The bad with the good ...

Greetings all. Well, this has been a bit of a rollercoaster of a week for us. It all began on Monday with Ginger's annual vet check up and ended with some very devastating news about our fur baby Charlie. If you have been following my blog then you already know that we had to rush our kitty Charlie to our local Pet Urgent Care two weeks ago to get what ended up to be a tumor mass removed from the inside of his leg. The Pet Urgent Care sent his tumor tissue out for a biopsy and it came back malignant. They did not know the origin of the cancer (apparently there are three types of which he could have been diagnosed with). So they suggested another specific type of test using the same tumor tissue in order to get more information about what we are dealing with. I called them on Wednesday to find out the results and they came back that Charlie has renal lymphoma. Our only options are to either attempt chemotherapy or continue with palliative care (keeping him comfortable). 

Ultimately, we decided to go with the palliative care. Mainly because I KNOW that CATS AND CHEMO DO NOT MIX!! Long story short, many years ago, I kept seeing a cat chained to an outside dog house at someone home. The cat looked terrible! It almost looked like a dog - half brown fur and half gray. I remember making a call to the Humane Society and they informed me that they had already had a lot of calls regarding this particular cat and that they could not do anything about it because they had already looked into the situation and the family who owned the cat had spent thousands of dollars on this cat's chemotherapy trying to save their cat's life. THAT is why we refuse to put Charlie through that. And, since he had already been diagnosed with kidney disease this past February the prognosis is not good.  In the interim, we are feeding him the prescription food (both wet and dry) twice a day using the turmeric capsules in his wet food.

As far as Ginger is concerned, we had her annual check up and her blood work came back good. She has been taking Prednisolone ever since she was diagnosed with one lung larger than the other which caused her to have respiratory problems. So far the meds have helped her and so we will continue with them.

I have a YouTube Channel where I posted a little video of Miss Ginger fetching her nerf ball, but YouTube would not allow me to share it directly and so I posted the link to my video underneath Ginger's pic below. By the fifth try she dropped the ball right into my hand.  Please click on the link to watch it! 💕💕💕

https://youtu.be/6jXD_-b-5o0?si=m8gZMapE7J9zzaip

Blessed September everyone!

Labor Day weekend

HAPPY LABOR DAY, friends! We had a rather nice holiday weekend beginning with a lovely dinner at a new restaurant called, "Black Sheep Tavern" ...

Afterward, we stopped off at The Sinking Spring VFW for a nightcap or two. While there, we ran into our friend (and my "dance partner" Walt's youngest son), Billy ... 💙💚💛

And, our friends Donna 'n' Dave ... 😎

On Sunday, we spent the afternoon at my hubby's cousin's house for a family cookout and the weather was gorgeous! 🌞

🌭🌭🌭🌭🌭🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔

Girls Day Out

Blessed Sunday, friends! Yesterday my "seester" and I spent the afternoon having lunch and, of course, shopping - lol! ...

We had a nice lunch at "Ganly's Pub"

One of the places we frequented was "The Mint Leaf" where I found a couple of items for fall ...

I also picked up this cool little "gem" at "T.J. Maxx" ...

We also stopped at "The Mystic Mind" and I purchased these awesome treasures ...

I especially loved this black cat and pumpkin multi-colored decoration ...

On the way out, we looked through the free donation books located right outside of their shop and found these books ... 😉

"Miss Bennie" meets a new friend!

In other news, I finally got my new "specs" ...

Have a great rest of the weekend all!

A Charlie Nightmare ...

 A little over two weeks ago, I woke up and began feeding the cats as usual when I turned around and saw what I can only describe as a HORROR in front of my refrigerator on my kitchen floor - two huge puddles of blood! And, sitting close by was my fur baby Charlie. I picked him up and saw that he had blood all over the inside of his left leg and it would NOT stop bleeding! Lo and behold my hubby just happened to pull into the driveway and when I showed him Charlie's leg he said, "We need to get him to the emergency vet right away!" And so we called the closest pet urgent care facility that we could get him to called, "PetHealth Urgent Care of Wyomissing". They immediately took care of him and showed us that - despite the fact that we had just had his annual check up at our own vet in February - he had a tumor mass which had apparently burst. They surgically removed his tumor that afternoon and we picked him up later that night. They sent his tumor tissue out for a biopsy to find out if it was malignant or benign. We are still awaiting those results ...

Poor Charlie had to wear a "cone of shame" (Elizabethan Collar) for two weeks. We just took him back to the emergency vet to get his stiches removed last Wednesday morning ...

Moving on, an update on Miss Bennie who is settling in very nicely in her new home. She is a "special needs" kitty as she is completely deaf and only has partial eye sight due to some sort of trauma she suffered before we found her outside and brought her into the house as part of our family ...

Charlie and Ms. Bennie ...

A new black cat kitty bed ...

Butterscotch lying in the new bed while Teddy looks on.

Yes, I am still alive ...

Greetings and many blessings to you, my dear friends! My deepest apologies for not posting here on my blog for a couple of months. I will not try to make any excuses except for the fact that life has been very challenging as of late.

That being said, I will skip the "challenges" and give you all an update as best I can. 

We took Bennie to our vet to get her tested for feluek, FIV, and other cat diseases. Well, first of all, HE turned out to be a SHE; however, we still kept the name "Bennie" as in the movie, "Bennie and Joon" which btw is her middle name - Bennie Joon. After our vet's approval, we began acclimating her to becoming an inside kitty and introducing her to our other seven fur babies ...

She is coming along rather nicely ...

She is so very sweet and so far, the other cats are accepting her with grace. After all, she is an exceptional little girl with her own disabilities who needs to be loved - and that she is!

Moving on, last weekend my seester Aurora Skye and I celebrated her yearly birthday. Not an easy task given the fact that I am forced to work every damned Saturday on end, but that is an entirely different issue at the moment. However, fortunately we found a bit of time to get together ...

Chef Jesenia's son, Luis who is also a licensed Chef, baked her birthday cake ... Blueberry Lemon with Cream Cheese Frosting ... YUMMY! ...

Ginger and Charlie are wishing everyone a wonderful week and A Blessed Summer Solstice! ... 🐈

My Birthday week in review ...

Greetings all! Yesterday was my 62nd birthday, but I celebrated it this past weekend with my seester. However, before I get into my birthday weekend I just wanted to post an update on our Charlie. I took him into our vet after noticing a skin irritation on his shoulder blade. It looked much like feline dermatitis. So after having him checked, Dr. Hoy did indeed confirm that he has dermatitis so she gave him a shot of convenia (an antibiotic which lasts approximately two weeks) and a topical dose of Neosporin twice a day. I asked them to run blood work on him since we haven't had that done in a year since we took him in from outside. 

UNFORTUNATELY, we received a call the very next day informing us that he was diagnosed with kidney disease! We were devastated! He is currently on a special RX kidney food diet in hopes we can prolong his life. Now, we already lost TWO cats who have passed away from kidney disease and IT IS NOT PRETTY! In fact, it is utterly heartbreaking! We are doing everything we possibly can for him. :( 

Okay, now that I have told you all about the BAD NEWS, I will move on to the rest of the weekend. 

My seester Aurora Skye treated me to a wonderful birthday lunch at Ganly's Pub and gave me a really COOL set of earrings and a beautitful card ...

We also went shopping where I found these neat little items - a pen with amethyst gemstones and a pava shell bracelet ...

We also stopped off at our local Yankee Candle Store to check out the new Spring items ...

Spring/Ostara Luma Lid.

My co-workers were so kind and surprised me with these cards and gifts! ...

From hubby ...

From my fur babies ... lol!

And from my Twin Soul (sister) Rhiannon and her son ...

And, Blessed Mother's Memorial Day 💖💔💖💔💖