My First "Adventures with Arya" Tag

So its been a long time since I shared what was going on with my life. So n my last post I shared with you the story of my last days with Chloe. My Black Manx I've posted about when I was previously blogging. If you missed that post, you can find it here.

I would like to take this time to introduce you to the furr baby I will be blogging about now.

Caution: Highly photogenic, there will be lots of photos.

This is Arya.

I cant take credit for the name, and here is why...

Arya once belonged to a girl in my nerd friend circle. Her and her bf at the time adopted 2 kittens, brother and sister. The boy was named Rickon and the girl Arya.

For those of you who don't know, they are named after sibling characters in Game of Thrones..

... and not ones who have sex with each other.

This is the pair of them as kittens in 2014, this photo was sent to me by the first kitty momma so photo cred to her

Some time went on, and the pair of them split up, and the siblings got separated also. After some more time she had moved on and was now expecting a baby, and getting a new place to move into with the father of her child.

Finding a place with a pet, and coming up with the extra pet deposit was really challenging, as the rental market is incredibly limited, so its very competitive. Its even worse now. So she had to make that very difficult decision to re-home her.

Around this time, 5 months has past since I had to say good bye to Chloe. Feb/March 2016

I had been living with my boyfriend at the time about as long as Chloe was gone. He had a cat growing up but it was more bonded to his mother than he was with him so he never considered this cat to be his. So when i was ready to adopt again, he was a little hesitant, but by this time he saw how important it was for me to have a pet, and decided he was ready for us to start looking.

Kitten season was approaching so we were watching adoption listings from the 2 local rescues in town, waiting for the right one. However, I was also willing to adopt an adult so I put the work out on Facebook that we were looking.

Arya had already had a new home lined up to go to, and her mum was moving into the new place in a couple of days when they bailed on her. So she contacted me asking if I could take her.

I said my boyfriend and I were hoping to pick out a kitty together, but I could check with him, and we could at least foster her until she had another arrangements set up for her. Moving day was in a day or two, so there wasn't much else she could do, I was happy to help.

This girl and I were not particularly close, however the soon to be father of her child was a friend of mine and lived in my building, so Arya was there briefly while she was in between housing at a time. I had leant them Chloe's litter box (after she passed away) so I only breifly saw her once when i was at the door. So really, I was meeting Arya for the first time when they dropped her off at my house.

My boyfriend at the time was at work till 10ish so it was just me at home. she came in her little baby blue carrier, which we set down in the living room, opened it up and let her have a look around.

Checking out my place for the first time

After some sadness, her momma left her and her things with me. including the litter box I had lent them a few months ago.

I let Arya explore, trying not to overwhelm her too much with my attention. She was more interested in the space with me, so I let her be. Then after she checked out every room, she hid behind the curtain to the sliding glass door, for quite a while. 

So I left her food bowl at the end of it and proceeded to make dinner for my self in the kicthen. After I was done I sat on the couch, put on some TV and ate my food.

Then, she came out and joined me

Actual photo of this encounter

I smiled, gave her a pat and continued to eat my dinner as she watched me. After I was done eating she seemed more comfortable, and ready to explore some more. So I sort of followed her around taking pictures of this sweet little kitty playing under my bed.

Checking things out some more

She seemed to be enjoying her new space and warming up to it pretty well since she was dropped off 2 hours ago, and that was when her personality really started to show. Its safe to say I was falling in love.

My boyfriend at the time was now getting of work, rushing home and excited to meet the kitty we would be taking care of. Within 30 seconds of walking through the door, he was on the floor and she was offering him an invitation for a belly rub.

And it wasn't a trap either, actual belly rubs were had with out teeth or claws

We decided within that moment that this wasn't a foster, and her momma didn't have to find another home for her. We would keep her.

And that was it, she was ours.

Arya wasn't fixed or vaccinated so of course we brought her to the vet a couple weeks later for a check up, some shots and to book her spay.

Her pre-operation examination did not pass with flying colours, they had some concerns and requested additional testing. This was a little alarming, what they thought might be cat leukemia, ended up being a result of a poor diet. It was more like, leukemia is the worst case scenario for what we are seeing so we should rule it out with blood work, but it was up to me. So we paid for some additional blood work too, but found out this fussy furr baby is allergic to chicken, but otherwise a healthy kitty.

Before I go into the vet bill, I am in no way complaining about the vet costs, its something you MUST prepare for when you adopt. Always have a sum of money prepared for a surprise vet visit when you take on the responsibility of a living creature. Free kitties are not free and WILL cost you more than any adoption fee from any shelter in North America. The only reason I'm sharing this is so that you ARE informed when you adopt outside of a shelter to try and "save money" Shelters are eligible for discounted spay programs or have vets who volunteer a certain amount of hours to perform them. If you adopt privately, you will have to pay the full rate for a spay if you do not have low income spay and neuter programs in your area. Comox Valley has this service now, and if you have one in your area, please follow them on Facebook & support their fundraisers as this is a VERY important service to have. I believe all homes are happier with the right pet addition to the family and low income families deserve this kind of happiness too, these programs help make this possible. But remember that you are obligated to provide necessary medical care, and refusal to do so, broke or not is an act of animal cruelty in the Animal Rights Act. So PLEASE prepare yourself before you adopt.

Okay, mini lecture is over. I think.

So at the end of the day, for her vaccinations, pre opp examination, blood test, spay and after care accessories & prescriptions $480

-Adoption fees tend to range from $100-$200 in our area-

They include a spay/neuter, first vaccinations and a check up

Now, The Blood test was about $50 so a female cat who passed their pre-op examination, and WOULD wear a cone ($10) instead of the onesie ($30) would have paid just over $400.

My name is Arya and if you try to put a cone on my head I will try and do back flips to get out of it and pull my sticthes hur hur hur, stoopid human. You must buy the $30 onesie from the vet with the special poop hole.

Before you comment with 

"Oh my god I called such and such and they said it would only cost this much and you got ripped off" 

I take my furrr babies to Van Isle Vet, and its been said by some people they are the most expensive veterinarian in town. I don't know if this is true or not, and I don't care. Here is why. 

At the time it was right across the street from my house & they are open late and on weekends so it was super convenient. Van Isle Vet also has a very current & clean facility which allows them to provide the best care possible for your animals. Innovative equipment means a faster more accurate diagnosis so in many cases, this will SAVE you $ as you pay for time and tests. so keep this in mind when choosing your vet. I don't recommend you call around for who does the cheapest spay/neuter or the cheapest check up appointment. If money is an issue, look into who has programs that can help.

Van Isle Vet has the Oscar Fund, named after the orange kitty who used to be spotted in the reception area before he passed away. 

He was actually Chloe's boyfriend, he gave her kisses when ever I brought her in

You can read his story here

This fund helps cover emergency vet bills in emergencies when $ is the difference between life and death. The Comox Valley is also including low cost spay and neuter programs, as explained in this article

This is just why I take them to Van Isle, so think about this when you decide who to take your animals to, also keep all this in mind when planning the cost of bringing a new animal into your home.

Okay, back to Arya.

So she was ours. She was fixed, vaccinated, on food that suited her best and she was ours.

And such begins the fun and happy life we will get to follow in this blog from now until she becomes an old lady kitty.

Now that boyfriend and I broke up. I don't know if  I will share that story. But there is a reason I wont be sharing the belly rub photo I took when he met her for the first time. as cute as that photo is, and as much as it will lend to this story, he and I are not on speaking terms and I respect the right to people privacy.  I also don't include the name of her former mum. She will probably read this when it gets posted, and follow the blog to see what her former kitty is up to. She might identify herself in the comments if she wishes, but people have the right to their privacy.

In the future, I will use fake names if I do not have permission from those people to be identified in my stories, for the sake of it being easier to read. "My boyfriend at the time" is kind of annoying. So sorry for that.

Here is a photo spam of what makes Arya so wonderful

Arya is a Flame Point Siamese Crossed with a Tabby. So she has very interesting markings.

Tabby Mask and Socks

She is very snuggly

Such a snuggle bug

She WILL NOT let you poop alone.

Hai hoomin, what doin?

I give you head buts while you poop

She does not like it when I spend too much time on the computer and will interrupt me and demand I hold her like a baby

Who's the baby?

If I am gaming, and she insists on affection, I can sometimes get her to sit on my shoulders

Gamer kitty

If I say no, I often will find her under my desk, like this

My heart, she looks so sad :(

She is also a fussy eater...

I have more interest in mums food than I do my own

She is very photogenic, so I will post pictures of her a lot.

Mum, do not go to work plz

And we have lots of cute moments worth sharing, Like this.

Kitty is big spoon today

So I think that sums up my life with Arya, and I will continue to share cute moments and stories with you all as the years pass. Arya is 4 years old now and in great health. I'm looking forward to sharing with you the journey of this little weirdo. She is intuitive, funny, affectionate and one of the most beautiful kitties I have ever seen. She is chatty, social and loves everyone. 

Now you all get to fall in love with her too

The last "My Cat Chloe" Label

This is going to be a bit of a sad post, I know I haven't posted in a long time, I don't know if there is anyone out there who had been following the posts about Chloe. She was my Manx kitty and you can see her posts in the "My Cat Chloe" label on the archive.

Such a model <3 td="">

In July 2015, one day I noticed some strange behavior. She was eating her food and she kept dropping the piece of kibble she was trying to eat, and after a few times, she gave up and walked away from her bowl. This coming from the cat who inhales her entire bowl after you put it down, and has to be portion fed so she doesn't puke it back up. 

So I scooped her up and thought I should have a look in her mouth, maybe her teeth are bothering her or something. I noticed that her tongue was a bit red underneath, and seemingly swollen. I lived across the street from the vet at the time so I put her in the carrier and walked her over to see if there was a last minute space available. 

Fortunately, I got her in to see someone almost right away. They didn't see any injury to suggest she had bitten into something she shouldn't have, or caught and chased a wasp or something like that. But we could treat the inflammation anyway with medication and if it wasn't anything sinister, we should see a difference within the week. Until then I was to switch her to wet food, water it down and syringe feed her to make sure she gets the food and water she needs to stay healthy.

Syringe feeding her was a funny experience, the first time, was a challenge. I had to swaddle her in a blanket and hold her like a baby. But once she realized "Oh hey that's food" I could sit on the floor in the kitchen and she would walk right up and lap up the food with out issue. However she would get it all over her face and you had to be quick with the paper towel or she would shake it and you would be covered in sloppy wet cat food, and so would everything around you.

Nearly a week passed and there was no improvement, so we had to investigate the area with a biopsy. So she had to get put to sleep under and anesthetic and they had to take a sample from inside the tongue and run some tests.

I sat at home across the street and waited by the phone, so many things ran through my head. She was only 9 years old, which is still young for a well looked after house cat. She had cystitis but it was managed with a good diet and she was otherwise a healthy kitty. she was a little chubby, but not obese. I bathed her monthly, trimmed her nails, vert check up every year ect. I had NEVER considered I didn't have another near decade of time with her.

The phone rang, mid procedure. Its Carcinoma, in the Tongue. Its in an area where they cannot successfully operate to remove it. They ask me if I should bring her out of the anesthetic or not to say goodbye.I asked them to bring her back, so I could make her last days special. I couldn't bear the thought of not being able to tell her goodbye. Some folks may find it silly, and others wouldn't think twice about it. When you love animals as much as I do, and spend as much time with them as I do, you learn how intuitive they are. There are things, you KNOW they understand. You don't know how they know, they just do. So I had to make sure she knew how much she was loved. So I brought her home and she was so funny while the anesthetic was wearing off. She walked around drunk, but happy drunk. She was even more snugly than usual, and she was a VERY snugly kitty.

This is us having a snuggle after coming home from the vet after her diagnosis

Chloe touched the lives of many people. I met so many people who absolutely despised cats, and she would win them over some how. So I had an opportunity for people to come by and see her for one last time. So I had some friends over, we played some Magic the Gathering, ordered some pizza and had she had a good cuddle sesh with lots of people who cared about her.

If she wasn't in one of their laps, she was in the lid of Matthews Deck(s) Box.

Chloe stayed with us for another week or so of syringe feeding. She seemed to be very happy and very much her self when I brought her home from the vet, and the anesthetic wore off. So I couldn't bring my self to say good bye just yet. She still seemed so stoked on life. The syringe feeding was challenging, but I didn't mind. Not if it meant I still had more time.

So I continued to syringe feed Chloe. I weighed her every morning, and tracked in a book in the kitchen how much food I managed to feed her and what her weight was at. See, when you water the food down, it turned a serving size into about 300ML's of liquid, and the largest syringe I could get was 50ML so refilling that and feeding it to her took a good hour, and sometimes at 200 or so she had enough and wanted a break. I would get up at 5 am and start giving her breakfast to make sure she got enough food in her before I had to get ready and going to the bus around 7:30 or so.

At the time a friend of mine lived on the bottom floor of my apartment building and he had a spare key, he would come up around lunch time and see what he could get her to eat. My roommates had tried to help out, but it wasn't something they were as comfortable doing as the friend who lived downstairs, so he volunteered as mid day nanny for Chloe. I would get text updates that I would check during my breaks in my work day, to see if she was doing okay and eating enough food.

I ultimately switched her from her bladder formula to a critical care formula. It had more calories ect for cats who might be struggling to eat.

Things were good for a couple weeks, and then one day her weight plummeted, in a period of 24 hours. I was so panicked, and my job at the time was far from my home. I couldn't check on her during the day, I don't drive. Even if I could get time off work (fat chance) I couldn't afford to, I had hundreds of dollars in vet bills to pay. Then my friend was having a hard time getting her to eat at lunch and I was so scared. I spent the day at work anxious, trying not to cry. I knew what I was being faced with, and didn't want to admit it. I wasn't ready. Please if she can just eat some more I will have more time.

Then on a Saturday I came home from work, and I unlocked the door.

Every single day, she would get up from where ever she was in the house and greet me at the door as I came in. She had done it for the last decade, every day with out fail. Even the day before, she got up, with her tongue sorta peeking out the side of her mouth. she would waddle over and greet me for a pat on the head.

This Saturday, August 1st 2015 was the first day she didn't greet me at the door. I looked over to her cat bed, she had turned her head over the side to see me. I looked at her and she didn't want to get up. She looked sad for the first time in her life. I put down my bags, and went over and sat down next to the bed on the floor. I pat her on the head and I only said one thing.

"I know"

It was time for us to say goodbye. The personality she had the day she came home from the vet, that told me she was still comfortable and happy, was gone. Its not fair to keep her here anymore, losing weight and waiting to die. I was worried sick about her all week, and that was not how we should have spent our last week together. It was tough on both of us. So I had to grow up, and do the right thing.

I phoned the vet office, and booked her euthanasia and cremation for the next morning.
My roommate accompanied me for the appointment.

9 am on Sunday Aug 2nd 2015

And I had to go to work, at 11 am afterwards.
(Yeah, I couldn't even get the day off work)

I now have her ashes on my shelf in a box with this photo on it

10/10 Best Little Spoon

I was advertising a fundraiser with some of my jewelry, to raise money to cover her vet bills. If my friends wanted to toss in 10 bucks to help out, they should at least get something for it, like a pair of earrings or something. That's just how I was raised, every dollar has value and it doesn't come for free.

These were the earrings I was using to raise money for Chloe

My grandmother, who isn't even very fond of cats, offered to help me recoup the vet bill for her cremation. It took a huge weight off my shoulders. Hand outs are not something we ask for, or expect in our family. Some families, with out question, ones parents or grandparents would offer or be asked to help pay. This isn't how our family is, so it meant that much more that she reached out and offered a hand, just from seeing my Facebook posts about raising money for Chloe with my earrings. Over all it was about a thousand dollars for the diagnosing, euthanasia and cremation.

I think about Chloe every day, and I think back to the times where she wanted affection and I was too busy to take time to cuddle with her. Maybe I had to do chores around the house on my only day off, or I was trying to make dinner, or carrying a load of groceries in and had no free hands to pet her.

The fact that I didn't get as much time with her as I expected taught me that sometimes the world can wait. The dishes, will be there tomorrow. I have more clothes that I think I do, and eventually, yeah. the laundry will get done.

Take time.

Its okay to spend half of your day off cuddling your cat on the couch.
That's you + her time. Its important.

You NEVER know when your time is up.
With your pets, or with anyone.

This lesson made me a better cat Mom for Arya.
She is the kitty I have now, also a rescue.
I will introduce her in a up coming post very soon

It has made me a better friend, and a better person.
I still need to work on making time for the people I love.

I don't spend enough time with my family, they live 4 hours away.
I don''t drive and they don't travel.
10 years goes by so much more quickly than you think.

Chloe was there for me in that 10 year span, and I didn't spend much of it being there for my family.
I wasn't there when Jack our family dog was also diagnosed with cancer and had to be put down. He was younger than Chloe when he was diagnosed.

We thought we had more time.

I said goodbye to him on the phone, again, because I couldn't get out of work.

So I am still working on trying to be there. I make time for the people here the best I can.
Its a struggle and it always will be.

Every time I think about Chloe I'm reminded how important it is.

Sometime today, think about someone you love, and make time.

/crawls out of the bushes 5 years later "Sup Guys"

Hey everyone! I have neglected this blog for a really long time, so Im probably speaking to... no one. But thats okay, Im going to make an effort to return to this at least once a week and also regurgitate some neat stuff to share with you from time to time also.

So lets just kind of go over what I have been up to since uhhhh 2013? Jesus Christ.

So In 2011 I started making jewelry, and I've come a REALLY long way with it! You could look back on the archive and see but really, you should just see where its at now. much better.

Elle My Belle is all hypoallergenic posts, hooks and chains. I find pendants from various corners of the internet, take things apart and design something new for sensitive skin! Neat huh!

I had been spending the last two years running the front desk at a very busy salon in town, but with recent changes in ownership things ended up not working out. I'm now only working part time with a different salon, and I am loving it very much. Its giving me time to work on my home business, and take some time to blog here with you guys! I might even blog about the salon at some point, we are doing some REALLY cool stuff for Halloween so stay tuned.

SO with that said I recently opened up a shop online for my Jewelry to serve as my second job! Im hoping that you guys will take a minute and check it out, and tell me what you think! If you think its neat, you can share items or pin them on Pinterest. Even if you don't shop this kind of stuff really helps people get their stuff out there!

Pretty neat huh! Im going to spend 1 day a week on my computer or in my studio working on Elle My Belle and my Blogs ^_^ Im so excited!

I will be blogging about Elle My Belle, My Cat, My Life, My Dumb Opinions and many other things.