New cat... and other updates

The new cat, Bilbo, has been taking up some of my attention, but he's settling in nicely now that he's feeling a bit better and getting used to our household. Tomorrow marks one week since his vet visit and having his tomhood taken away. He has never growled, hissed, bitten, or scratched at us or the resident cats. He uses the litterboxes and has never sprayed, despite being neutered as an adult. He's only ever clawed on the cat towers with sisal rope. It's like he's been an indoor much-loved cat most of his life, except for one barncat behavior I recognized--he rubbed on the youngest cat, who has been the most accepting of him (no hissing or growling), probably because he was a barncat in a barn full of other cats when we adopted him as a kitten.

We have worked out a way to adapt him to the household. Only one cat, the oldest, is strongly objecting (growling and hissing) to Bilbo's presence yet after we had him out for a couple of days. Since putting Bilbo in the bedroom of our oldest kid, she let Jack (youngest of our three resident cats) in with him, since Jack usually likes her room. I think the fact that Jack is so laid back with other cats has helped Bilbo, although the normal house noises still spook him at times.

We're allowing supervised daytime house outings only and keeping Bilbo in daughter's room at night yet to avoid any unsupervised trouble. It could get really dicey since he prefers to be in our bed, where the oldest two kitties who least accept him usually sleep. How long this process takes until Bilbo fully acclimates to the household and is accepted by all the resident cats is anyone's guess, but I'd bet by Christmas that he'll have the run of the house 24/7; I'm not going to push him, however. He's pretty laid back and adapting well but does get overwhelmed by all the commotion and newness of it, then he retreats to our bathroom/walk-in closet or under our bed to decompress. I don't want him in our room so much until the other cats all accept him.

Bilbo is also starting to play with toys. He was shy about that just a couple of days ago. He's a lazy boy, though, like Jack. I'm sure he could hunt in the wild, or maybe that's the problem--toys move and make sounds but aren't as satisfying as catching a meal. But he gets fed regularly and good food that's really shining up his coat and helping him fill out and gain some weight. He wasn't underweight, but I like a little bit more bulge when looking down my cats than his flat-sidedness.

As for myself, I hadn't been able to write for the last week. I got stuck worse and worse and had anxiety attacks complicated by bringing in a stray cat. I put the symptoms pieces together, however, especially since they eased up as I tapered off the Synthroid... and was right. I went into the walk-in clinic to check into what was going on--my thyroid had become normal or even hyper. (update: I heard back from my regular clinic on this and was told that illness can cause the thyroid to do some things like this. I also just learned that I had been possibly exposed to salmonella from cucumbers at the grocery store; the fever and gut symptoms I'd been having matched that. I suppose that would explain the thyroid issue and the anxiety caused from it. A Hashimoto's flare indeed.)

My creativity and focus have come back now that I've figured things out and am getting over the illness. That was quite a rough ordeal, though. As we say in this part of the country... uff da! I can sympathize with what people with Graves disease must suffer. After a whole day without thyroid meds, I was having major hypo symptoms, however. It's good to not be hyper, but being constantly cold and tired isn't fun either. One more lesson learned.

Now to get past that scene that was blocking me in Book 21. It's finally getting somewhere again. 🥳

Back to writing.

Thanks for reading!