bioenergetics

On parle du loup

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Louis Catorze’s new favourite place to sleep is the laundry basket. This is not ideal, by any means, as dead skin cells on dirty clothes are like an all-you-can-eat banquet to dust mites, but I guess it’s slightly preferable to the Forbidden Greenhouse. (I asked Cat Daddy if we could lay a clean towel on top of the pile of clothes in the laundry basket, to prevent Louis Catorze’s body from making contact with the dirty clothes. He said no.)

Unfortunately the allergy is back, in spite of our sustained efforts with the anti-allergy and anti-dust mite measures. The edges of his eyes are starting to look thick, bald and puffy again, and his chin area is quite horrible to look at and touch. On the positive side, it doesn’t seem to be affecting his spirits too much and he’s still managing to drive us insane with his stupid shit.

His latest “thing” is to become super-vocal, and by this I don’t simply mean he meows more: he’s taken to howling when he comes into the room, simply to announce his arrival, and he actually flings his head back with his chin pointing to the sky, like a coyote baying at the moon. It’s quite hilarious to watch at times. Mind you, I wish someone would tell him that 4am is not one of those times. And, naturellement, Louis Catorze won’t do it whilst being filmed.

This week he needs to have a fur sample retested by the bioenergetics company, and his pendant – which I’ve only just found again after he kicked it under the bed – reprogrammed in line with the new results. I don’t know how they will do it or whether it will help, but, as the silly sod has over-scratched and drawn blood yet again, I need to do SOMETHING.

J’adore mon pendentif

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It’s all been happening here at Le Château. On Thursday night we were due to go to my sister’s place in East London for a weekend of flat-sitting and sightseeing (she’s away on holiday at the moment), so we made provisions for the little girl next door to feed Le Roi. However, for some reason we were unable to get into my sister’s flat, so we had to come home again … and it was just as well, because our cleaner had shut Le Roi in the Forbidden Bedroom, where he would have remained until Saturday afternoon had we stayed away.

Fortunately his pathetic meowing alerted us to his predicament, so we were able to release him immediately. And, even more fortunately, he hadn’t been imprisoned for long enough to need les toilettes; our brand new rococo mirror is lying on the Forbidden Bedroom floor until we can find the wherewithal to hang it up, and I’m certain that it would have been in the firing line.

After spending Thursday night glued to my chest and whining like a lost dog, Louis Catorze either recovered from his trauma or forgot that it ever took place (I’m guessing the latter). He spent most of Friday morning sunning himself on our bed, then went outside to sniff bugs for several hours.

Health-wise he is continuing to do well, with an almost scab-free under-chin area, increased energy and a voracious appetite that seems to have come from nowhere; he’s not eating a lot compared to most cats, yet this is the most I’ve ever seen him eat. He also seems to have forgotten about the very existence of the Forbidden Greenhouse, and not only is he continuing to sleep on our nice clean bed instead, but he seems to actually seek out the bioenergetics pendant (just visible in the photo); I often wonder whether he’s knocked it onto the floor, and then I discover that it’s underneath him.

I know that, at some stage, our bubble will burst and his allergy will return, because that’s the way it is with him. But, for now, I’m enjoying this little period of positivity.

J’adore mon nouveau lit

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Good news: Louis Catorze has found a new day bed which isn’t the greenhouse. Bad news: it’s in my suitcase of not-yet-unpacked-because-there’s-nowhere-to-put-them clothes, including an unworn t-shirt with the label still attached, which I was intending to return to the shop.

Luckily my gratitude that he hasn’t picked a dusty sleeping spot outweighs my crossness about the t-shirt, so I’ve resisted the temptation to drag him out. It is, however, mildly annoying that he would prefer to be here than on any of the vast array of expensive anti-allergy human and pet bedding that we have all over Le Château.

I decided there was nothing much I could do but make the best of it, so I flung his bioenergetics pendant into the suitcase with him. I often wake up in the night worried that the pendant has fallen off the bed, or anxious that Louis Catorze is sleeping further away from it than the minimum requirement of 3 inches. Also, in my half-asleep scrabble around to try and locate it, my hand wanders uncomfortably close to Louis Catorze’s arse and then I have to get up and wash it. (My hand, I mean.)

So it’s a multiple and universal win: my boy gets to keep his sleeping place of choice, he gets close proximity to, and therefore maximum absorption of, the pendant’s magical healing rays, and I get a more restful night’s sleep without fear of touching his lower portions. Let’s just hope a piece of scrunched Sellotape will do the job on my t-shirt, and that the shop won’t realise that it’s had cat hair and cat arse on it.

La poussière, Partie 2

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Somebody is banned from the gross, dusty greenhouse, and that somebody’s name starts with “L” and ends with “ouis Catorze”. Can you guess who it is?  Little sod’s eyes have been looking leathery and weepy again, so the greenhouse is now officially out of bounds. (I told him this the other day but he ignored me, sneakily bypassing my human blockade and escaping out of the bathroom window via the toilet cistern.) I don’t know where he’s going to go for his daytime mega-nap, but that’s his problem to fix.

Curiously, he wasn’t TOO bad with the dust from all the building work going on, which got me wondering whether inorganic dust from freshly-sanded walls could somehow be more sterile, and therefore more tolerable, than organic dust teeming with stale cobwebs and the remains of dead flies? In fact … don’t cobwebs pretty much come from a spider’s arse? Ugh.

Anyway, it was the perfect time to FINALLY find Louis Catorze’s bioenergetics remedy, which consists of a liquid to drop into his drinking water and a bioenergetics pendant to place in his bedding. He tends to sleep with us at night so I will be putting the pendant in our bed, much to Cat Daddy’s amusement – although, if he and I also emerge from this exercise glossy-haired and smooth-skinned thanks to the pendant’s magical force field, he will be forced to mange his mots.

Whether you believe in alternative medicine or not, something about the pendant is drawing Louis Catorze. I left them both on the bed this morning about 5cm apart, and my boy had his back to the pendant. This is how I found them when I returned:   

Les résultats, Partie 2

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Louis Catorze’s remedy from the bioenergetics company arrived just before the move but, along with a lot of other stuff, it’s trapped among boxes in the living room and I can’t get to it. Luckily he’s doing really well at the moment, both physically and in spirit, so I haven’t needed it desperately. The analysis that accompanied it was like a foreign language to me, as was the letter explaining it. The one bit that I did understand, however, was: “Please allow 4-5 working days before calling us to discuss the readings”, so presumably I’m not the only one.

I called them today, and it seems that my cat defies both conventional AND alternative medicine: once again, he displayed sensitivity to certain substances, but not strongly enough to be causing such extreme symptoms. The bioenergetics lady said she couldn’t understand it at all. So Louis Catorze is a weirdo on many levels (although we kind of suspected this anyway).

Anyway, the offending substances are:

  • Egg yolk
  • Flax seed
  • Rabbit (not a concern as the chances of him catching one are slim-to-zero)
  • Fennel (I know he’s royalty, but really?)
  • Pigeon and chicken droppings
  • Feathers (the only one which didn’t come as a surprise to me, as he’s so much better when he’s kept away from the now-deceased Forbidden Feather Duvet)

The bioenergetics lady also confirmed receipt of my emails containing his medical history and the dreaded photos which I once swore I would never show to another living soul: the ones taken in January 2014 by Louis Catorze’s then-foster mamma, which show his allergy at its absolute worst. I had warned the bioenergetics lady beforehand that these photos were upsetting viewing, thinking that, as a professional who dealt regularly with this kind of thing, she’d have seen much worse. Unfortunately her response was: “Quite shocking.” Oh dear.

So I now need to get a move on in terms of clearing all those boxes and locating his stuff, so that I can start giving him the remedy.

I also spoke to the vet at the ex-rescue centre, who told me that they would be able to do the skin scraping test at the same time as the vaccination. Louis Catorze is not due there until mid-August, so he will have a good few weeks to settle into Le Château before being disrupted again. Poor thing probably has many more mountains to climb until he’s fully better, but it’s really good to feel that things are moving and that we’re taking active steps to find that solution.

Le Roi s’en fiche: vive Le Roi!

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Louis Catorze is pretty unconcerned about all the fuss and furore caused by his test results. Here he is, displaying his best “pretty unconcerned” look:


However, he’s also looking super-healthy, with glossy fur, virtually no scabs or broken skin, and bald patches that are slowly filling in. And he’s chatty, chirpy, swishy-tailed and full of energy. Something we’re doing is working for him right now; let’s hope it continues to do so for as long as possible.

We’ve had no news as yet from the vet about the skin scraping, so I’ve been looking into other possibilities. Some very kind friends recommended a bioenergetics company who analyse animal hair samples and prescribe a toxin-free remedy, so I’ve been in touch with them and requested a testing kit. The best thing about the remedy is that it can be dropped into Louis Catorze’s drinking water or onto his skin, as opposed to being syringed into his mouth after terrifying the life out of him with a surprise attack. Sometimes it’s all about the delivery: the best cure in the world is no good to me if violence and bloodshed are involved.

At £100 this remedy is not cheap but it has to be worth a go, just in case the western medicine route sends us down another dead end. I’m not sure if Cat Daddy will agree as he thinks alternative therapies are for hippy-dippy airheads who eat fairy dust and pink sparkles; that said, he never reads this, so I might just try it anyway and see how long it takes him to find out.