News from the Cat nursing home

The Mighty Favog (Jax, our 14 yr. old) has had us hopping for the longest time. He has needed to go to the vet *a lot* over the past few months with his itchy ailment (eosinophilic granuloma plaques). He breaks out in itchy spots and requires bandages, e-collar, topical meds, and steroids. Because he's impossible to pill we are limited in our ability to treat him. His breakout spots seem to be concentrated more on his left leg than on his belly now, which is a bummer because we discovered that he can still get to his leg even with the e-collar on. He's proud of his belly, which we are happy to report is growing some hair on it again now that the leg has become the culprit. We are also trying the Prozac again (which has made him easier to care for in some ways, but doesn't fix the itchies) but instead of the cheap pills, we have to get it made special in a meat-flavored compound that we smear on him so he can lick it off. He also gets regular allergy shots, which MrB administers because I can't deal with needles. Ugh.

Henry, who will be 19 years old this summer, is hanging in there with very little change. He maintains a steady level of high maintenance: twice a day prednisone pill and liquid pain med, once a day asthma inhaler. He throws up fairly often (like this morning I had to clean that up before coffee even). If you have a cat, you are used to that though, or you will be soon. His arthritis is getting worse, and we now bar him from stairs as well as carrying him from room to room in his bed like a King (whenever we think it's time for a change of scenery). We believe he still really misses his buddy, Duncan, who died of heart troubles in 2007. Duncan spent his entire 11 years of life buddied up with Henry - that's a long time in cat years. Henry howls through the night a lot. His eyesight is failing, and he probably has a certain amount of pain despite the meds, but we also think he's lonely. We spend as much time as we can with him, but we are no substitute. Love goes on.