Esmay update

So Esmay went to the shelter on Thursday.  She hasn't been eating well, so I started force feeding her.  She wasn't a fan of it, but it went well enough, and I was able to get a third of a can of A/D into her the first night, and she ate a little on her own.  The second night I got a second third of the can into her, but she ate nothing else.  There was no stool in the litter box and she was testing out blood sugar (BG) wise at a 54.  To me that was alarming.  I wrote to the shelter and they said bring her in and they would get her to the vet... so in she went.

I didn't hear anything on Friday. Nor Saturday, which wasn't completely unexpected. Sunday the vet is closed - they come in and care for the animals but they wouldn't be there to relay info to the shelter outside of an emergency.  Still no information on Monday, so I wrote and asked.

Once again her exam was 'uneventful'.. nothing stood out.  They also did xrays which showed nothing concerning.  She started eating and they were not concerned about her BGs and so they sent her back to the shelter.  One of the emails I got about her suggested that maybe my meter wasn't testing properly.  I can understand that except I was worried about that too so I used two different meters and calibrated them both, so I was pretty sure my readings were accurate.

I got an email this evening right before work was over saying most of the above and that they were going to monitor her there. I totally get that.  But I had brought needles I had used giving Fluffy fluids so I stopped into dispose of at the shelter since they have a sharps container, so I stopped in to see her.

I also brought my meters.. I tested her for giggles, I wanted to see how she was doing, this time she was 47!!!  I panicked for a second, but remembered she had food and she was eating, so I assumed she was going to be fine.  The nice staff member who was interested in seeing me test let me test another kitty they had and she was 67 (having been recently spayed)  which is a number I am much more comfortable with.

I gave Esmay some love and left for home.  Driving home I thought it might not be a bad idea to have a few more non-diabetic numbers to compare that 47 to.  I tested Fleurp (who had her own eventful day - but more on that later - possibly Friday.. ) and she tested out at a 62, and I tested Kit who was 49.

So today I learned that what I consider to be a scary low BG level in a cat might very well be their normal.  Very much a good thing to know and something I wish I had known a month ago :)

So Esmay is at the shelter.  I am speculating that the antibiotic for her urinary issues caused her to go off her food.. (and that is a total speculation, but it makes some sense.. ) and now that she's been off it for a while she's doing better. Hopefully she will make it to the adoption floor right quick and find a home before two shakes of a lambs tail..

Safe journeys my sweet girl.. May you find owners who totally accept your hatred of being picked up, but your love of having your belly rubbed..

Silver and Gold

Make new friends.. but keep the old.. one is Silver and the other Gold..

This song has been rattling around in my head for a bit now.. Figured it would make a good blog title :)

Esmay, my dear sweet Esmay is failing.  She went to the vet and had her ear cleaned and I was told to reduce her antibiotic to once a day which I did, but I was much more conscious of her lack of eating after realizing how much weight she had lost.  Well she was not eating well at all, so I started force feeding her. I hated to do it because it obviously annoyed her, but I could not let her continue to watch her not eat..   Especially with the complete lack of stool in the litter box :(

I even started giving her fluids hoping it would help.

After the second day of force feeding she didn't eat anything additional at all.  I wrote to the shelter to let them know and they decided to bring her back to the vet.  I packed her up on Thursday and brought her in, giving her another dose of antibiotic and force fed her a little more than half of the remaining third of the can that I had been feeding her.  She got upset much faster than she had been at home.. it totally broke my heart.

The staff member actually asked me if I thought she was worth saving.  That hurt.  It is a hard hard place to be in, caring for an elderly kitty with a myriad of health issues, starting with the urinary issues, the low blood sugar, then the hematoma, the ear discharge, now the not eating and the swallowing hard..   at 15, how much longer does she reasonably have?  But she's so quirky and loving and loves a belly rub and still expects her humans to come to her to pat her.. how on earth could I possibly say no.  Although part of me has been an absolute mess fearing that she is dealing with something more complicated than a polyp or ear infection.. She displayed a lot of the symptoms that Em did when she had cancer... which of course means that I was an emotional wreck all week anyway..

While I was setting her up in the shelter, I was called to by a young kitty who was very vocal.  She would not be ignored, and so once I had Esmay settled I went and said hello.  She was very active and looked like she was very people orientated, but her intake card said they couldn't vaccinate her, so I wasn't about to open the cage.. I looked in some of the other cages, and noticed a large number of kitties all with the same location - meaning they came from the same town.  Could have been a co-incidence, or it could have been a surrender from an over crowding situation.. no idea really and I didn't ask.. I did however see five little balls of fluff that were just killing me dead with their adorableness..

Can you not understand why I had to have them?  I asked after them and they weren't tested so I couldn't take them, but I put my name on them and went home.

I got a call on Friday saying they were negative and I could get them any time.  When I stopped in I was told I could only take three of them because the shelter manager was going to take two.  I was a little bothered by this because there was no notation of that when I put my name on them, so I assumed (and it is only an assumption) that she decided to take them after I expressed interest.  I expressed my unhappiness at it and I was told to take it up with her.  I was going to, and then I wasn't, and then I was, and then I wasn't... but darn it she took the two fluffies, which I had been really wanting to have for a while, so I finally did.  Turns out the manager's young daughter had put an order in for kittens, and I felt quite like a heal for "taking them away' from her, but when the guilt gets to me too much I remember that the manager is there every day and can get her pick of the next set that comes in.. I am rarely there and might not have gotten kittens for a while.. yup, I'm justifying.  Go ahead, call me a heal.

But really, can you blame me?

They are about seven weeks.. I was trying to decide if I thought they were 6 or 7, and the paperwork says 7.  No idea if whomever turned them in knows for sure or not..  Two girls - Smokey the gray tiger and Miss Priss the dilute brown patched tabby according to the paperwork.. dilute torbie to me - and three boys - Tigger DSH orange, Bashful DLH orange, and Buffy DSH buff/cream.  Yup, such original names.. :) I so don't see me using them.  They are robust, round active adorable little balls of fluff.  They are currently a little easily freaked out, but I don't see that lasting very long.  I also don't see them hanging out very long either :(  They'll probably make weight by the end of the week..

Although I do want to say that "Buffy" is quite an artist.  Twice he has made me casts of his foot print.. it has been very adorable (aka he pees in the scoopable litter then steps right in it)

I feel bad that the room is such a mess.  Esmay would totally freak when I would sweep up debris, so I tended not to do that while she was with me, and I couldn't face the room with out her there.  So that is on the agenda..   I don't want to change it too much because I want Esmay to feel comfortable if she comes back, so the kittens are in the cage

Update on Esmay

On Sunday I attempted to post an update about Esmay and it didn't go through.  I didn't feel like being pushy about it and figured it was for the best, as I tend to over react..

Poor Esmay was not doing well.  She was slowing down quite a bit on eating, and when I went to pill her she had a strong reaction when I got too close to her bad ear.  I was cleaning her ear out quite regularly and pulling out a chunk of debris pretty much every day about the size of two grains of rice.  It starts out a brownish liquid, but dries black and hard..  Saturday and Sunday she didn't want me cleaning her ear and her eye was starting to water, her nose was getting wetter and she had an interruption to her purring.. kind of like she had to take a second breath.. it was just odd... but it reminded me too much of Em when she had a growth in her head (she died of cancer in her sinus cavity)

I know all too well that the eyes/nose/ears are well connected in a cat due to Eli's scarred tear ducts.  For the first few years of his life his ears were nearly caked closed with debris.  The vet explained that his tears ended up there.. as well as spilling into his nose causing some debris to build up there as well.

So I was concerned.

When by Monday morning she still wasn't eating well and generally had an excess of attitude that she wanted me to leave her alone, I decided to box her up and bring her into the shelter.  She ended up going to the vet and is now back with us.  All I know is that I am to give her Baytril (an antibiotic) once a day instead of twice that she had been on it for her urinary issues and that they cultured the debris in her ear..

although I also know she went from 15lbs to 11lb 2 oz.. which I think I'm even more concerned about..   This girl so totally needs to eat..

Esmay's Ear

Hi, I have a "bad" ear.. 

Normally wafer thin, the inside swelled up and now it is very thick and short

You can't really see the folds and lumps in the white part of the upper ear, but it is really quite thick.
Fortunately it does not hurt and I don't mind when she touches it

It just makes me look unique!

Most info on hematomas say that they hurt, but Esmay doesn't mind if I rub or handle her ear, so I massage it softly before and after I try to clean out her ear.  Even on baytril her ear goop isn't getting better.. She will have to go have a recheck when her antibiotics are over in a few days and they'll determine what they want to do with her.  I so do wish I had an otoscope so I could get a good look in there.. with her hematoma a normally small opening to her ear is even smaller.. but alas, my knowing what is going on doesn't make a bit of difference :)

Esmay

Well Esmay is doing fine.  She's not all that thrilled about getting the antibiotics she has been given - and considering she didn't have any bacteria in her urinalysis, I have no idea why I'm giving them to her.

As a reminder, she was surrendered to the shelter at 13 years of age and started drinking and urinating excessively while up for adoption.  She went to the vet and the UA had lots of protein, blood and glucose in her urine.  A BG was in the 350 range.  She was diagnosed diabetic with a secondary urinary infection because if it (very common for diabetics who have a lot of glucose in their urine)

She was diagnosed on the 18th, came to my house on the 21st.  I don't believe she had insulin given to her by the staff... but they did give her the antibiotic.  When I got her home I tested her blood sugar and it was in the 50 (which was very low) it slowly rose until it leveled out around 70 - anything under 100 is not diabetic. I am so glad that she was sent to me, because if anyone had injected insulin into her body while she was in the 50 range (heck even at 70) it would have killed her.  I don't use that term lightly.  Maybe someone would have been around to see her go into hypoglycemic shock and been able to do something about it, but there is a real possibility that even if they had been aware of it that they couldn't have been able to counter the insulin.

So now we really only have to deal with this ear of hers.  Poor thing.  Reading through her history she has had several bouts with discharge from that ear, and I have no doubt that what ever is causing it (it is suspected polyps - which makes total sense to me) made her scratch her ear so badly that she damaged it causing a hematoma.  (no spell check, I do not mean tomato!) which means that the area between the inside and outside of her ear is inflamed - generally when it happens it fills with blood (and sure, it can often look like a tomato but that doesn't mean I meant tomato)  Often fixing it means surgery, and if there is a polyp in there, they can take that out as well.  Doesn't mean that is what is next for her, but that is a possibly - but not until she's done her antibiotics, so she's here for a few more days - unless she never forgives me for pilling her in which case she'll go back sooner and be stuck in a cage so she can't hide from who is going to medicate her..

I do want to say that I'm really loving her eyes, they look a bit like really cool marbles..

So, I got this email..

     We have a 13 year old cat that has been with us for a month or so and started drinking all of her water and peeing a lot.  We sent her to {redacted name of vet} and she is diabetic and has a UTI so I need a wonderful foster home for her :-)  Know anyone that may be interested.....?  :-)  She is going to be starting on 1 unit twice a day and as you probably know he recommends feeding her a high protein wet food such as fancy feast classics.  Let me know...

well duh.

So I went and got her after work.

She is interesting.  I introduced myself to her and she started purring.  I asked her if I could pick her up and I got the distinct impression she was against that.  I decided to leave her be while I got up to date in her information and checked on supplies (as well as a few kitties* in particular)  but shortly after I shut the cage door the shelter worker came in and picked her right up and stuffed her in a carrier... and stuffed is the correct term because she was totally unhappy at being held.

Her official name is "Bandit".. yeah, that doesn't work for me, and she doesn't much seem to like it, so I'm calling her Esmay. 

The shelter didn't have enough food nor enough testing supplies so I brought her home and cleaned up the room from Fluffy and left her in her carrier while I did it. When I did open the carrier she SHOT right out and started patrolling the room, walked around with purpose. She then went behind the couch and sat there. My husband had come in and we were having a conversation and I was about to leave and go get supplies at Walmart when she decided to come out and check out the room again. Gave it another quick once around and back behind the couch.

Went to Walmart, picked up a meter, strips and some Fancy Feast Classics as recommended by said vet as the new recommended foods.. I laughed and laughed because I've been using those for diabetics for ten years. I picked up my preferred Turkey and Giblets - even found a coupon on the shelf.

When I got home she was sitting on the couch, and was very happy to see me. She let me love on her, and gave me head butts. She is a very sweet kitty.. I feel so bad for her (more on her story in a minute) I was able to draw a little blood and was able to test her, and low and behold her blood sugar level was 53! I am guessing she was never diabetic and said vet (mentioned in yesterdays post) simply decided she was diabetic and that caused her urinary issues - it is very common. Diabetic cats often spill glucose into the urine and it feeds the bacteria causing a UTI. I got the vet paperwork including a blood panel they did on her, and I didn't see a fructosamine - which gives an average blood sugar level for the past few weeks. I know full well that a cat who is ill can have elevated blood sugar levels (I got very high blood sugar readings off Ollie once when he was feeling miserable) and I don't doubt the stress on her over the past few months (more on that in a bit) along with the species inappropriate food (dry) that often causes feline urine PH to dip too low ( hers was 6.5 instead of the 7.5 - 7.0 range it should be) and become alkaline instead of acidic which caused the urinary issues which caused her more stress, which made her throw more glucose and thus her reading at the vet of blood sugar levels in the 350s.

She was diagnosed at the vet on the 18th. She has been on antibiotics since then as well as a change in diet to a high protein low plant based diet and thus the better blood sugar levels. Might she actually be diabetic and giving her the right food put her into remission - absolutely. But reading over her history, I'm thinking that isn't the case. But I do not presume to assume that I am right in this and I will be watching her very carefully over the next few days.

Poor Esmay was surrendered to the shelter at the beginning of 2013 because her owner is ill. Just like poor Pumpkin, she was separated from her owner due to an illness. She is very fortunate to have ended up in a shelter with a high adoption rate and the willingness to treat a 13 yr old cat for diabetes - a diagnosis that makes all too many people run for the hills. There are soooo many cats out there right now that are diabetic that desperately need homes and finding a person who is willing to take on the challenge of testing and injecting a cat twice a day every day is hard.

So a thirteen year old kitty surrendered to the shelter. She was adopted out as a companion for another kitty. The new owner had her about a week before returning her because they did not get along. How sad is that.. a thirteen year old kitty given a week :( She got sick with upper respiratory issues and was on medication before being adopted.. so she lost her home, went to a strange place with lots of other animals, and noises and smells and weird people coming in and out, and she got sick and was medicated, then more people and then put in a carrier and brought to another house where there was another kitty and they didn't get along so another carrier and back to the shelter.. you get the point. Thirteen.. according to the charts that is about 70 years old..

not to mention her poor ear with a hematoma on it..








*Lucy was not at the shelter but had been moved to a satellite adoption center and I was told she is doing very well. Fluffy is still at the shelter and is on the adoption floor. Sadly she is in a cage instead of one of the adoption rooms, but considering her limp I am not surprised. I'm going to do a write up for her in hopes to generate a little more interest in her. I do love her dearly. I was telling my husband about my seeing her and he asked if I wanted to adopt her.. of course I do, but we are so not the right fit for her. We are a two level house with hard wood floors and rambunctious kitties.. I could not give her what she needs

Update: I tested her this morning and her blood sugar level was 59. I was a little concerned that maybe the meter wasn't working properly. I went upstairs to find a bottle of test solution (which gives a standard BG reading) while looking for it I also came across another meter I had so I decided to test that one and the new one with the solution. While they did not give the exact same reading - which is pretty standard - it was close enough that I am no longer concerned about Esmay being diabetic. I was able to trim most of her back claws. I found a wetish discharge in her hematoma ear which was pretty gross. I combed her because her short hair felt a bit matted and she is apparently having grooming issues due to being overweight as she had some dandruff and excess fur which felt a bit like matted fur, but there were no mats. She is REALLY sweet, but very much a tortie (even with her white locket) she does NOT want to be on your lap, she does NOT want you to decide where she is going to be thank you very much. I could do pretty much what ever I wanted to her as long as I didn't hold her down nor move her around. I so do love a kitty with an attitude. :)