Measure twice ...

We’ve recently been concerned about the sudden appearance of “bumps” on our cat Buster’s throat. They felt like blisters or hives, seem to slowly come and go, and had begun to increase in size. After a couple of weeks, we asked S-I-L Dana for some advice. She said it appeared to be an allergic reaction – possibly to the new cat food we had begun introducing Buster to, a few weeks prior. We immediately began to switch her back to the previous food (which she preferred anyway due to it’s higher fat content).

But once we heard the word “reaction” we began to seriously consider another concern we had; the state of our newly painted basement floor. When we moved-in, the basement was completely unfinished and it had been recommended to us that we seal it with masonry paint, to help ward off dampness. After further consultation at our local Home Hardware store, we did exactly that; a rather big, very stinky job of painting four walls and the floor. The basement did indeed seem drier and looked much better. A number of weeks ago, the paint began to disintegrate in high traffic areas (such as there is “high traffic” in a two person house) and we noticed we occasionally tracked fine dust upstairs into the main floor. Could this be Buster’s allergen? We re-read the volumes of text on the left-over, half-full can of paint (can 5 or 6 I believe) and it indeed said “Not for use on floors”. Unwilling to take any chances, we’ve begun scrubbing, with water and a couple of wire brushes, the entire basement floor. For the dozenth time, we learned the old carpenter’s lesson; “measure twice, cut once”. We should have read everything two times (or once, very carefully) as the removal is more than twice the job of painting.

As for Buster, she’s healing nicely, due to whatever irritant we’ve removed, and to the fact of Robin playing pet nurse twice a day, cleaning, medicating and drying her throat. Fingers-crossed we haven’t made any other such mistakes, or will make any such mistakes again.