I don’t know if it’s perimenopause, or something about the keto diet, or mild undiagnosed Raynaud’s syndrome (several family members have it)—but it is pretty common for me to be VERY VERY CHILLY right after eating, and especially to have VERY COLD HANDS, sometimes with numb fingertips. One of the best treatments is to have a hot mug of tea/coffee to wrap my hands around—but the mug cools as the tea/coffee is consumed, and sometimes I don’t want tea/coffee. I don’t know why it took me until TODAY to realize I could just MICROWAVE A MUG OF WATER AND USE IT TO WARM MY HANDS. I have a mug of hot water sitting on my desk right now, and after every sentence I wrap my hands around it for a few seconds. If it gets too cool to be useful, I can simply RE-MICROWAVE IT.
(My feet can also get very chilly after I eat, but I have a foot warmer plugged in under my desk.)
Another warm thing near me right now is Elizabeth’s cat, the 12-14-year-old one who has kidney stone issues that are likely to cause us to make The Difficult Decision sometime in the next year (he has the kind that are highly likely to be recurring, and the surgery to remove them is $3000 each time), if he doesn’t first die of what is probably lung cancer. He has become my little buddy the last couple of months, which is odd not only because he has never liked any of us except Elizabeth (we didn’t acquire him to be Elizabeth’s Cat; he is the one who decided he was Elizabeth’s Cat), but also because I am the one who forces his jaw open every other day to give him a pill, and I am the one who takes him to the vet. (I am, however, the one who gives him wet food three or four times a day on the vet’s instruction, which is probably outweighing all these other factors.)
A couple of times, the vet has one of her techs call us to check on the cat. During one call, I’d asked what we should look for in terms of knowing when it would be Time To Bring Him In, and she said that cats tend to hide their suffering, so most owners bring them in later than they should—which is grim, but good to know, and also makes it feel much easier to call Sooner rather than Later, without worrying that they’ll think I seem over-eager to put the cat down. The tech said the cat would probably lose his appetite, and that we might find little clear puddles around the house: a cat who isn’t eating enough will throw up clear fluid. She also said he would start hiding more, and/or hiding in places he didn’t used to hide, and avoiding people more.
So far the cat has gained back all the weight he lost from his kidney-stone distress, and is looking full and plush. And he is SITTING ON MY LAP, which he has NEVER done: he doesn’t even sit on ELIZABETH’S lap. He has a check-up with the vet at the end of this month, and I am looking forward to asking her what this cat is trying to pull.
On the other hand, in the past few days Elizabeth brought to our attention that the cat’s pupils were not evenly dilated. I’d thought it was just the positioning of the light in the room, but we moved him around a bit and the issue persisted. So…I mean, I looked it up and there are a bunch of innocuous reasons a cat might suddenly have mismatched pupils (it could even be the medication I’m giving him every other day, but he’s been on that for a good long while so it seems like we would have noticed the pupils before now), but there are also a few reasons that would join (1) Expensive Unavoidable Recurring Kidney Stones and (2) Lung Cancer, on The List of Reasons To Put Him Down. So even though I need to pee, and my hand-warming mug of water needs re-heating, I am not moving this cat off my lap.
“I am looking forward to asking her what this cat is trying to pull.” The vet isn’t in on it, is she?
You and that cat have a nice snuggle, and I guess it’s good that there are multiple problems that are all working towards a depressing conclusion? Because then you don’t have to worry about whether you should do more?
No, sorry, that’s a bad silver lining.
No no—you’re absolutely right, it really DOES help to think that if it’s not one thing it’s another. When the vet found what she thinks is probably lung cancer, I actually felt some relief that we wouldn’t be deciding to end his life “just” for kidney stones. The expression “the wheels are coming off this cat” goes through my mind from time to time.
And also: RIGHT?? How much did he bribe this vet to say he needs wet food 3-4 times a day???
The cat is definitely making sure his last days are cozy and comfy. And the vet is ABSOLUTELY in on it.
I think it may be clear when It’s Time, especially since you are looking for the signs. For now, I’d keep him as happy and comfortable as possible.
I had a cat that needed a pill daily, and though he was reasonably good about the forcing his mouth open method, I found it much more pleasant to crush the pill and put it in all meat baby food (chicken, ham, beef, or turkey if I remember right, I never fed my children them,l but have often found them useful for cats). I would put the crushed pill in a few tablespoons of baby food, and give that to the cat first, and then give him his regular food. The were only a few times he wouldn’t eat it (he was a senior cat with multiple health issues).
Speaking of cats being really good at hiding things we found out a couple of years ago that our (then 13.5) year old cat had gone blind at some point and we’d had no idea. He is so incredibly good at navigating our house that we really didn’t know. Even after the vet diagnosed it we almost couldn’t believe it. Cats are masters at hiding their conditions.
Aww, kitty. He knows which side his bread is buttered on. :3 I’m sure your lap is the best place in the world for him to be. <3
My grandma had a semi-feral cat who was abandoned as a kitten who didn't like anybody but Grammy. Kitty spent her time hiding in the cellar and shredding anyone who dared approach. Years later, kitty had a stroke and we thought it was The End. Instead, kitty survived (she was 1000% a Stabby Survivor Cat), but the stroke caused a personality change. She turned into a lap cat who spent her final remaining months on the earth giving and receiving lots of snuggles from admirers and passers-by. Having grown up with Stabby Cat, it was quite the transformation.
Well. I am sorry that you are needing to navigate this with Elizabeth’s (and your) cat, but also happy to know that Elizabeth’s (and your) cat has someone so focused on her well-being as her health declines. So. Thank you for taking such good care of her.
I am sorry about Kitty.
For your cold hands, consider making a fabric rice or bean bag. You can microwave it warm and it will hold the heat longer than the mug of liquid for those times you don’t actually want tea.
Yes! I was coming to say my kid bought me a Magic Bag for Christmas one year and it is so luxurious to have it when any part of me is chilly! Plus no worries about spilling a mug of hot water on my keyboard!
If you don’t want to do any sewing or buying you could do what we have done at my house. Fill a sock with rice and tie it up(we used a calf length mens hanes). Works great and required no effort to make.
Oh THANK YOU for this suggestion, because I do NOT sew and yet I would LOVE to make a quick little rice bag to see if I like it!! And I have a whole bag of Sock Orphans to choose from!
Grab a sock, tie it off is definitely a legitimate method!
(learn from my mistakes: either use rice from the top of the bag or, if you’re using the dregs of a bag of rice, put a layer of nylons/tights/something-with-a-fine-weave in there or you end up with little rice gravel bits escaping through the larger sock weave holes) (I know it’s not weave, it’s knit, but the principle remains.)
If you do like it, you can either contact your readers to make you little rice packs in fun fabrics, or there are gobs on Etsy. They also work great as pocket warmers, and larger ones are great for cramping or knotted-up shoulder or for putting on top of cold feet or for warming up the foot of your bed. (if you accidentally put them in the microwave for 10x the normal time you put them in for, and they start smoking, drop them in a sink/tub and pour water over them.)(I have been using rice socks heavily, with fragmentary memory, for 12+ years at this point; a few rice socks have been casualties.)
*taking notes at all the Cold Hand suggestions, as a chronic haver-of-cold-hands, especially after eating*
(I always assumed all the blood was rushing to my stomach to help digest the food, ha)
My 15 year old cat *probably* has all sorts of things wrong with him – I mean, we know one of his legs hasn’t worked for like 2 years, but he appears to have just… gotten over it… and has figured out how to live his life. Anyway, I’m pretty sure this cat plans to go screaming into the night, vs a slow decline.
That is actually real!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53094/
You’re a good person, Swistle:)
Also handwarmers! They’re about the size of a computer mouse, and you can stash them in a pocket/drawer – no need to go back and forth to the kitchen/microwave.
This is a fancy example, but there are definitely cheaper options:
https://www.ocoopa.com/collections/all-products?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8NSTq9mP-wIVFvbjBx2THg_GEAAYASAAEgJmevD_BwE
Enjoy the lap cuddles with your kitty! Re: cold hands, a warm mug is indeed niiiiiice for heating them up. Also I keep my fingerless gloves near my computer. There is something about computer work in the colder months that makes hands extra frigid.
Another couple of options for your hands:
* Rechargeable hand warmers. These usually also have the bonus of doubling up as power banks for your phone if you run out of battery and the electricity’s out or you don’t have an outlet handy.
*Rechargeable hand warmer gloves. I’ve never tried these, but looked into them last winter because I was having some weird end-of-finger pains when I went out without gloves on for too long. I ended up not getting them in favor of doubling up– gloves with mittens over them. The nice thing about a glove for your scenario, though, is that you wouldn’t be stuck sitting around only getting the warmth when your hands are occupied.
Your cat sounds so well loved and cared for.
I am reading the comments about hand warming ideas with interest. I have a little space heater under my desk but my hands are way up on my keyboard so they get chilly too. Interesting that yours happens after eating! Bodies are weird.
My husband just bought me some fingerless mittens made from alpaca fur for this purpose. I have only tried them on, but it’s also a good cause, I think the company was called the Greater Good.
Swistle I agree your cat sounds so well cared for. I too have an old one that gets fed wet food upon demand, and he also sleeps under the covers with me which I adore, and basically he gets whatever he wants. I will sorely miss him when he’s gone. But for the first 5-6 years he was with us, he had little interest in us. No laps, no cuddles. Proximity cat. Then I went into the hospital for 30 days, and he suddenly realized we were his people, and has been an insistent little snuggle bug ever since (9 years).
We had a dog that suddenly claimed the dog bed next to our bed every night, when he had never shown any interest before. Then one day he wouldn’t get up in the morning, and the vet said he was full of tumours. He went completely blind a day or two later – and was still acting relatively normal. We had no clue he was sick. Even if he felt ok, something was off because he wanted to be closer to us at night.
I’ve used Churro Cat treats to give all kinds of awful meds to cats–or as a reward during/after something (like a shot or during subq treatment). We call churro “kitty crack” in my family, to give you an idea of it’s awesomeness/addictiveness.
https://a.co/d/gY8p2LK
My cat was an intermittent lap sitter, but he became much cuddlier in the days before we had to have him put down. He had made a brief recovery after a sudden health issue and an exploratory surgery that was very expensive and which did NOT determine what was wrong with him (he was only 11 – we might not have done this with a much older cat). The vet said he might get better but most likely would decline quickly. I really had no idea what to look for, but once he stopped lap sitting and started trying to hide in my daughters’ doll house, we decided it was Time.
Sorry your family has to go through this.
A lady I worked with had a coffee cup always on one of those little hot plates by her desk. I love clutching a hot beverage and feel it’s more psychologically helpful to *me* than gloves or rice packs, but I did have fun once making rice pack gloves out of those ‘one size fits all’ stretchy gloves.