There are a million different ways that love is hard. For me lately, it’s keeping Bob and Doug healthy and safe.

Bob.

Loving a feral cat is complicated. There should be a support group. Hi my name is Tracey and I love my feral cat, but I’m also a control freak so my inability to control Bob’s movements and life’s journey drives me nuts. 

We had a polar vortex. Doug would barely go outside, hell, I barely went outside. But then there is Bob, stuck outside. No matter how much I insulate both condos, or how much food I put out, Bob is on his own out there. I crack the garage door and put food just inside in hopes he is brave enough to come in and realized the garage his heated. The food is always there when I go to check if this worked.

I lay in bed thinking and worrying about Bob. Mostly just due to that lack of control factor. Thankfully, Bob shows up after every thaw, so he must know what he’s doing. Any time I can catch him near the house, I always go put wet food out. He devours it right away. Wet food, is my new form of control. To ensure he always comes back to us.

Doug. 

Doug has started drifting out of my control area as well. When it came to Melvin’s health, we had a list of things to do. That included a list of medications for me to provide for him. And some of it was trial and error but we knew the issue (allergies and colitis) and we responded accordingly. And Jake, he had a shit-ton of issues, but they were all definable challenges that I was able to match with a joyful solution. Control at it’s finest.

The only time I didn’t have control over their health, was at the end. That’s just how the end goes.

Doug is hard to keep weight on. There is currently one food in the universe (that we know about) that doesn’t give him the poops. Once or twice a month he will throw up at night (for 2-3 nights), and then not again for a 2-3 weeks. What he throws up is not normal. From a scent perspective.

Oh excuse me for not throwing up lilies and sunshine.

We recently re-did blood work on him and his liver and cholesterol levels came back very low. Very, very low. So we did x-rays, and ultrasounds. Both came back fairly normal which was great because ‘liver failure’ was being thrown around a lot and if that’s what it was going to be we’d figure it out but also, universe, please just stop. We’d like to decline liver failure if possible.

I’m with (s)mother on this one, no thank you liver failure, take care now

So here we are. Blood work metrics too low to suggest it’s nothing. But we’ve ruled out a lot of somethings. Also, the last liver ultrasound I went through was the day that we found out Melvin had cancer so it was nice to hear the words ‘liver looks good’. Always, whenever possible, balance bad juju with joy. It’s life changing.

So I guess next we consider scoping Doug’s digestive track. Believe it or not, NONE OF MY DOGS HAS EVER HAD SCOPE! We have a found a test that has gone untested in this house. Pure cray.

I predict my insides will look very sexy

We will keep you posted! xoxo