u/PidgeomBoy

Day 4 of Big Shaq (6 months, male) and he continues to delight the entire household. He's playful when the opportunity allows, but also happy to chill all day if needed. He's funny and goofy but also polite and dignified. He loves falling asleep right next to people either reaching to touch them with his paw or sticking one or both of his paws up until we gently hold it like we're holding his hand! (middle pictures)

I have an unknown heart condition that we monitor every 6 months (scans only show hypertension, aortic regurgitation, a mild murmur and mild stenosis - nobody knows why, I'm a young person with a healthy lifestyle) and today I had an episode in front of Big Shaq. These usually consist of my HR spiking for no good reason, tearing chest pains, waves of dizziness, vertigo and nausea, palpitations and heavy shortness of breath; and it always goes away by itself after a few hours or so. The first few times it happened years ago I was rushed to the ER, but no cause was found despite my HR inexplicably being 130+ on the monitors for hours at a time and my BP reading 159/62 while resting quietly on a gurney, so now it's just a scary and annoying unpredictable event that happens episodically. I'm on beta blockers but recently they stopped working like they used to.

I started having an episode in the kitchen while thinking about making lunch, and right away got up the stairs to lie in bed. Big Shaq immediately came and jumped on me and wouldn't leave. I laid down to rest and he started rubbing himself all over my arms until I started breathing a bit easier, then he laid next to me with his head on my stomach purring until the dizziness went away. Only then did he proceed to huff out a big sigh and shuffle around to get comfy and fall asleep on my arm smiling like "phew, job well done" (first picture).

It was only when I checked my watch data afterwards (last picture) that I realised that my resting HR had spiked to 140bpm, Big Shaq's intervention dropped it by 50bpm in 8 minutes (!!!), and then he continued purring next to me until it went back down the rest of the way to 73. That's a drop of nearly 70bpm during an event that normally would have had me feeling like death with a resting pulse of >110 for hours straight for reasons that are still a mystery medically.

I think Big Shaq might be magical and future foster kittens (we're coming into kitten season) may have to contend with a big brother keeping an eye out for them, because he is truly a one of a kind kitty. I've never in my life met a cat that acts so wise and human, and he's only a baby still. I'm not convinced he isn't an old guy who has been reincarnated into the body of a cat and who is just happy to have another go at life. I've never met a cat who plays openly with strangers, loves playing in water and doesn't care about getting wet, watches the vacuum with zero fear, doesn't try to abscond out an open front door at all, asks for specific wants with clearer non-verbal communication than some toddlers, deliberately flavours his daily clean water with a single piece of kibble like he's making cucumber water, likes belly rubs and his paws being held and being picked up and carried around - the list goes on! And now he has deliberately intervened - and significantly helped - during a medical episode. At this point I can't imagine giving him up after his foster period ends to go sit back in the tiny adoptions cage in the shelter to wait for days or weeks until he's adopted - I couldn't do that to him and I don't want to do that to myself either.

Hopefully Big Shaq likes it here because I'm pretty sure he's staying.

We got our first foster cateen today (6 month old boy, collected him 9 hours ago) and he's so dang polite and cool! It's just two adults and no other pets in a biggg house but we've both owned cats multiple times before.

We had him confined to one "foster room" set up to be big and comfy for the cats we foster because they need their own dedicated space, it has lots of blankets and beds and toys and hiding spots and multiple sunny warm window seats on both ends of the room looking out over a view. We were told he is supposed to stay in there for a few days up to the full two weeks he's with us in order to adjust, but he was literally making biscuits and purring in the carrier from the moment we collected him at the shelter to when we put him in his bedroom we set up for him, and then he walked straight out of the carrier demanding pats and belly flopping around and drinking water with full confidence so we were like "dang this cat has zero anxiety" - and then he cried with the saddest little meows for 10 minutes straight to be let out of his room after we left him to settle down so we made an executive decision to let him out for short stints to explore and be close to us (with close supervision).

He has politely explored every corner of the house while purring like a train. He happily comes up for pats but is also just 100% chill to wander and do his own thing most of the time, has eaten kibble and drank lots of water, and played with all of his toys with lots of joy and energy between bouts of falling asleep peacefully on me. He loves belly rubs weirdly enough and won't attack your hands at all during petting and play despite being a cateen and belly rubs usually being a trap; purrs like a train when being picked up and carried around and won't try to jump down which is also unusual; just... accepts redirection? (like moving him off the kitchen bench) beautifully and with zero protest, and just overall gives off the biggest "just stoked to be here guys" vibes. I also did the dishes and he hopped up and started smacking and drinking the water stream when the tap was on really excitedly and got suuuper wet fur all over from it so I turned it off and he went and licked himself dry no fuss at all. I've never known any cat to be so confident and chill at the same time! We've ended up calling him Big Shaq for some reason so I guess that is his foster name for now.

He has sneezed like 6 times since getting here and hasn't peed yet which worried me but we'll see how he is going over the next 24 hours. But I'm already like this cat is sooo cool compared to all the other cats I know/knew and I kinda don't want to have to say goodbye in two weeks time! How is everyone handling that side of fostering??

Pics of the last 9 hours:

1. Exploring his room for the first time, he got stubby lil legs like a dwarf
2. Biscuits on my bed after asking to come out of his room
3. Side-eye big biscuits
4. Downstairs biscuits on the spot on the couch he claimed
5. Carrying his Minecraft axolotl in his mouth (he really likes carrying little toys around in his mouth, very cute and polite)
6. Repeated sprawl spot in front of the dehumidifier, might enjoy the noise?
7. 30 seconds of cat tv before he launched himself at the screen at mach 3 and got an honestly impressive amount of airtime. No more cat tv for Big Shaq with that vertical ability 😌
8. Last pictures are all his different sleeping positions, he sleeps in the weirdest positions!!

I get lots of stray eyelashes growing backwards into my eye or randomly on my eyelid. I have to pluck the stray ones all the time and often one will be behaving and just decide to point down in my eye all of a sudden. The texture of them also varies dramatically, some are curly, some are dead straight, some are wonky in random directions, some are short and fine. This is right after a shower so no makeup.

I tried to get lash extensions once and the tech called over her coworker to come look, apparently a chunk of my eyelashes were as long as the longest ones they offered at the time which was 14mm. They make sunglasses super uncomfortable when I try to wear them and they touch my eyebrows when I look up. Wearing basic mascara gets me questions about my "extensions"! Unfortunately they are way more gappy and sparse then they were when I was younger because I had trich and pulled them out with my fingers constantly so a lot of them stopped growing back and this is what I'm left with.

You can see some tiny fine ones growing back that I plucked bc they were getting stuck inconveniently, growing in the wrong direction or sticking into my eye.

My son also has the same thing but he has one distinct row of long dark lashes like mine and a second distinct row of shorter blonder lashes like his dad (he has mosaicism).

Aura, palm reading, general vibes, health, anything really. I'm curious to see what people might be able to pick up from my hand!! Blank white background to hopefully make it easier.