Have just spoken with the vet…

Mack’s temp is down, her hydration level is up, she taken food by syringe a few times today. We still don’t have definitive test results yet so, we’re still not 100 percent sure about what the problem is… At least there has been some improvement.

Edited 9:00pm: Just returned from the Emergency Vet Hospital and things are a little better as mentioned before, but we still haven’t received the lab results yet since it’s Sunday. We anticipate getting something at some point this evening, but unfortunately because it’s the weekend, we have to wait on the lab.  Troubling is that her white blood cell count is quite high and red blood cells lower than normal - plus with the mass in her abdomen, cancer is now in the picture.

So… the visualizing has begun. I visualize Mackenzie at HOME, happy, healthy and glowing with love and life. I WILL bring her home. She WILL be healthy. She WILL beat whatever is making her ill and she WILL grow to be an old, geriatric cat of 16 years old. I will accept no less and she WILL be well again soon.

Please keep this wee, love muffin of mine in your prayers. She’s an animal yes, but she’s also my fur baby and we love her dearly.

Many of you know that we are parents to two furkids - British Shorthair Kitties named Kodiak and Mackenzie… well, for the last little while Mackenzie [aka Baby Mack] has been showing a lack of interest in food and has been lethargic.

We noticed a major change in her behaviour this week since we’d come home from Toronto. She was eating very little, except the chicken breast that I cooked for them earlier this week and a few mouthfuls of her dry food. She’d be pretty lethargic in the evenings when we got home from work, so we started getting a little concerned. Yesterday she did something that was the clearest indicator there was a problem… she laid in my lap, on the couch, for 6 hours! It’s hard to tell with Mack Mack that something is wrong, because she isn’t a complainer and is a very quiet sweet girl; it’s also hard to track the kitties’ behaviour during the day because we both work outside the house… but Mack is also NOT a lap cat, so this 6 hour cuddling raised up all kinds of red flags!

Mack Mack was due into the vet on Monday for a dental cleaning and I was going to wait to take her in for a check-up until then, but by around 8:30pm she was so sluggish that I started to get very worried… I called the 24 Hour Vancouver Emergency Vet Clinic and spoke to the technician. They recommended we bring her in, and boy am I glad we did! She had a fever, was very lethargic, was showing signs of jaundice and you could tell that she felt crappy. They found a small lump in her abdomen that could be a block and could be the source of the problem; however, the signs of jaundice lead the vet to suggest a more serious, but treatable problem Fatty Liver Syndrome/Disease [FLS].

FLS is a problem that occurs only in cats, not in humans or dogs and it happens when a kitty hasn’t been eating enough food for it’s caloric requirements, the feline body begins processing stored fat cells for energy causing liver distress. What happens is that as the processed fat goes through the liver [cats don’t have a liver enzyme capable of breaking down the fat] it starts forming fat pockets in the liver and starts shutting it down. If caught early enough the liver disease can be stopped and reversed, but it will required a lot of nutrional supervision and work on our part to make sure she gets what she needs to improve. If left too late, it can be fatal. We hope and believe that at this point it was early enough to save my baby girl.

Whatever the problem, we just want our Baby Mack to come home and be well! We were at the vet clinic from 9:45pm - 1am last night, so I’m pretty tired, and very worried about my sweet girl. I’m now waiting to speak to the vet about the diagnosis of her condition and what else may need to be done. The vet bills are pretty steep, but for my 3.5 year furbaby, anything is worth her health and homecoming! Please keep her in your thoughts, we love her so much…

It’s amazing just how many new decorations you need when you decide to change a Holiday Color/Style Scheme!

We made a pit stop by Pier One on the way to Monday night’s hockey game to pick up a few extra goodies and now the house is really starting to feel festive. Here are some of our favorite new things:

I LOVE Pier One! We bought 3 of the pink mercury glass trees, 1 blue one, 1 snowman [he’s 14" tall!], 1 ornament tree, 1 kissing ball and a wreath. I may go back for some more.

Heading down to the studio now to make my pailette garlands and sprays. I’ll post again when I’m done with them too… It’s beginning to feel kinda festive in this house =) 

Terry and I have decided to go funky, arty with our Christmas decorating this year and onward… The whole idea started when we did our decorating last year.

We moved into our house 3 years ago and our once very roomy condo, bowling alley shaped living room has been replaced with a square, cozy living space in the house. Our tree [we do artificial because of the kitties] was extremely large, with a base diameter of about 4 feet - waaaaaaaaaaay too big for our house’s substantially smaller living room.

So… after Christmas last year, we visited a local wholesaler of Christmas stuff to check out options for a narrower tree. We walked into the showroom in early February of this year to look at tree sizes and were immediately hooked on the new, funky look of the ornaments trend for 2006. The palette of color includes fuchia, hot pink, chartreuse-lime green, cobalt blue, purple and orange… all in MATTE mercury glass and with flocked detailing. We were in love with the idea of a funky tree and accompanying decor items… it’s different, modern, distinctive and just so COOL! 

In recent months/weeks, we have purchased a number of funky, cool new decorations, ornaments and tree to accomplish this unorthodox look. Here is the lowdown on the cool Christmas decor at the Lazar-Schuler household…

• New tree purchased. Pre-lit with 200 mini-lights, narrow diameter base and are you ready… it’s BLACK!
• Dozens of new matte/flocked mercury glass ornaments purchased including 3" balls, finials, mirror balls, spindles and more! About 3 dozen in total.
• Large matte mercury glass cones purchased and hung together in a cluster
• I will be making a garland of pailettes [large sequins], silver beads and clear acrylic beads

Here are a few shots of the new ornaments, I love them and think they are super cool!

It took a while, but we finally arrived home [about 40 minutes late] at 5:05pm PST… We ’should’ have been home by 4:15pm, oh well… It could have been worse!

It was a long 5 hour flight, a little bumpy and a little bit noisy [we were surrounded on all sides by babies and toddlers!]… but the view throughout most of the flight was spectacular.

Particularly beautiful was the British Columbia landscape as we flew over our very snowy BC Rocky Mountains and local snowcapped peaks. Those of you who know, or live in Vancouver, know how unusual it is for snow to survive more than two days in the GVRD [Greater Vancouver Regional District]. Usually the snow turns grey-brown and mucky in hours, then melts and disappears before I can take any photographs! Well, our flight in today provided me with an unusual opportunity to shoot Vancouver snow photos from the sky =)

Here are a few for your viewing pleasure:

So… We checked in with ALL our bags under the maximum weight (unlike on the way down - 86lbs in one bag alone) - nice! And I didn’t get the big frisking (I confess I was alittle disappointed LOL) so basically we breezed through security and are now waiting on the flight to board and take-off.

There isn’t a plane in our gate yet, so we’re probably going to be leaving late - yay (insert sarcastic snort here). Oh well at least we’re on our way home…

To Carmi and the Boyz: thank you, thank you for letting us stay with you for the week. We had a great time and will miss you all! Hope you get ALL the snow that vancouver has been getting and that TO finally starts feeling really wintry and christmassy! Love to you all XOXO

Christina Lazar-Schuler Lazar Studiowerx Inc.

My friend Carmi lives just outside of Toronto in a town called Kleinburg. Well, tonight the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) got a little taste of what vancouver has been experiencing for the month of november… High high wind and rain.

Tonight after Carmi and I drove back from her monthly art club meeting we noticed substanially higher winds than when we left hours earlier… And upon entering her town, noticed that most of the lights were out! Power failure!

LOL… Dear T, my hubby, was left at home alone with carmi’s two very big golden retrievers… One who is very nervous in bad windy weather PLUS terry would now be in a dark house, not knowing were the flash lights or candles were. Would have loved to have seen his face as the lights went out!

We pulled up to the house, all was dark, and entered through the front door. Both Carm and I were a little surprised to see terry coming up from the family room with flash light in hand! Very wisely and efficiently, terry waited for his eyes to adjust in the dark and began searching for a flashlight… And found one in a realively unfamiliar house. Good man! Knew I married a smart guy for a reason!

So we found the other flash lights, carmi lit some candles and tracked down the radio, then waited to hear about the power problem on the radio. Turns out a 40 block grid went down in the crazy high wind… Perfect!

Luckily we were only without lights for about 30 minutes… But now fully expect for the power to go out again as the howling wind just keeps getting worse and worse. Should be interesting sleeping tonight, between high, noisy wind (we’re sleeping in a guest loft) and appliances turning on and off in the night… Oh well, at least our last night in Toronto hasn’t been boring

Peace out peeps… Stay warm and safe in this crazy vancouver and toronto weather! Will post again on the road from Pearson airport tomorrow.

Christina Lazar-Schuler Lazar Studiowerx Inc.