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Jan. 18th, 2005 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqThe good news is that my cat isn't quite dead yet. The bad news is that she's not exactly chasing mice around the house either.
She has a serious gum infection, and moderate kidney malfunction that has led to an abundance of toxins in her blood. The vet took some blood samples and ran a few tests.
Later, when he was reading back the results from her blood test, he dwelled on just how awful her readings were. "This is three times the normal maximum she should have. This is almost twenty times higher than the top level should normally be." Etc.
From the way he was presenting it, I expected him to conclude with, "There's really not much that we can do at this point. She will only deteriorate from here. It's time for you to make some tough decisions."
But instead he said, "But I've seen far worse. I think we can bring her around with an aggressive regimen of antibiotics and if we strain the impurities from her blood."
Here she is hiding under the quilt. She's been doing a lot of that for the past few days - poor thing. I dragged her out and managed to get a very wan, struggling purr out of her before I packaged her up for the trip.
In the end they are going to be keeping her for 2-3 days for treatment. They are going to zap her with a few antibiotics to get the infection under control, and hook her up to cat dialysis to clean the toxins out of her blood. They are also going to intravenously rehydrate her (though she's only mildly dehydrated) and force-feed her to help get her strength back up. In short, if she survives this she's going to be some kind of pissed at me.
When I had Pixil (her brother) put down a few years ago, there was no doubt in my mind that it was time. He was sick, and suffering, and riddled with tumors. It hurt like hell to do it, and I'm still haunted by guilt over it, but I knew that it was time.
Today, Bit was every bit as weak and depressed as Pixil was when I took him in. They poked and prodded and probed and weighed her, then they left the two of us alone in the examination room for a few minutes. She had protested weakly during the examination, then gone all-but catatonic when they were done. She was sitting on the examination table in front of me, hunched over and staring half-lidded, unblinking at the edge of the table while I gently teased her ears and tried to coax a response out of her.
After a couple minutes of this, she suddenly stirred, lifted her head and began looking around the room. It was the first sign she'd given that she had any interest in her surroundings, and it was at that moment that I decided that it wasn't time. I wrapped my arms around her and said, "I'm not done with you yet. Maybe I'm being a bit selfish, but I'm not ready to let you go. I don't think you're done with you yet either."
At the time, I knew that there was no sound basis for it, but I couldn't shake a faint feeling of hope just then.
She has a serious gum infection, and moderate kidney malfunction that has led to an abundance of toxins in her blood. The vet took some blood samples and ran a few tests.
Later, when he was reading back the results from her blood test, he dwelled on just how awful her readings were. "This is three times the normal maximum she should have. This is almost twenty times higher than the top level should normally be." Etc.
From the way he was presenting it, I expected him to conclude with, "There's really not much that we can do at this point. She will only deteriorate from here. It's time for you to make some tough decisions."
But instead he said, "But I've seen far worse. I think we can bring her around with an aggressive regimen of antibiotics and if we strain the impurities from her blood."
Here she is hiding under the quilt. She's been doing a lot of that for the past few days - poor thing. I dragged her out and managed to get a very wan, struggling purr out of her before I packaged her up for the trip.
In the end they are going to be keeping her for 2-3 days for treatment. They are going to zap her with a few antibiotics to get the infection under control, and hook her up to cat dialysis to clean the toxins out of her blood. They are also going to intravenously rehydrate her (though she's only mildly dehydrated) and force-feed her to help get her strength back up. In short, if she survives this she's going to be some kind of pissed at me.
When I had Pixil (her brother) put down a few years ago, there was no doubt in my mind that it was time. He was sick, and suffering, and riddled with tumors. It hurt like hell to do it, and I'm still haunted by guilt over it, but I knew that it was time.
Today, Bit was every bit as weak and depressed as Pixil was when I took him in. They poked and prodded and probed and weighed her, then they left the two of us alone in the examination room for a few minutes. She had protested weakly during the examination, then gone all-but catatonic when they were done. She was sitting on the examination table in front of me, hunched over and staring half-lidded, unblinking at the edge of the table while I gently teased her ears and tried to coax a response out of her.
After a couple minutes of this, she suddenly stirred, lifted her head and began looking around the room. It was the first sign she'd given that she had any interest in her surroundings, and it was at that moment that I decided that it wasn't time. I wrapped my arms around her and said, "I'm not done with you yet. Maybe I'm being a bit selfish, but I'm not ready to let you go. I don't think you're done with you yet either."
At the time, I knew that there was no sound basis for it, but I couldn't shake a faint feeling of hope just then.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 02:00 am (UTC)All I can think of is my cat, Tiger, who lived to be 17 years old.
He had kidney failure and as a result, had gum infections too.
He resorted to pulling his fur out as the pain was so bad...
*sigh* I sure miss that fuzzy black furball :(
no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 02:07 am (UTC)http://www.lycanthrope.net/~aerofox/pictures/Tiger.jpg
no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 02:28 am (UTC)Once Bit is recovered from the infection, they want to have her back in to yank out some of the bad teeth (to prevent them from getting infected again).
no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 06:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 07:39 am (UTC)Two of our three cats are likewise getting quite old now, medical issues abound.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 12:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-19 06:47 pm (UTC)