Price Up And At 'Em

Price gobbling up canned catfood and chicken fat.  Oh, how thin!

Now we've eaten, time for Nips!

The boy gets fed every hour on the hour, with anything high calorie, although he wants the canned food with all the added vitamins, minerals, and Taurine.  Fish, chicken, milk, mayonnaise, whatever he'll eat - doesn't matter.  He doesn't get any of the shellfish, in this case mussels, because healthy humans handle those better than sick kitties.

Twice a day, Dan puts on heavy leather gloves, and I wash his belly down with a solution of nettles, dill and catnip, then apply antibiotic ointment.  He gets antibiotics for his gut resection three times a day.

We should all hope we get treated like this when we're sick.

Looking up Chinese herbs for helping with the other tiny tumors that were found in the ultrasound.  Price had a low-level facial tumor removed about 3 years ago.  He was found in a parking lot in 1998, as a half-grown boy.  And we're living in Clallam Bay -- an industrial forestry area.  We might as well be living with pulp mills.

Tough Titty Said The Kitty

Price with his halogen lamp, Steve.

ARGGHH!

Why the Robert Newton imitation?  Because Mr. Price (General Sterling Price) was just doing fine with his bowel resection surgery.

Why the horrible-looking belly discoloration?  That he whined so miserably about when I tried to look at it? ("Oh no!  His gut has burst!  He's rotting!")

He fell asleep on the low setting on the heating pad.

Yep, they really can burn us like we've always been warned.  So after another 60-mile round trip, and a mindset that had me considering Cutting and Dan throwing up waiting for the news, we found out he's just fine, just needing some ointment and aloe or honey or dill washes to clean him up.

Hope this really jump-starts his immune system, like the Southerners claim of a springtime sunburn does in the winter bugs.  Yeah, that's what it's good for.  All three of our little lamps warm up nicely at low wattage, so he's buddying up to them, now.

And thanks to all of you for the power wishes and care; couldn't have done it without you.

Worse Ways To Go

Price on the 13th of March, 2011.  Looking pretty thin.

Price ate and ate this week, but couldn't seem to gain weight.  He's healing from an operation that opened up his whole belly.

Today, he stopped wanting to eat.  But he has his own couch in the guest/comics room, with layers of afghans and a black woolen shawl, a heating pad, a selection of food, antibiotics and Dramamine.  

We should all have it so good when we're approaching the end.  

I'm not saying he is -- we're not giving up -- but we're done dragging him around on the highways on cold rainy days to get to doctors.  He's home.

If the Ring of Fire is unzipping anyway, it's as good a time for us as any.  We wouldn't even have time to run out the back door and up the hill.

The Desert Peach on Kindle

Readers praise the few copies of The Desert Peach up on Kindle.

Those were processed and posted by my agent, Dave Baxter.  It's interesting one reader simply downloaded the book to read on his computer.

Price not gaining weight

So I googled.  Price has a weird thyroid level.  I'm keeping this to email to our vet on Monday:

http://www.catforum.com/forum/38-health-nutrition/132974-cat-eats-eats-doesnt-gain-weight-thyroid.html

Took a look at his meds -- he got a small amount of thyroxine.

He's stopped eating today; only took a lick of mayonnaise.  He's so thin, so very thin.  His wound is healing well, but he's so thin.

We've lost a cat a year since we moved here 7 years ago.  Poor Price.  Poor Price.

PrismComics Mirrors A Fine Line Press

PrismComics is my show rep. For my books - and the funnest booth at any show - they'll be at these shows (copy and keep!).  For sure I'll always be at Emerald City Comicon, Norwescon, or Stumptown (and Wondercon if it wanders through the Northwest -- it's a Movable Feast).

WonderCon (San Francisco, CA) — 4/1/2011-4/3/2011

Stumptown Comics Fest (Portland, OR) — 4/16/2011-4/17/2011

Norwescon (SeaTac, WA) — 4/21/2011-4/24/2011

Toronto Comic Arts Festival (Toronto, ON) — 5/7/2011-5/8/2011

Gaylaxicon (Atlanta, GA) — 5/13/2011-5/15/2011

Fanaticon (Asheville, NC) — 5/21/2011

San Diego Comic-Con International (San Diego, CA) — 7/21/2011-7/24/2011

Price Comes Home

Price in the bathtub, drinking soapy water from the bidet bowl.  Maybe he needs the soap to knock back the tumors.

Price purring on his cat bed.  He came home today.  The vet could only get him to eat tuna -- until he saw his own canned catfood.

Now he's lying in front of the woodstove, sucking up the heat.  He's still passing blood, but that's to be expected -- he had a lot of blood vessels cut.  The gut that was removed should have been the size of a man's little finger, but was two inches across, it was so crammed with the feces he couldn't pass.  The vet said he'd never operated on any animal so ill.

We hope we get to have the old guy a bit longer!