January 27, 2010

All about the cat

I've never been one of those people who compares their pets to children, even before I had kids. Don't get me wrong, I love my cats; They're still cats, though, and in a whole different class than spawn.

In the last year, Tana has been losing weight. It started slowly enough that I didn't really notice, and continued slowly enough that I wasn't in huge hurry to rush off to the vet when I did notice. She finally got thin enough that I knew I needed to take her in to be seen, and I planned to take her in during the Christmas break when I would have other adults around to watch the kids. I was rather convinced that her weight loss was due to something terminal, and I really didn't want to have that kind of visit with kids in tow. All that changed when I was up with Owen in the middle of the night and witnessed what the vets call an "episode," behavior that may have been a stroke and was possibly indicative of high blood pressure.

I was sure at that point that Tana had something terminal. I was also sure that I couldn't wait to take her to the vet, because on the off chance that what she had was painful, I refuse to let her suffer. The next morning I took Owen, Katie and the cat to the vet clinic where Bubba was put to sleep.

Long story short, the vet was pretty sure that Tana had hyperthyroidism and high blood pressure. She confirmed the bp while we were there, and had bloodwork results back to us by the next morning. She called in a couple prescriptions, told me to come back in two weeks to recheck her levels, and we were good.

I expected Tana's activity level to decrease, in fact, if it didn't, the drugs weren't working. And she did get less active. After two weeks, her blood levels still looked good, but she was still losing weight. A week or so after that, and she was practically comatose. I would search her out several times a day, just to make sure she was still alive. I never saw her eat or drink, and she felt lighter. I tried to get a last minute appointment, but they were booked up. Instead, they suggested splitting her meds and gave us an appetite stimulant.

The stimulant woke her up again, and she started acting like a very toned down version of herself. She still wasn't eating, though, so I took her back in for another visit. In less than two weeks, she had dropped another pound. My cat who used to be a well fed but not fat 14 pounds was now down to 6.5. I was sure (again) that this was going to be the end, apparently there was just a little hope left. Her bp was fine, and the drug for that was the likely culprit of the nausea and lack of appetite, so we dropped it. We kept the stimulant, and started force feeding her a high nutrient wet food to try to jump start her system.

It took two days of bi hourly feedings, stunk both of us up and reminded me why babies are such a pain in the butt, but Tana finally started drinking. And then she started eating. She's started to feel a bit more substantial, and even though I still haven't seen her play, she's rejoined the family. I need to take her in to check her weight and make sure her bp is still ok (although I think we'll risk high bp over the meds), but I think she's going to make it through this.

My cats don't share the same level of importance as my kids. That doesn't mean that they aren't important to me, though. So yeah, I jumped through a lot of hoops, paid more than I probably should have and stress ate my way up a few extra pounds.

And I'm really grateful that it worked.

Posted by me at 10:21 PM| Comments (0)