{"id":20434,"date":"2021-09-07T00:10:29","date_gmt":"2021-09-07T04:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/?p=20434"},"modified":"2021-09-04T14:25:57","modified_gmt":"2021-09-04T18:25:57","slug":"sweet-senior-sixteen-happy-birthday-to-zee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/sweet-senior-sixteen-happy-birthday-to-zee\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Senior Sixteen – Happy Birthday to Zee!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Happy. Grateful. Blessed.<\/strong> These are the feelings I have when thinking of our Zee who is celebrating his 16th birthday today. Last year gave us a scare. Zee had been losing significant weight, he was lethargic, and he was drinking water excessively. A trip to the vet gave the initial prognosis of diabetes, with us going through the traumatic experience of drawing blood from a vein in his ear each morning (maybe twice a day, depending on the results) to test his glucose level in order to determine his proper insulin injection amount.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, it turned out to be a false prognosis, something that is not uncommon when diagnosing diabetes. Cats under stress, such as from the experience of the veterinary visit often have high glucose concentrations in their blood (called stress hyperglycemia) and after further tests, he was diagnosed with a hyperthyroid.<\/p>\n

After a change in diet and a small dose of methimazole twice a day, Zee has slowly gained and maintained his weight and he\u2019s doing well. He\u2019s not the same cat he was a couple of years ago, but considering his senior age that’s to be expected and we\u2019re grateful for every single second of his company we\u2019re blessed with. He\u2019s a lot clingier than he used to be, literally spending much of the day as close to Dan or me as he can get.<\/p>\n

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Zee lying next to me and my computer while I work.<\/p><\/div>\n

This can get a bit awkward as his athleticism is not what it used to be, so when he jumps up on tables and desks where we keep our computers to be next to us it can be a challenge for him not to knock everything over with his clumsiness or wreak havoc on the computer keyboard. But how can you say no to him? He\u2019s just so endearing and all he wants is to be next to those he loves.<\/p>\n

When he\u2019s not next to one of us, he\u2019s typically napping on the couch, often settling between two pillows for extra comfort for hours at a time. Despite the extra napping, he does have incredible spurts of energy. He still enjoys playing chase the human, a game in which we\u2019ll run and he\u2019ll run behind us to get us, and he still brings an occasional stuffed toy to us as a gift. This is especially the case recently as I\u2019m finding the need to be on more Zoom calls in the evening, taking time away from our couch time. He will very politely let me know with a meow and plush gift that he\u2019d like me to wrap up the call so we can be together.<\/p>\n

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Zee spends much of his time napping on the couch, nestled between two pillows.<\/p><\/div>\n

His feline family still loves him immensely, too, and often he\u2019ll be surrounded by Zoey, Mia, Peanut, and Rolz, or any combination thereof, sometimes also joined by Jazmine or Kizmet. Shadow doesn\u2019t join in, but that doesn\u2019t mean he doesn\u2019t like Zee, he\u2019s just still too wary for any group snuggles with the gang, primarily thanks to Jazmine who still can\u2019t find it in her to accept he\u2019s part of the household even though deep down we suspect she has a crush on him.<\/p>\n

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Peanut, Zoey, and Mia are surrounding Zee.<\/p><\/div>\n

Nights are the most interesting. Sometimes he insists on staying on the couch when I finally go to bed and other times, he\u2019ll follow me in like an eager puppy, happy to spend the night swapping his time with Dan and me in bed, typically sleeping on top of one of our heads or next to us. I\u2019m also grateful for those moments, even if he sometimes drools while sleeping, or if he makes it awkward for me to get comfortable. That\u2019s what loving a cat is all about as we know the time we get with them is precious and fleeting.<\/p>\n

Happy birthday, Zee. We love you so, so much!<\/p>\n

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We are blessed to have an enclosed outdoor area where we can bring the cats for a few minutes of fresh air. Zee loves these moments so very much.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy. Grateful. Blessed. These are the feelings I have when thinking of our Zee who is celebrating his 16th birthday today. Last year gave us a scare. Zee had been losing significant weight, he was lethargic, and he was drinking water excessively. A trip to the vet gave the initial prognosis of diabetes, with us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1124,1097,1099],"tags":[875,1162,1359,5],"class_list":["post-20434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cat-events","category-multi-cat-home","category-the-zee-zoey-cats-and-family","tag-cat-birthday","tag-cat-celebrations","tag-senior-cat","tag-zee"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/zee-BD-16-2021.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20434"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20447,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20434\/revisions\/20447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zeezoey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}