The Saunterer

Mark Van Doren on the artist's duty to society

    To Mark Van Doren, the artist’s duty is to make society better at its core:

Society continues to change, and there are those who say it is already the monster we have feared. Whatever in truth it is, the artist ought to be one of the first to understand it, to sympathize with its predicament, and to start making it better at the core. He might even become a philosopher or a politician in order to do this well; but short of that, he can think more deeply and feelingly than he has done about the courage it now takes to be the sort of individual whose dignity matters more than wars and revolutions, more than welfare and the sovereignties of states. Such dignity is given to no one. It has to be created in the mind, by slow and painful stages, amid the total darkness of other men’s refusal to make the attempt at all. But once it is created, it proves everything. And once it is created in an artist whose ambition is otherwise unbounded - and whose skill - it becomes the final excellence of which the rest of us had dreamed. It could even change again the changing world. (Quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 334.)
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    For a brief biography of Mark Van Doren, click here.

Yes, there is a good remedy for cats with kidney disease

This summer our 19-year-old cat’s kidneys began failing. His lethargy said that. His blood tests confirmed it. The vet suggested injecting subcutaneous fluids. Within a day he was the cat of old. Three months later his blood tests are normal. Partly because this weblog usually comes up high on the list in searches, and partly because we want to share the advice  below with others with cats with failing kidneys, we are taking a day’s break from the normal nature of our posts, to share the following two e-mails that were sent just before we began treating our cat.

Mike,

We are going to have to inject water under the skin of one of our cats, as you have done. Have you any tips for making this go well?
Thanks.
Charles
   
Hi Charles,

Yes. We have years of experience with this. First, I hope you are not injecting water, which is harmful. What you will be injecting is a solution having water and much more (electrolytes, etc. - lactated ringer's solution).

Do you have a cat that has been diagnosed with kidney failure? This is common and is controlled with subcutaneous fluids. Cats respond to it very well. We have been treating cats with this for years. One cat was diagnosed with kidney failure 1999. She is still with us. Cats respond extremely well to this; dogs do not.

Giving the fluids is easy, if the cat doesn't fight back. We had one cat, however, that did fight back. At first I thought it would be impossible to give her fluids. So, I gave the cat no choice. After only a few days of this being unpleasant for the cat, she gave up and happily received fluids for the next two years.

My tips are:

Always insert the needle quickly; there is a certain feel to it and it does NOT hurt the cats; after a while, the cats don't even flinch; placing the needle will quickly become second nature to you; never use the same needle more than once; they get dull; buy needles by the box; place all used needles in a bio-hazard container (you can get one at any pharmacy in town) and the Landfill will dispose of it properly for you when it’s full (you must take full ones to landfill).

Have a two to four feet fall for the fluids. Give only as much as your vet has prescribed; do exactly what your vet says. The best place to place the needle is on the cat's scruff. If the cat fights back, don’t give up; it may take a few weeks to get him/her to accept the routine. Hold the cat down, by the scruff, and give him/her the fluids. If he/she gets away, let him/her go; try again the next day. Often, if the cat is eating, they don't even notice the needle.

Giving subcutaneous fluids has extended the lives of our cats by years, with excellent quality of life. It works.

Having followed Mike’s advice, the only tips we can add are to have the fluid at room temperature, and it may help to have two people involved, one to hold and soothe the cat and the other to do the injection. Of course have the cat on the special food that vets sell for cats with kidney problems.

Your vet will prescribe how much fluid to inject and how often. For our cat, it’s once a week and takes about five minutes. It’s turned a cat that wasn’t with it into one that is.

For comprehensive information on kidney disease in cats, click here.

John Gardner on excellence as the lifeblood of democratic societies

    A free society that loses its urge to set and achieve the highest standards risks its survival, believed John Gardner:

Those who are most deeply devoted to a democratic society must be precisely the ones who insist upon excellence, who insist that free men are capable of the highest standards of performance, who insist that a free society can be a great society in the richest sense of that phrase. The idea for which this nation stands will not survive if the highest goal free men can set themselves is an amiable mediocrity. (Quoted from The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 300.)

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    For a brief biography of John Gardner, click here.