Because of my successes

Janie Betta is still kicking, but not by much. I say that daily. Success here is defined by her still being alive. Essentially, she won't die, not that we want her to, and she's become my science experiment. The main betta care website says to not play god and don't kill them, because they bounce back, so I keep saving her and playing atheist god anyway, by default. Beginning last Sunday, she's gone through tetracycline for half a day, several days of erythromycin, several days of both tetracycline and erythromycin combined, and then extra super strength tetracycline and erythromycin combo.

The photo above shows how her tail droops. She can still splay the end occasionally and she can turn a loop, but her tail doesn't work to help her swim. It means she has an internal infection as well as the cotton mouth bacterium externally.

After less than a day on super strength double antibiotics, this morning she had streamers of cottony bacteria off her upper fin. This is one stubborn infection, but as long as Janie Betta sticks around to be treated, I will try to make her better. Today, I'll go buy minocycline, which is absorbed through the skin, thus good for internal and external infections. There's one last combo antibiotic left that I could buy after this one. In addition to the antibiotics, she gets copper II sulfate and aquarium salts. I read in one place that increasing aquarium salts could leech out the extra internal fluids, but I haven't tried that yet.

This shows how her swollen body gives her a twist. Her left side gill has been more inflamed than the right, but her right torso is more swollen. She's still very aware, though. Each time I raised the camera, she ducked away to the other side of her bowl. Or she'd go to the curves of the bowl so I couldn't see her at all. When it was just me, she came close. She's a smart little fish.

BTW, the fabric is from my quilting days. When I took all the rocks and plant out of Janie's bowl, it glowed like a beacon due to the light above, so I put fabric under it, not intending to pick fabric that looks like rocks. Alas, it works.

Memphie tells J a secret, but it's no secret. Memphie loves it here. He's a success story. He's become a bed cat. He sleeps on top at night now, so I've finally seen him sleep. He likes to lay at my calf level between thrashing J and I, which makes for a crowded bed, actually a good thing in my book.

Here he props his head on my calf, his favorite night time stance. One of his other favorite things is to get his belly rubbed and he'll roll around with glee. His goal, though, is to have his lower abdomen rubbed and for your hand to rest between his legs as in this picture. I would say he's such a guy, but I like to sleep with my hand between my legs, too.

I've largely gotten him adjust to proper days and nights. Around midnight, he started playing last evening, but that was fine - much better than 2am.

We're still cleaning his ears, but he's pretty good about it. He goes back to the vet in a week for more shots and I sure would like to not have to worry about mites any longer. I am very allergic to mites, a gift from when Sad!e was wee and infested for many months.

Memphie's skin is dandruffy, so I decided to feed him canned fish several days ago; I had almost two cases left from Sad!e days. Now he asks for it in his sweet, girly meow, urging me downstairs. I'm changing up the times I give this treat so that he doesn't get too accustomed to it. I didn't want a canned food cat again, but it is for health reasons again. I have a bag of Nutro hard food for him to start soon and have begun mixing it in with the Hill's; Nutro has the proper Omega 3 and 6 nutrition, so it should help, too.

Further, I believe Mem.phis has tapeworms, so I have two reasons to go to the pet store today.