moggy_woobies

Does the Universe simply hate my household...?

2007-12-18T02:48:16Z

We ended up going to ACC after all, since the other place's vet evidently had a crappy attitude about giving us directions to their emergency center (I didn't talk to her), and dealing with someone combative that also doesn't realize I have any knowledge about vet care didn't appeal to me.

So last night, they gave him a shot of Pepcid AC (famotidine, not unusual) and ran a blood panel, then had us give him 100ml sub-q fluids at home. He has no interest in food, water, or the litterbox.

This morning, they called and informed us that his creatinine & BUN -- kidney values (where lower is better) -- are quite high. Three possibilities:
1) Acute renal failure, in which case we're screwed because the treatment is hospitalization with IV fluids, both not an option for financial reasons and because it'd cause his congestive heart failure to crash

2) Chronic renal failure, which would mean going into the "dance" (as some call it) of managing both diuretics for his heart and fluid for his kidneys. Yes, somehow a lot of people do succeed at this. Also, there's the question of whether he has primary kidney disease so his kidneys were screwed-up on their own, or if it's acquired from the Lasix usage overworking them to get rid of the fluid in his abdomen, or both.

The problem is that we can't tell offhand which of the two above categories he's in, because we also can't afford ultrasound to inspect them; all the vet could feel is that they're lumpy. (Usually failing kidneys are also tiny.) Things aren't looking good, though.

Oddly enough, I also just got bloodwork results recently warning that my own creat/BUN is abnormally high, and the doctor wants to see me ASAP since we know one of them went into failure once already. The situation with Jax, which has now mangled the ability to pay for Bastian's pricey anti-clot med, brought to mind the nasty situation with my father last Spring, and the "face reality that they 'just die'" aspect in particular. So when my mother reminded me to call for that appointment, I calmly refused: I'll get an appointment as soon as I can afford Bastian's medicine, and you two can think about 'facing reality' that people like me 'just die' without expensive medical care, too."

Still no eating, drinking, or litterbox, dammit. We're moving him back in here (he spent the night with my mother since he's kind of fed up with me) in case he likes my facilities more. I feel like I should make a sign labeled "Infirmary" and stick it above the staircase leading up to our rooms at this point. :-/

I'm waiting for a phone call from the emergency vet on duty to tell me how much (if any) Lasix Jax should get, but for now I need to get his Enalapril and Bastian's regular meds ready.

Time for the emergency vet (a different one)...argh

2007-12-17T07:17:22Z

Oh dammit, I don't need this. Jax has been sick for 24+ hours now -- vomiting, increasing lethargy, zero appetite, etc. -- and it's past what I can figure out how to handle, so we have to head up to an emergency vet. I was going to wait until tomorrow, but the guy's symptoms are getting too disturbing; I'm worried he might even be throwing little clots or something.

We'll be going to a place called "Emergency Animal Hospital of Santa Rosa" this trip... I no longer trust the staff at our old standby ACC, aside from Bastian's cardiologist (who is still away) and Max's internal medicine vet. I'm not up to writing about why yet, aside from saying it has to do with what happened in October.

I'm much less calm than I sound here. Poor Jaxie is looking/acting like Bastian was during that horrid month before he went onto CHF meds.

Yet another Jax update...

2007-10-22T10:45:36Z

The universe is laughing at me. At least this time it was something I could laugh at with it...

Since heart failure (or problems in general) cause lack of appetite or even nausea in cats, Jax has been refusing to eat voluntarily since Thursday. That's extremely dangerous, because cats develop a serious condition called "fatty liver syndrome" after not eating for ~5 days, and it's usually fatal.

I've been trying every food on-hand and approach I could think of, "assist" feeding him along with meds in the meantime, and becoming increasingly worried. Having run out of ideas, I was just about to finally search the web & support groups for anything that might help...

...and he promptly leapt onto the bed, then to the dresser, and started eating the boring kibble that I figured he'd have zero interest in. He didn't eat a lot, but anything is good, and he knows what his body can handle right now. [Edit: Several hour later, while editing this, he ate again, this time quite a bit more.]

Trying to feed him as a newly-adopted (and VERY hungry) kitten:

Cuddling with Houdini ("Dini") -- I used to have a version as a userpic:

Now off I go -- just did Max's sub-cutaneous fluids (which he likes now), now it's time for Bastian and Jax to get their meds...hopefully to bed at something resembling a reasonable hour this time.

Quick Jax update...

2007-10-21T14:15:14Z

Yes, I've been up all night doing cat care...those first days are a real bitch.

Friday night through early Saturday morning, I took matters into my own hands and gave Jax more Lasix; one pill per day was really obviously not going to do the job. (I gave him 1.75 more at the six-hour mark, just as Bastian gets.) By morning, he already didn't look bloated in the middle, and was breathing much more quietly. Unfortunately, he also has no appetite and is nauseous, which are both expected for uncontrolled heart trouble; he'll feel better once that's handled, but until then I'm stuck forcing food on him (or trying to figure a way to make him want to eat it).

We went to a new vet for abdominal tap (which is just $8) on Saturday, but he turned out to not need it. The new vet was absolutely excellent, low-priced, plus he already knows our cardiologist from having other patients also under her care. He had it arranged so Jax could have a good panel of bloodwork to be sure nothing else was causing problems, and results will be emailed to me on Monday. The doctor said that sometimes something in flame retardants and similar environmental factors can all cause trouble (like hyperthyroidism) that leads to early-onset organ failure.

My brain is fried, so I'll go to bed now. Just wanted to let people know the basics of what is going on.

Jax's Diagnosis...

2007-10-20T06:57:00Z

I really don't have the words, once again, I feel tired and confused, I don't know enough about this yet... I almost started crying on the way home just under the weight of everything happening. I keep almost doing it now.

Jax is now formally diagnosed as having dialated cardiomyopathy with massive fluid retention in the abdomen and gallop rhythm. The said "it" is early-stage, so I can only guess "it" is congestive heart failure. I just (per orders) started him on 2.5mg Enalapril/day and 12.5 Furosemide or less as-needed; he's dozing on my bed. Normally he'd be over here "kissing" (opening mouth & running lips along mine) and "hugging" (sitting up and putting his forearms around my neck)...

If I could afford it, I'd take him to the "good" emergency place we normally go, make sure that the first vet was on-target... Whenever B was in trouble like this, they held him overnight, so I'm not at all used to actually having this kind of problem on-hand. It's scary... I don't have the kind of equipment a vet does to monitor or deal with crises, I just have a box full of pills.

I need to learn about DCM in-depth now, I guess... Make sure that I do everything for him (especially right now) that is really possible, and ensure this vet got things right enough to avoid tragedy.

Whoosey III: Summer 2000 - October 15, 2007

2007-10-19T11:38:09Z

Whoosey the Third: Summer 2000 - October 15, 2007

(Her legs had vet wrap on; the photo was from right after her operation in February)

I don't really want to write about it -- there's really no words for how shattered and angry I feel right now. All I can think of is that she should be here, that she wasn't ready and was still so full of life...it all happened in under 12 hours, and I had no choice at the end but to make the decision and hold her as she was put to sleep.

Whoo was one of the absolute sweetest, smartest, softest-furred cats I've ever gotten to spend time with... She taught me the meaning of the term "loving life" with her playful, inquisitive, enthusiastic, affectionate personality; she was seven years old, but still had the cute attitude of a kitten. Almost nothing has gotten me to do more than smile in the last several years, but even on the worst of days, she'd set off a little burst of laughter from sheer loving joy just by being herself.

It's already the third, and the month already sucks.

2007-10-03T13:56:29Z

I haven't gone to bed yet. I haven't managed to get to bed before 6am in over a week, and before that, I hadn't managed before 4:30am. Which means I then oversleep (despite every alarm I use) and wake up feeling blech. (Or more blech, given my allergies/asthma are going unusually nuts from kitty shedding season.)

Whoosey is sick -- her immune system evidently is messed (like Bastian's) so she's on round II of antibiotics for a nasty inner-ear infection. During all of this, not only has she had little (or no) sense of balance, she started losing weight since she couldn't eat much without becoming nauesous for a whie. She's eating fine now, but is having to pull herself up from being underweight. :-( I'd push to have her held at the vet for more aggressive care, but at several hundred per day (not counting the initial several hundred for testing) right now it's not possible. So I'm quite worried about her, that maybe she has permanent brain damage or won't make it or something.

Max was doing great, and got a great "report" when we took him in for a recheck. However, now he's starting to need more fluids, which is a sign his kidney function is declining. Dammit. Worse, fluids put a strain on his heart, which already has a significant murmur, and thus puts him at risk of developing congestive failure. No, thanks, let's not do that, okay?

Bastian got over his first round of illness, then started developing another...got him back mostly under control, but the dreaded vein in his right eye (signals cardiac stress) was back for a while. (I'm hoping it's not there right now.) Given there's zero funds for hospitalization, him showing any signs of trouble is terrifying.

We were set back about a hundred dollars last month because the vet staff kept failing to send the refill permission in to the online pharmacy, forcing me to buy through them (including their $20 "fee" per prescription pickup) twice plus pay next-day shipping for the online medication.

Speaking of which... I was wondering why the anti-clot medication I ordered (way ahead of time) wasn't here yet, so I went into the online tracking...it was cancelled. As it turns out, this is because the above-mentioned payment to the vet dropped my bank account a few dollars below the cost of the anti-clot medication plus shipping. Which means I was also hit with an "insufficient funds" fee. No, they couldn't notify me, because with the kind of luck only I tend to have, we changed our phone number at around the same time.

If I could scream in frustration, I'd be doing it right now.

I just re-ordered that medication...so his medication is way the hell up in Calgary and we're already in the backup supplies. Great. I haven't figured out just how I'm going to handle this situation, though first I need to start going through all of the old bottles, and hoping desperately I can scrape together enough to last till it gets here. No idea what I'll do if it doesn't; I'm already giving him 5.25 units (instead of the 6 I'm supposed to) in order to make it last without going too far. Guess I'll price in-country Lovenox and hope someone carries it for less than the going rate...

Ugh, time for W's antibiotics, then I really do need to get some sleep. Maybe if I set my cellphone to screech near me at a certain hour it will wake me up, since I should call the pharmacy to make SURE they'll ship it today. The pathetic thing is that this is just the feline aspect of how life is a big fricking mess for me at the moment: other things are matching it. No matter how hard I try to plan everything well in advance, something goes wrong and derails it. (Generally in a way that sets off a wild domino effect, crashing other things in the process.)

Infection From Hell...and Pill Pockets are a frazzled kitty owner's best friend.

2007-09-05T00:41:09Z

Whoosey and Bastian are both on Clavamox for the nastiest upper respiratory infection I've ever seen... No idea where it came from, but it seems to go from virtually no symptoms straight to ear/nose/eye gunk -- and in Whoosey's case, moved to the inner/middle ear. So I have one little miserable gray cat (who has a history of catastrophic heart problems when sick) sneezing, pawing at his ears/nose, and .and a little tuxedo kitty that looks relatively fine but keeps staggering/falling sideways. :-(

I mentioned to a clerk last week that all of the canned food is used for hiding medications, and she introduced me to chewy kitty treats that you can hide pills in called Pill Pockets. I had assumed in the past that they were just a silly gimmick, but got a baggie anyway just in case. Glad I did...they kick ass!!! Seriously, if you have a cat or dog that needs pills, try these things. If it's a big pill, like some of the ones here are, just cut it up into tiny fragments. :-)

Of course, that's not going smoothly here, either... Whoosey isn't interested in that particular flavor/scent (I'm going to buy and try their "chicken" variety today) -- so I'm still having to force-feed her meds. Bastian originally was wild for the Pill Pockets, but then I experimented with loading a few, and so of course he bit into the pill fragment a couple of times...suffice to say he's willing to nibble a little bit of a pill pocket now, but doesn't want to touch them enough to actually take a pill.

So I'm off to get another flavor of pill pockets, more food, more potassium (we're out), and generally try not to scream at (or smack) everyone in sight, because stress/worry plus being up until after six in the morning giving a sick cat antibiotics that he doesn't want (after a couple of weeks with similarly fucked-up hours due to kitty stuff) = psycho-Moggy. :-p

Max is home, I am tired, I took too long writing this argh.

2007-04-23T10:55:57Z

I forgot how exhausting the first days home with a cat newly-diagnosed with a medical problem can be. Let alone doing it while also trying to keep the other "special care" cats from getting too jealous, learning about CRF & Anemia (thank the FSM for the two support Yahoogroups)...

The vets were relieved when I said that Max actually did have some of the recalled foods, surprisingly. They said that they could see there was a cause to his renal failure from its particular progression (I guess), so me saying it wasn't the food really had them frustrated and perplexed. If all goes well through the mire of red tape, his vet costs will be reimbursed.

Max was really iffy-at-best through the middle part of the week, despite his kidney values slowly improving. He even ended up needing another transfusion, and then having his fluids reduced because we'd pushed so hard that his heart briefly had trouble keeping it out of his lungs.

But after the second transfusion, he started rallying... By Friday afternoon, he spent a good chunk of his time wandering the room, and Saturday he was energetic enough that he was up and wandering/flirting steadily on his feet the couple of hours we were there! So, since we suspected his kidney values were at the best that the IV fluid therapy could do, he got to come home.

We gave our first sub-cutaneous fluid therapy to him tonight, which I had been dreading. Preparation too a long time as we had to learn all the steps, but the actual procedure was an extremely easy five minutes! I think the big thing is that we used 20-gauge needles on him, which are much smaller than the 16-18 ones we tried on Whoosey back in February. (16 is used for injections in goats and sheep!)

So he's napping on my mother's bed, and I need to get Bastian's meds done so *I* can get some sleep. Though just being able to relax is a huge bonus... Let's hope things stay calm for a while!

Quick update on Max

2007-04-19T22:32:29Z

keepingawake just nudged me elsewhere to ask what was going on with Max, so I'm going to write a quick update in between one thing and the next.

He looks and behaves a lot better every day, thankfully. Sunday he urinated and then went back to resting... Wednesday, I put my hand under him and held some of his weight (as he's low on hind end muscle tone) and he was up/around eagerly exploring -- couch, each corner, doctor's stool, counter by stool -- for around 45 minutes, maybe more.

Progress with his bloodwork is really unpredictable, though. Each day until Wednesday, everything improved; then his creatinine stalled at 8.2. Today, we were told that his creat was in the 6.2 range. His red blood cell count had dropped to 10 today (from 20 after transfusing), so he was put on Epogen, and it's now up to 14. He also had switched from eating to not eating, so we're not sure WTF is with that.

The two internists that have followed him so far (they rotate) both decided independently that his renal damage is far too severe, and the decline far too rapid, to have been age-related. So, at their strong urging, we're now gathering receipts to contact the companies we bought from (Iams-Eukanuba, Nutro, Science Diet) in February. Eating the food is the only explanation we have.

I'm now researching CRF more aggressively, since his case is complicated enough that I want to be more involved in treatment decisions. I don't want his longevity or comfort left up to the recommendation of a single vet; been there, done that.

Max update, and "did he eat that stuff or not?!?"

2007-04-17T01:34:44Z

Max is still at the hospital, where he had a transfusion yesterday, and is still on fluids/antibiotics as I write this. He's up, alert, using the litterbox without discomfort, wandering around, and starting today he also regained his appetite.

His levels are coming down, but it's fairly slow progress. Unfortunately, having his metabolic system "deranged" (as one vet put it) caused him to have one brief seizure at mid-day. The internist said that this is actually a common issue for cats with chronic renal failure (crf) to experience, and that they don't usually see full improvement of the creat/BUN until 3-5 days of fluids treatment. So we're on track, just behind schedule, and while he said some people choose to euthanize, he did say he felt it was "certainly appropriate" to continue treatment.

I feel terrible about this, because I had seen the signs of illness, but failed to recognize them or react. In retrospect, something was obviously very wrong... I know enough to have seen that, especially since I cared for his mother through the same illness. I can guess that I was too overloaded from caring for everyone else at once, but that doesn't make it any better.

My mother is hunting down all of the financial aid orgs we didn't have success with two months ago. (Hospital care is expensive on its own, but it's doubly problematic considering Bastian just had a pricey recheck-with-tests last week!) Meanwhile, I'm trying to find out from old chats whether Max was one of the cats that ate the food I had originally bought for Whoosey after her operation, since some of it was on the major recall list. Hard to say whether that would be a factor if he did, since it would be once rather than over a long period of time, but it would be good to know.

Since all of this isn't enough, we suddenly have an unexplained upper-respiratory illness going round the clowder. Most are handling it well, as usual, but Whoosey has an ear infection that I'm needing to treat with drops & lysine, while Bastian just needs a ton of extra lysine to make sure his doesn't cause heart-lung issues.

It's now time to get ready and go see him again...

Max in kidney failure, needs a lot of good thoughts and such...

2007-04-15T00:18:56Z

A very quick note for the moment...

We just got back from the animal emergency center, where Max (the 16-year-old) is currently at. He has been diagnosed with acute renal failure & anemia; they're now giving him fluids and possibly blood in an effort to save him. No, he did not eat tainted food; we aren't sure what caused this, aside from that he has very small kidneys in the first place.

Any-and-all good thoughts, distance healing, prayers, etc. would be appreciated. We might find out more later, depending on how things go this afternoon/evening. At least he's with one of the better emergency vets, which is comforting. I hope beyond anything that the "bad" one isn't on-duty this weekend.

It's like his mother all over again, even the time of year -- we lost her in Spring 1997, I believe. I've never really forgiven myself for not knowing that there was more that could have been done for her, for not researching before that point, and choosing to euthanize the one morning rather than ask what could be done...

...and I can go to bed after three this time.

2007-04-06T10:09:55Z

More thrilling (seriously) non-eventfulness in our house so far...

I read about how Menu Foods handled the tainted food, and that certainly pisses me off... They ignored reports (causing a lot of unnecessary suffering and death), then once the reports were so numerous that it was *obvious* something was horribly wrong, rather than actually testing the damn food (as done in human food) they chose to give it to 25 cats, causing the nine "confirmed" deaths. (Most companies might do this; others wouldn't.)

I'm now sorting out who does (Royal Canin) and who absolutely doesn't (Natural Balance) buy from them -- not sure on Canidae-Felidae yet. I really don't care whether it's the same facilities; I don't want to support Menu Foods, period... Brands that do are off my shopping list, and all companies I use will get a letter explaining why I will/won't be buying their products in the future.

In happier news, I just discovered Halo Pets food at PetCo the other day -- they make the recipes from The New Natural Cat, a book I've used as a kind of kitty bible for a long time now. They say on their site: "no chemicals, artificial flavors, preservatives, by-products or fillers" and that they use USDA-approved human-grade ingredients. I have to check, but I'm pretty sure that it fulfills the requirements for a prescription-level heart/kidney food, which I've totally failed to find in a brand that isn't also scary.

My cat chores currently take *so* long (about two hours) that it's almost unbelievable: on top of food/water/litterboxes and giving Bastian his meds 4x/day, I'm also having to feed Max every few hours since he dropped weight during another refusal-to-eat period, plus giving Lysine to Whoosey, Boo (Black), Chai, and Max. PetCo's register is often helpfully giving me "$2 for doing our phone survey" coupons, though, which keeps the canned-food bills under control, at least.

Oops, it's 3am, time to get moving... yay, BED!

Pet Food Recall -- make sure yours isn't on the list!

2007-03-18T05:17:25Z

40 different brands of pet food, sold between December 3 and March 6, have been linked to sudden renal failure cats and dogs... The supplier lists the affected brands here.

We *did* buy one small pouch of Eukanuba when Whoosey was in the hospital last month, which worries me. Fortunately, so far it seems that either it wasn't affected or the one package spread out among several cats wasn't enough to cause a problem. (The canned brands I get for treats or medication are Natural Balance and Pet Gold.)

Scarily, until a year ago, the main canned actually was in the affected chunky Nutro line, and the previous year, a few of the cats had been eating it every night! The reason I changed was that Max started throwing up everything he ate in March 2006, and it forced me to try all the other 'good' brands I could find. I learned that he could safely eat Natural Balance, which had impressive ingredients, and that Pet Gold was excellent for hiding foul-tasting medication in. (I didn't find out that NB has fish versions that are good for med-hiding until much later.)

We also used to feed the dry version of some of the brands on that list (Nutro, Iams, Eukanuba) but several years ago, they were bought out and subsequently decreased the quality of ingredients. I admit that I wouldn't have guessed that they sunk to the level of being made by the same folks that make the off-label grocery brand garbage with names like "Price Chopper".

OK, enough of that... I should post a pointer at my main LJ to this post for anyone unaware. I hope none of my LJ friends or the owners at the support groups for cats with renal/heart failure have pets affected by the disaster!

Watching a cat recover is like parenting a human baby...

2007-02-13T12:42:03Z

...every little step of progress is cause for joyful celebration, especially in light of how precarious the last few days were. (Friday we came home. Saturday at the ER briefly. Sunday teetered on the edge...)

Saturday, she also started eating and drinking, after a little reminding of what one does with foods/liquids. Thankfully, she did this before we went to the ER, as that meant the on-duty vet could tell us to discontinue the sub-q fluids we had failed to give her. (It's supposed to be a needle for a ten-pound mammal, folks, not a harpoon...)

Sunday, her breathing seemed to have improved a bit, and she didn't really need the pain meds much at all. That day stood out more, though, because it was when her appetite *really* came back. Gobblegobblegobble. It was like she was channeling the cartoon cat Garfield.

Monday I woke up with her cuddled against me, and then she purred with nice long breaths (woohoo!) in my lap for around an hour in the evening. She also felt up to leaping up on furniture even without any pain meds... Late in the evening, she used the scratching pads and even played briefly!

Each of those milestones has made me feel happier than I have in a long time. Exhausted, but happy.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we're having the post-op checkup... I'm hoping the surgeon is as happy with her progress as I am. Considering last time she saw Whoo, the poor kitty was miserably flopped on a hospital couch, not caring much what we did with her, I think she'll be quite pleased. :o)

Now I get to go to bed. :)

Whoosey: home, purring, eating, drinking, happy, benign (if the test's right)

2007-02-11T06:46:58Z

I started writing last night, but was so tired that the results were just dull and near-unreadable.

We got to take Whoosey home on Friday night, with various caveats because she wasn't recovering properly. But the amazing good news was that just like the fluid tested back in December, the official large biopsy tests came back benign -- and while the tumor will grow, it could take years to really cause problems! :-)

She came home primarily because she was too stressed to eat, just like Bastian always does there... At first, she seemed to not remember how to eat -- she sniffed the food and even licked her lips, but then stopped. I "taught" her by putting a little juice from the canned food on her lips, then letting her lick it off my fingers, then having some of the actual food there for her to lick off, etc. She just started eating kibble and drinking freely, which was a huge "woohoo!!!" because if she hadn't by Tuesday, they were going to install a feeding tube.

So, until Saturday evening, things went quite well... That was when some slightly fast breathing I had noticed at the hospital suddenly got a lot worse, and she became very passive. I recognized it more definitively as being the kind of thing Bastian does when his lungs are filling with fluid.

We rushed her back up to the hospital, where an x-ray told us that she had pleural effusion. They tapped 90ml (!) out and sent the fluid off to the labs to find out what it's coming from. There wasn't anything that night vet (not a favorite) could come up with to change, so we were just sent back here with the usual "return if she gets worse."

Since getting back, she has finally been breathing almost like a normal cat, purring, eating/drinking on her own... Generally showing us the results we've been hoping for. :-) The official recheck with Dr. A is on Tuesday, let's hope that we don't have to return to ACC before then. (We were very lucky that ACC held off on charging us the final chunk of payment until Tuesday, so we can get the various grants/aid in order and find more.)

Pics from the first visit..

2007-02-10T02:05:47Z

I've managed to forget the code for putting images next to one another, and I don't feel like dealing with tables, so here they are in a single column... Since we're now on our way off to see her (and possibly bring her home) I'll have to let you go without the usual captions. :-p

Can we please have things go right now?

2007-02-09T23:03:26Z

I don't entirely feel like writing much, but here's what is up...

We visited Whoosey yesterday -- her fever was gone, she ate one bite out of my hand of her favorite canned food (which is better luck than they've had), and she was not only walking around, we had to repeatedly restrain her from leaping up on the couch! (We knew she'd just get back down again.)

The bad side is that she was obviously in pain, and in one way I suspect our visit was a mistake... I got down on the floor with her, and she *tried* to lay down in my arms with her head on my hand, but couldn't find a position that she was comfortable in. This upset her a lot... She started avoiding my touch entirely and spent most of the rest of the visit hiding in a corner under the floating (attached to the wall only) counter, ignoring me even though I came to sit next to her.

(The pain issue is because they're having a hard time balancing the narcotic pain meds with Whoosey being sentient. If they give her much at all, her pain levels seemingly drop, but she also becomes too drugged to even stand up. I did try to warn them that even 1/16 of a hydrocodone was knocking her out despite the recommended dose being 1/4 pill.)

The surgeon came in to talk with us at one point, and Whoosey wasn't concerned about her at all, thankfully. Dr. A said that when she went to check on things while they were prepping for surgery, Whoosey walked over, nuzzled against her (black) sweater, did a single turn, and curled up against her arm!

At the two phone check-ins last night, same story... Not eating, but also no fever and generally doing well.

Phone check in this morning... Still no eating, she has spiked a fever, and her bloodwork is out of whack -- low in red blood cells and high in white blood cells. Given she's on two major antibiotics, this likely isn't an infection. They think that the tumor, still oozing fluid, has changed to oozing red blood cells IN the fluid, and that the whole mess is also related to her not eating. The WBCs are somehow involved in stimulating the body to produce RBCs.

If her levels don't improve, it means a transfusion -- and if *we* can't get her to eat soon, we'll have to go to a feeding tube. (This happens with sick cats sometimes; they stop eating for some reason and develop anorexia rather than start again. The tube just gets them back to eating.)

Dr. A really wants us to bring her home tonight, if her health permits it, so we'll see...

But we're going to get our asses kicked by this vet bill, especially if she doesn't start making progress. If anyone wants to help out, or knows anyone that can, the website (and thus the physical address) of our vet is:

Animal Care Center of Sonoma
6470 Redwood Drive
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
phone 707-584-4343

They said that for us, they're going to take checks, plus I think you can pay via credit over the phone. (Not sure.) Either way, make sure to call over so they know you're helping with payment, and tell them specifically that it's for the cat Whoosey, owners Paula / Denise DeGraf. (You can verify it that way.) With luck, you'll get someone that knows us (which is most of the staff) -- and they in particular are really nice.

(Pics to come...have to rush out to grab Bastian's furosemide, as I stupidly ran the f* out.)

"Doing Well"

2007-02-08T21:27:55Z

I'm too tired to summarize, plus I need to give Bastian his meds...

11:45 AM ~ Mom: I talked with the doctor and she said that Whoosey is doing well, and that we can come by and visit her.
11:45 AM ~ Mom: They took the tube out, and if she continues to improve, we can take her home tomorrow.
11:45 AM ~ Moggy: Is she still in oxygen, or has she been allowed out yet?
11:46 AM ~ Mom: She was taken out last night, and she did just fine.
11:46 AM ~ Moggy: Good...did they figure out why she hadn't been oxygenating?
11:46 AM ~ Mom: No temp, a little fluid coming out around the tube
11:46 AM ~ Mom: No.
11:47 AM ~ Mom: But the doc let me know last night that they couldn't track it, because Whoosey refused to keep the sensor on.
11:47 AM ~ Moggy: Oh great, so they're letting her out without knowing whether she can oxygenate?
11:48 AM ~ Moggy: Though I'm not surprised... Whoosey isn't exactly a sedate easy cat like Bastian.
11:49 AM ~ Mom: She said that she wanted to run some labs before we take her home tomorrow, to see if everything comes out all right. No, apparently they were able to see other signs that her oxygenation was fine.
11:49 AM ~ Mom: She said that they haven't been able to get her to eat, so bring her favorite food in, because they want her to eat, hopefully, before she comes home.

Not good.

2007-02-08T10:11:46Z

Whoosey is in ICU and critical, not sure if she will make it -- she started out surgery doing great, but then her blood pressure and oxygenation slowly plummeted, and they don't know why.

Then our cardiologist (who was popping in/out of OR the whole time despite technically being in office hours) returned in scrubs to say that the weird-looking liver up in the pericardium is an inoperable tumor.

They did put a huge hole on the pericardium so it can drain, move the mass back into the abdominal cavity so her heart/lungs aren't being squashed, and gave it a separate blood supply to ensure it's as healthy as possible...wanting to give her the best life quality possible.

We have no idea how long she will be able to live, comfortably or otherwise. They sent a biopsy off to the lab for identification, and should know tomorrow.

Before we left this afternoon, we did get to see her... Unconscious in an oxygen cage, covered under a towel to help her regain body temperature. She woke up partway when the nurse bent down to pet her just as we were leaving, and -- as typical for the flirt -- lifted her head to stroke it against the woman's hand.

The surgeon called with another update in the early evening (I wrote the above, then crashed without posting it)... My mother relayed it online:

"Whoosey's holding her own. She isn't happy about the tubes* and the shirt they have on her, or the IVs, etc, but shows that she is aware and uncomfortable. She has tried to stand up a few times, but doesn't have her sea legs yet. Her color is good, her heartbeat is good, etc. Depending on how she is doing, [Dr. A] will start to back the tube out, and start letting up on the meds that are sedating her."

* Not sure about plural; I know there is one in her chest to make sure air or drainage can't accumulate.

The late-night report was similar, stating that she's still hanging in there. More tomorrow, whether I get to see her or just hear updates...

W's big day...

2007-02-07T11:39:17Z

I've been off in mental lala land filling out grant/aid forms, possibly getting a "yes" or two now... We got to meet Whoosey's surgeon, Dr. A today (Tuesday) to discuss her case and set up the surgical appointment. The cardiologist Dr. M tapped her to get the situation maximized for going under a general anesthetic -- hit a new record with 52ml. The physical relief was so intense that she spent the afternoon/evening being super-affectionate as if drunk on catnip.

Things are a little more complicated than I had really realized. Her pericardium and diaphragm never quite got around to separating, so instead of a tiny pericardium surrounding the heart, she has a pericardium that takes up most of her chest cavity and had a couple of abnormal-looking liver lobes develop inside of it. So the resulting job is going to be to remove the pericardium, remove the bad bits of liver, re-inflate the lungs, place a tube to drain fluid from the chest cavity, then fix the diaphragm.

Her prognosis depends entirely on what they find... Good if all goes according to plan, ranging down to "fair" if there are complications. This is assuming they don't find something truly horrifying, of course.

The operation will take 2-3 hours, starting with anesthesia at around 1pm. We're to arrive at 10am to check her in, though... So we'll check in, do whatever they want us to do up there, rush home briefly around noon to give Bastian his meds, then rush back up to the hospital to wait.

If everything goes smoothly, we'll be able to visit her briefly post-op once they have safely brought her back to a heavily sedated consciousness. Hope. Hope. Hope. I want many years cuddling with the little kitty with bunny/chinchilla fur, being kneaded, loved on...

The LJ for Moggy's Clowder

2007-02-02T09:27:14Z

Just a quick hello... I have a pile of paperwork, a computer I must teach how to fax, kitties to care for, and I need sleep.

Oh, whiny note: Bastian had his cardio recheck today, and now he doesn't smell like himself. I hope he changes back soon, it really disturbs me when I can't recognize each cat by the scent of their fur. (In fact, that's one of the things I miss most when away, and dread losing forever at some point.)