Yesterday Papa gave me a bit of boiled pasta. I like it very much because it's warm and tender. He says that one piece is enough for me, but I don't agree. I want as many as he can give me. This is what I do:

First, I wait until he's not paying attention. I know when he's looking somewhere else because he takes his camera and looks at it instead of me. While he can't see me I put the piece of pasta in my cheek pouch.

When he looks again I just have to do one of my I-don't-know-what-pasta-you're-talking-about faces and look at him and wait. Often he gives me another piece.

I'm sure he has no idea about what happened to the first one he gave me!

On Friday morning I prepared Flan's carrier and left home early to be at Dr. Ozawa's clinic as soon as it was open. When he saw her he noticed that there was some pus coming out from under her tail. She hadn't had pus the night before or I would have noticed, as she slept in my hands for several hours. Dr. Ozawa said that her condition was very, very bad, and that this time her uterus was certainly infected. He would have to operate Flan again immediately, but recovery was very unlikely even with surgery. I filled the surgery agreement forms and left Flan with him. I had the feeling that this was going to be a good-bye.

I had been able to sleep just two hours the night before, so when I came back home I called my office to give notice that I would go to work in the afternoon. I went to bed.

A few hours later the phone woke me up. It was my wife. She had been talking with Dr. Ozawa on the phone. He said that he had operated Flan, but after the surgery her heartbeat was very weak. I woke up and started packing her cage. I was going to take it to Dr. Ozawa's clinic because I didn't want Flan to be on her small carrier all the time if she was going to be in the clinic for three days like the previous time. My wife called again. There was no need to take Flan's cage anymore. She had died already.

We went at night to take Flan's body home. Dr. Ozawa had bought a small bunch of flowers for her.

Back at home, I wrapped her in the same kind of tissue paper that I use for their nests. We would bury her in the morning, so I placed her on the nest in her cage. She spent her last night at home there.

On Saturday morning we took her to Mount Takao and buried her not far from the place where we buried Julita almost two years ago.

It's 4:25am here now. Flan has been sleeping most of the time. On a couple of ocasions she has woken up and left the scarf where she has been sleeping. She's not paralyzed after all. Both times she stopped for air after walking just a few steps on my bed. She seems to have some trouble breathing. In both occasions I took her in my hands and she just lay there breathing hard. After she recovered I put her back on the scarf. I put some of her nest's tissue paper on it so she will find its smell familiar.Just a while ago she woke up again. I offered her some egg and she gladly took it. She ate a lot, then had the breathing problems again. When I took her in my hands this time she wasn't cold. I put her again on her new bed and covered her. She's sleeping again.

I should sleep an hour or two, because I have to take her to see Dr. Ozawa in the morning and I'll have to leave home at 8:00 if I want to be there as soon as he opens.

Tonight I had to stay at work until late. When I arrived home just an hour ago the first thing I did was check how Flan was doing. I found her lying in a corner of her cage outside her nest. I thought she was eating, but when she noticed me she tried to move. She only managed to move the upper part of her body, and she looked scared, very scared. I took her in my hand carefully. Her hind legs were cold and rigid. I think she is paralyzed.

I have wrapped her in a towel to make sure she's not cold. I have hand-feeded her some egg, and now she's in my lap as I write this, wrapped in her towel. She's sleeping.

It's almost 1:00am here. I will take her to the vet first thing in the morning.

Last week I took Flan to the vet because I was worried that she was too fat. Dr. Ozawa didn't find anything wrong with her. He said that she is too fat and needs to lose weight, and told me to put her on diet.

Earlier this week I checked Flan and Nana after I woke up, as every morning. I noticed that Flan had blood under her tail, so I prepared her travel cage and took her to see Dr. Ozawa. He decided that the best would be to give her an echography to see what was wrong.

The echography showed dark areas inside her tummy. He explained that these could mean pus and that there was a very high possibility of pyometra (an infection of the uterus), and that Flan would have to have surgery as soon as possible. If it was indeed pyometra then Flan's womb would have to be removed. He explained that not having surgery would certainly mean Flan's passing away in a few days. Surgery would at least give her a chance. I agreed to the surgery and left Flan there with the doctor.

In the afternoon Dr. Ozawa called. When he operated Flan he saw that it wasn't pyometra. Instead, it was a blood clot neat the womb. He removed it. He said that Flan would have to stay at least three days in the hospital.

I went to see her the next morning. She was sleeping in her nest, and when I offered her a bit of boiled egg she took it and started eating, but she looked stressed and scared. I cleaned her cage right there and went to work. I visited her the following day too. One of the doctor's assistants told me that Flan wasn't eating well and that they had to hand-feed her, so I grew worried. However, when I saw her and gave her some fresh food, she took it from my fingers and started eating.

On Friday, Dr. Ozawa said that she was recovering well and she was eating again normally, so I could bring her back home again. I cleaned her big cage and put a thick layer of clean hay on it, but looked like she wasn't comfortable walking on it. I put her back in her travel cage while I replaced the hay with stripped newspapers and tissue paper. She didn't complain anymore.

Very carefully I took a photo of her tummy:

Next Saturday we'll go again to see Dr. Ozawa because he has to remove the stitches.

She is now sleeping most of the time and doesn't go out of her nest much. I guess that's normal after being operated. Apart from that, she's eating normally and can go to the toilet without problems. I saw her drinking from her water bottle yesterday.

She's getting extra treats for being so brave.