Frootbat Friday: Devi

Devi once again shows off her very expressive ears:

Dragonheart is being very good at taking his medicine (antibiotics and eye gel), but he's doing pretty much the same.  He's still sneezing and congested, but he's eating, drinking, and using the litterbox normally, so the vet is going to check in on him again on Monday.  If he hasn't improved by then, they may add an anti-viral medication.

Frootbat Friday: Devi

A different view of Devi's expressive ears.

Frootbat Friday: Devi

Hello friends!  Devi here!  Today I am sharing a photo from our recent Christmas visit with our mom's family.  As you can see, I have very expressive ears.  My mom and dad like to say that I "talk" with my ears!

Frootbat Friday: Merlin

Thank you to everyone who helped me celebrate my 9th Gotcha Day yesterday!  I truly appreciate all the purrs, prayers, positive thoughts, and putting of paws together from all my friends.

Earlier this week, I had mentioned that due to chemotherapy, especially the prednisolone, I was gaining a bit more fur than usual in some spots.  I'm the most naked out of the three of us Sphynx - you see, Sphynx, although "hairless," do have fine down hairs.  My hairs are extremely short and fine, Dragonheart has pretty average "hair" for a Sphynx, and Devi is the fuzziest of us, although she's still relatively hairless compared to some Sphynx.

When I mentioned that, Seppo, one of the Sphynx at http://www.pikkupunapippuri.com asked me where I was gaining some hair.  The answer is my ears, so it seemed appropriate to share some ear photos for Frootbat Friday.  All photos can be enlarged for a closer look.

Here's one of my ears back in July.  The photo is a little blurry, but you can see there are some very fine, short hairs covering my ear.

Here's what one of my ears looks like now.  You can see there's a bit of fuzz on it:

Dragonheart has the fuzziest ears out of all of us.  Here's a photo of one of his ears:

Devi's ears are pretty fuzzy too, but not quite as fuzzy as Dragonheart's:

As for our skin and the differences, this collage illustrates them.  Again, if you click to view larger, you can see the differences, especially between me (Merlin) and the other two.  The difference between Dragonheart and Devi is much more noticeable in person.

We hope you've learned something about Sphynx today!

Happy Holidays to all those celebrating!  We will be having an adventure starting tomorrow, so we may be offline for a few days.

Frootbat Friday: Devi

Hello all!  Devi here!  Today is Frootbat Friday, so I want to share my marvellous ears with you!

I have very expressive and flexible ears!  My ears move around a lot.  In fact, my ears are so flexible that they sometimes fold over on themselves and stay that way for a long time, as you can see in these photos!

Isn't that cool?  Do any of you have such flexible ears?

Flying Frootbat Friday

Hello all!  Devi here!  We are excited today because our dad comes home tonight!  Yay!  And we won't be separated any longer, except for short trips he'll have to make in his new position.

Sunday we move into a hotel again, and then we'll be in hotels until October 14th, at the very least, because the closing date on our new home in our new city is October 13th.  The boys have lived in hotels for that long before, when they moved from Germany back to Canada.  We don't think I've ever done that, so it will be a new experience for me!

So some of you read on Merlin's Facebook page that we might be getting a new sister in the new year.  Yes, it's true.  You see, before I came along, when the boys weren't blogging any more, they had a little sister named Arwen.  We haven't talked about her yet because our mom still gets really teary eyed thinking about her.  You see, they lost Arwen when she was 2.5 years old, in January 2015, to Feline Infectious Peritonitis.  But Arwen came from a very good breeder who has a health guarantee on all her kittens for five years, and after she removed Arwen's parents from her breeding lines, she offered up a new kitten whenever our humans were ready.  Well, before that happened, our humans met me, a Sphynx in need of a new home, and so they rescued me.  Of course, the offer for the new kitten was still open.  We were going to get a new little sister in November of this year, but the litter that the breeder had that would have been 4 months old in November didn't have any tortoiseshells or calicos in it, and our mom is holding out for one of those, don't ask me why!  The breeder anticipates some torties or calicos in her next litter, though, and the kittens from that litter would be old enough in January to come to their new homes, so that's when we might get a new family member.  Another Sphynx, because our dad is allergic to furred cats.

This was Arwen:

Arwen

We will post more about her sometime when our mom can afford to get very weepy and teary-eyed.  She was a very special little girl.  You can read some of her story here.  Our mom is already crying just writing this.

Fabulous Frootbat Friday

Merlin here!  Today is fabulous because our mom has finished her master's degree!  She now has completed all the requirements for her Master's of Public Health in Nutrition and Dietetics.  Congratulations mom!  Her convocation isn't until November, so that's when she'll actually receive her parchment, but her degree is completed, and her program director has sent a letter off to the College of Dietitians of Ontario telling them that she's met all the requirements to be registered as a dietitian in Ontario.

Today is also fabulous because this means we will have a little bit of time to visit with our friends.  Not a lot, because our mom and dad still have the get the house ready for painting, which starts bright and early Monday morning, but some time.  I mean, they can't be tidying and cleaning the house every second of the day, right?

Have a great day, friends!

Frootbat Friday: Dragonheart

Dragonheart here again.

Thanks to all of you for your kind thoughts and words yesterday.  Here I am hanging out on the router after I returned home from the vet.  My mom had to work on her research, and the router is right next to the computer, so this allowed me to be close to her.

So the good news is that because the mass in my mouth is benign (non-cancerous), there is no rush to take it out, and the only reason we need to take it out is that it seems to bother me - I seem to be chewing on it, which causes pain and bleeding.

Gum hyperplasia like this normally doesn't recur in cats, but my regular primary care vet has now removed it twice, and it has come back.  So we don't know exactly why or what's going on.

The specialist basically suggested two options:  1.  do a CT scan, to see if that can tell us anything about what's going on that they can't see on x-rays.  2.  watch and wait, and see what happens - if the mass goes back to causing me pain, or if it causes me to stop eating or drinking, or if my behaviour changes in any other way.

Since my mom is finishing up her grad degree, and both my mom and dad are getting the house ready to be put on the market, and then we are all going in to a hotel for a while, and then we are moving, we are opting for 2 right now - watch and wait.  Once our move is completed, and we have settled in and recovered from the stress, we will get the CT scan done.  The timing just isn't very good right now for anything else, given that this isn't an emergency.  If it was something that needed to be taken care of right away (i.e. if the mass was cancerous), then we would take immediate action.  But since it isn't (and it's been biopsied twice, with both biopsies coming back as benign), the vet thinks we are find just watching and waiting.

So that's where things stand.  Not ideal, but hopefully the mass won't bother me too much in the next little while.  We are also still waiting for word on the results of Devi's skin biopsy.  She's now eating the hypoallergenic food, so that's good, but no real change in her skin yet.  But we haven't completely transitioned to the new food yet, so that's certainly a factor.

Thanks again everyone.  We will be back to visiting and posting more once all this craziness is over!

Frootbat Friday: Close Up Edition

Hello all!  Thank you all for your purrs, prayers, positive thoughts and support this week.  Hopefully everything will go well with Devi's skin biopsy and Dragonheart's oral surgery consult.  We are very happy that our blogging friends are more supportive than many of the people posting in Sphynx groups.

This week for Frootbat Friday we have something a little different, following on from our contest for Dragonheart's birthday.  We are sharing some close-ups of our ears.  You can see that Dragonheart and Devi have very furry ears, whereas Merlin has pretty naked ears.  They are all interesting and unique in their own way!

It is easy to tell, from our ears, why Sphynx accumulate more wax in their ears than other breeds.  Merlin, who has the least amount of fur on and in his ears, is also prone to the most wax build-up.  Of course, he ends up being the one who doesn't like having his ears cleaned!  The wax, in a furred cat, would get distributed through the fur.  But since we Sphynx don't have as much fur, the wax builds up in our ears and needs to be cleaned every so often.

You can click on any of the photos below to view them larger.

Devi

Dragonheart

Merlin

Devi

Dragonheart

Merlin

So what do you think of our ears?

Frootbat Friday: Dragonheart

Dragonheart here again!  Don't I have fabulous frootbat ears?  I love how the sun shines through them!  If you look closely, and enlarge the bottom photo, you can see the little tufts of fur that I have on my ear tips!

Frootbat Friday: Merlin

Double Frootbats on Friday

Two frootbats are better than one!

Frootbat Friday: Merlin's turn to visit the vet

Merlin here!

So I was at the vet yesterday due to a rash on my backside near my tail. The vet thinks it is a scratch or something similar that became infected with bacteria. The cancer medications I'm on can make me more susceptible to infection. She prescribed an antibiotic cream with a steroid (she didn't want to give me any oral antibiotics because of my other meds unless the cream doesn't clear it up).

So, in order for the cream to work, it needs to stay on for 10-15 minutes, twice a day.  So last night I was isolated from my Dragonheart and Devi in the bathroom, so that they wouldn't lick the cream off of me.  I had to wear the cone of shame so that I wouldn't lick it off myself.  My mom spread the cream on the rash, while daddy held me.  Daddy then held me for most of the 15 minutes, because I really didn't like having the cone on.  I don't have any cone photos, which I think is a good thing!

So after 15 minutes, my mom wiped off the cream with a cotton pad, and all was well.  This morning,  the rash already looks like it is clearing up! 

The vet also said that I look like I'm in great shape and you would never know I have cancer! I've gained 0.1 kg since February, and that's perfectly okay. I do have quite the appetite because of the prednisolone I'm on.

Between Dragonheart and myself, our poor mom has been to the vet with us three times this week, and our dad has been twice since he's been home!  Hopefully nothing will happen to Devi today, as we do not want to make it three-for-three on cats and four-for-five for weekdays.

Be sure to check back tomorrow as we celebrate an important milestone!

Frootbat Friday: Dragonheart

Dragonheart here!  It's almost the weekend!  Soon we'll be able to visit all our friends again. :)

It's raining today, but here's a photo of me enjoying the sun a few days ago.

Frootbat Friday: Devi

Devi

Devi here!  So yesterday my dental went very well.  I was nice and warm the entire time and my temperature didn't drop while I was under anaesthesia.  The x-rays they took showed that my teeth were all healthy, I just had a LOT of tartar on my molars.  But the vet cleaned off all that yucky tartar and now my teeth are nice and clean.  My mouth felt a little weird afterwards - I didn't want to eat any wet food at the vet's.  But when I got home I had some of my favourite pâté food.

As you can see in my photo above, I have frootbat ears.  I like the way the sun shines through them.

As always, thank you for your purrs, prayers, and positive thoughts.  We are sorry we aren't visiting friends much during the week, as our mom is crazy busy with her practicum.  But we do try to visit everyone on the weekends.  If we miss you, we are sorry!

Fabulous Frootbat Friday

Hello all!  Devi here.

Thank you to everyone who came to my birthday party yesterday!  I feel incredibly loved.  Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes!  If I haven't gotten around to thanking you personally yet, I will by the end of the weekend.

Next Thursday won't be quite so enjoyable.  I have to go to the vet for a dental.  Yuck.  Last time they tried to do a dental on me, my temperature started dropping, so they woke me up and warmed me up as a precaution.  This time the vet is prepared to have everything pre-warmed for me, so it hopefully won't happen again.  Being a petite lady-cat, and not having any fur, I guess I'm susceptible to getting cold easily!  Our vet has an excellent plan in place, so we are confident I'll be fine when I have my dental next Thursday.

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes.  You are a wonderful group of friends!

Flashback Frootbat Friday

Good luck to our mom on her exam today!  This photo is from February 2008.

Update:  1615 Eastern Daylight Savings Time.  Thanks for all the good wishes for our mom!  She thinks the exam went pretty well, except for some very strangely worded questions!

Click to view larger

Flexible Frootbat Friday

So a short while ago we showed you this photo of Devi, mid-head shake.  You can see how our frootbat ears are very flexible!  No foolin'!  Our ears really do move like this!

Devi mid-head shake

For those of you unfamiliar with the flexibility of frootbat ears. we thought we would make a little video for you.  Here is Dragonheart, in slow motion, shaking his head.  You can really see how flexible our ears are!

If you have trouble viewing the video, you can try watching it here.

Also, our mom has some more photos of us shaking our heads, with our frootbat ears flying.  We all look a little silly in these, though.  Devi seems to take the best ear photos out of all of us.  We think that's because she is very expressive with her ears, even when she's not shaking her head.

Merlin mid-head shake

Devi mid-head shake

Dragonheart  mid-head shake

Devi mid-head shake

Fearless Frootbat Friday

Can you keep a secret?

I'm in one of Merlin's boxes!!!

Shh! Don't tell him! -Devi

Frootbat Friday: Bowflex

Do you think my sister Devi and I should work out on the Bowflex? Mommy and Daddy seem to enjoy using it.

Posted by Merlin the Cancer Fighting Sphynx on Friday, 11 March 2016

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