Can you believe it’s been two years since Athena was diagnosed with FIP? The most important thing is that she’s pretty healthy. She has, however, developed some interesting personality quirks, and her relationship with our two younger boys continues to be contentious.
Health
Her big health event this year was a tail abscess in August. What we thought was a bump or sprain ended up swelling to about the size of a breaker marble and we had to take her to the emergency vet for proper flushing and cleaning. They also prescribed her an antibiotic to make sure she healed well. She long since recovered fully and shows no signs of problems.
Athena continues to have issues with allergies and receives 2.5mg of loratadine (Claritin) daily. This significantly reduces itching and watery eyes. She also gets a bath every three weeks with Douxo S3 Calm Shampoo which has made a MASSIVE difference in her itching and overgrooming.
With her last, mostly-normal bloodwork from her November 30 appointment, she has graduated to the final post-FIP monitoring stage. She will only have twice-yearly appointments at the vet from now on. Since our vet recommends switching to twice-yearly appointments at age 7, she’ll stay on this schedule for the rest of her life (she turns 6 in 2025).
Her neutrophil levels are still low, but the new vet at the practice we go to thinks it’s related to the FIP treatment. It’s hard to say for sure, but we’ve run every possible non-invasive test to look for a reason for the continued low numbers, and everything has been negative. Jim and I — with full support from both vets — refuse to put Athena through anything invasive unless there are other signs that point to a problem.
Social Life
Athena and Dante continue to have issues with each other. I call it a hate-dislike relationship. Sometimes Ritz will bug her, too, but much less frequently. Athena doesn’t even want to see Dante, but Ritz can get pretty close to her when he’s being nice and she will ignore him.
We’ve tried Feliway, and it helps, but Bumbledore is allergic to it, so we’re trying to figure out a balance between the two, as nothing else helps with the Athena/Dante problem.
It really is a two-way problem. Dante will go after Athena for, sometimes, absolutely no reason. I don’t know what his goal is, because with very rare exceptions, he doesn’t cause her any injury. Perhaps he’s trying to play, but going about it all wrong. Perhaps he’s attempting to exert non-existent authority. Who knows what’s going on in that crazy brain.
On the other hand, Athena will growl at Dante for simply existing, which draws his attention. She will run away from him when he’s paying her no attention, which makes him want to chase her. It’s been going on for so long now that I don’t remember which came first: Athena’s growling or Dante’s “attacks.”
Purr-sonality
Athena’s gotten more entitled in the last year, but we’ve enabled her to do so. For example, she will call for a hUber (human Uber) from the “bathroom.” One she’s finished using the litter box, she often likes to jump up on the stool in front of the window and watch the world go by. But, when she’s done with that, she’ll meow until Jim or I come get her, rather than coming back down the hallway.
She’s also decided she doesn’t want to drink from the communal water fountain. She wants her own little pretty pretty princess bowl. She will meow at us — more me than Jim — until we fill it for her. I’ve been trying to teach her to push a “water” button to make it more clear what she wants, but I’ve yet to make any real progress with here there.
Athena, ever a daddy’s girl, has decided she likes grooming his beard. Any time she’s cuddling with Jim for more than a couple of minutes, she starts licking his beard, roughly at his jawline. We can’t decide if she’s trying to make sure he knows that they are equal in the hierarchy or if it’s just that she loves him so much she’s got to groom him. With our little Goddess, it really could be either, or both.
A Year of Athena
Because who doesn’t want to see a bunch of cute cat pictures?
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Which picture of Athena is your favorite? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.
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