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Thank You to everyone who so graciously posted the information about Oscar & Henry, the two boys who need to be re-homed now that their Soldier-Mama is being transferred. I've been in touch with their foster Mom and she is really hopeful we can find them a great home. She's allergic to the kitties, but wants to help them out. How gracious is that?

Anyway, thank you ALL for your help. I'll let you know when we get some good news on the boys!

Can you Help a Soldier out?

These two super sweet, 18 month old brothers are best friends, but sadly their mama is a soldier and is going to be transferred a lot in the next few years and she just can't keep her boys any longer.

Both cats have tested negative for Feline Leukemia and FIV. They have good litter box manners, are neutered and are up to date on their shots. We're asking that these two cats STAY together as it just wouldn't be right to separate these loving boys.

If you dream of having two cats who get along, these are your boys! The cats come with their litter box, cat carriers and their toys, too.

The cats are located in DERBY, CONNECTICUT in foster care, but their foster mom is allergic to them so the sooner we get them homes, the better!

If you can help a Soldier and save two kitties lives, please Contact: Christa 203-751-7523

If you aren't ready to adopt new kitties, would you please help me spread the word? Thank you!

Blitzen's been looking to make friends with the other cats. He's had some success-roughousing with Spencer is a favorite pastime. Nicky gets head licks and wrestling time, too. The girls aren't too receptive of little Blitz, but last night he walked over to Gracie and gave her head a lick-to which she responded by tipping her head down to allow him better access to her. A VERY nice sign, indeed.

This weekend, Blitz decided to go for a nap attempt with Bob. Bob sleeps with Nick and Nora from time to time, but that's about it. It was great he didn't mind having Blitzen share his afternoon nap.

As you can see, Blitzen is growing up. He's up to 7 lbs now!

Seeing this just filled my heart with joy. I hope these two become good friends. I know Blitzen can be annoying. Bob doesn't appreciate the little guy's high energy. Looks like all is well once Blitzen gets tired.

Back massage, sir?

Sweet dreams, boys.

I uploaded 4 new videos of our kitties on my youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/isilwath :D

There is one of our 21-yr old rescue kitty from Georgia, Mercedes.

Two of our Bluepoint Himalyan rescue from Georgia, Sapphira.

And one of of our black kitty rescue from Georgia, Nyah. :D

And our other GA rescue, Pippin makes sure he gets his camera time too. ;D

Enjoy!

Understanding what results to expect when utilizing Homeopathy, is definitely something I'm learning. It's different from seeing Dr. Larry. With him, I would expect him to prescribe a shot or pill, etc., then within a specific amount of time, I'd expect results. I'd also end up effecting Gracie in ways none of us would intend. For instance, if I'd caved in and told Dr. Larry to give her steroids, she's be looking very nice right now, but internally, I would have done damage to her that might not manifest right away. They call steroids “the silver bullet” for a good reason. They work great for lots of reasons, but there's a price to pay, which includes potentially causing a whole slew of immune related problems and worse, which end up shortening the life span of the cat. For a geriatric cat in poor health, steroids can give them comfort and help them find their appetite during their final days. In a young cat, I would avoid it if at all possible. Each situation is different and you need to discuss using steroids on your cat with your Vet.

I just got back from visiting Dr. Hermans. We had a good conversation, then she examined Gracie. Firstly, Gracie's nasty self-mutilation IS HEALING NICELY! I was only able to apply some calendula based first aid cream to her twice, along with some bitter apple around the site of the injury. Since she was healing with little help from me, that's actually a good sign that she's STOPPED chewing on herself.

We also discussed diet. Gracie may not be tolerating the food I changed the cats over to. They all go crazy eating it, but Gracie wants it too and she can't have it so she won't eat or she'll wait and try to get some scraps off another plate. This doesn't work since there usually are NO scraps left. Now I've been given the OK to open up the choices of food I give her, which should help inspire her to eat more consistently. Juggling what to feed 8 cats is a pain in the ass. Dr. H said there is “no such thing as feeding all cats in a multi-cat household, the same food.” It's a “Holy Grail” that can't be reached if your cats are of such varying ages and from different backgrounds. Gee, I didn't have enough to feel bad about! Ugh.

So back to the food drawing board. Hopefully, I will get this figured out. The math involved in all of this “how many ozs of food/how many lbs of cat” is driving me nuts. We have a bit over 100 lbs of cat, but each one gets a different amount of food. I can't feed them all the same amount because it's too costly and I don't want the cats to get fat.

We spoke, again, about re-homing Gracie. Dr. Larry feels it's time for me to do that and Dr. H says, “No. Not right now.” The problem here is my expectations, more than anything else. I'm used to a quick fix. Homeopathy doesn't work quickly-espeically for something like dermatitis. It's going to be up and down over a long period of time. There are no guarantees, either. This may not work, but we haven't given it long enough and Dr. H does see signs that Gracie IS responding to treatment. If she was in bad shape, she'd have kept on chewing her leg. She may have had a flare up. Hard to say. I can't imagine finding a home for her with no other cats or dogs, where the new owner would not give her steroids for her skin or who would feed raw and follow her health needs. It's just not going to happen. Crossing fingers: I will get her back in good shape one day and prove Dr. Larry wrong. Gracie can stay here and be happy AND healthy!

Bottom line is that I need to give Gracie more alone time-which I've been doing the past few nights and we're going to adjust the treatment she's getting and give that to her more often and she how she does. She won't be getting acupuncture just yet. Apparently it does not go well with Homeopathy! We can only do one thing at a time. Who knew?

Thank you, everyone, for your helpful suggestions. I've done so much for Gracie, some times I forget what's gone on.

To answer some of your comments-

Gracie IS on a Bach Flower Essence combo and has been on it for a few months now.

Last night when I saw her injury, it looked BETTER than it had at the Vet's office. She also relaxed the second I put the first aid salve with Calendula (rec'd by my homeopathic Vet) on it. We had a very nice quiet snuggle last night and for the first time in a very long time, I opened up the foster room and let her hang out in there. She seemed to enjoy herself and was relaxed and purring (and drooling on me).

As for fostering, I need to keep doing it. I need to do it because it keeps a smile on my face when I battle depression every day and I need to do it because I can't face knowing all those kittens are being put down, when I have space in my house and know how to care for them...BUT Gracie's well being is very important-of course.

Also, I haven't had foster here since March and as it looks right now, I won't be getting any any time soon. I'm going to talk to my Vets about this. The theory for me is-if she was OK with them before, she should be OK with them again, but...that is a guess.

Lastly, I agree that with homeopathy, what is occurring now could be a GOOD sign and a sign that the worst of it is about to be over and the true healing can begin. I won't know this, of course, until a lot more time has passed and I can look back and either smack myself in the head for waiting to bring out the big guns (steroids) or jump for joy that this difficult time was just the harbinger of better ones yet to come and that I've finally found the answer to help Gracie recover.

...crossing fingers....time to go smooch Gracie.

There were a lot of questions and comments regarding how I was treating Gracie and even some suggestions that I was being cruel to her to not load her up with steroids and antibiotics when we discovered she had self-mutiliated.

This is what I've done so far for Gracie:

• Gave her two shots of Depo (Steroids) two months apart. Boy did that work great, but...will give her diabetes and shorten her life span.

• HESKA blood test and complete blood panel. Indicated she was allergic to dust mites and beef. Pulled beef from her diet. Can't do much about dust mites. Blood work initially indicated Bartonella so she was on big time antibiotics for 4 weeks. Otherwise her blood test results were "that of a 2 year old cat". Gracie is 9.

• Treated Gracie with hyposensitization therapy for about 8 months. Did not help.

• Boarded Gracie at Vet for a week to see if being out of dusty home environment and away from other cats would calm her skin down. She had daily soothing baths. Improved slightly, but ultimately did nothing.

• Took her to see Dr. Rhodes, a noted Dermatologist in New Jersey. Put her on anti-organ rejection meds that were supposed to prevent her skin from reacting to whatever was irritating her. Did not work.

• Put her on anti-anxiety meds. Turned into a lifeless zombie. Was very tough to get hold of her every day to medicate her because she has been a high strung cat since the first day I took her into foster care. Had to stop trial. Don't believe it would have helped and she certainly seemed unhappy.

• Changed her diet from grain-free canned to raw. Saw some improvement.

• Began homeopathic treatment. Saw more improvement, but 2 weeks ago either slight tweak to diet or treatment caused her to get worse for awhile. Changed diet back, skin is slightly improving.

I'm sure there was more, but that's all I can think of for now.

Next steps. Homeopath on Tuesday. Gave her soothing balms last night and apple bitter around the unbroken skin to keep her off the area. Early June or sooner, I hope, she will be taken to get acupuncture, which is supposed to act the same way anti-anxiety meds work. She should become calmer.

Her home environment is very quiet. She has her own place in our bedroom where she and Petunia can sleep side by side by a window and relax in the sunshine. They don't get bothered for most of the day. It's not perfect and there are some conflicts with the other cats, but those instances are generally short-lived.

Initially, this problem was the result of over-medicating Gracie. She had an ear infection (antibiotics), a URI , Bartonella (antibiotics), a dental (more antibiotics?) in a short period of time. No wonder her immune system blew up. We didn't find the ear infection until the dental was done and about that time I started doing Bartonella testing on the cats so it was just a coincidence we discovered she was positive for it.

So what I'm trying to say is...I have ALWAYS done whatever I feel will give Gracie the most comfort and the best results and for anyone to think differently of that-well...then it's my fault for not describing it more clearly OR they can come here and meet Gracie and see how well she is cared for and how much she is loved. Gracie may suffer or feel discomfort, but my hope is that it is not constant. I do as much as I can to keep her feeling good without heavy duty meds. This WILL END and I WILL FIND A CURE for her. It's just taking for friggen' EVER!

18 months.

That's how long I've been trying to find a cure for Gracie's dermatitis. I am so stressed out from all the tests, treatments, baths, specialists NOT curing her problem! I know it stresses HER out and that stresses me out, too

I'd planned on writing a post about taking Gracie to visit a homeopathic Vet. About how you need to have a different mindset about expectations of results. That it will take time.

If you factor in that Gracie had LOTS of different meds for a year, then it will take a very long time for them to work out of her system. She's only had homeopathic treatments since January. She's on a very restricted raw diet. I have to be PATIENT.

Two weeks ago, I thought that FINALLY Gracie was starting to improve. She had chewed the fur off her belly, but it was starting to grow back. Instead of an armor of scabs, the size and spacing of the scabs was much improved.

Then I tweaked her diet and she got a new treatment. I don't know which did it, but something really effected her badly. I noticed her skin got worse, so I put her back on her old diet. Today, she went to her "western" vet, Dr Larry, because I thought she had an injury to her eye.

Her eye was fine, but when we flipped her over to see how her belly was, this was what we saw.

Gracie did this to herself. It's from over-grooming. At the left is her belly and the injury goes inside her left rear leg.

It was very difficult NOT to cry when I saw this. I was in such a state of shock, I didn't know what to say. I was ashamed that I missed this horrific and painful injury and all I wanted to do was give her a big fat shot of steroids, which I KNOW would make her feel better, but which, in the long run will kill her.

What makes matters worse was that I chose not to do anything for her. Her homeopathic Vet would not agree to give Gracie ANYTHING right now-espeically steroids or antibiotics, which would be the next steps. We were able to reach Dr. Hermans, who quickly re-arranged her schedule so that she could see Gracie in a few days and she also told me some things I could do for her to keep Gracie comfortable until her appointment.

Dr. Larry, bless him, with the most open mind of any doctor in the universe, suddenly told me that he felt that I should get Gracie in to get acupuncture done because he'd seen amazing results. Perhaps it would help to calm her down and break her OCD-ish cycle of over grooming?

Instead of pushing me to use "his method" of treatment, he respected Dr Hermans wishes (and mine) and he gave me good suggestions. Gracie is going to get acupuncture in early June, or sooner if they can fit me in.

Dr. Larry says a home for Gracie by herself is the ultimate answer, but I reminded him that she was FINE for years in this same house, with the crazy foster cats. I hope that if she was all right once, she can return to good health again one day. Right now I want to crawl into a hole and hide. I feel terrible for my baby girl. Just terrible. I need a magic wand so I can fix her up and help her be happy again. I can't be a bad cat-mama. I just can't.

Unfortunately, it looks like in this regard, I already am. If I could find Gracie a great home (along with her daughter, Petunia), I would do it. But who would want a cat with a known medical condition? I can't promise it would go away. This is so frustrating and exhausting.

Please, please, please. Let me find the cure for my cat! I'm running out of options.

Okay, gang. I've decided to open up the ability to leave a Comment without my approval, even if you haven't signed up to be a member of CiCH.

This does not mean you can go crazy and spam up my web site. I'll still be moderating all posts, but heck, it sucks to have to wait to see if your post is live, so I'm going to make it easier and see how it goes.

So, welcome! Leave a comment. It's easier than ever before, but I AM WATCHING YOU. And you know who you are! I reserve the right to lock down comments again if I end up having a gillion sneaky spam messages!

As promised! The video clip of the News segment from last week's announcement of the “Fur for the Gulf” program.