Somewhat of a Setback

The 10:00 a.m. report from the vet wasn't so good today. Genji has some infection in his wounds and needs another surgery. Scott called this afternoon, and they started the surgery about 3:00 p.m.

We're crossing our fingers and sending him thoughts of mice and butterflies.

The other cats seem to miss him -- he loves to groom the other two (Saki & Yuki.) Saki is not so fond of Yuki, since he stabbed her a few years ago, and she had an infection that required a trip to the vet. Genji is really the peacemaker among the three.

Well, we hope we have better news with the next update.

We Are Grumpy Today (Genji)

Saturday visiting hours begin at 9:30 a.m., so we were there bright and early. Genji did his "Meow! Meow!" when we walked in, but seemed rather grumpy. Then we noticed that the 5 drainage tubes that dotted his upper rear leg and lower abdomen were gone -- it's a bit painful to have those removed, so no wonder he wasn't feeling so hot.

I tried to interest him in some food -- he didn't want to eat yet, but both times he actually pushed himself up on his front legs and sat up for a bit. We petted, combed and stroked him and told him what a wonderful cat he was. He seemed pretty tired, so we left after about half an hour. We did take a couple of pictures of him -- the wounds are just horrible, but I felt it was important to document them.

There are no visiting hours on Sunday, so I hope that he's better on Monday. He's got to start eating on his own before he can come home.

Another Genji-cat Report

Today Genji meowed twice when I came to visit. The technicians commented again on his increasing feistiness when they attend to him -- but that is good news, and they didn't seem to mind. He has been on oral pain killers for at least a day, and they were going to switch him off the IV antibiotics onto pills, too. They also said that the 5 drainage tubes in his lower abdomen could come out either today or tomorrow. (This is gross, but when the first vet at the emergency center picked him up so we could see his injury, there was a tube hanging out about the same place his leg had been -- for just a few moments, I thought that it was part of his bone sticking out!)

He was sitting up a little more and was holding his head up longer. I tried to feed him some of the yummy sardines in aspic provided by the critical care center, but that seemed to trigger a hiccuping response. Dr. Armstrong said that he was doing much better, but he would still need at least another week in the hospital. We can visit Saturday morning, but not Sunday.

I scratched under his little chin (kinda hard to do with that big collar around his neck), and he purred for the first time in a week. His eyes are much brighter, too.


Scott came in after I'd been there about ten minutes. He had some quality time with Genji, but then the tattooed technician (I need to find out their names) said that we'd have to leave since an emergency case was coming in.

I left a note for the woman who owns the dogs -- she's been coming by almost every day to check on his progress. She is obviously deeply concerned, and I'm having a hard time reconciling this caring person with the kind of vicious dogs she has. We're really in a quandry, too -- we want compensation for all the vet bills, but we also don't want this dog/these dogs in our neighborhood any more. I would feel just awful if I didn't do anything and the dogs hurt another being -- critter or child. I think the bills are actually now moving out of the realm of small claims court, which complicates things, I'm sure.

The Genji-Cat Report

We took Genji to the critical care facility (3 blocks from our house, which is nice) on Monday, where the veterinarian promptly told us in effect, "Most cats with injuries this severe don't survive, in particular, the window between 3 - 5 days is particularly perilous, since that's when the infections start raging. Only about 30% of cats would survive this."

We decided to see how Monday went. We visited him and he meowed a few times, but didn't really get up -- although he tried to jump out of the kennel! On Tuesday he was a little worse, and didn't stay awake very long. I wasn't able to get away from the office on Wednesday, but Scott said he was about the same as Tuesday and he did try to knead Scott's arm a little. They said there was a little fluid in his lungs and some necrotic tissue somewhere.

This morning the vet called around 10 a.m. We were expecting her to say that he'd died during the night, but she said he was slightly better, and she was very guardedly optimistic. He still isn't eating, and she said he'll need at least another week in the hospital (assuming things don't get worse.)

I'm taking off work a bit early today to go visit the little guy -- it seems to cheer him up to see us, and I think it will cheer us up to see him doing better.

Genji-cat

(click on the title for a picture of sweet Genji)

About 1 a.m. Saturday morning, Scott heard an awful sound and ran outside to find a guy pulling two dogs off our tuxedo cat, Genji in our yard. Scott rushed him to the vet, and he had to have a rear leg amputated. There didn't seem to be any internal organ damage (thank Bast), but when they did an x-ray Saturday afternoon, they found that his bladder had migrated out of the abdominal cavity (there may have been a tear in the muscle, and when the leg was removed, the pressure keeping the bladder in may have been released, allowing the bladder to move.)

They had to do another operation to fix that (they said it was a relatively simple procedure) and also to do a small repair to the muscle of his remaining rear leg. His tail isn't moving they way they'd like it, but that could just be all the anesthesia, and hopefully not nerve damage.

Scott said the guy with the dogs said they would pay for the vet, (they live on our street, 1 block away) and Saturday morning the woman who owned them came by to apologize and again offered to pay for the vet. She said they are kept in her back yard, but escaped. Scott gave me a description of them, and one of them sounds like this dog who was running loose a few months ago who ran toward me growling and snarling fiercely when I stepped onto our carport -- I had to run back into the yard and close the gate and wait until he ran off -- now I feel dumb for not following up on it, but it was something that I'd forgotten by the end of the day. I need to go see if that is the same dog, because if it is, I think the neighborhood has a problem. Scott said that one of the dogs(the one that looks like the one I saw earlier) growled and snarled at HIM when he was trying to help Genji -- in our own yard.

We moved him to a critical care facility (just a couple of blocks from our home), where we were told that the prognosis for such an injury really isn't very good, but if he can make it through the next 48 - 72 hours, he'll most likely recover. When we saw him during visiting hours, he wasn't very responsive at first, but then he put his head up, and he tried to jump out of the kennel. His eyes looked much better than yesterday, as he didn't have that glazed over look, and it seemed that he knew who we were. He was pretty vocal, and it sounded more like, "Please get me out of here!" than "I'm in horrible pain," although I'm sure he is in awful pain. We'll get an update on his condition in the morning.

Even though the dog owners said they'd pay, we're not going to count on it until it happens. (They may not feel like it when we report the dog -- the Austin code has a provision that a dog that has killed or seriously maimed another pet cannot be kept in the city (unless the injured pet was in violation of the code, which I don't think Genji was.) We really anguished over this, since it's such a lot of money, but I really don't want that dog in the neighborhood where he might get out again to injure another pet or even a child.

When Genji was seriously ill with pancreatitis in 1999, we called him "rent payment" when we got the bill. When we got the bill for Saki's trip to the emergency vet earlier this summer (she's fine, now), we called her "mortgage payment. His new nicknames have been escalating now -- we're on "engagement ring," "small used car,"and we may end up with "house down payment" before we're through with this.

What We Did to Our Lawn this Spring

When I say "We," I mean "Mostly Scott!"

We are tearing out our lawn and turning it into a small prairie. The Indian Blanket and coreopsis grew about 3 feet higher than we anticipated due to the rich soil. The plants in the back of this group are over 6 feet tall now.


EDIT: July 20, 2007
The work of Lady Bird Johnson has inspired the design of our yard. Wildflowers aren't just for the highways, y'all!

New Book in the Physics/Math/Astronomy Library

There is a new book in the PMA Library: Contact Geometry and Nonlinear Differential Equations.

For some reason, this title bothers me. I can't help but imagine being poked in the side by a particularly insistent acute angle.

I Coulda been a Baraminologist

I recently discovered a new source of humor and fun, although I'm not sure that was the intention of the homeschooled founders of conservapedia.com -- a site designed to counter the "Anti-American, Anti-Christian Bias" of wikipedia.

After reading the section on kangaroos, I found that my background in biology and anthropology has most likely disqualified me as a career as a baraminologist:

"According to the origins model used by creation scientists, modern kangaroos, like all modern animals, originated in the Middle East^[1] and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood. It has not yet been determined by baraminologists whether kangaroos form a holobaramin with the wallaby, tree-kangaroo, wallaroo, pademelon and quokka, or if all these species are in fact apobaraminic or polybaraminic.

Also according to creation science, after the Flood, kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers migrated to Australia. There is debate whether this migration happened over land^[2] -- as Australia was still for a time connected to the Middle East before the supercontinent of Pangea broke apart^[3] -- or if they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters^[2]."

Vista

This popped out of SRI's mouth today -- it was so funny I almost dropped the dinner I burned last night (but that's another story):

VISTA:

#@$%! Viruses! I Should Try Apple!

We Do Have the Best Crimeline!

O. M. G. -- for once I have no words to introduce this:

WEST MALL
Disorderly Conduct: A UT student reported being approached by an unknown female twice over the course of two days. The student stated that during a recruiting drive, the unknown female began talking to him, then placed her hands on his shoulder continually while they talked about the student organization. The next day, the female attempted to kiss his hands and cheek. The student became offended and told her to stop. After being told to stop the female placed her head within several inches of the student's nether region and explained to him that she would love to hum the National Anthem with a certain part of his body in her mouth. The subject stood up and began showing nude pictures of herself to other students that were standing around watching the events unfold. The unknown female was told to leave. The unknown female began screaming and yelling obscenities, then left the area. The unknown female was described as: White female, 5' 04', slender build, shaved head, and last seen wearing a white dress with multi-colored dots, a long black dress with a fur collar, and a pink hat. Occurred on: 02-02-07, at 1:05 PM.


In anticipation of Valentine's Day, this tale of "wooing":
JESTER WEST DORMITORY
Public Intoxication: UT Police Officers responded to a suspicious person that was harassing one of the residents and was refusing to leave the dormitory. During the investigation, the officers located the subject and observed that the subject was crying. The subject explained that he had broken up with his girlfriend and had driven to Austin to "woo her back." Officers detected a very strong odor of alcohol on the subject's breath and noted ththathat the subject needed the support of the surrounding walls to maintain his balance. As the investigation continued, the subject displayed several clues that indicated he was intoxicated. The subject was taken into custody for Public Intoxication. The subject was being transported to Central Booking. Occurred on: 2-03-07, at 3:10 AM.

This one had better not be one of "my" students (I know some have classes/labs there):
J.J. JAKE PICKLE RESEARCH CENTER
Harassment: A UT student approached the main gate leading onto the research campus and was granted access. Following established protocol, the student was required to sign in. The subject drew his rendition of the male genitalia on the signature line then handed the clipboard back to the UT guard. The guard saw the rendition and was offended. During the investigation, the student explained that he was "just trying to be funny." The staff member declined to file charges, but wanted the student referred to the Dean of Students Office. Occurred on: 02-03-07, at 2:29 AM.