Well, 2024 is about to come to a close. As always, life is full of surprises and this year is no exception !
Betty - Pretty smooth sailing
Despite a relapse of IBD in mid year, her condition was fairly stable. She really is a very good girl, eating the same cat food all year round without much complaint. She is now more used to daily routine exercises which hopefully could help maintain her health.
Betty dear, stay healthy and cheerful as your brother and sister takes you as their leader.
Felix - A nasty shock, followed by a smoother path
A year with minor hiccups till October, when the bile duct was blocked. So underwent his fourth surgery, which according to the surgeon was an immediate success, as the bile flow returned to normal after flushing. Within 2 months post surgery, his blood test readings were all normal.
The initial recovery process was more rugged than before. As a layman, we suspect its the feeding tube, as according to "textbook", nurses were keen to make sure his daily intake was as per prescribed. We think that in practice, it should not be so and might result in overfeeding, resulting in gastro issues. Its because when one is sick, one would naturally be eating less, and the appetite will gradually return as the recovery progress.
Overall, in the past month or so, Felix moved around more. Whenever, he sees the sun shining in the balcony, he would go out and have a short sunbathing. He continues with his nasty trick to sneak behind Stella's or Betty's back and scared them. Haha.
Felix dear, exercise more, stay happy and healthy and don't ne so rough on the girls!
Stella - Challenging experiences
Having attended a cat show in late 2023, we have decided to let Stella complete a full year showing exercise in 2024 to see what she can achieve.
During the year, Stella continues to grow physically, but she herself controls her weight at 4.7-4.8kg. She will refuse to eat more regardless of how you try to intimidate her. Appearance wise, she has grown rounder, but with frequent exercise, she does not appear "fat" in the eyes of the judges.
Overall, she is pretty at ease in cat shows, as she sleeps, eats and stay nosy.
Stella dear, you as per your name suggest is a rising star. Let's find ways to put this into work to help other less fortunate children, as your brothers and sisters all did in the past! Stay, happy, healthy and continue to grow into an intelligent beauty with charisma!
Although the official results is not yet available, Stella should hopefully achieved some success internationally.
On 6th December, Felix vomited, refused to eat. Worst still, he went to sleep on my pillow, a tell tale sign that he was not feeling well.
Luckily, we managed to jump queue and blood test showed his ALT shot up to 147. Its abnormal for sure, but not overwhelming. We were given 2 choices
1) Stay at home and take oral medication.
2) Stay in hospital for drips.
With us being risk averse, and Felix looking a lot worse than the blood test readings, we opted for (2) with the hope to prevent an out blast.
Luckily, we succeeded. His appetite returned that evening and improved gradually. Blood test readings by Monday were already normal, so he was discharged. Lucky us!!
As the nurses said, " Felix, if you are thinking of us, just send us a Whats App with your photo will do. No need to stay with us......" Haha
As a gentle reminder, the purpose of us documenting events in this blog is NOT TO SHOW OFF, but to record our children's life journey as part of our precious memories.
Superstitious saying that "44" is an unlucky number. Is this really the case? Let Stella tell you....
Stella attended FFF's 3rd 2024 cat show on 16th-17th November in Kowloon City Plaza. This is the final cat show in Hong Kong for the year. Its a pretty tiring exercise, running from around 11am-6pm each day. The place though spacious is a bit noisy.
Day 1, 16th November:
Day 2, 17th November:
The finale:
Snippets:
The official results:
After thought:
This shall be Stella's last regular cat show. During this past year, we have learned from the judges (comment on Stella and other competitors) on how to better take care of our children.
During the year, we have constantly reviewed our strategy as to whether we should continue competing. With our clear goal to find out where is the limit for Stella's potential. Full participation in FFF's Hong Kong competitions for 2024 is the answer. We hope that her total score would be sufficient to achieve a national standing. The result will be announced in early 2025.
This year, Stella's closest competitors are 2 other Exotic cats. They are brothers from the same litter and is roughly a month younger than Stella. Both are very handsome and well groomed, each with their own strength and glamour. Hence competition amongst them are really tough. In my view, luck matters here.
As a joke, we called them 串燒三姐弟 (Three brothers and sister on a Skewer, DanGoSanShiTei, だんごさんしてい). This is a modified version of the Japanese cartoon 串燒三兄弟 (Three brothers on a Skewer, DanGoSanKyouDai, だんごさんきょうだい). Though competing amongst each other, the 3 of them exceled over each other in different rings and sometimes, they are united and formed a strong frontier against other group competitors in order to secure the lead.
An interesting episode happened in Day 2. Stella was placed 6th in one of the rings. This came as a surprise to us and probably to some cat owners as well. As an amateur, we respect and accept the decision of each judge because we trust in their professional experience and judgement. We suspect Stella on a white and cream coat might look less appealing than those with obvious pattern, as coat color and pattern has a 20% weight.
So when comes to the finale - nomination of FFF Queen, 5 judges will choose from the top female winner from the kitten, adult and premier category. It was a very tight race, as #6 was nominated by VC and FC, while ET and IM voted for #44. The swing would come from AS, who despite giving her a 6th, cast his vote for her, crowning Stella as the FFF Queen. He also voted her as cat in Best Condition.
Overall, life is full or surprises! It has its ups and downs! It has a lot of noises (unfriendly comment at times - "she wins again", "influential personnel" putting the cat in the competition cage" etc). So just take things in life as they come, concentrate on what you are doing, continue the game at ease and enjoy the process.
Well, life is really unpredictable. I have for some time in recent months been grateful for the serenity at home as Felix was able to lead a "normal" life. A vomit in the afternoon of 6th October which was initially thought to be a minor setback, though he looked a bit dull, but he ate pretty normally. By 2.30am on 7th October, he came to sleep on my pillow. This to many is nothing, but my heart tanked and squeezed hard. Its a tell tale sign that he's not feeling well and could be nasty, or at hindsight could say something wrong with his bile/liver.
He was admitted to hospital on 7th and blood test showed his ALT shot to 1267, and TBIL at 9 (which though was normal, was high by his "normal" standard). With the help of medication, his ALT dropped to 801 on the 9th, but the TBIL was slightly above normal at 17. Ultrasound gave us the bad news that the bile duct was blocked again and surgery was the only solution.
After further discussion with family vets, we decided to transfer him to VSH on 10th. Blood test showed ALT rose a bit to 850, TBIL shot up to 42. By the expression on his face, the discomfort is getting worse pretty fast. So we quickly decided go for surgery on that day. It ran from 5.17pm to around 7.46pm. Luckily, the "mess" from previous surgeries were not too bad, managed to clear the bile duct via flushing and took out as much of the stent as possible.
His blood test readings showed fairly quick and consistent improvement during his hospital stay. However, improvement in his appetite and appearance fluctuated widely and to me doesn't seem to gel with the blood test results. So when he was discharged on the 15th, we decided to transfer him to the family vet for further convalescence before taking him home, as I don't want the worries we have to affect his psychological health.
Turnaround happened on the 19th, after he refused to open his mouth for food during lunch time. Via ultrasound and blood test, found that his stomach wasn't functioning properly as a lot of water was there. Moreover, his abdominal cavity and pancreas showed signs of inflammation. Felix showed fairly quick improvement after taking relevant medication and has since been eating normally by himself.
He was very happy when we took him home on 22nd. He greeted us with his loud meow when the nurse handed him to us in his carrier bag. When we walked in the street, he was poking against the carrier, wanting to take a better view and smell the air of freedom. In the video, you can see him wiggling inside his green carrier bag while auntie prepared to clean him before letting him out.... haha
Felix is readjusting to life at home pretty well. Unlike in the past, he's not hiding himself and seemed pretty relaxed. He ate his meals by himself, walked around a bit, and catch up with his sleep as well.
Betty being the elder sister has no problem is welcoming Felix back. She went to kissed him a few times and have their snack together. Stella, being the youngest one is totally new to welcoming Felix back. Though looked a bit puzzled, she adjusted pretty fast as well. She started by turning her turbo to the highest volume and watching Felix from a distance, to gradually lower the volume and distance apart. Its nice to see their decent love bonding, despite their age and breed differences.
Although its difficult to say exactly what caused this episode, there are a few things I wanted to highlight:
- As parent, trust your instinct when you sense something is wrong and don't be affected by non-professional advise.
- Very likely, steam dried Ziwi Peek is not suitable for Felix. He ate a total of 100 pieces of this "raw dried food" since early October and is the only new food he ate. Likely this sparked off problem to his liver and might have spilled over to the pancreas and bile duct.
- Must comb him more frequently. I brushed him 100 times in the evening each day. This might not be enough as found a fur ball hooked to the mesh of the stent, which blocked the bile duct. If I had known of this earlier, I would have asked the surgeon to save it for me, as its a very expensive fur ball!
- Unfortunately, Felix has to stay with the food he is used to for his own safety. Must stay firm, regardless of how "cute" he looks when he enjoys them.
- Continue to save for the rainy days, though I sincerely hope history will NOT repeat itself.
The family and Felix are truly grateful to Dr Tint as always, for his sound guidance, Dr Tasmin for the professional care and willingness to listen and to discuss. For Dr Francois and Dr Alice for the successful surgery. The last and the most important person is Dr Vera, who regardless of the hour of the day and time zone differences, responded promptly to my queries with sound practical professional advise which is highly useful to all of us.
Below is our document of this incidence:
- Pre-surgery hospital stay
- Post surgery hospital stay
- Home sweet home
The 3 surgerical options:
The incision area:
The feeding tube:
Other shaved areas - tail and hind legs and a pair of short boot in the front :
Last year, Saint Francis Xavier's Day Church Service was cancelled because of the typhoon. This year, under the hot and sunny weather, the children went to All Saints Cathedral for the service and received the Lord's blessings.
All the children behaved well. Felix made it through despite not feeling too well as he vomited shortly after lunch.
Stella is thinking of preparing a roast piglet for Mid-Autumn Festival dinner.... In order for the skin to be crispy and crunchy, she decided to first sunbath in the beach.....
Is this really a piglet??!! Looks more like a pig to me!! Haha
Wishing all our bloggers and their loved ones, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!
If you cannot reach the moon, then reach for the bubbles..... haha
As a gentle reminder, the purpose of us documenting events in this blog is NOT TO SHOW OFF, but to record our children's life journey as part of our precious memories.
Stella went for her 4th Cat Show Competition on 18th August in U Place. This one is being hosted by Feline Fanciers' Federation Hong Kong. The space was less spacious and a bit hot. Additional fans were available to help ventilation, but the associated sound and wind quality seemed to have affected the cats, as most were less playful, a bit moody and tense.
Comparatively speaking, this was a smaller size cat show with only 3 rings running from 11am to 5.30pm, hence, should be less tiring.
Despite the less than ideal environment, Stella still tried her best and was awarded First Place in all 3 rings. I must confess that Stella was lucky, as I think she could do much better in her interaction with the judges.
Being the Highest Scoring Female Premier, Stella competed against the other 2 female winners in the Kitten and Adult category for the FFF Queen honour, but failed. I know Stella is a quality Exotic, but other competitors are also beauties in their own way. Besides, Stella was crowned FFF Queen in the last competition (May 2024), and to keep the game running, its fair that others also can have a piece of the pie.
By the end of the day, Stella got 2 big rosettes as (1) Highest Scoring Premier and (2) Best Body. I was thrilled when they announced that Stella got the Best Body, for in the past 2 competitions, Stella missed the award by a mere 2 points. The comment I often heard about Stella's body, was that although she is a female, her build is muscular, compact and is even better than some male counterparts - 是個女漢子. For this, apart from her genes, I would attribute to her playfulness, as she likes to run around the house and jump to the top of the cat tree.
Thank God! By now Stella has virtually collected a "complete set of the FFF Best rosettes" - Best Head (Nov '23), Best Body (May '24), Best Coat (Feb '24), Beset Condition (Feb '24). The only piece missing is Best Color. I don't think Stella stands a good chance in winning this, as her white and cream color is nice but no big deal! Haha!
Snippets
Official result from the cat show
Unfortunately there are some mistakes in the Best Head category (red circled area)..
Stella got a 1 and 2 from two of the three judges. 1 is worth 10 points, 2 is worth 8 points and 3 is worth 6 points. So Stella should be second in this category with 18 points instead of 10 points being shown in the result announcement.
