Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Birthdays, Reunions (or Where the Hell Does the Time Go?)

Here’s one for you. My (gulp) 20th high school reunion is Oct. 3. I have no idea where the time has gone. (actually I don’t know what’s worse – turning 38 on Thursday or realizing I’ve been out of high school for two decades!)

Since I graduated from a small Catholic high school for girls, my class was rather small – 38 to be exact (hmm, same age I’m going to be Thursday – interesting). The way they do reunions is they do the “all alumnae reunion” inviting everyone to the event from all classes, with special recognition to the actual reunion classes for that year. They don’t have it at a hall or hotel or anything, they have it at the school. Which when I was younger I wasn’t so keen on the idea, but now that it’s been more than two decades since I walked those hallowed halls, I think it would be nice to go back, take a look around and see how everything changed.

A group of us got together and went to our five-year and had a really great time and then spent the rest of the night drinking Mai Tai's and eating Chinese food at a local haunt. For the 10th, rather than going to the reunion, a group of us went into Boston for dinner and had our own reunion (even though at the time we did manage to get together at least once a year). But the 20th is a different story and there’s been a lot of discussion and a lot of debate as to what the game plan will be for that night

I’ll keep you posted.

P.S. I’m upgrading my digital camera for my birthday this year. I’m thinking it’s going to be the Nikon ND40 – check it out here.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Molly's IBD Treatment Goes Probiotic

In an effort to make Molly’s life a LOT better, as well as ours, on Monday, July 21 I added something to her daily medications, probiotics - Pet Flora. I ran it by my vet who said they’ve had great success with it in dogs and that since it’s all natural and you can’t overdose on it, it would be worth a try. After all, it’s advertised to be for treatment-resistant diarrhea and vomiting and anyone who has been following this blog for a while now know I’ve been doing everything humanly possible to mitigate my cat tossing her cookies for more than a year now. I do have to admit, we are in a much better position than we were before her diagnosis, but still it needs to stop for all our sakes.

Back to the product, after another nearly $100 later (I can’t even bring myself to add up how much I’ve spent on medications for Miss Molly this year) I had the starter pack:





And did I mention they tout their “multi-factorial approach” has a 97 percent success rate? It was certainly worth a try.

Here’s some info:
“Everything combines into two simple feedings.

The caps, Lithothamnium and Pet Flora, may be opened and mixed with the Feline Comfort powder and the Luxolite Liquid. The combination makes an activated paste that can be added to wet food. Almost all cats like the taste.

For very finicky cats, the mixture can be administered with an oral syringe which is provided with the package.

The second part is even simpler. You just use the droppers in the Soothing Solution and the Herbal Anti-Inflammatory to put the solutions directly onto the food. Since cats are attracted to the licorice taste in the solutions, acceptance is very high. For extremely finicky cats, the solutions can also be administered with an oral syringe.”

And some more:
“Supplements such as Pet Flora and Canine Comfort and Feline Comfort are specially made to ease gastrointestinal disorders in both cats and dogs. These medicines are rich in microorganisms that help your pet to digest and absorb the nutrition from food. Today, doctors all across the country are switching to Pet Flora and Canine/Feline Comfort as a natural adjunct to antibiotics.”

So we started with step one and step two. She gets a capsule every morning and again every night and with her meals twice a day she gets ¾ of a tablespoon of “Feline Comfort” sprinkled throughout her food. I figured she wouldn’t go anywhere near it but I have to tell you – she’s eating now more than ever!



Imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to realize we are on Day 15 of no Molly hurling! I’ve been thinking about how successful it’s been every day for the past week, but totally jinxed myself by telling C last night. (this always happens).

This morning I came down, made my coffee, gave Miss Molly her morning pills and then fed her. I was upstairs for about 10 minutes when C alerted me that he just heard her hurl. NO!!!!!! It couldn’t be. I was in complete denial. So slowly I went down to discover that yes, indeed she did throw up. But it wasn’t as bad as it used to be, it was pretty much half digested food and frankly I think her gag reflux may have been affected by this morning’s pills. (Hey I’ll look for any silver lining at this point). But unfortunately I just updated her calendar – yes, I mark off non-sick days each month in green highlighter and sick days in orange – and had to mark it a “sick” day.

Now to determine, do I move on to step three of my new herbal remedy and see how that works or continue with steps one and two for another week or two?

Thoughts?

Friday, August 01, 2008

Christian the Lion Reunion

I can't stop crying - check this out!