to lose our house!  To become homeless would be a death sentence for him, with all his problems (and rents in the area are higher than what we were paying for our mortgage--which was about to triple, due to the deferred interest capping out...)
Finally, the modification came through, and we were able to let go of that particular stressor.  

During this time, I was just too stressed out to juggle very many things online, and ALL of my blogs, not just this one, fell by the wayside, as I was concentrating on building up my work on Hub Pages, where I am finally actually earning some green stuff....not a lot, but it is slowly building up month by month.

Now, hubby's latest problem was some severe pain that made him think he was having yet another heart attack, so off to the ER...but no...just very severe gas bubbles from the hernia issue.  WHEW!!  That was a relief, because this was at the end of August--the 'magic' date for getting off the Plavix, and the 6 months on the Coumadin...so they can okay him for his surgeries.  (If it had been the heart, we'd have been back to square one at 'no-go.' )  So, he now has an appointment with the surgeon to assess how they are going to repair the hernia.  At last.  Progress.  Once that is fixed, they can do the shoulder, then hopefully, he can have his life back!
Once he's fixed, I'm hoping I can get my bum knee seen to, and repaired..and then I can have MY life back, too, and we can both get back to riding our bikes, and me to my rollerblading!

So, at this point, it is my hope that the kitties can return to blogging.  The "little monskers" from the last post the cats made, are now a year old and still just as cute as little buttons...neither of the girls are a very big kitty.
Meantime, we fostered a new batch of kittens starting at the end of April...3 more siblings (a little Tortie and two orange tabbies, one of whom had long fluffy fur).  The tortie and the fluffball   were adopted quickly in June at the "Maddie's Fund" event.  However, the last little boy, "Nugget," is now 6 months old, and is being passed over at every single weekend adoption that we hold.  (The group I'm with is called "H.A.L.O.," for "Homeless Animals' Lifeline Organization.) 

 I think it's looking like we may have another Foster Failure with him.  He is so used to playing with all the other cats, and is sooooooooooo attached to us (ok, we like him, too!), that he would surely feel betrayed at this point to be suddenly taken from all he's known for all of his life he can remember, and given to someone else....he now runs and hides when the carrier comes out to go to the adoption events every weekend....and when he gets home, he hides and sleeps...and acts depressed.   
But, that will be the end.  No more kittens will be allowed to steal our hearts to that extent.  That will put us at 7, and 2 over the 'legal limit,' for our city.  (Although, I don't think they can afford to have staff knocking on everyone's door to count cats....)  But, it's also a budget issue.
With surgeries for both of us on the horizon, though, we'll be taking a hiatus from fostering probably until "kitten season" 2013.
 So, I think that about brings us current, and I hope I won't have to deprive the kitties of their blog for such a long time ever again!   

The Monskers Are Here to Stay!!

OMC!!  Those liddle monskers I told you abowt before, two of dem is here fur good!    Mom and Dad decided to keeps Bobbie an Lil' Miss Fuzz! 

Dey are all part Siameez, and Mom haz fownd owt dat Bobbie is a "Flame Point," and Lil' Miss and Mr. Tabbs are "Lynx Points." 

Heer are Lil Miss an Mr. Tabbs wif Jigsaw Puzzle, Patches and Muchkin

Mr. Tabbs wuz adoptified by our aunty, an she changed hiz name to "Stormy."



Dat iz Mr. Tabbs/Stormy yawnin'.  Bobbie iz next to himz, and Lil' Miss is in back. 



All of dem is bigger now.  Dey is now 4 months and one week olds. 



Furry Impawtent Informashuns!

Hello, effurryone!

   Mom haz just published anodder artikle on her Hub Pages space, and it is abouwt us anipals, and taking care of fleas and nasty ticks wifout hurting us.

  She haz found owt that the stuffs dey sell in da stores has bad fings inside dat can make us kittehs and woofies furry sick or even go to da Bridge!

  Der iz a speshul group and website called Tiny Timmy, and a group on da Facebooky to follow him and his hard times from getting sick from dis stuff.  You kin learn abowt da Timmy Stones project, too!

Purrleeze, if you can, read mom's artikle, and share it around any and all ways you can.  It will help very much with Tiny Timmy's cause, and edumacate hoomanz to help get rid of dese bad produks.

Fanks you furry much.
Signed, Tigger and Munchkin