Maya (my younger cat) has to get bloodwork done twice a year due to her chronic renal failure. It was that time again and Celine also came along for the ride. She was just seen in April but she's older than Maya and I just wanted to make sure everything was going ok with her. Turns out both of them have lost considerable (for a cat) weight since the last visit so Celine also got bloodwork done.

Maya's creatinine has gone up - I don't have the numbers in front of me but it went from like 2.7 to 3.1. The vet called that statistically insignificant. Her BUN went down which is actually a good thing. Otherwise she's healthy so we suspect she has lost weight because she doesn't like her prescription renal food. She very reluctantly eats it and only after trying to horn in on Celine's dinner. I have tried several different brands and types and what I currently have is what can best be described as the one she hates the least. The vet feels it's more important to build up her weight again to help her deal with the renal issues than to try and force the food issue so I am to keep her on her dry prescription food but replace the canned food with what I give Celine, which is Fancy Feast. I'm going to do this for 2 weeks and reweigh her. If she's gained weight, then we're going to keep on this plan until her next checkup and re-evaluate then. If she still isn't putting on weight then we need to see the vet again and see what else might be going on.

I thought for sure I would be able to quit playing food referee now that they're getting the same canned food but damn if that cat still doesn't think that Celine is getting the better stuff!

Celine has also lost a couple pounds. Several years ago she went through an I-131 treatment for feline hyperthyroid. But over the past 18 months her thyroid levels have inexplicably been rising. If she's going hyperthyroid again then it could explain her weight loss. But, she shouldn't be going hyperthyroid because of the radiation treatment. The vet is perplexed and going to consult with the clinic that did the treatment and will call me back and let me know what they think could be going on.

I am really worried about my girls. I have had several other kidney failure cats and it's been my experience that they do well until suddenly one day they crash hard. I so don't want to see that happen with Maya. And Celine is now 16 years old. When I lose cats it tends to be right around the 15 year mark. The last kitty I lost made it to 17. So I kind of feel like Celine is on borrowed time.

I finished reading Servant of the Underworld, which I talked about in my last blog post, and I quite enjoyed it! This is the first in a series so I think I'll look for the other books. I have quite a backlog of books to read now, though, so maybe I'll try to get through that first. Right now I've started on the first of the Eric Carter books, which I also talked about in the last blog post.

I'm so excited because I did end up starting my shrine page and creating my first entry on Ea-Nasir, the shifty Mesopotamian copper merchant. Next up? I don't know - maybe the mystery of whatever happened to Ankhesenamun. Her plight really tugs at me, maybe because we don't really know what actually happened and can only guess.

I was trying to do the daily pixilart.com challenges and that kind of went by the wayside because I'm scatterbrained but I started again this week. Today's challenge (well, yesterday's by the time I finish this blog post) was "muffin" and I think I did a darn cute kawaii muffin!

I have an old plastic box with recipes stuffed in it that I've been carrying around for literally decades now. I finally went through it the other day and found that it's quite the mix of recipes - handwritten from my mom, cut outs from newspapers and magazines and a lot of promotional recipe cards. Most of this stuff is from the late 60s/early 70s and a lot of these recipes are very... ummmmm .... nostalgic. Man, there's one for Mighty Mousse which involves canned chicken, gelatin and green olives that I just feel must be shared. And besides the horror of recipes from that era there is a lot of neat designwork/typography that I also think would be cool to share. So, I think a recipes page is coming soon. Ish. But maybe not just horror recipes from the 70s. I think I'd also like to post some family favorites up there, too. Stay tuned...

So, I now have a Tumblr. I've been following Wil Wheaton's tumblr for quite a while now, without really understanding what Tumblr is, just that he posted a lot of cool pictures. But I think I get it now. I don't think I would have broken down and created an account except for the fact that a lot of accounts I follow on Twitter have started mentioning where else they can be found just in case Elon succeeds in smashing his new toy that he never really wanted. Anyway, I think I'll mainly use Tumblr like I use Twitter now, which is to just follow accounts I like and retweet cool stuff (which no one sees on Twitter because I have like 6 followers). My Tumblr username is the same as on here: divergentrays.