Lotte's Gum

I haven't blipped for a couple of days.

Moon Pie got sick. We took her to the vet on Friday with an abscess on her neck which was drained and we'd been giving her antibiotics twice a day since. But on Sunday night we noticed that she was stumbling and staggering a lot--more than we expected for a barely-ambulatory three-week old kitten. On Monday, the Humane Society emailed us to tell us that they suspected her litter (there were four other kittens from her litter with another foster family) had been exposed to feline distemper in-utero. It didn't take much to realize that Moon Pie's symptoms were typical of cerebellar hypoplasia, a neurological condition affecting the brain's transmission of information to the muscles. Basically, her brain wasn't telling her legs when or how to move, causing the stumbling. We had an appointment with the vet today to assess her condition.

As soon as the vet saw her, he noticed that her eyes looked outwards instead of straight ahead and that she didn't seem to have any ability to change her focus. Her neurological difficulties were pronounced as severe and even if she lived (which was a slim possibility) the prognosis for her life was not good. He said she would not have any quality of life and would probably be severely distressed by her sight and mobility problems. He advised euthanasia.

Moon Pie went to sleep around 10.30am this morning. Susan and I cried a lot.

The other kittens, Cupcake and Zinger, and Momma Twinkie, have subsequently been given the feline distemper all-clear (they aren't biologically related) but have been diagnosed with roundworm. We administered them with a one-time only medication this evening. It's a good thing it was one-time only, Twinkie was NOT a happy cat at being held down and force-fed medicine from a syringe. All three of the remaining foster-family are doing well, and progressing as we would hope and expect.

Anyway, that's why I haven't blipped.

In a bid to distract myself and because it's my eldest daughter's boyfriend's birthday tomorrow (he'll be 13--teenage romance) we nipped out to a local Japanese grocers to buy some "interesting candy" for him. Becs had decided that candy was okay as a gift, not too slushy, not too dumb. We found a few bits and pieces, amongst which was this gum. In case you didn't know, Lotte's gum is, apparently, gentle, lightly sweet and very chewy.