My Summer Vacation: Xander Goes to the Vet

Xander has asthma, he was diagnosed about a year ago and has been on prednisolone on an as needed basis. I check the Vog Prediction Model every few days and watch the news for the weather report most nights to get an idea whether he needs his pill. I also look out the window and see how hazy it is. And he seems to have figured out that when I pry his mouth open & toss in that terrible tasting thing it makes him feel better; some mornings he comes up to me & meows, asking for his pill. (I know he's not asking for food since they have a self-feeder.) I was running out of his pills so earlier this week I called the Cat Clinic to get a refill and found out I needed to take him in for a check up before they could refill it. I couldn't get one before my trip to Washington, so I set one up for the day after I returned.

Yesterday I realized that meant Xander would be without his prednisolone for 2 weeks, so I called to see if there was any way I could get him in before I left; they said to bring him in today at 7 a.m. & leave him so they could work on him between other appointments. So I packed Xander in to the carrier early today and took him to the vet. To make it easier to get the cats into the carrier I stand it up on its end; gravity works with me and against them.

On the way back from the vet I noticed some mangoes were starting to turn yellow. Even though they are not completely ripe I need to pick them before the bulbuls get them. The bulbuls will start eating the ripe portions and leave the unripe parts until they ripen. It's sort of like the starlings going after my apples in Washington; I had to pick them early, too.

Note the peck marks on the red-colored mango on the left.

I took the RAV4 to McKinley Car Wash today because the windshield was covered with dirt when I took Xander to the vet; it was really busy. Besides a wash I also had the RAV4 waxed and the tires treated. It looks really good now!

On the way back from the car wash the Cat Clinic called; Xander was done. I got the refill on the prednisolone for his asthma and the posatex for his chronic otitis (both once a day). He had been sneezing over the past few days, it turned out to be an upper respitratory infection. Due to his asthma Dr. Sylvester has him on doxycycline (2 times a day) to knock it out quickly so it doesn't turn in to pneumonia. He also has conjunctivitis, Dr. Sylvester thinks it is irritation associated with his upper respiratory infection; he has ciprofloxacin for that (3 times a day). I have had to set up alarms on my phone to keep track of all his meds. Xander needed a blood draw in order for them to check that he is still fine on the prednisolone; they had to lightly sedate him for that. He was still a little drowsy when he got home.

Xander sleeping off the sedative.

Here's a close-up of the catnip. I need to add some red cinders to hold down the weed cloth. The plant had about twice as many leaves yesterday. But I am pleased that it's not totally destroyed.

Tonight I watched a show about food in Okinawa. The hosts went to a farmers market in Okinawa to look for goya or bitter melon. I watched it to see what types of things can be made with bitter melon since there is a volunteer growing in the front garden. One of the things was goya ice cream. They also went to a burger place called JEF Burger for their Mystery Burger which was a combination of goya & SPAM. They said both were very good. One tip the chef gave was that goya is less bitter in the summer.