"Colbert" is hanging out in the small animal intensive care unit at school right now, getting re-hydrated. We did some bloodwork this morning, and it looks like she has hepatic lipidosis-the same disease that Muffin has...She's acting great though, you really can't tell that she's as sick as she is! Tomorrow she is scheduled to have chest and abdominal x-rays, an abdominal ultrasound, and then she will get a stomach feeding tube so that we can get her all the calories she needs to recover from her disease (since she's not eating much on her own). I'll see if she can live without a sweater over her tube, we don't want any more incidents of sweater paralysis. I'm still hoping that we can find her owners, but Jim and I have really fallen in love with her, even though she has only been with us for a short time!

Labels: pets

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My parents found a cat living in their house on Colbert Street. Jimmy Epp brought her to Baton Rouge last night, and Katrin took her to school this morning, to be treated as a hurricane refugee. We don't know where she's going to go from there, but we might wind up with a cat. :-) She seemed to enjoy spending the night at our house; she's very friendly. Today she's getting some tests at the vet school; we'll keep you posted on her progress. 0 comments

We went to the Voodoo Fest in New Orleans this weekend. It was almost cancelled because of the hurricane, but the organizers decided to move the show to Riverview Park, and give the tickets away free to the National Guard and various volunteers. Cat, why do New Orleans people call that park "the fly"?

The vet school got some tickets for all their work saving animals. I guess New Orleans is getting back to normal, because there were plenty of drunk high-school students. It was a fun concert, and a perfect day to be outside. The uptown area of New Orleans wasn't badly damaged. We had lunch at Reginelli's, our favorite little restaurant on Magazine and State, and everything seems normal there -- except for the occasional humvee full of M16-toting soldiers, which is somewhat disturbing. That gives me a sort of "what's wrong with this picture" feeling.

We had dinner with my parents, who are getting settled into their rental house in Metairie and making plans for rebuilding the Lakeview house. It's going to be a while, though.

Labels: travel

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Yesterday Jim and I drove down to New Orleans to help his parents move furniture and other necessary items from their Lakeview house to the new house they have rented in Metaire. The sight of all the destruction in Lakeview was unbelievable. I was somewhat prepared for what was to come, but I was still overwhelmed. There are massive, several story high mounds of trash, and wood all along West End Boulevard, and everything is covered in brown muck. I think the saddest thing for me was looking into Mrs. Joann's greenhouse, which was once home to over 200 fabulous orchids, all of which were dead, and covered in a thick layer of dried mud...

On a happier note...On Sunday Jim and I decided to do some general "fall cleaning" around the house. I made a startling discovery as I was going through my new dresser (Jim's parents gave it to us, and he restored it for me)--I own 19 pairs of hand-made socks! My mom is an excellent knitter. She used to always knit us sweaters when we were younger, but has since switched to socks. Every time I visit, I am under the impression that I do not have enough socks yet, and snatch up all the ones offered to me. My mom's socks are always very stylish, and my friends are all jealous of them, but the best thing is that they're super comfy and warm. That's just what I need now. The weather is getting cooler in Baton Rouge (finally!). It's supposed to get down to 49 degrees tonight-if it get's below 80, I get goosebumps. Guess I'll be wearing some nice wool socks to bed tonight, and I know I won't run out, even if I don't wash for 19 days :)



Here's a picture of my brother and me wearing some very nice and warm hand made sweaters while on vacation on an island in the North Sea (a few years ago...) 3 comments

I have a patient in the ICU right now named Muffin. She is a 10 year old cat who was left in a house in New Orleans East during the hurricane and did not eat anything for over 1 month. When she came to the Veterinary School she was diagnosed with a disease called hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver syndrome (common in cats that are stressed and don't eat). She doesn't want to eat anything, so for the past few weeks I have been feeding her through a tube placed into her stomach (sounds kinda scary, but it's really not). To prevent her from messing with the tube, she was fitty with a snazzy yellow "sweater" that fits over about half of her body. Muffin is super sweet, and super cute, but she always seemed really weak and lethargic to me. She wouldn't really move, and if I took her out in the mornings to weigh her, she would just fall sideways off the scale if not supported. I was concerned about this, so I decided to talk to my clinician Dr. Ryan (super cool internist whose practice in Mandeville sustained quite a bit of damage, so he's currently working at LSU). Dr. Ryan immediately knew what I was talking about, when I explained Muffin's signs to him. He introduced me to the phenomenon of "sweater paralysis." In his infinite wisdom, he explained to me that cats don't really like wearing the sweaters, so once you put them on, they freak out and don't move anymore. Hmmm...and all this time I thought it was because the sweater was yellow, and that just wasn't Muffin's color! So anyway, I decided to take the sweater off Muffin over the weekend, and now she is bouncing around her cage! The sweater paralysis syndrome-seeing is believing.

We also had a major breakthrough today-Muffin ate on her own for the first time in 6 weeks, meaning she is on her way to recovery...She'll be ready to go home soon.

We also had our picture taken today by the local newspaper. She and I might become famous yet :)

Labels: pets

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I went to my parent's house Saturday to help with the cleaning. I had a good idea of what to expect, but it's weird being there. A couple of times while I was driving around, I wasn't sure where I was - this is a few blocks from the house I grew up in. The water runs, but there's no schedule for when the electricity might be back in Lakeview. They'll have to unhook every house before turning the grid back on.


My dad has already torn a lot of the sheetrock off the walls, and pulled the cabinets out of the kitchen.


It's quiet in Lakeview. I didn't see any birds or squirrels; there isn't much for them to eat on the ground. There aren't any dogs or cats. Mostly you hear chainsaws and the sound of breaking glass. There's a whole lot of visiting going on - people driving around to check on friends and neighbors, talking about their experiences and plans for the future. My parents and many of their friends and neighbors are going to rebuild.

The only thing that really matters is the message that is scrawled on everyone's front door in orange spray paint. For a lot of people, it will be a heartbreaking message, but for us it's a good one. Zero bodies, zero bodies removed. Count your blessings. 1 comments

I just made my day! I was trying to figure out if I could do a dynamic cast in C#, and I did a google search on "c# cast programmatically type reflection". I quickly noticed the second item in the search results - it was this Code Project article, which I wrote!

This is a nerd milestone, to happen upon my own stuff in a random google search. :-) If it had helped me solve my problem, that would have been even better... 0 comments

I've discovered a new hobby, at least for the next few days - playing with the template for this blog. There are all sorts of neat things you can do with the formatting, but so far I've accomplished moving a couple of things around and messing with the color scheme. I'll try to resist playing with it at work tomorrow. 1 comments

Our favorite pygmy goat, Little Dude, and our favorite Wombat, Peanut (aka "The Nut") wanted to say hello to everyone. However, since Little Dude has hooves, and The Nut's hands are made out of fabric, they asked my to post this :) That's what I get for being in Veterinary School!
School is going great, BTW, I am back on Small Animal Medicine and loving it!

Thanks for looking!
Katrin

Labels: peanut

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Katrin and I (but mostly the latter) have been thinking for a while that a blog might be a better way to keep everyone updated on our recent adventures than the website. I'm now officially past the procrastinating!

There's not any exciting news at the moment; I'm sitting in cubicle land eating lunch at my desk. That's slightly more exciting than actually doing work. Perhaps this weekend will bring some exciting news and/or pictures. If I don't go to New Orleans to help with the parent's house, we'll be tailgating at the Vet School for the LSU game.

Later,
Jim 1 comments