12.12.05

You've Got Questions. We've Got Sammers Itch.

Actually I’ve got both. Or rather Sam and I jointly. Er… he the itch and I the questions…

Completely dropped the ball on Dean’s birthday card so made him a dorky birthday webpage instead. In some ways this could be seen as quite the little brainstorm and in others it might be seen for what it is: moderately lame albeit full o’ love and good intentions.

Wacky day but just have another 1.5 hours’ or so work to do for the class who took their exam this morning. Two no-shows. Always a joy, the unreliability of Auburn students. They sure make life interesting! Golly!

Tutoring Macie at 2 and taking Sam to the vet at 4 to see if Dr. Harding can confirm that his itching is not due to anything Tremendously Scary. Assuming it’s just a food allergy (I’ve been doing some amateur vet-info research on the web) then we’re probably in for several weeks’ of trial with the food I switched them back onto last week (most of the sites said it can take 8 weeks or more for any improvement to manifest itself) and if that doesn’t work we’ll probably try this new Shiny Bright & Oh So Pricey hypoallergenic food called z/d.

Dr. Harding suggested cortisone shots as an eventual treatment last check-up when this itch had just begun and we were just going to keep an eye on it. I really don’t want Sammers on any long-term chemicals at all, much less steroids, except as a very last resort. Altho he is itching enough that you can tell it drives him a bit bonkers, and the bottom of his chin is slightly irritated, he’s not scratching himself raw all over (knock wood) like many of the animals I was reading about in my search, so (in my expert opinion) I think we have some room to try to find a less extreme battle plan. When he started this I had just switched him and Lucy from regular Science Diet to Science Diet Lite Formula, due to Lucy’s tendency to chub a bit. (Shhh! Do NOT speak of this in her hearing.) At the same time I consciously increased our playtime frequency and duration and now Lucy seems much livelier in general tho only a little slimmer (I had noticed in early fall that she was moving less and less and tired really quickly when we played but she seems in much better aerobic health now – it takes her forever to tire out so as long as she’s OK on that score I’m not going to worry about how she looks – she’s kind of a feline Botticelli model is all). Anyway I have my doubts that the diet food would have sparked an allergic reaction unless it’s just dry skin instead of an allergy (less fat in the new food) but we might luck out. I just need to watch Luce very closely or perhaps eventually break down and feed them two different things but I very much hope it doesn’t come to that. (Knock wood again.)

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