Q & A With Grover V. Fuzzy (The V Stands For 'Very')

Hi:

It's Grover. Listen, Well, it seems you would like to know more about me, Grover, King of The House. And, because you asked so nicely (fine, Teri asked so nicely!) and because my mom just realized we had been given two very lovely awards that she had yet to tell us about (harrumph!), if you keep reading you will find out more about who I am and what makes me tick.

Teri and the Furry Cats, and Elin gave us this great Honest Scrap Award!

And here are the rules:

“When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to said person so everyone knows who he or she is.

Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including ones who have no idea who you are because you don’t have 7 friends.

Show the 7 random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with “Honest Weblog.” Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.

List at least ten honest things about yourself, as well as an Honest Photo...Then, pass it on! “

So, here are some Honest Things About Me and my photo above is quite honest, indeed:

1. My full name is "Grover V. Fuzzy, the 'V' Stands for Very". That is what it says on my papers. My mom is named Cunia and my dad is Little Mr. Gigolo.

2. I ripped my mom's right eyelid open when I was a kitten and she had to get four stitches in it, but I did not rip the nerve so her eye is OK. However; because she has a scar from me she said she will not be getting a tattoo for me, even though she has one for our cat Jade who died and even though she's currently planning on getting a Piggy tattoo. That's mean! I will guilt her into changing her mind.

3. When my mom brought Piggy home my whole personality changed - I used to be very happy-go-lucky and I loved everyone! She feels very badly about this and I am glad. She thought I needed a friend after Cheshire died and so she got Piggy to keep me company. Um, can you say, WRONG!?!

4. My mom had four surgeries in 5 years and after each one I guarded her injured parts for months and if anyone tried to go near her I would hiss at them and swat them. Everyone said I was a very good guard.

5. I snuggle Piggy when no one is looking.

6. The fur on the top of my head looks like Friar Tuck.

7. When I was a kitten, people thought I was a monkey.

8. Whenever my mom is in the shower we play a game of 'tap tap' through the shower curtain. I stand up and beat the shower curtain with both my paws and my mom laughs.

9. I will knock over ANYTHING that is on a table or counter and pull things out of drawers and unroll the toilet paper and tear things up if I am in a certain mood. I am in a certain mood a lot, especially lately.

10. I saved my mom from heart-break after Jade died.

11. I was a very, um, active kitten and broke nearly every breakable thing in the house and made my mom cry a lot...especially when I ripped her eyelid open. Frankly, I think I was paying her forward for bringing Piggy into my life when I was five years old. Payback's a bitch, eh? I know she thinks I'm so super cute because she always used to say to me, "Grover, you are so freaking lucky you are so freaking cute!"

We would like to know honest things about all our friends, and a lot of our friends have already posted their honest things, but here are 7 we don't think have done so yet:

Marley, Reggie and Me
Jeter Harris
A Few Good Cats
Artsy Catsy
Cats of Wildcat Woods
The Meezers
Meir Cats

And now you will learn even MORE about me, because not only am I totally freaking fantastic, the Cats of Wildcat Woods gave us this fantastic award!

I'm supposed to give you six things that make me happy. Ok, here goes.

1. My mom.
2. My mom carrying me.
3. When Piggy leaves me alone.
4. Any water that has touched my mom - I drink her bath water when she takes a bath, and every morning I get into the shower after my mom gets out and I drink the water at the bottom of the tub.
5. Sitting on the stove, particularly if a burner is lit.
6. Licking my mom's face when she sleeps.

And that is enough about me.

Because we think you are all so creative, we pass this award onto all our friends...and these, too!

Shana
Zippy, Sadie and Speedy
Mr. Hendrix
The Fine Felines
William
Poppy Q

Luv,

Grover

Peach Piggy

Hi:

It's Grover. Listen, Pig is freaking me out. Seemingly overnight, he sprouted PEACH FUZZ! I think this means he is nearly done transforming into a Monster, but my mom thinks this mean he is finally getting nutrients again. She was way overly excited to see him with fuzz. Is there ANYTHING he does that she doesn't find cute? I think not.

This weekend, Pig attempted to clean his sweater by himself since our mom was otherwise engaged and still hadn't washed the nasty thing as of Saturday morning. I watched him do this for quite some time, all the while getting more and more disgusted. Finally, our mom noticed, got the hint, and took the schmata off of him.

In the time it took her to turn around to get the new sweater, Pig had done one of the dumbest things he has ever done, and that is saying he lot.

He must be tired of being Frankenpiggy, because when she turned back around to put the fresh sweater on him, less than 30 seconds later, his tooth was stuck in his top stitch and he was pulling on it and making oinking sounds.

Um, can you say MORON?

It was really stuck on there, but she managed to slip the stitch off his tooth. His incision was no worse for wear, as he is a great healer and it is all sealed up. But our mom thinks he is trying to give her heart attack and I agree, because that is what Monsters do! They try to scare you to D E A T H!

Anyway, she got the black sweater on him as you can see here.

And then he got to sit on bubble wrap, his favorite thing, because he is a spoiled brat. Notice how saggy his wrinkly skin is? My mom says that is because he's lost so much weight. But I say it's one more piece of proof that Pig is morphing into a disgusting flabbity Monster.

After Wednesday, when he gets his stitches out, his transition from Frankenpiggy will be complete. What's next? Pigzilla?

Luv,

Grover

P.S. Our mom says to tell you that Piggy ate a lot this weekend. He did lose a few more ounces, but the Prednisolone (and maybe the Sucralfate, too?) seems to have given him back his appetite and she is very thankful. He must be feeling better, because for the past few weeks I have been able to hiss at him and he would walk away in great fear. But yesterday I hissed at him and he just sat there and then he swatted at me so I hit him in the head and THEN he walked away. But he didn't look so fearful. I imagine it's just a matter of time until he starts gallumping on me again. Harrumph.

Plush Piggy

Plush Piggy, the year he grew the most fur ever.

Hi:

It's Grover. Listen, I want you to know another creepy fact about Piggy. Sometimes, he grows FUR. I know. It's horrible and further proof of his Monster-ness.

Our mom was chatting with Marley and Reggie's mom about Sphynxs and she shared this picture of Piggy from a few years ago. Every winter he used to grow some fur, just a wee patch, but that particular year he grew a plethora of fur! It was so horrifying that I tried to lick it off him. I licked and licked in an effort to remove it and, because he is daft, he mistook my efforts as my trying to groom him. As if I were trying to be NICE or something. Bitch, please.

Anyway, when my mom was discussing Pig's symptoms with our vet a few days ago, she told him she had missed noticing a few symptoms; one of which is that this winter is the first time since he was born that Pig did not grow any fur at all. She realized this could have been a symptom when Teri shared that hair loss could be a sign of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, which Pig was just diagnosed with a severe case of. He doesn't have hair, so he didn't lose it, but he didn't grow it either and that was probably a sign.

Also, a few months ago, Pig began needing three to five tries to get up on the bed at night, where he used to gallump up in one try like he was in flight and often landed on me, scaring the bejesus out of me.

So, when he was no longer gallumping onto the bed at night, my mom began pretending she's a freaking cheerleader, forgetting that in school she did NOT make the cheerleading team and, instead, had to settle for being a TWIRLER - and I don't care if she did twirl batons, flags, rifles and fire. I don't care that she wore a short, flippy, trollopy skirt just like the cheerleaders, everyone knows that cheerleaders are better than twirlers. Anyway, so now she cheers Piggy to encourage him to get on the bed.

My feeling is that if he can't get on the bed, that is HIS problem. But no. She now does this annoying counting-his-tries thing and cheering-him-on thing. Like this:

Come on, Piggy! Come on, Piggy! One! Two! Come on, Piggy! You can do it! Three! Four! YAY! Five! You did it! Good, Piggy!

I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Anyway, so she attributed Piggy's sudden inability to join us in bed as Piggy being bottom-heavy (she is so PC, let's call a Pig a pig, shall we - he's FAT! Or was...), instead of realizing it was his muscles becoming less strong. He used to feel like a plump, hard football and now he feels like a deflated football. And they really DO make footballs from Pig skin, so let that serve as a warning to you, Mr. Piggy.

Anyway, I am only telling you this because sometimes "symptoms" of something amiss do not seem to be symptoms at all and instead are written off as 'nothing'. Most of the time, they probably ARE nothing, but sometimes they are not.

And that is what we learned this week.

Just sayin'.

Luv,

Grover

P.S. Pig ate more baby food and more yogurt and did not puke! He won't eat more than a few bits of our regular dry cat food though...who cares, more for me!

P.P.S. Pig says to tell you that his sometimes-fur is luxurious, not scary. He also said to tell you he wishes our mom would wash his sweater.

Bag Piggy

Hi:

It's Grover. Listen, I have no idea what the appeal is, but Piggy found his way into another plastic bag. Yes, he ripped open a tied bag of clothes that our mom had loaded up to donate to GoodWill. He just ripped it open as if that were an OK thing to do. As if that is what good cats do, just rip open bags at will and climb on in and hunker down as if the bag of clothes to donate was your own personal super-special hide-away. Like it was his honeymoon suite or something and next up is a bubble bath in some giant, gaudy champagne glass followed by an evening of cavorting and caterwauling with his betrothed. He's neutered. He really needs to get a grip.

Anyway, so we have good news here - Piggy ate something! And, even better, he didn't puke it up. The vet gave him a drug called Cerenia and it helped him feel less pukey so I didn't have to daintily step over piles of bile and partially digested food last night.

He is also going to start on another drug called Sucrolfate which should help all the erosions in his belly get coated so he can eat more and not feel sick.

That being said, I am exceedingly happy to report that Pig's illness finally, FINALLY, benefits me. Yup. My mom bought Earth's Best chicken baby food for Pig, but we BOTH got to eat some last night!! And I got to eat MORE than Piggy, which I think proves who's the favorite around here, despite all other glaring red neon signs that seemed to point to a certain stinky porcine-ish creature.

Oh my gosh, the stuff is SO good. I love it. As I am a bowl half-full sort of cat (Was that a snicker? Did you just snicker? Stop it!) I won't harp on the fact that I am certain this stuff existed for my entire life and only NOW am I being introduced to it. Instead, I will concentrate on the fact that this stuff is even better than Pepperidge Farm Goldfish and I am a very happy lamb indeed.

And now, a nap.

Luv,

Grover

P.S. Pig is still in that freaking sweater. And, rumor has it that one of his fans is sending him something 'handsome' to wear. Oh someone, please make it stop.

P.P.S. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for thinking of us and helping things get better here at Grover's House with your love and prayers and good wishes.

P.P.S. Piggy just said to tell you it is NOT Grover's House, it is Piggy's House. But I think if one compares the amount of baby food I got to the amount Pig got, one could not disagree with me. Can I get an amen?

Frankenpiggy!

Smiley bandage over IV spot.

Hi:

It's Grover. Listen, there is a reason I want nothing to do with Pig and it's not because I'm being mean, contrary to popular belief.

See, first of all, he came home from the vet on Friday smelling like poops. I know my mom washed his super-special blanket but she did not give PIG a bath and HE still smells like poop, in my humble opinion. I know she said he does not. But he does. My little black nose is far more sensitive than hers.

The truth is, he SCARES me. He is Frankenpiggy, see for yourself.

Three little stitches for one little Piggy.

My mom is trying to hide the fact he's now a Monster by putting him in a lame red turtleneck as if he were some kind of beatnik. What's next? A beret, Daddy O'? I am not fooled. He's a stinky cat. But not THAT kind of cat.

He is feeling particularly unwell (an understatement, sadly) since Saturday, so I will not be actively mean to him (of course!), but I also do not want him even LOOKING at me because he gives me the stink eye, literally, and then I hiss at him and then I get yelled at. Me. Little cute woolly Grover. Little dumpling-scented Grover. Yes. Me who doesn't stink. Me who has enough self-respect to know cats do NOT wear clothes. Me who sits on the edge of the tub when my mom takes a bath to make sure she's OK and to lick water off her knees. Me who sleeps next to my mom's head every night to keep Monsters at bay. Wee, good HEALTHY Grover. ME! And I get yelled at? AND she brings Monsters to bed now?

Bitch, please.

And she wonders why I hiss at that stinky pink thing? Sheesh.

We are still waiting for the results of Piggy's bone marrow test but so far we know that he has severe Inflammatory Bowel Disease, which I think is just a ploy so he can have Pill Pockets twice a day, which he usually loves. Tonight though, he puked them up ten minutes after taking his first dose of Prednisolone and scared the shit out of all of us. Mom waited a while and gave him another dose, but without Pill Pockets.

Still, I am not fooled, because he's never acted SICK ever (until they took too many bits of him on Friday - harrumph!), so I think he is in cahoots with the vet to empty mom's wallet and to get my mom to feel all badly for him and buy the Pill Pockets so he can have super-special treats to go along with his super-special pink skin and his super-special blue plaid blanket and his super-special freaking TURTLENECK, for gosh's sake.

Am I the ONLY sane one in this household? Am I?

That was rhetorical.

If a tree falls in the forest...yes, Pig would STILL stink.

Harrumph.

Luv,

Grover.

P.S. Shhhh...this post is for my mom and Piggy's benefit so they think I'm my usual snarky self because I do NOT want my mom or Piggy to know that it makes me very upset to see Piggy feeling so awful. I even snuggled him all day when no one was home to see me. And when my mom came home, I quickly jumped up and told her Piggy was being all drama and that he looked really super-dumb in his freaking TURTLENECK. What a drag, man.

P.P.S. Piggy is asleep, yes, STILL in his turtleneck (!) on my mom's lap. So far he has not puked up again since she gave him another dose of pills, and we are glad the first 10 mg of drugs are running through his system to help him get better.

P.P.S. I want to sit in my mom's lap, too. Harrumph. Luv, Grover

In Which Piggy Discovers What He's Been Missing

Hi everyone:

It's Allison, Grover and Piggy's mom. Listen, I am so touched by the outpouring of love and generosity through your comments and emails and blog postings for Pig. Words cannot express how much it means to us to know that people (and kitties!) who have not yet met our boys in person can hold them in their hearts and prayers and help guide us through.

Thank you. Those words sound so insignificant. But I'll say them again. Thank you!!

We should have test results on Monday. Pig took quite a while to come out of anesthesia yesterday, but he did just fine and has some cool stitches to show for it. Stay tuned for Grover's post entitled: Frankenpiggy!

The incision was for the bone marrow extraction and also for the lymphnode biopsy. The endoscopy already showed one thing, which is that he has mass erosion in his digestive track all the way along. I'll be very happy to know what we are dealing with as this has been ongoing since December 23rd. And still, Piggy is acting completely normal. So strange...

Something funny: Pig's vet told me he had sedated Pig and Pig was laid out on the table when the Pathologist arrived. The Pathologist, having not expected to see a big, pink, bald cat laid out, stopped in his tracks, his face drained of color and he held onto the door frame to steady himself...because he thought that the big, pink, bald thing lying there was a BABY!

Hee hee. So, that had me laughing yesterday (and today, too!) :)

When we got home from the vet, Pig immediately ate a giant bowl of food, drank a big bowl of water, pooped, peed and began licking and scratching at his stitches (which were, according to his vet, in a place he can't reach...yeah, right).

He started to bleed a bit from the incision, so I wrapped the wound with this sticky gauze stuff, going around his chest and under his legs. He was not pleased, and as soon as I let him go, he began walking backwards and howling. Then he ran under the bed and proceeded to scratch the gauze off.

Then I put a band-aid over the incision. That worked for about 2 minutes and then he licked it off.

So I wrapped him, again, in the gauze, deciding he will just have to deal with it; but it was pitiful to watch him walk around backwards and howl so I took it off.

I called the vet, who was closing in 10 minutes, and they were very apologetic because they thought he wouldn't be able to lick or scratch there (why? why would they think that?!) and said they would, since they were closing in ten minutes, leave one of those "Elizabethan collars" at the pet store across the street from their office for me to come pick up.

I started to get dressed to go do that and realized I couldn't leave the house and leave Pig here alone as Pig was scratching the bejesus out of his stitches. As I stood there figuring out what to do, the vet tech called back and said that it would be better if I put a sweater on him instead of the collar.

I said, "Pig does not have any sweaters because he is a CAT AND CATS DON'T WEAR CLOTHES!" I know people DO dress their cats...especially Sphynxs and I always think it's cute when I see it...(Piggy's littermate, Rocky, has a wardrobe of clothes and costumes bigger than my own!) but I myself have never put a sweater on Pig and it didn't lessen the quality of either of our lives.

The vet tech told me that she thinks a sweater would work better than the collar because the collar is not going to come down far enough to cover the incision.

She suggested I not buy one in a pet store because they are stupidly expensive, especially since he won't be wearing it again (because his mom, me, is, apparently, a judgmental bitch), and she suggested I go to a baby store and buy a cheapie baby sweater, something he could wear for at least 2 days til the incision starts to heal a bit.

I tell her that there are no 'baby stores' near me and I'm home alone and I can't leave him to even come get the collar because he is trying to rip his stitches out RIGHT NOW and of course then I start to cry.

She says, "You're small...maybe one of your tee-shirts will work."

I tell her I will go try to find something and she said she will stay there until I call back to tell her everything is OK.

I start frantically ripping through my closet - even my smallest tee is (obviously!) too big for Pig.

Then my creative mind kicks in (as the hysterics do), and I start searching through my socks for the widest ones - I try to get one over his head and he freaks out and, in the process, gouges my ankle, so now I am bleeding, too.

I find another sock and cut holes in what I think are the approximate location of his front legs. I am able to pull this sock over his head, but I'd made the leg holes off-center, so now he's howling again.

I take that sock off him and go into the duffel bag that has all my circus clothes that I no longer have a reason to wear since I was injured in 2007 and can no longer do aerial acrobatics. I found this very tight pair of thigh-length, thick, red, stretchy leggings that I used to wear over my unitard to help protect myself from the burn of the tissu and trapeze in class.

I held it against Pig to figure out where the leg holes should be, and then I cut slots in the leggings, pulled one leg (from the foot hole) over his head, stuck his front paws through the slots (perfect placement this time, thank goodness!), folded the ribbing down on his neck like a turtleneck would be, and cut the 'shirt' off a few inches behind his front legs.

Well, he immediately calmed down and it is obvious he's a little traitor to my 'cats don't wear clothes' stance because he LOVES his sweater. He was all proud and started licking me and prancing around like some kind of diva. I swear I saw him glance in the mirror and admire his dapperness. Then he climbed on me and started purring loudly and went to sleep.

And he hasn't scratched at or licked the incision, or even paid any attention to it at all, since.

And now the little bugger has converted me into a person who PUTS CLOTHES ON HER CAT! So welcome me to the club, y'all.

Pig had a very odd poop this a.m. - a huge pile of barely digested food, but his vet said this is normal after having an endoscopy and it should resolve itself in a few days.

Pig, still in his fancy sweater, (I think he looks totally freaking hilarious in it, so I have to keep peeking at him) is sleeping under his blanket on the bed and is as happy, as the saying goes, a Pig in shit. I'll keep you posted when we have some news on Monday...

Thank you, again, from all of us. You are forever in our hearts. We appreciate you!

OX

Allison, Grover and Piggy

Can't See Me!

Hi:

It's Piggy. Listen, shhhhhhhh....be very quiet. I have crawled into the bag of recyclables and no one can see me. I bet you even had trouble finding me in the picture, didn't you? I know! It's a great hiding spot!

I'm trying to avoid being found because at 8pm tonight my mom took my food bowl away and, if I remember correctly, the last time she did this was because I had to go to the vet the next day to have a test, so, I'm pretty sure that is what is happening tomorrow, and I'd really prefer avoiding THAT.

Another clue is that I heard her on the telephone discussing me and I heard her say things like "bone marrow aspiration", "endoscopy" and "lymphnode biopsy"; none of which sound like "Snacks!", "Q-Tips!" and "Bag Ties!" to me.

So, um, yeah; I'm staying right here, stealth-like in this bag.

The end.

Luv,

Pig

P.S. Hi, it's Grover. Listen, I can see Piggy in that bag and unless you're a bit dim, you can, too. That being said, Pig's right....he is going to the vet tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock for more tests as he is still losing weight and his blood tests get more and more wonky every few weeks and the vets fear he is very sick, even though he acts very normal, like the big potato-and-mushroom-smelling bully that he is. We're all very anxious about this. As a matter of fact, I'm so anxious I am not even going to tell my mom where Piggy is hiding. She won't find him. Lately, she's so pre-occupied with thinking we're going to lose our little pink Pig, that calling her "a bit dim" is an understatement. Your secret is safe with me, Piggy. Your secret is safe with me. Luv, Grover

P.P.S. Thanks and hugs to Teri for reviewing Piggy's test results and offering much love, information and support!

Drama Pig

Hi:

It's Grover. Listen, there are a few things wrong with this picture. First of all, Pig needs a bath. Second, I am not in the picture. Third, Pig's doing something weird with his mouth - is it open? Is it closed? Just what is he doing? Is he trying to say something? Is he going to talk about how PINK he is again? Is he starting to meow? Is he about to drawl, "Rhett, Rhett...Rhett, if you go, where shall I go? What shall I do?"

Pig, listen, you are not the star of some epic drama where you gaze forlornly into the distance and contemplate your navel. You don't even HAVE a navel.

Pig, please.

Luv,

Grover