Posted in Paintings, tagged art, black, Cat, folk, original, painting, primitive, tuxedo, white on September 20, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Mr. Happy
Lately I have had cats on the brain, seemingly more than usual. I enjoy painting tuxedo cats – the contrast of the white and black areas of the coat make for a nice, bold painting. My latest fictitious cat is Mr. Happy. You can tell from his expression why he has been given this name. The painting is acrylic on canvas and measures 8 x 10 inches. It has been sold.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Cat, fish, healing, outfit, stitches, surgery on September 13, 2008| Leave a Comment »
About four weeks ago disaster struck my beloved orange kitty, Ferdinand. One minute he was well and happy and the next he had a large open wound the size of the circumference of a coffee cup on his side. At the time I had no idea what happened but I immediately flew into panic-hysteria mode at the horror of what I was seeing. Fortunately I had the prescence of mind to pack him into his carrier and head to the emergency vet clinic straight away. I was told by the vet that he needed to have emergecy surgery to get the wound stitched up. I was very worried about this prospect since Ferdinand is at least 14 years old and you never know how well an elderly cat will handle surgery. There really was no choice in the matter though since he needed to be sewn up! I nervously waited in the waiting area while the surgery was performed, going out of my mind with worry. After a couple of hours the vet told me the surgery went well and my baby was waking up. That was a relief to hear! After a while the staff brought him out to me, completely bandaged up with instructions for medications and the bandage change schedule. The vet warned me that the wound was very grotesque so he gave a good bandage so I wouldn’t have to look at it – I was so thankful for that since I am seriously very squeamish about these sorts of things. I finally arrived home at midnight and took Ferdinand up to bed with me. I only slept an hour that night – I was so consumed with worry not knowing how well he was handling the surgery and if his stitches were going to hold (the vet warned me they could pop due to the nature of the wound). Gradually over the next week Ferdinand came back to his normal self. I knew the tide had turned when I caught him grooming the dog’s snout (one of his favourite activities).
It has been about four weeks since this all happened and I can now report that he is almost totally recovered. His stitches are out and the only thing left is for the wound to completely heal over and the fur to grow back. The poor guy has been driven nearly crazy by the itchiness and irritation of the wound after about week one when the really big bandage came off. He was so naughty about trying to lick the wound and scratch it with his hind legs! I was going nuts trying to keep him from doing any damage to himself so I ended up making him a special outfit that would keep him from having access to the wound area. The outfit is pretty rudimentary but I did end up embroidering a little fish on the back area since “Seafood Medley” is one of his favourite food flavours. Here are a couple of photos of him in his outfit. Don’t worry I normally don’t put him on the kitchen counter, it was only so I could photo him without him wandering off!
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