Trip to the Vetby Angie
6 Apr 2009
4:04 pm0
Jaqueline has had a very trying day. We looked online last night and found a place called Altamont Cat Hospital. Besides being only a two minute drive away, it had several high reviews online. I called them first thing this morning and made an appointment for 10:40 – their earliest available. I left a message for Jim telling him when I was heading over, then had the unenviable task of forcing Jaquie into her carrier. She cried during the entire drive.
After filling out some forms, the nurse took me and the little patient back to an exam room. Jaquie was weighed, her teeth examined, and her ears and eyes explored. The nurse asked me several questions, then left us alone while she reported to the doctor. Dr. Matthews came in next; she poked and prodded and rubbed and stretched, as she discussed her concerns and possible prognoses with me. She looked relieved when I agreed to the tests and initial therapies she felt were necessary.
First was a blood test, requiring a small spot of skin on Jaquie’s neck to be shaved. She actually had to be poked twice, because the first draw “hyper-coagulated” almost as soon as it was out, and was rendered unusable. I have no idea what that might indicate, and Dr. Matthews either wasn’t forthcoming or simply didn’t know either. Then came x-rays, which didn’t turn up anything definite. Next was the terribly insulting thermometer, with a perfectly normal reading.
Last of all was something to help her begin to feel better right away: because Jaquie is very dehydrated, they gave her a subcutaneous injection of fluids, with a few medications mixed in (antibiotics, and some Zofran to help pique her appetite). It took a long time, but Jim showed up at that point and Dr. Matthews was able to explain what they were injecting and show him the x-rays and everything. We finished up, brought Jaquie home, and gave her some of the special “anorexic diet” food that the vet sent with us, of which she is getting about a teaspoon an hour.
It was quite an ordeal but, once home, I really think it was worth it – she has been eating the new food quite willingly, and already seems more perky. We’ll know more difinitevely when the lab results come back tomorrow or the next day, but so far it seems that she’s on the mend.
Skinny Kittyby Angie
5 Apr 2009
9:04 am1
Last night, Jon (who is staying over for Conference weekend) mentioned that Jaquie was looking a little thin, and I was inclined to agree. When Jim and I were upstairs later, getting ready for bed, the subject came up again. We had noticed that she had missed some easy jumps in the last week or so (scraping up my leg on one of them), and that she has seemed an odd combination of physically placid but more “talkative” than normal. None of these individual symptoms had seemed alarming, but when we began to consider them together, we started to worry.
We wondered if she was hungry, but Jim said he had checked before coming upstairs and her food dish was full. Then he asked me when was the last time I actually put food in her bowl. When I answered, “Over a week ago, I think,” his eyes went wide with concern. He couldn’t remember the last time he had filled her dish, either. He thought I had been doing it, while I thought he had. This, apparently, is the downside to the whoever-notices-it-empty-fills-it system.
I gave her a couple of treats I keep in our room that she adores, and she gobbled them up. They were hard, so that ruled out anything wrong with her teeth. Then Jim took her downstairs to examine the food dish in question. Apparently, some of the hard food had gotten wet and was clumped, so he dumped it all out, and gave her all new food and water. She wasn’t much interested in the new food either, though. He then offered her some tuna, and she was willing to eat a little of that – not entirely encouraging, however, since she’s usually willing to eat a lot of tuna.
Poor thing – she must have just been starving for a week! She had a little more tuna with some dry food mixed in this morning. I’m just hoping that the wet, old food was the culprit and that she’ll bounce back quickly.