pantherq needs our support. And shame on me for not stepping up on this sooner. Please follow the Paypal link embedded under the Daily Kos/Pride banner below and throw in any amount you can spare. We Kossacks rallied around refinish when he needed a hand getting resettled. We need to be here for pantherq and daughter as well. We don't have as many troops on the ground in the Portland area as we did in Austin, so we're here today to try to give pantherq a small leg up in this long, difficult battle that's been raging all around them for quite some time now. Please throw in a few bucks if you can afford to. Your support is greatly appreciated! Thanks. BTW- The rainbow logo just below IS the link to Paypal for your donations. Thanks again!
Or try this link to donate.
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from pantherq's last diary entree-
Under constant stress of financial uncertainty, I have to take a temporary hiatus. I have depleted my resources to the point where scanning the internet with impunity is an unaffordable luxury. Since I have been trying to get disability payments for a seizure condition and have been trying for several years already, the prospect of Social Security suddenly gaining a conscience and providing me with a means of supporting myself is no longer on my hope list. I just have to assume they will continue stringing me along until I finally expire from medical neglect, starvation, exposure, or yet another spectacular bashing incident.
pantherq isn't only coping with his own serious medical condition but has a dependent daughter with a medical condition in tow as well. Add to this mix a pair of service cats who have literally saved his life on at least one occasion and you get but a small taste of the hard times being coped with here.
Allow me to reintroduce the two service cats Julian has had with him, Tribbles and Tux.
Service cats you ask?
Pat Gonser, founder of Pets and People: Companions in Therapy & Service, started doing therapy work with one of her cats in the 1990s. She says that many people do not like dogs, but they need a service animal. These people can use a service cat instead. These service felines are able to alert when there is imminent danger. To alert you, the cat may paw at you or sit on your chest.
Since there is no organization that trains service cats, Pets and People provides help for people that want to train their own cats. Gonser says that starting with a kitten is best. Using clicker training, a cat can be taught to alert the arrival of a seizure. Cats, just like dogs, have an innate sense of when seizures are coming. Kittens can also be taught to use a telephone when the owner is unable to call for help.
from Newsday (link is behind a subscription wall)-
Some skeptics think cats are not inclined to such selflessness. "Certainly, some cats might circle around and really make it obvious to whoever else is there that there was a problem because they can sense the fluctuations in the energy," says feline behavior consultant Carole Wilbourn of Manhattan. "But I don’t know that they could be trained to do it on command, because you know what cats are like."
Gayle Knowlton, 49, of Tucson, Ariz., trained her first service cat more than a decade ago. Her most current one is Pushette Pudie - named for her less-than-shy demeanor - who Knowlton rescued at four days old from a drainage ditch during a downpour.
"I suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks, and I have seizures because of it," explains Knowlton, who didn’t want a service dog because, at the time, she was a vendor at cat shows, and the species shock would have been too much for her customers. When Pushette detects an impending seizure, "she becomes extremely guarded and won’t let anyone near us, and she strokes my face and gets me to focus directly on her." This can often avert a seizure, Knowlton adds, because the interaction lowers her blood pressure.
pantherq tells me that these amazing cats can actually sense when a seizure is about to happen, giving him ample warning to prepare himself, minimizing the chance of taking a more serious tumble and adding injury to already serious medical condition he is dealing with. After the seizure has occurred, the cats even help with his revival. Pretty amazing huh?
You get a glimpse of the picture of a remarkable individual trying to keep 6-8 balls in the air. In his spare time pantherq blogs with us and is a fierce advocate for GLBTQ rights here at Daily Kos. We in WGLB are blessed to have such an amazing group of contributors to our friday series. The more I learn of this group of folks the more inspired and awed by them I become.
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I'm going to request that you skip over our WGLB - ActBlue donation page this week and throw any money towards us helping pantherq and daughter getting resettled and in a stable environment. Thanks.
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Have you signed our petition to encourage the World Cup organizers to honor Eudy Simelane and all of the South African women who have suffered "corrective rape" at the hands of homophobic thugs? The 2010 FIFA World Cup is being held in South Africa and Eudy was raped and murdered in part for her love of the game of soccer/football and in part for her living an open life as a lesbian. We're only at 131 signers to date. PLEASE take a second and add your voice!