02.25.2021 - Terrence Marks:

We're back! Update schedule is, well, we'll see how things go. We thank you all for coming back.

06.25.2020 - Terrence Marks:

So how are we doing?

Well, main thing is comics are on hold until further notice.

Physically? We're ok. We're staying indoors. We work from home. Haven't left the house in months apart from vet appointments, and we know we're both lucky that we're able to do that. If you can stay home or socially distance or wear a mask, we really appreciate it and thank you for it. We want this whole pandemic thing to be over, because, like everybody else we're kinda tired of it by now. But still staying home.

Mentally? Kinda bad right now, to be honest. 2020 kinda sucks. Everything is just so much right now. It's hard to be creative.

Comics? On hold until further notice. I really don't know if or when we'll be back. I'm sorry. Some days it feels like we've been slowly running out of steam for a long while and these are not energizing times. If we come back, I'd rather we do it vigorously instead of in fits and starts as life wears us back down. I'd hate to say we're coming back, then we don't or we stop after a few updates.

Expiration is turned off for NamirDeiter.net accounts. If you supported us, we sincerely appreciate it and hope you enjoy the backlog of content we have up there.

Cats? Doing surprisingly well so far. Buttons' thyroid treatment was a success. She's put on at least two pounds, which is good since she was on the low side of four pounds before all this. Momo is still around. Her kidneys weren't in great shape at the start of all this and they're very unlikely to have improved. She's doing better than we expected, but we know that won't last forever. Every extra day we have with her is a blessing and we're grateful for it. Beowulf is doing good, to the best of our knowledge. He doesn't have any complaints as long as we feed him before we feed the other cats.

05.08.2020 - Terrence Marks:

Buttons has been upgraded to "hardly radioactive at all" and we no longer have to socially distance from our own cats. To be honest, she's kinda standoffish and we're not 100% sure that she noticed. But we did and we're glad to have her back in melee range.

04.23.2020 - Terrence Marks:

Buttons is doing well. She got the treatment on Tuesday and we're picking her up Saturday. It turns out that I misspoke about the treatment. Y'see, it's not that we have to wait to pick her up until she's no longer radioactive.

We have to wait until she's less radioactive. What's the difference? Twelve days, apparently. So we get her back sooner but shouldn't be next to her for more than an hour a day. We'll see how she feels about that when she comes back. She might decide that that's an hour too much.

But even if she's not on speaking terms for a few days, we'll be glad to get her back. There is, globally, kind of a lot going on right now and we could stand to have, at least personally have one thing back to normal.

04.17.2020 - Terrence Marks:

There is no comic today. It is difficult to be creative in these times. We're doing what we can, but it is going slowly. In addition to everything generally going on the world, well, let me tell you about our weekend.

Our cat Buttons has hyperthyroidism. This is a common thing in older cats. The various autonomic body functions are running at a faster rate than they're supposed to. Higher body temperature. Burning extra calories. Increased heart rate.

It's like overclocking, except without the resultant increase in performance. (Her job evaluations are on the criteria of "Be a cat". It's strictly pass/fail). And it's on hardware that isn't designed for this and is wearing out faster than it should, resultingly.

We've tried medicine, which had side effects, and iodine-free cat food, which she refused to eat. This weekend, we're taking her in for radioiodine therapy, which will destroy the overactive parts of her thyroid and bring her back to the manufacturer's specifications.

It's a simple, quick procedure. The part that takes several days is that they can't give her back to us until she's no longer radioactive. So we're nervous. And hopeful, because we know this is what's best for her in the long run. But still, nervous. We hope your weekend is going well.

04.10.2020 - Terrence Marks:

These are stressful times for all of us. Isabel is working on the comic, but it's slow going under the circumstances. We're going to try for one update a week. We hope things get better, both in a global sense and for our productivity.
Momo update: she's doing better. She's not going to get well, but she's doing better. Well enough to fight back when we try to medicate her, at least. She's a fuzzy lump who enjoys napping, usually on top of Isabel. I figure that's normal for a fifteen-year-old cat.

03.12.2020 - Terrence Marks:

So, one day later how's Momo doing?

After a night at the emergency vet, we took her to our regular vet for further treatment. She has not responded significantly to 24 hours of IV fluids. Her various levels are still much higher than they should be. We knew this was a possibility. I'm glad we tried, though.

She's not going to get better. She's going to get worse and we don't know when or how much or how fast. There's always the question of how bad one is willing to let things get. We don't want her to suffer.

She's home now. We're giving her subcutaneous fluids but do not expect that it will improve the situation. It will, hopefully, keep her at her current level for longer.

Where do we go from here? None of the options remaining to us are appealing. But there are decisions to be made. We may never know if what we choose is the right one. We can only hope we choose it for the right reasons.

More prosaically, this is weighing heavily on our minds. It has been all of our thoughts and most of our day. As such, the comic is going to be delayed a bit. What we have here is a sketch from an untitled project.