womzilla | The Kitty will let us live

On the advice of our vet, we're switching to a new medical regimen for Courageous.

Those of you keeping score at home will remember that she has active FIV, a feline disease similar to AIDS. The only symptom she expresses is that she gets mouth inflammation which prevents her from eating. This is not a minor problem; over the last year, she's lost 50% of her body mass; fortunately, she was very fat going into this, so she's now only slightly slender. (It's possible that she's also suffering from some wasting, but mainly she's spent a lot of time not able to eat.)

For the last year or so, we've been giving her a steroid shot whenever the inflammation gets so bad that she can't eat, and interferon to try to keep the active viral infection down. The frequency of the steroid shots has held steady in the 16-day range for most of the last year, but being out in the semi-heated (and poorly insulated) sun porch lead to her needing shots three times in a 30-day period. So we brought her inside; she is now sharing

nellorat's study so that she can keep warm, and our vet has recommended a new approach.

The new regimen involves, right now, two antibiotics and an oral steroid in addition to the interferon, a total of six separate pills or liquid applications daily. Yesterday, we did these all by hand, and man, it was pretty much the opposite of fun for everyone involved. (

supergee got to sit it out because of his allergies.) No serious wounds, but that was at least as much a matter of luck as skill.

As I was failing to get to sleep last night, I realized that the individual pills were pretty small. So this morning, I crushed her pills with the back of a spoon and poured them on her morning meal. Chomp, chomp, chomp and it was all gone. No scratches, no yowls, no fissing and spitting--and Courageous was well-behaved, too! This afternoon, I bought a pill-crusher to make the process more efficient, but the pills should go well from here on in.

Now I need to try mixing the interferon liquid with a dose of cat-friendly milk. If she'll drink it that way, we're all going to be a lot happier.

Speaking of cats, here's another great bit from Lore Sjöberg's Book of Ratings. This week, rating Phobias:

Ailurophobia

Some people are so afraid of cats that they can't even read about them. You silly people! How can you resist the darling slits of their greenish, alien eyes? How can you deprive yourselves of the incessant kneading of their razor-sharp, blood-drawing claws? How can you turn away from the unearthly throb of the purr exuding from deep within their soulless, carnivorous little bodies? They're gentle friends until the day they suffocate you in your sleep. Rating: C