Sorry for the long delay

I will try to catch up on what has been happening the past month. First and most importantly, we lost our sweet little Iona who I had been working so hard with to tame. In the 8 weeks she was with us she turned into a very sweet girl who loved petting and who learned how to play with toys and with the other cats. She was really enjoying herself for the first time in her life. We think that during the surgery to place the pin in her leg she picked up an infection we did not know about. This bacteria spread slowly into her bone and then all through her body. Her other health issues we were dealing with masked symptoms until it was too late. She stopped eating and we took her to the vet. The two antibiotics they gave her did not help so we took her back in 3 days. The vet knew she had to have a stronger antibiotic even if there were risks involved if we were going to save her. He gave her an injection of gentamycin. She was allergic to this drug and she suddenly collapsed and stopped breathing. They gave her oxygen and tried to stimulate her to breathe. I gave CPR. All this did not help and in a few minutes her heart stopped. We buried Iona in the front yard next to a small lemon tree where she used to look out the window. The vet thinks the germ was already systemic throughout her body and in her weakened condition the gentamycin pushed her over the edge.

I have been extremely distraught over her death as I had become so close to her. Shortly after her death I developed eczema and had to go to the dermatologist. He said that it was the worst case of eczema he had seen in his 40 years of practice. He gave a cortisone shot, prednisone pills, and the strongest steroid cream made. I have been dealing with this for the past 3 weeks. It is about 75% cleared now and hopefully in another week or two it will clear up completely. I've been sleeping an hour or two at a time before waking up with the dryness, burning, and itching. If anyone out there needs a great moisturizer I can recommend Cerave lotion. It is very gentle on the skin but helps to lock in moisture better than any other moisturizer I've found. Even with this my skin absorbs it quickly and I have to put it on several times each day and then sit under a vaporizer.

That is pretty much what my life has been like for the past month. Hopefully after I finish healing I will be able to get back to my photography. In the meantime here is the last photo taken of our sweet Iona. Even that last evening she still managed to play with Sam through the baby gates, slapping playfully with him. She enriched my life and I miss her so much.