This post should explain, I hope, my absence from the blogging world and why I haven’t been replying to queries…
I came down with the flu about a week and a half ago. Wowsie. That February flu was the worst. My main symptom was a fever close to/equal to 40° C (104° F) that lasted for days. So I slept a lot. I’m okay now, but boyohboy I’m still tired most of the time–no energy, no appetite. All I really want to do is lie around and watch movies. 🙂 But I know this lack of energy won’t be a permanent state…like others who have been through the same thing, I just have to take it easy for a while, that’s all…
But that isn’t the only reason I haven’t been devoting my free time to research and blogging. We’ve just come out of a terrible period of worry and fear that began on January 20, when our eldest male cat, Piccolo, 11.5 years old, became suddenly and seriously ill.
It’s actually a long and complicated story, but the gist is that I saved my cat’s life by deciding to take him to the 24-hour animal clinic on February 6…I just had a very strong feeling that he was getting worse at home, under our family vet’s “supervision.” Turned out, I was right. My gut saved my cat…
The vets at the animal clinic ran some blood tests on Piccolo. The results showed that he had “acute kidney failure.” Noooo!!! Almost paralyzed with fear, I managed to ask the vet to tell me the truth. She answered that some cats live, some don’t, that it all depended on the individual cat’s reaction to treatment. Okay, Margaret, deep breath…
Piccolo was admitted immediately to the clinic where he stayed for more than 5 days. For the first 24 hours, we didn’t know if he would live or not…
Luckily for us, it turned out that his kidney failure wasn’t chronic but had been caused by an anti-inflammatory drug OVERDOSE (= a dose, mind you, that had been prescribed by our own family vet…well, now our former family vet…). I mean, Piccolo almost died because of a stupid limp (which, by the way, is gone now). Crazy. Absolutely crazy.
But the main thing is that Piccolo is okay now, thanks to the wonderful loving care he received at the clinic. He still hasn’t recovered 100%, but he’s back to his normal self, and his creatinine is almost back in the normal range now. We hope to get there next week, after finishing the I.V. therapy he’s been doing as an outpatient for weeks now.
Piccolo is an extraordinary cat. He is the only one who “skypes” with my parents, responding to their voices and gestures. And, like he did when he was a young cat, he still fills our bed with balls during the night. He won’t run down the stairs to retrieve them anymore, but he still brings them upstairs for us to throw (and for us to retrieve, too…!). He is very affectionate, loves giving forehead-to-forehead love bumps, and yes, he’s a chatterbox…he always has lots to tell us, especially when we’re driving to the animal clinic for his treatments (meowmeowmeow…aaaagh!). We love him to bits. And to think that, if I hadn’t had that gut feeling, we would have lost him…Scary.
The photos: 1. A miserable Piccolo in his cage at the clinic, with the torture collar around his neck (even with the collar, he managed to rip out his I.V. drip at least twice…bad boy!); 2. Piccolo on our bed shortly after we got home; 3. a more recent photo of Piccolo who is now not in any pain and able to curl up again…
Bottom line: every time I’ve followed my gut instinct, I’ve made the right choices. So here is my advice for today: always listen to your…gut!
When you visit the Domus Aurea, don’t expect to see anything but the massive original structure. Here and there you will see some color on the walls and even a few painting details, but the palace is pretty much bare. It is still underground, and it is still being restored and renovated, which means that you have to wear hard hats during the entire visit, as you can notice in these two photos, above and below. It’s also a guided tour, but I missed most of what our guide told our group because I was always too far behind, taking photos of everything…
