Elin's Journal

I warn you now, there is grossness and possible TMI ahead.

So Bandito (Dito to his friends) has been at the vet's office since Friday. Friday night, I noticed he was having both urgency and he was straining to pee. He was constantly trying to pee, every few minutes yet he would strain and strain, and only produce a drop at a time. And there was a little blood in it. That's all Very Bad, so Friday morning before work, he was whisked to the vet's office, where I had to basically bulldog him in (no, ma'am, I will *not* take him somewhere else, this *is* my vet). Fortunately, our vet happened to come in on his day off (though we would have been fine with the secondary vet there as well), and he determined Dito had a blockage. We'd caught it early, which was Very Good. But, Dito would have to stay there. Why? Well, he needed a catheter. And you can't have a cat wandering around your house with a catheter in his bits.

Our vet did the procedure himself. Then Dito proceeded to spend the weekend at the vet's office. The same woman who was so rules-lawyer-y about how Friday was a half day and we should go somewhere else neglected to call me after Dito's procedure, which she was supposed to do. (It's their policy.) So, I spent the weekend in a state of exhaustion (suarez and I stayed up pretty much all night on Friday with him) and frantic worry. Though, I told myself if something REALLY BAD had happened, they would have called me.

Yesterday, I called them up and Dito had been eating fine, and peeing fine (thanks to the catheter) but they were worried because there was still some blood in his urine. So they kept him one more night.

Today, the vet called to let me know that not only is Dito prone to the crystals that can cause blockages in male cats, but he also has an adhesion, meaning his dingus doesn't fully extend. This can cause trouble with the peeing and make him even more prone to blockages! He was peeing normally, so they removed the catheter. He then refused to pee for the rest of his time at the vet's office.

After work, we went to pick him up. He peed like crazy in the towels in the bottom of the cat carrier, with much yowling- and at the center of the pee mark, ground zero if you will, was a strange gritty substance. I'm guessing it was the last of the blockage from his urethra.

We have to keep him confined in the bathroom. He's been obsessively going to the catbox and peeing, and there is a little blood in the urine still. He might have to go back to the vet tomorrow morning if he continues to try to pee every five minutes. I'm really hoping we don't have to get him surgery on his bits, because he's already cost us an incredibly large sum of money (overnight stays at the vet are not cheap, and neither was his catheter procedure). I just want him to be well. Maybe it makes me weak, but I really could not stand to lose another pet so soon after losing Batty and Copper.

EDIT: Forgot to mention: I've got lots of auctions up right now, with more to come, since the vet bills were a giant punch in the gut. (And we'd *just* finished paying for all of Batty's final bills. Oy.) Comics, graphic novels and manga up for cheap, if you are so inclined. There will be more going up soon as well!

If you read my Twitter feed (which helpfully cross posts my Tweets here), you may have an inkling of what's been going on with me lately.

In a cut, because it is LONG:
( Read more... )

And so, we have come to Thursday. All these events have happened IN ONE WEEK. I am worn out. I would also very much like to get a small break, so let's petition the universe for that. It'd be nice.

Now to eat some yogurt and toast, check on Batty again, and give him his second shot. I'm ready to fall over. But I have to close at the DayJob tonight, so I can't do that yet.

Got a lot done today... work, errands, and some household stuff. The cats are all groomed for the week. Indy loves the grooming, including the Allerpet-C bath. Batty likes the brushing and doesn't mind the bath part. Bandito dislikes the bath part, but enjoys the brushing and being combed. We have been slowly integrating them with each other, with supervised visits. So far, no one has attacked anyone else, there's been some hiding and the occasional hiss. Mostly, there's a lot of nose-sniffing, meeps of annoyance or nervousness, and then a lot of pointed ignoring of the other cat(s) in the room. The possibility that they could all get along is something I hope for, though I'm willing to accept it if they don't all get along. They're already all doing better than they did at the apartment.

Anyway, I mentioned auctions, because I have new auctions up! Please buy my stuff! We are also working on clearing out things we have duplicates on, so there's some nice stuff up. And I'm also auctioning a couple of fairly hard to find PlayStation 1 video games for willworks. Check them out! More to come later in the week.
New eBay auctions are here!

Now, time to rest up for work tomorrow. Should be a busy week this week. There's so much to do! I lost a day of time (Sunday) to a sinus migraine, so I feel like I am falling behind.

Oh, and if you hadn't heard yet, Yoshito Usui, the creator/artist of the manga Crayon Shin-Chan was found dead in the mountains where he'd been hiking. I always liked his comics, so this news makes me sad.

This reminds me, I have to get things ready for the saasclub meeting on the 27th. Fourteenth anniversary of the club. Good lord!

EDIT: And yay, I was even able to log in to WoW a little tonight on my main. I now have 81 mini-pets, having just gotten the Pint-Sized Pink Pachyderm from the Brewfest holiday. I'm so glad my main is fixed- I was having an issue when I logged her out in Dalaran where she'd get "stuck". I'd log in, and be unable to move, and then get disconnected from the server. Very frustrating. I can now apparently move when in Dalaran, which is a good thing as I'm only four levels away from 80 and want to get there soon. I realize this paragraph makes no sense if you don't play World of Warcraft. ^_^;

Yesterday was very tiring, as our shop hosted the regional Flames of War tournament. It was insanely crowded! I just went into convention mode, but convention mode does tire me out more than usual retail mode. I just don't do huge crowds well, they're kind of anxiety inducing. Over the years, I've learned to handle it better (I had to with all the cons we do), but it takes a lot out of me. So, last night was spent vegging in front of Netflix movies instead of tackling more unpacking. We watched Big Man Japan
and Speed Racer. The first was very weird, but cool (and also depressing); the second was incredibly goofball and way too long. The Wachowskis really need an editor, I think. Glad we didn't spend money in the theatre to see it, as well.

Friday night, we went over to denshousha's place to celebrate the birthday of the DreamCast system. We had hamburgers, DreamCast-orange cake and played DreamCast games. It was a nice night. dacantero is in town this weekend, so JAR brought him over there- we had a nice chat and I took possession of some gorgeous new art for one of the sites and for the next Genus.

Today is my one day off for the week (Mondays being used exclusively for Radio work, so it's not actually a day off), so I plan to do some more stuff around the house. And other fun things like cleaning cat boxes, grooming the cats (we've been using Allerpet/C on them every week, and it actually does make a difference with the allergens), scanning stuff for auctions, and doing dishes and laundry. My life is so exciting! I might go to PetsMart to get some cat supplies later.

Currently Reading: Comics: Love & Rockets: New Stories Vol. 2 by Los Bros. Hernandez; Manga: Oishinbo: Fish, Sushi and Sashimi by Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki; Books: Inventing Japan: An Unconventional Account of the Postwar Years by William Chapman.

And now, AUCTIONS! Buy this stuff, good lord, I have zero room for it in the house! D:
New eBay auctions are here! Comics and graphic novels, mostly. More to come later in the week!
New FurBuy auctions are here! Not Work Safe!

Posted in honor of Miss Yubiko Chub-Chub Winkler, born in early 1995, departed August 13, 2009. Spooky, I hope you take care of her like you used to.



Please hug your cats/dogs/rabbits/etc.

Indy, the cat in the icon, has been sneezing for about a week now. We assumed at first that it was because he got out on the balcony at the apartment, which is covered in thick dust from the construction upwind from the complex. Of course, he rolled in said dust, and immediately started sneezing. In the last couple of days, his sneezing has gotten worse, to the point where he is having 5-8 sneezes in a row. Yesterday, he started sneezing out yellowish mucus, over and over again. (And let me tell you, cats are worse than babies at letting you wipe their noses. I was seriously wishing for one of those baby nose-suction-bulbs...) His nose clearly is bothering him a lot, and though he's got his normal appetite, he seems tired. When he eats, he's all snorky. His usually pale pink and black nose is actually a little red and he won't stop washing it. Bandito is worried about him, and spends a lot of time snuggling next to him. (So, right next to the infected cat, clever.)

I called the vet this morning (my absolutely brilliant cat vet, Dr. McGeehee, he is seriously the best vet in town), and described the issue. Indy probably has a upper respiratory infection, but he'll need antibiotics, so I have a quick vet jaunt before I go in for work today. The vet tech girl said I should bring him in, even though Dr. McGeeHee is only there till noon today- because Indy is 12, an upper respiratory infection could turn fatal if left too long. (Like, say, till after Xmas...) Cats just aren't equipped to deal with stuff like that on their own.

Thank god I get paid at the store job today, so I can actually pay for this service. Merry Xmas, have some cat snot.

UPDATE: Indy has an upper respiratory infection, but we caught it early. It hasn't irritated his throat yet, or moved into his lungs and become pneumonia. (Cats usually do not survive pneumonia.) Indy now has banana-flavored liquid antibiotics to take twice a day until he's better. He's also now a svelte 12.5 pounds, which is better (and healthier!) than his former weight of 14-16 pounds. We also got lucky, as the vet is closed from tomorrow through Dec. 29, then open one day, then closed again until Jan. 4. The vet agreed that would have been too long to wait to take care of this.

I also want to reiterate how much I love our vet. He doesn't give me a hard time about not being able to bring the cats in all the time (due to money reasons), and gives me choices on treatment. (For example, today he offered an antibiotics shot, which starts at $75, or the liquid antibiotics, which is $20... other vets would do whatever makes them the most money.) He rarely can accept new clients, since he's so overbooked, but if you ever need a vet that really cares about animals (or, who can treat exotics, birds, rodents, and reptiles as well as cats and dogs), you cannot go wrong with Dr. Bill McGeeHee at Castle-West Animal Hospital in San Antonio. I hope he never retires.

Today I worked on tons of mail order and auction stuff. Then, suarez and I delivered Yubi over to matthigh.

Yubi did not like her trip in the car (as usual), and pooped in the cat carrier. (She does it every time she goes in the car...) Then she got carsick, twice. By the time we arrived at Matt's place, she was disgusting, so she went from cat carrier directly into the tub. Poor thing was very unhappy with all these horrible developments. But after the bath, she was at least clean and no longer stinky.

She calmed down enough to eat, and when we last checked on her, she was cozily hiding under the bed, so I think she will be fine. She will certainly be better off than she was at the house, where she lived in terror of Batty. (Batty wasn't even doing anything mean to her, she just decided she hated him, so she refused to come out from under the recliner. For weeks. It was sad.) Now she can relax and get fat and sassy again.

I am going to miss Yubi's weird little inbred ways, but as Matt lives very close to the apartment, we will easily be able to visit her. Batty has the run of the house, and Indy and Bandito are comfortably situated in the Radio apartment, so now there will be no more cat wars.

Tons of Radio errands to do tomorrow, since I have a rare weekday off.

Despite the head cold, I toddled off to work at the store yesterday for my first shift since getting back from the con. Fortunately, even though it was Wednesday, new comics are not coming out until today (Thursday) due to Labor Day. This was a relief, since I was seriously out of it yesterday. I'm feeling a little better today, less feverish and less dizzy. Let's hope it continues.

Woke up early despite the NyQuil I took last night, so have been working on mail order, order processing and other such Radio stuff before I go in to work this afternoon. I usually close on Thursdays anyway, so that's the usual M.O. around here now. I'm hoping the books at the printer shipped okay, I am guessing they did since we didn't get any calls about them. We did have a call about Hit the Beach #14 before it went to final printing- some of the pages with computer greytones might print a little dark. It can't be helped really, some stuff just prints extra dark on the newsprint- anything over 30-40% tone really darkens up in the printing process. We'll have to wait and see how it turns out- we tried to compensate for the darkening when we got the book ready, but each new piece is always an experiment. The newsprint we're using now just loves ink and soaks it up like crazy.

Otherwise, I am just really worn down and tired. I'm mostly trying to get over this cold so I can keep working. I also promised densetsujin we'd help him move this weekend, so there's that. Plus, Yubi will be moving from suarez's place over to matthigh's place, since she's decided she will not stand living in the same house as Batty. She's very old now, so we figure letting her live alone to get spoiled rotten by Matt is better for her than hiding from Batty in the recliner chair all day long. Ah, cat drama.

Tragically, I got the new expansion for The Sims 2, but I have no time to actually *play* it. I also have not had any time to play WoW in forever. I miss video games.

The week isn't even half over yet and I am already exhausted.

Yesterday started with an hours-long fight to get Bandito into the cat carrier so we could drop him off at the vet. Once that was done, we went to pay the electric bill, which was considerable. (And thus, painful!) We picked up some more comic supplies and headed back home to work and wait to hear about the cat's prognosis.

Fortunately, it seems Bandito just has a UTI, so he is on antibiotics and a de-acidifier which is supposed to prevent the formation of crystals in his pee. (These crystals lead to blockages in neutered male cats, which require expensive surgery.) So, we got off rather lightly, though it was still more money than I really planned to spend this month. It will be ramen, beans & rice and mac & cheese central around here for a while. We also got off lucky in that Bandito will eat his canned food with the meds mixed in, so we don't have to fight him to force them down his stubborn gullet. He just needs to be fed apart from the other cats so they don't attempt to steal the dosed food. I also got some low-key hassling from the vet techs about feeding the cats cheap dry food (Meow Mix is apparently too low-rent...), which just made me feel guilty. And if we start 'Dito on dry food again after his meds are done, he will have to have the Urinary Tract Health formula, which means the more expensive (but apparently still low-rent) Purina One, since there's no way in heck I can afford Science Diet or Iams.

We got two books turned in this week, so now I just have to confer with the printers to get all the stats off to them. And I've been doing the usual auction and mail order processing work, so it's been fairly busy here. Today, we are sending off the solicitations to Diamond for the March 2008 books. Finally, Milk is solicited again, as we are finally caught up on the months-long lateness that has plagued us since March. This year has just whipped by because of all this.

I have hundreds and hundreds of emails to answer also. The spam problems seem to be clearing up on my auction email account, but now we're getting a metric ton of spam through the filters on the Radio Comix email address. Add in the fact that we just get a lot of email, period, and I am stuck in the Sisyphean position of constantly having hundreds of emails to answer.

We're also getting more requests from smaller retailers who used to order our stuff via Cold Cut, so I have to draft some kind of FAQ about wholesale ordering now. And the local comic store where we buy our supplies asked us to bring in some kind of flyers for our online store, since they only carry our books for subscribers, and this way they will have something to give to the rare folks who wander in looking for Furrlough, Genus and Milk. I have to update the Radio Comix Online Store this week, also. And of course, SinFactoryComix.com should get updated today, too. We've got to figure out advertising for that site, because the tiny number of subscribers there is barely covering the cost of maintaining the site at this point. This makes me sad, since it needs to generate more income if there's to be any hope of the artists getting any money from it. I've been researching Project Wonderful ads, just waiting for my registration there to finalize. Maybe that will help... we've got an ad for the site that runs on the furry adult art site Fchan, but I don't know if anyone ever even clicks through from those.

Back to work for me, but first, auction plugs.
eBay auctions are here!
FurBid auctions are here!
Etsy shop is here!

Last week was a week of horrible amounts of work. Not too unusual, because that's how it is in comics and how it always has been.

Summary of everything that got finished last week:
( Read more... )

And that's what we did last week. Yesterday, we all basically died, since we'd all had very little sleep the week before.

In cat news, Indy and Batty got into another huge fight out of nowhere (Batty had sneaked out of the back, no one knew he was out and about), and covered each other in lacerations. We got them cleaned up last night and covered in antibiotic cream, but one of Indy's wounds is on his front haunch (near the armpit area) so he has to wear the Cone of Shame to keep him from licking the cream off. He hates it. It's a fairly shallow wound, but rather large, kind of a tear in the loose skin he has there. We are watching it closely. I am hoping very hard we won't have to take him to the vet. Don't feel too sorry for Indy though, he managed to embed a claw casing in Batty's face (which I had to pull out with tweezers), just missing the eye. Fortunately (??) Batty's wounds are all on his head, so he does not have to wear the Cone. This is good, because he can Houdini out of one in two seconds and hide it forever in the process. The bad part about Batty being all black means it's really hard to find wounds on him, so he keeps getting prodded all over to make sure he doesn't have hidden scabs. So, Indy is pissed off and miserable because of the Cone and Batty is pissed off because I keep grabbing him and poking him everywhere. Yay, cats.