Saturday, April 23, 2016

The State of "Casa de Gato"


I've been feeling like I should be doing a 'state of the union' type post, to report on how all of my own cats are doing.  I originally started this blog to not only share how my foster kittens were doing but to also have a log as such on The Crew and if I want to be able to look it up I've got to put it down.

Jack:


Jack is doing well.  Sadly he is still hypothyroid and I'm having a hard time getting the extra weight off him. I'm thinking I have to increase his medication but I fear that because if his thyroid gets too high he starts peeing.  He seems to have adjusted to being fourteen pounds, but I'm not a fan. Sadly he has very few teeth in his mouth these days and the ones he does have are covered in tartar again and it is time for another dental. He is also excessively needy.  I spent two nights away from the house recently and came home to find his fur all matted up. I love that boy of mine.

Muffin:


Muffin appears healthy enough, but she has been whiny for several months now. She keeps demanding that I give her canned food like she is starved. I weigh her often, she isn't suffering weight loss. I took her in to see the vet and made them run a full check up with her with blood work, and nothing popped.  She still randomly has a slight tremor in her front legs, but it is very slight and you wouldn't even notice it unless you were looking for it specifically.  She is often attached to me if she isn't complaining at me and she is always there when I wake up in the morning - well unless breakfast is being served. Skippy and Twee have a tendency to get on her nerves, wanting to play, and we occasionally have a little scuffle where she tends to be a diva and not want to put up with their shenanigans. Yesterday someone rang the doorbell and I found one of her hiding places, as she really does not like having people in the house.

Eli:


Eli recently had a dental and is doing well.  His eyes have been watering a bit more lately than they had been, but no more so than they ever have - if that makes sense.  He's also having a bit of a hard time accepting that static season is just about over and he keeps asking us to give him static and gets disappointed when it doesn't happen. I recently ran a senior panel on him and he is doing well.

Twee:


Twee also recently had a dental. It always frightens me when she goes under sedation due to her history, but it has happened successfully now four times, so I should probably relax a bit about it. She also has issues with watery eyes. This has happened in the past but it cleared up when we cleaned her teeth, this time, not so much. She had senior work done when they did her dental and she is doing well there.

Kit:


Kit has been a hot mess for months now.  It has been fairly interesting and we still really don't know what is going on with her.  Kit tends to get abscesses from scuffles with the other cats. I rarely see them fighting, but every once in a while I see tension between her and Jack. When she gets one, it can be hard to figure out because she is so tiny and has so much fur, but she becomes depressed and almost mopey.

She became depressed and mopey at the start of this and we did some blood work. The vet reported she had a high globulin level and went immediately went to the worst case scenarios of FIP or bone cancer. He was quite sure it was FIP and mentioned several times that I should bring her in for a titer test.  Well having gone through FIP in the past, I knew that the "titer test for FIP" is absolute rubbish. I told him as much and said I wouldn't do it. He brought it up a couple more times which is when I had to stop him and explain to him exactly why I know that test is a waste of money - because it only tests for the coronavirus which I know for an absolute fact my cats have all been exposed to. Corona is not dangerous, and from what I can find doesn't really have a treatment, it is just something that is very common in cats. Sometimes it will mutate into FIP in young cats but with Kit being older and her demeanor, in general. I was absolutely certain we weren't looking at FIP and said what else were we looking at.  I was making plans to bring her in for X-rays when I confided in a friend as to what was going on, and she volunteered to talk to her own vet about what I was facing. Consensus was it was infection, which is when I went back to thinking it was an abscess. I put her on antibiotics and that night the abscess ruptured and we found a small amount of blood and fur on the bed she had been sleeping on.  It felt like we were on the right track so we continued with the antibiotic and she improved dramatically.  I wanted to wait until the course of antibiotics was up to retest her and see if her blood work improved.

I should remind you that Kit does not travel well and getting to the vet is very traumatic to her. My husband and I decided if she needs extensive medical care that would require numerous trips to the vet we might choose not to treat.

By the time I felt comfortable enough with her improvement to take her back, she backslid. I took her back to the vet for a check up, and more treatment. She improved again. We did blood work and her globulin levels improved but were not perfect. We saw a different vet and she believed it pointed to an infection. More antibiotics. More blood work. She was on a bit of a roller coaster, going from feeling okay and being herself to being mopey and having issues.  Then almost overnight her ears nearly blocked with infection drainage. Back to the vet more antibiotics and ear meds.

This was hard on her. She is not a fan of my medicating her which is also hard on me, and it is hard on my husband. Fortunately, this medication and ear meds seemed to fix it. Things were going along nicely and we thought we were out of the woods.  We went and did a final round of blood work which showed everything in the normal range. Now she came down with a cold. She is blowing snot bubbles and one ear became infected again.  While I do have other cats with watery eyes, no one else is getting sick so I wondered for a while if this might not be something else and we should get some x-rays done, but the antibiotics seem to be working. We are going to give it a few more days and see what happens.  We are doing a lot of supportive care and being more aware of her and what is going on with her and her environment and her interactions with the other cats. I am hopeful this is the end of it, but if not we will dig deeper and see what else could be going on, hopefully without too many trips to the vet.

Fleurp:


Fleurp is still our mystery kitty. At the moment, she is doing very well. She becomes anemic each spring, and truth be told this year it started early. Her weight started to drop and she became pale, so with the vet's advice, we put her on prednisolone.  Her weight increased and she pinked up, so after a week of good weight, I started dropping the amount I gave her until I was down to 1/2 a tab every three days.  It felt like I was giving her unnecessary medicine so I stopped altogether and she is currently holding her weight.  I weigh her every couple of days, and probably will right up until June. I am hopeful, but I will tell you I wish we didn't have to deal with this. It is scary and frustrating.

Skippy:

My husband was attempting to pack for a trip. 
Skippy seems to think it is not necessary.

Skippy is also doing well.  I recently decided to do a rabies titer test on him as I was curious and questioning my decision to stop vaccinating my cats. I've read enough studies to say that my cats are still well protected despite not having been injected in four to five years, but there are so many who insist that if you don't vaccinate on a regular basis you are putting your cats in danger. I figured Skippy would be my best test of the science for me since he only has had his kitten vaccine. His titers are still well within the protection levels that I have become more comfortable with my decision. Sadly it was a fairly expensive way to appease my curiosity. It was about $200, and considering the fact that giving the vaccine only costs about $20, I can see why people choose to simply give the vaccine.




I would also like to add that I am heartbroken over the death of Prince. I have been a fan of other artists and performers and celebrities, but he held a special place in my life. At the time I write this, I want to say I am so incredibly impressed with how little speculation is going on (aside from TMZ) and how everyone is waiting for the actual facts of the case to delve into how he died. There is some talk about his recent health issues, but they are simply bringing it up because it happened, but they don't seem to be jumping to any conclusions.  I have been watching (probably way too many) tributes and one of my favorites is his interview on the Today show when he seemed half asleep talking to Matt until the music comes on, and you watch him blossom and comes to life.

So far, my favorite tribute is from Mayor Betsy Hodges:
Prince was unapologetically different and he made it okay for his fans to be different and to celebrate their individuality. His social conscience challenged us to look deeper than the skin color of our neighbors. “Baltimore” challenges us today as much as “Sign o’ the Times” did in 1987. His voice was vital and will be missed.

I wore a purple shirt on Friday and I dropped my phone on my chest and it took that photo.. I just really liked how it came out.

15 comments:

  1. Not so bad for an aging Crew. Poor Kit though....why is it always the one who hates the vet the most that seems to have the most issues?

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  2. Thanks for the update! You have a lot to keep track of with these guys. My human has been so numb after Lemmy and David Bowie, that she's only now starting to process losing Prince.

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  3. You have a big crew to keep an eye on! I know it's very frustrating when you feel like something is wrong with one, but no one can figure it out. The death of Prince was such a shock. He leaves a beautiful legacy, but you can't help wonder what else he would have done.

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  4. That was a good report with lots of good things. The photos were terrific! My peeps were sad about Prince too. They ran into Prince many years ago at the Miami airport and said he was really quite pleasant.

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  5. Thanks for the updates. We are very sympathetic to feline medical issues. So much to watch out for, and it's so hard to get cats especially to the vet, the stress of that is so hard for them.

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  6. You certainly have your hands full with the cats in your life. It's good that they have such knowledgeable and caring humans on their side. The worrying never stops when you have creatures who depend on you for their lives.

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  7. Oh, poor little Kit. I might need to come cuddle her.

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  8. Oh, poor little Kit. I might need to come cuddle her.

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  9. Glad to hear everybuddy in the casa is doing okay for the most part. We hope Kit is okay and doesn't have to go through any more vet stuff. We know how she feels.

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  10. Nice review of your household. Random photos that take themselves are always the most meaningful.

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  11. I will add Kit to my prayer list. I am glad everyone else is doing well. I have never heard of a cat being hypothyroid, they are usually hyperthyroid.

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  12. They are all so precious and I truly enjoyed reading about each and every one of them. You are their angel and take excellent care of them.

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  13. This was my first introduction to all of your kitties at once. I hope Kit is okay. I know going to the vet can be so stressful. Your purple picture was great. I would've never guessed it was an actual picture. I assumed a cool graphic of some sort.

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  14. Thanks for the update on the Crew.

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  15. Oh Kit.... that's so hard what she's going through! And Eli, dood - static? Really?
    And Prince's death has been the only one in the past year or so that hit our mom. We agree - his art was special.

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