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Today is European Antibiotic Awareness Day. We all need to understand and take the use of antibiotics very seriously as no new drugs have been developed for sometime and the misuse and overuse of them is leading to severe resistance by the horrid little blighters.
I have pledged to become an antibiotic guardian;
As a crazy cat lady I am obsessed with everything cat therefore I am now going to own up to my slighty insane Hello Kitty obsession…. I just love her, she makes me feel all warm inside.
I started accumulating Hello Kitty bits and bobs over a decade ago when a collegue at work started giving me Hello Kitty pens. Now I have a decent collection of ‘stuff’ that I like to look at and will use now and again but don’t want to spoil them. I am sure there are millions of other people out there with much bigger collections than mine but I am proud of my little collection. I’m not sure my husband is that keen on having it in his study/library though….
I have aquired items as gifts often (for which I am eternally grateful) but more recently I have joined a local Facebook group called Bicester Bargain Basement. I joined specifically to sell some of the crap we have in our house but have ended up selling nothing so far and purchasing at least 6 items which were all extremely good bargains. Two of these things were Hello Kitty related, a pot of Liberty Hello Kitty body cream and a small but perfectly formed Hello Kitty tea set.
My Hello Kitty collection thus far.
I have allsorts from pyjamas (which my husband won’t let me wear!..) to pens, from coffee cups to shower caps and everything in between. I hope I shall still be collecting when I’m 80. 🙂
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Name: Scooter Shepherd-Howard.
Date Of Birth: 23/05/2009.
Alternative Names: Scooter McHooter, Scoot Mahoot, Badly, Fatty.
Appearance: Black and white, blue/green slightly boss eyed, paunch.
History: Scooter was born at the RSPCA’s Blackberry Farm in Buckinghamshire and whilst all his litter mates steadily grew he appeared very stunted and poorly. My friend and excellent veterinary surgeon Lucy Howard was in charge of treating him and eventually diagnosed him as hypothyroid, a very rare condition in cats where the thyroid glands in the neck don’t produce enough of the hormone thyroxin which regulates the metabolism. He was extremely stunted and appeared more like a 2-3 month old kitten, rather than the 5 month old he was when we aquired him. He had enlarged thyroid glands, baby blue cross-eyes, no adult teeth and very short legs. Being as Lucy is rather allergic to cats we took him on as a joint project, I took him home (for the weekend…) and Lucy started him on thyroxin tablets. He started to grow immediately, although it took until his first birthday for him to aquire his full set of adult teeth. He is now a beautiful boy and is extremely good for his thyroxin tablet every single day of his life. He has regular blood tests to ensure we are dosing him correctly.
Cuteness Rating: 10/10! He loves cuddles and doesn’t like being cold so often cuddles up on my legs and is prone to snuggly blankets. His head rubby and butting abilities are supurb particularly on my face and head and especially if there may be food involved.
Bad Habits: Chasing the girls, particularly Bella whom he bullies perpetually. So much so in fact, that he is now banned from going upstairs and we have a microchip catflap in the hall door so all other cats can get upstairs apart from him. He is aggressive to her in the fact that he stares at her non stop which for another cat is about as threatening as it gets. If you don’t want a cat to be friends with you then stare at it! He also eats stupid things. (See below)
Food: Hill’s Venison and Pea as he has a delicate tummy due to eating too many inedible things. A bout of cooked chicken bone eating lead to weeks of vomiting and having to have ultrasound scans. He loves carbohydrates which cats don’t have the enzymes to digest and he has a particular penchant for jam and yoghurt. Earlier on this year I had concerns that his thyroxin dose was wrong so we checked his T4 levels and no it was fine, he’s just a porky pig.
A backward entrance to an audience at a dinner party.
Hunting ability: 1/10. Crisp packets, large leaves, cooked chicken wings and Mars Bar wrappers are but a few of the successful hunts presented to me in the lounge with much caterwauling and self congratulation.
Morgue assistant and cadaver handler.
Why is that every time we spend a bit of money on our feline babies they show absolutely no interest in the new purchase at all?
Well for once one of our cat inspired ideas has worked!
Bella is our least tolerant cat, by that I mean she is not at all tolerant of all the other cats that live in our house. Which is fair enough as she is a cat and by nature they quite like being on their own.
Next door have a wendy house in the garden which is unused by the current residents so Bella makes it her day home and leaves our house after breakfast only to return at night for her dinner.
As my husband worries about her so much and is forever outside calling her I thought it might be a good idea to build some sort of cat house in our garden that Bella could call her own but without forcing her to use it and pissing her off even more. I went online and purchased a cat maisonette which we duly wedged into the huge Buddleia bush in our garden. I made sure it was high enough up so that certain cats in our household couldn’t get in, especially Scooter, our hypothyroid boy who bullies Bella tirelessly but is crap at jumping up anywhere. I attempted to put Bella in the tree house but of course, being a cat she wouldn’t go near it and the only cats that have been near it for the last six weeks have been William and Blini so naturally I thougth it was a failure.
But, yesterday morning when I went out to feed the chickies and the bunnies, there was Bella, sitting on her blanky in the house, looking a touch worried but none the less using our special purchase. When Thomas got home last night she was in it again and this morning she was sheltering from the pouring rain in it. I felt a bit sorry for her this morning, so I got a really warm towel out of the airing cupboard and rolled it into a sausag shape for her to snuggle in to and she is still there!
Not only does it make her feel safe and dry but it is also the perfect platform in which to watch the sparrows and starlings on our birdfeeder, therefore killing two birds with one stone… Oh, maybe not the right thing to say. The birds are safe and high up too, honest.
Sometimes, to boost my self esteem I ask myself, actually, what do you do?
I know I’m a veterinary nurse but that doesn’t really give the full picture of all the things I do and at the mo I’m going through a ‘not feeling very good at this’ stage so I thought I might list all the things a RVN can do. I can’t say I’m good at all these things but I can certainly do all of them with confidence and ease.
I am a;
Dental nurse
Anaesthetist
Theatre nurse
Radiographer
Cleaner
Intensive care nurse
Behaviouralist
Nutritionalist
Bereavement Counsellor
Receptionist
Laboratory technician
Phlebotomist
Preventative health care advisor
Triage nurse
Pharmacist
Teacher
Vet organiser
Clinic nurse
Record keeper
Bossy mare
I can do all these things in one day plus a billion other things! So maybe I am alright after all. 🙂
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