The Sooki Results Are In
You may have read the whole debacle about Sooki and her little teeth. We recently went through massive amounts of stress and cash to clean her teeth and test her for Stomatisis, which we suspected she had due to her highly red and inflamed gums.
Well, we finally got the results of her gum biopsy and….
she doesn’t have Stomatisis!
This is fabulous news! No medication or intervention will be needed! We just need to keep her teeth extra clean. *whew!* Now she can just go back to being cute and a total stinker.
A Sooki Update
This morning I woke up hours earlier than normal, so I could get Sooki to the Vet before 8:00 a.m. to have her Dental Cleaning and Gum Biopsy done. I always wake up much easier when I’m anticipating something – good or bad. So this morning, waking up early didn’t affect me much.
Bug woke me by almost throwing up on my pillow. Then Sooki said good morning by peeing on the blanket. Lovely.
That right there told me that it was definitely going to be a cat-day. I anticipated a day of stress and waiting much like I’ve had before. Little did I know that the day would go much smoother than the puke-and-pee morning. 
I made an attempt to tame my hair, made no attempt to put on makeup, packed Sooki in her carrier and got on our way to the Vet. I got stuck in traffic (whoa, traveling during rush hour? That’s so not normal for me.) but finally made it there after a 30+ minute drive. On the way, I talked to Sooki the whole time telling her she’s a good girl and that I love her. Yeah, I cried. I was so nervous for her to be under anesthesia.
They checked Sooki in, and went over all the specifics with me again of what they were going to do. They moved her to the first appointment of the day, and assured me they’d call me very soon. I left there, driving sort of aimlessly along some random route on my way to work. But I noticed something… I wasn’t feeling that sinking worried feeling. I felt reassured and confident. I didn’t feel too worried anymore – I really had a feeling that everything was going to be just fine. This took me by surprise – usually I’m all “dooms day worst case scenario worrier.” I got to work, sat at my desk, and actually was able to begin working.
Not 2 hours later it was all over. I barely had put a dent into my work day when I talked to the Vet and she told me that everything had gone smoothly, and that Sooki was done and just about to wake up. An hour after that, she told me she was awake and alert and doing perfect.
What a relief! It was only 11:00 a.m. and I didn’t need to worry any more. Woo hoo!
They only had her under anesthesia for an hour. They took some Xrays of her little teeth, and everything actually looks great. They cleaned her teeth, took some gum biopsies (that are being sent to a lab) and that was pretty much it!
So, the scary part is over! We’ll find out more about if/how badly she has Stomatisis next week… but that’s not something I’m stressing about. Whatever the results, there will be a simple treatment.
I went to pick her up at 4:00 p.m., and that’s when they told me she had been waiting for me all day by hissing and growling at everyone there. SOOKI! She’s like any girl… anxiety and attitude. But the minute I got her into the car with me she was all purrs and meows and head-bumps against my hand. Awww.
When we got home, she bounded out of her carrier, hardly wobbly at all, and was bright eyed and alert. This is the REAL relief. (That’s what Tap wasn’t able to do.) She immediately took interest in the little kitty “band-aid” on her arm (from where her IV was) and was annoyed with it.
She plopped down and spent some time trying to lick it off…
Eventually she gave up (it needed to stay on another hour or so) and instead spent a good long while licking that icky Vet smell off her body. Here, I interrupt her to take a photo.
After that she ran up and down the stairs a few times, jumped up on the counter to troll for food, and jumped on the couch to sniff around.
Yeah, I think she’s just fiiiiine.
Who Says Having Pets is Cheaper and Less Stressful Than Having Kids?
Yet another vet bill and stressful day is coming our way next week.
Sooki is our baby kitty. She’s only four, and is fluffy and slightly chubby and bright eyed, and totally healthy. I hadn’t taken her to get a check-up in almost two years, and she was due for some shots, so yesterday I took her to the Vet to get the ol’ look-over.
I figured all would go as normal… $50 exam and a shot, they’d tell me what a pretty kitty I have, and that’s it. Everyone’s happy and has cooed over Sooki the little blue eyed twinkle toes.
They did coo. But Sooki was a hissy little grump. She is your typical female… full of anxiety. Despite that, the exam was going well. Her heart and lungs are perfect, eyes and ears all good… except when the Vet looked at her teeth, her brow furrowed.
VET: I don’t like what I’m seeing with her teeth. Her gums are very angry.
ME: *sinking stomach feeling* Oh no! What’s wrong?
The vet went on to tell me that her gums were really red and inflamed… much more than is normal for a 4 year old kitty with just normal amounts of plaque. She suspects that Sooki might have a genetic disease called Stomatitis, which basically means her gums get really irritated too easy. It can get very very ugly if not taken care of, and lead to many other horrible problems.
The good news is, it’s highly treatable. There are many different ways it’s treated. If it turns out she does have it, we’ll be fine.
The bad news is, in order to find out if she has it (and clean up her dirty dirty little toofers to calm down her gums) we have to put her under anesthesia for a dental cleaning and to get a biopsy of her gums. It’s a very expensive procedure… but that part I can find a way to handle. The thing is, anesthesia stresses me out.
Most people wouldn’t think it’s a big deal… animals are put under anesthesia thousands of times every year with no problem. It’s common practice, and especially at my awesome Veterinary Hospital – they go above and beyond and take every possible precaution when an animal is knocked out. We’re talking, blood pressure monitoring, vitals monitoring the whole time, all sorts of stuff (basically all the same stuff they do with humans in hospitals)… nobody does a better job than my vet.
But. Anesthesia can be dangerous. It’s extremely rare for there to be problems, but it does happen.
The one and only time in her entire career that my Vet has had an animal die from complications from being under anesthesia, it was my kitty Tap. His kidneys proved too weak to recover from anesthesia, and he passed away. That was five and a half years ago. He had all sorts of urinary tract problems though, and was under anesthesia for quite a long time due to having bladder stones removed (major surgery) and having a tooth extracted. However, his pre-surgury bloodwork had all been clean and his kidneys looked strong… it was just one of those things. It happens very rarely, but it happened to me.
My Vet did every possible thing that could be done, and then some. Nothing was done wrong. Tap just wasn’t strong enough to pull through it. The whole experience was devastating not only for me, but for my Veterinarian, too. She cried with me and went way above and beyond to comfort me. Neither of us have ever forgot it.
But ever since then, I have wanted to avoid anesthesia like the plague. Up until now, I’ve been able to. Bug, being the most calm and accomodating cat in the world, has had his teeth cleaned without anesthesia… but he’s the very rare exception to that rule.
Sooki would never allow it. Not to mention, taking a biopsy of her gums would be much too painful for her to endure while awake.
The risks involved in NOT diagnosing this possible disease are much greater than the risks of a short session of anesthesia, so we’re going to do it. Sooki will be in the best hands in the entire state of Utah, and she’ll be under for much less time that Tap was, but I’ll still be freaking out.
We take her in Wednesday morning. My Vet has pushed her to the very first appointment of the day to cut the amount of time I have to sit waiting to hear how everything went. So please keep Sooki in your thoughts, and send healthy happy kitty-vibes our way on Wednesday!
Pound Cake {Attempt at Domesticity #001}
Okay, so maybe it’s not my FIRST attempt at domesticity… but this is the first time I’ve blogged about food. If you told me 5 years ago that I’d be sitting in my newly built house, in my office, having just made a Pound Cake from scratch in my new kitchen, and was blogging about it, I would not have believed you.
Anyway. A month or so ago I was watching old episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and there was this episode where Larry David was obsessing about Pound Cake, and of course Pound Cake ended up saving the day or something insane and larry-david-esque like that. I have been craving a good Pound Cake ever since. Light, fluffy, squishy… love.
Then a week or so ago I found this blog called Pioneer Woman. She does photography, she lives on a farm, she cooks, she raises children… she’s the model for domesticity in the digital age. Her blog is adorable. She wakes up and feeds her horses every morning. I mean, C’mon. Anyway, today she blogged about making the Perfect Pound Cake. It looked easier than I’d imagined, and I’d been craving it for so long, I just had to try it.
So, after making a dinner of shrimp stir fry for my husband (See! Domestic!) I went to work on this pound cake. I had even set out the butter early so it’d soften, and set the eggs out so they’d warm to room temperature. Aren’t you impressed? (Ha.)
When it got to the step where you’re supposed to add almost a whole can of Sprite I could have sworn I ruined it. It was… runny. But that’s what the recipe said to do, so I popped it in the oven and set the timer for an hour.
I pulled it out when it was nice and golden brown on top, and flipped it over onto my cake pate. It smelled so good, all lemony and glistening, I ate a slice before I even had a chance to take a picture. And it’s delicious!
Steve just finished watching the Jazz Game and is at this moment serving himself a hefty slice alongside several scoops of ice cream. My job here is done.
