Untitled 67

Pastel on Sennelier LaCarte, approx. 2.5" x 6".

Taken down by a migraine tonight, so not painting; this is from a few days ago. But I can still blog--as long as I keep the screen light really low and don't spend too long on the computer.
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Finally caught Gadjo in the act while I had the camera. He sometimes does this: dives headfirst into the bag of dry dog food, grabs one, leaps out, consumes it noisily, then dives back in for more. His whole body goes in--this photo is when he was on his way back out (his tail coming perilously close to the dish of wet cat food...which he is ignoring here in favor of canine kibble).


He's doing pretty well lately. Still has some symptoms; the vet is still treating for simple injury. He's still on pain meds, which we will be gradually reducing. I guess that's when the feces could potentially strike the ventilator blades: if he's completely off the pain meds but still has the symptoms, then it's probably FHS. My sense is still that it is FHS, but since he's doing fairly well, I'm still optimistic.

Sometimes from the kitchen emanate sudden clunkings and clankings on the wood floor. These turn out to be glass jars displaced by someone seeking the warm pipes in that cupboard.


This is from the era before Gadjo, otherwise I'm sure they'd be in there together.

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In India. Somehow, I never got used to the words "ladies" and "urinal" together.

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Untitled 66

Pastel on Sennelier LaCarte, approx. 2.5" x 4".

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I don't know how these two ever managed to live without each other.

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In India.

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Untitled 65

Pastel on Sennelier LaCarte, approx. 3" x 5".

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Rumi and Gadjo: world's best buddies.

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In India.

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Untitled 64

Pastel on Sennelier LaCarte, approx. 2.5" x 5".

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Sweet old Jazzy waits for dinner. He is now 14 years old, as of this month. He's somewhat deaf, somewhat blind, hypothryroid, rather fragile, has a bit of dementia, and is quite arthritic. And the sweetest boy in the world.

He is a rescue (i.e., adopted, not purchased) and he used to be an official therapy dog at the hospital. I trained him (well, the only skills he really had to actually learn were "leave it" [when food was near him] and "wait [for me, while I leave for a while]." Everything else comes naturally to him--wanting to meet people, wanting to be pet or hugged by strangers, leaning up against people, sitting on their feet. He passed the tests very well, except he lunged at the pizza that was held in front of him by the examiner, thus failing the "leave it" command (but she approved him anyway, because he charmed her). He was best in the waiting areas, where stressed-out, worried people were sitting around waiting for news of their loved ones who were in surgery. He would go to them and sit on their feet; I think it helped them feel grounded.

The reason we stopped going was because of me. When people met a lovely Golden, what kept happening was they started telling me about the Goldens they used to have...who then died of cancer, or were hit by a car, etc. etc.  It just got to be too hard on me to be constantly hearing what I called the Dead Dog Stories.

Even though we stopped going officially, Jazz will always be a great unofficial therapy dog. He's always there for you if you cry, reaching out for you with his big paw when he sees human tears. We got caught on a hiking trail by a storm once and he leaned against me, protecting me from the rain and hail (not that wet dog is the best fragrance to be near, but I didn't complain).

The Husband adopted Jazz when Jazz was 1 year old, and I met Jazz when Jazz was 5. We even love the fact that Jazz has a strong stubborn streak. After all, without that he'd be perfect, and no one's perfect. (The main way he's stubborn is that if he doesn't feel like going in the direction you're going while walking, he'll plant his 75 pounds [used to be 85] so firmly that it's impossible to move him. You just have to wait for him to change his mind.)

A few years ago, we took him to have his abdomen ultrasounded because the vet felt something possibly suspicious. Jazzy thought being turned over onto his back and having his tummy rubbed by five strangers was the best thing that ever happened to him. I remember the technician waving the wand around on his abdomen and us asking her, "What do you see?"  "Astounding quantities of fat," was the answer. (He started his diet later that day.) And strangely, they also incidentally found that he only has one kidney. Apparently he was born with just one.

When The Husband and I got married, Jazz wore a man's blue silk tie and looked very dapper. He was Best Dog.

The look of contentment, fang protruding, and little smile on Rumi's face when he sleeps just kill me.

After a couple of better days, Gadjo had a bad evening yesterday. Sigh. Guess it's still just wait-and-see.

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At the weaving center, Hyderabad, India.

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Untitled 63

Pastel on Sennelier LaCarte, approx. 2.5" x 4". ----- Gadjo seems to be doing better, day by day. We are starting to be hopeful that in fact it's just an injury and not FHS. Or that if it is FHS, it won't be too severe. Time will tell. Unrelatedly, Rumi has once again pulled some of the letters off my keyboard. Sigh. It's back to the Apple store for me. ----- At the weaving center, Hyderabad, India. -----

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Untitled 62

Pastel on Sennelier La Carte, approx. 2 3/4" x 5."


Thanks to Casey for technical help--I was trying to figure out why I couldn't get my photos really big, the way I'd noticed on others' blogs lately. When it comes to visuals, if other people had bigger photos, then dammit, I wanted 'em too! (Though Casey astutely pointed out that extra-large size might not work so well for my long vertical paintings.) Turns out I somehow hadn't updated to the new Blogger editor. Any mistakes while I learn the new ropes are, of course, mine. My posts might look weird for a while while I get used to it. The first thing I noticed that irks me is that font choices are very limited, and the font I used before (Lucida Grande) apparently is not even available. Grrr.
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Gadjo seems to be doing about the same, still. Has some symptom-free times but still some periods of what we have started referring to as "twitch attacks." The vet still wants to rule out simple injury, so we won't be starting any new meds or anything yet.


Miss Lemon appears to be disgusted by the weird, headless-Rumi shenanigans going on next to her.

Rent a headless Rumi for your next Halloween party!

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Vendor's stall, India.

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Untitled 61

Pastel on Sennelier La Carte, approx. 2.5" x 5".

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Miss Lemon's got everything under control.

Gadjo is about the same so far, maybe a little better overall. A lot of physical symptoms but it seems like fewer emotional ones. The physical ones come and go really frequently. Left my vet a voicemail update today, so we'll see if she has any further advice for now.

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Metal rods at a construction site, India.

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Untitled 60

(Above) Here's the next in the Strata series. Approx. 3" x 5", pastel on Sennelier La Carte.

(Below) Caroline, in stormy Scotland, asked to see an example of one of my small pastels matted and framed. There's probably some better way to take a photo of a glass-covered painting, but since this photo is not going into a museum's archives, and since I'm not going to disassemble the painting, I think we can live with it. (You can see some reflections in the glass, especially at the top.) I frame the minis in either 8" x 10" (like this one) or 11" x 14". This is an inexpensive (yet archival), single-mat (reverse bevel opening) way to frame. Some of my black frames are wood, some are metal.

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Gadjo seems about the same. I did leave a tearful message on my vet's voicemail and she called back and very nicely said please don't panic. So we'll try our best to squelch panic from now on.

But if you have to be sick or injured, it's nice to have your deaf, pink-eared, furry brother with you.

Isn't it, Gadjo?

[smile]

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In India, as seen from my vantage point in the back seat of the car.

This is actually The Husband's brother-in-law's hand. At least I think the term would be brother-in-law: The Husband's sister's husband's brother.

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Gadjo update

It seems that Gadjo has either an injury and/or FHS (Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome).

I'm really hoping it's not the latter, but unfortunately, all signs seem to be pointing to that. It's not a common or well-understood condition, and it happens more in male cats and in Oriental breeds. It seems to be a neurological problem in which some combination (a lot of "and/or") of things come together: nerves in the lower back/tail are deformed/too many and/or overly sensitive and/or don't convey impulses in a normal way; possible seizure activity in the brain; a form of feline OCD.

These are the symptoms: "dilated pupils; twitching of the tail; appearing to be annoyed with the tail; biting at the tail, sometimes to the point of mutilation; behavior change from loving to scared and depressed; staring into space; hiding and isolating self; persistent, loud meowing; dashing off madly and aimlessly around the house or yard; visibly rippling, twitching skin on the back just above the tail; finding being touched, especially along the back, sometimes unbearable; compulsive, excessive grooming, sometimes to the point of self-mutilation; sudden, random aggressive behavior; possible seizures and/or intermittent muscle spasms in the thoracolumbar epaxial muscles." It's like invisible monsters are biting him in the back and freaking him out.

I'm especially worried because if it occurs, it usually manifests in cats ages 1 - 4 years. Gadjo's only five months old, which makes me think he's going to have a very severe case of it. Cats can have from very mild to very severe cases. In the worst cases, cats have seizures and can die or become paralyzed from them, and/or they self-mutilate uncontrollably. Episodes can happen every few days, every day, or virtually constantly.

At the moment, the vet still wants to rule out the possibility of a simple injury, and/or an injury which may have set off otherwise normal nerves in his back. So he's on pain meds which, if he has FHS, are suppressing some of the symptoms. But I really have a sinking feeling that he has FHS. I've been doing a lot of reading about it and it sounds exactly like what we've been witnessing.

If he does have it, we'll be trying either antiseizure meds or antianxiety meds. Some cats benefit from one or the other. It's terribly scary and I am so afraid for him and so sad for us, because it seems that starting at one sudden moment a few days ago, his constantly sweet, loving, calm, gentle, bold personality disappeared. He won't even purr.

I want him back.

Untitled 59

Pastel on Sennelier La Carte, approx. 2" x 4."

I did several minis like this one a few nights ago; it seems I have a new series happening! I'm thinking of them as "Strata."

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We had an emergency with Gadjo and had to take him to the emergency vet the last two nights in a row, coinciding, thanks to Murphy's Law, with the coldest days of the year (-15F last night). Murphy of course had already arranged his usual situation: your pet will only get sick in the middle of the night or on a Sunday, never when your normal vet is open.

About $500 poorer (our pet insurance will cover some but not all of that), we still don't know exactly what is wrong with/what happened to Gadjo. But he is on some pain meds now and seems to be doing a lot better. His X-rays looked good and bloodwork was good too. The best guess of the vets right now is that somehow he managed to get himself a really bad soft-tissue injury (along the middle/lower spine) and the pain was making him act really, really bizarre, bizarre enough that at first we were all guessing maybe he'd somehow gotten into something toxic.

(Anyone know why it costs more for an animal to go to the vet than for a human to go to the doctor?)

I'm very relieved to see Gadjo looking even semi-normal now, on the meds. It was very scary, and still is, since we don't know for sure what is really going on. I'm hoping that the tentative diagnosis is correct, because other possibilities are potentially awful (e.g., a neurological issue). We'll have him on pain meds for 5 days and as much "rest" as possible. (I'm not sure how veterinarians manage to keep a straight face when instructing that you're supposed to keep your 5-month old kitten from running, jumping, playing, and climbing...for five days.)

I know you'll all be sending him good vibes.

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And of course Rumi is too.

I love the little dark-brown spot amongst all the white: it's the very tip of Gadjo's tail.

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In Hyderabad, India.

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