The Momcat Chronicles: Update on the Dude

      As many of you know, the Little Dude is my six-month-old rescue kitty who was found up on the Mesa in Arroyo Grande last summer. He's brother (or maybe half-brother? cousin?) to Chella, the black kitty adopted by my neighbors Debbie and Jeff next door. Anyway Little Dude, aka Doodles, has problems walking. He does not jump or run like a normal kitty and uses little stairsteps designed for small elderly dogs to get up onto the bed and the sofa. Up until a couple of weeks ago, he had been doing relatively well. Then a few days after I returned home from a trip back east, he suddenly began showing symptoms again--he could barely walk or would walk a couple of tentative steps and sit down.
     At the vet's, xrays were taken that showed the Dude's bones were in very poor shape and he had a new fracture in the area of his pelvis, hence the difficulty walking. Also his front legs were both very obviously bowed. His disease is similar to a very bad case of osteoporosis.The vet put him on some heavy duty pain meds in addition to some liquid meds called Calcitriol Oil, which had to be shipped out from a lab on the east coast. That was a little over two weeks ago and since then, the Dude has regained his former walking ability--still not what one would hope for in a normal kitty but much better than before. The vet says it will take a month or two, however, for us to know for sure if the Calcitriol Oil is going to work. It's designed to help his body absorb vitamins D and Calcium, which he evidently lacks.
      Needless to say, I am distressed by the Little Dude's infirmity. If the Calcitriol Oil doesn't cure him, then we are pretty much at a dead end.
      So I pray for his recovery all the time and, in the meantime, I try to take one day at a time and make every day as good as possible for the Dude. He loves to eat--the Dude is a foodie for sure--so he gets wet food a couple of times a day and little bits of whatever Ma's eating--he especially loves the Morning Star fake bacon. I haven't told him it's vegetarian and I don't think he knows.
      If anyone out there has had a cat with problems absorbing calcium and vitamin D or has heard of anything like this, I would like to hear about it.
      On a lighter note, one thing I have discovered is that however beautiful, glamorous, and gorgeous a black cat may be, it is very difficult to photograph one well. They come out looking kind of like, well, a black blob unless you can get a good shot of the face and then it's a black blob with eyes. Of course, I share my home with three of the most gorgeous black cats in the Whole Known Universe--Little Mom from Firestone, Colorado, Sister Bug from AG and Little Dude from the Mesa, but it is hard to do them justice in photographs. With that in mind, though, I'm going to post photos of all three. Just remember the limitations of the photographer are no reflexion on the star quality of the cats