Allergies or not, I'm still adorable-A little bit of words on Wednesday

Nope, Cody wasn't hit in the mouth. This is how my poor boy looked for over a week. He was having one of his regular allergy flare-ups. This time (and the time prior to this), it settled on his mouth. He has been on Prednisonol for over a week now and his mouth is pretty much back to normal, well, "normal" for HIM.

A Crisis Averted!

As many of you know, Cody suffers from allergies.  He is on a veterinary diet, but I am inclined to think, and the vet will be revisiting this, that his allergies are in fact, seasonal and not diet related. Approximately every three months Cody breaks out in miserable "hot spots", red, oozing patches on the top of his head, just above his ears.

If you look at Cody's head
you will see the "evil hot spot"

When Cody has a flare up the vet begins a course of Prednisolone which  often involves approx. 10 days of pills.

In our household, I am the "piller." My husband does not know how, nor is he comfortable "pilling" a cat. **Note:this is particularly upsetting because Cody is easier to "pill" than any cat I have ever seen. You simply trick him with food, grab him and plop the pill in his mouth. Cody is food-obsessed and it works like a charm, EVERY TIME.

A week or so before BlogPaws, I was obsessed with Cody's head, knowing it was nearing time for him to have another flare-up. I was on the alert.  My husband was a wreck. He kept telling me to "quit putting this out in the Universe." Every time poor Cody just passed within my view, I would say "Let me look at your head!" Two nights before I was to leave for BlogPaws it happened. The evil "hot spot" appeared. I promptly went into maniac mode.

I paged my vet, who, being the angel that he is, promptly returned my call. I began crying and shrieking  "Cody is having another flare-up, I am scheduled to leave for a conference in the next two days and my husband cannot pill a cat! What am I going to do?" I had missed last years conference due to a kidney stone attack and there was no way I was going to miss the conference two years in a row.

Vet to the rescue! He had me bring Cody in first thing in the morning. While waiting, I noticed changes that had been made to their remodeled facility.

I couldn't tell you if the Feliway worked, because Cody is quite good at the vet and always has been. I did like the effort on the part of our vet to make their environment more comforting to the cats that visit that are much higher strung than Cody. Cody has thankfully always been a "take things in stride" kind of cat, mostly if there is food involved!

While I waited for the vet to enter the exam room, I  surveyed the new "cat friendly" decor:

And...it was time to test it out with Cody who wasn't impressed with the "new digs" at all! 

It was mean Mama who put him up on the ledge, he did NOT go there willingly!

Cody wanted NONE of this new "cat-friendly" exam room. He disliked it so much that he actively sought out the comfort of his PTU.


Before shooting this video Cody DID get back in the PTU because I had left the PTU door open! After unceremoniously "dumping" him on the table, I locked the PTU door to prevent a re-entry!

But Cody wasn't going to give up!

"I know I can get in here!"

"It has to open, I know it has to!"

"Now where did that latch go?"

"They got me...I'm trapped"

And then we got him!

Thankfully all turned out well, Cody was given a steroid shot (which normally we don't use, but due to my husband not being able to "pill" him, we had no choice.)

Cody returned home,  I left for BlogPaws the following morning in TEARS because I had never left home with one of my pets not being well.  I was even more upset than I would have been leaving under normal circumstances.

Cody's Dad did a great job on "head patrol." I called numerous times a day for updates, and aside from a few terrifying  "I'm not sure how his head is" reports, when I returned home he was completely healed!

A Crisis Averted!

Cody & The Vet Part I & Innova Winners! Pretty Darned Wordy Wednesday!

What a day yesterday was! As many of you know, due to food allergies, Cody has been on a limited ingredient diet since last summer.  (If you are a newer follower you may want to read about it here) 

A couple of days ago I had caught Cody pilfering some of Dakota's dry food from the closet where it is stored, by the time I had nabbed him he had already eaten at least one piece, possibly more. 

Last night I noticed a rather large and bloody lesion on Cody's head near his right ear, after checking him thoroughly I also noticed the beginning of more lesions by his left ear.

Afraid of possible infection I decided to take Cody to the vet today to have him checked out and put on meds.

What happened before we left not only completely baffled me but caused me to laugh so hard I could barely contain myself!

We all know how hard it normally is to get a cat into their carrier for the dreaded vet trip. In the 20+ years that I have been owned by a cat I have NEVER had this happen.

 I walked into my office and Cody was ALREADY IN HIS CRATE! He had put himself IN THE CRATE!  I was beside myself with shock! 

I know none of you will believe this, I was so stunned at my good fortune that I called my husband to run in and see what I had found. Cody also removed "Dr.Smiley" from the crate himself, as the Cat Gods are my witness, I had NOTHING to do with this! I even told everyone at the vet's office what had happened!

There was no need to entice trick him with food, nothing! He was ready to go! I gingerly walked over to close the carrier door certain my good luck would end with Cody darting away. Nope. The poor little guy must have been feeling even worse than I imagined. It was as if he was sending me a message "Mom I need to go to the vet and I am ready to go! I will be a brave boy!"  I cannot begin to tell you how proud I was of my boy! Here is the story of what happened, from Cody's eyes;

Cody is doing fine! He received a shot of an antibiotic and he is now on Prednisone for the next few weeks. To those who sent messages of goodwill and concern on my Facebook Cat Chat With Caren & Cody page we THANK YOU!

Now, on to what this blog was supposed to be about today. The WINNERS of the INNOVA PET FOOD GIVE-AWAY!!

I went to www.random.org and used their:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

2
8
10

Timestamp: 2011-07-27 00:02:24 UTC

Number 2 was SKKORMAN

Number 8 was KEFRITH

Number 10 was CAMIE'S KITTIES

Thanks to all who entered! Please email me your mailing address to cgittleman at mi dot rr dot com. If I don't hear from you by the end of the week another winner will be selected in your place.