catheroominations

Daphne, not me. Well, I am too, actually. I got home from Calgary yesterday and before we even went home from the airport, Matte took me to the cat hospital to see Daphne. She didn’t look so good. Her eyes were all red and goopy and her nose was ooky and yucky. She’s still got her cold, but they’ve ruled out pneumonia and liver problems. Whew! When she saw me, she perked up a bit and raised her head to meet my hand. She even batted at the ball I was dangling in front of her and did the elevator butt thing when I scratched her lower back. I was so relieved to see she had so much Daphne-ness even while sick, much more than when Matte saw her the previous day.

keep reading She’s home!

When we picked up Jasper and Daphne from the cat hospital where they stayed while we were on our Disney World vacation (WHERE WE GOT ENGAGED) the vet told us that Little Daph had lost some weight and caught a cold during her stay. I had heard that catching a cold during boarding was common, so I wasn’t too concerned. Plus, I was so happy to see my kitties, I was focusing on getting them home where they’d be more comfortable. I only had a couple of hours to visit with them and get my share of headbutts and purrs before I flew off to Calgary for work.

But when I saw Daphne in the carrier, she didn’t look like herself. At all. Her eyes were squinty, her mouth was slightly open, she was sneezing, and she looked miserable. When I got her home, she didn’t fight me when I held her (and she HATES being held). Her body was scrawny. I gave her her 2 antibiotics so Matte could see how to give them to her while I was gone. I didn’t want to be away from home so soon after returning, but I had to make this trip for work, so I left Daph and her brother Jasper in my fiance’s tender loving care.

Tonight when I talked to Matte, he said Daphne was making some strange noises. He couldn’t really describe them, and I couldn’t hear them through the phone. He mentioned that he didn’t think she’d been eating and I was concerned because she needs to eat in order to have the strength to get over this cold or whatever it is (she’s all skinny now). I suggested he take her in to the emergency vet and get her on an IV or something. I know the after-hours vet is expensive, but money is not an object when it comes to these things.

Daph is now spending the night in isolation at the emergency pet hospital because she is contagious. It looks like she has a respiratory infection, and possibly pneumonia, although the vet couldn’t hear anything in her lungs tonight. She’s getting an IV and more antibiotics and they’re running a blood panel to see if there’s any liver damage. Apparently this can be caused when cats have gone without eating for just a few days and since we haven’t been around her lately, we don’t know if she ate while we were gone. Tomorrow morning, Matte will pick her up (kitty catheter and all) and take her to the regular-hours cat hospital (where we take Jasper) and she’ll stay there for a few days. They’ll do chest x-rays to hopefully rule out pneumonia, and continue administering her IV and meds.

All the time we were on vacation, I worried about how Jasper would handle being boarded. With his kidney tumor and weight loss, I thought this might be too stressful on him, and I even thought the worst at one point. (I’m a worrywart by nature, could you tell?) I didn’t worry about Daphne much because as long as she had my hoodie to snuggle into, and her brother in the same cage as her, she’d be fine.

But now she’s sick, and I know there is nothing I can do for her. Even if I was at home, there’d still be nothing I could do. She’s getting the best care she can, but I still feel helpless.

And I’m homesick for my fiance. If he was just my boyfriend, that’d be one thing, but now he’s my fiance and I miss him more. (And I really like saying fiance but I like to pronounce it so that it rhymes with finance.)

So, if you have kitties, or doggies, or any kind of furball, give them some extra love tonight on my behalf, eh? And if you have a fiance, or partner/significant other/boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband/poolboy, give them an extra sumpthin’-sumpthin’ for those of us who are missing ours.

The vet and I haven’t been able to connect. But he did leave a message on Saturday. He doesn’t usually leave test results in a message, but because we’d been playing phone tag for so long, he thought it best to leave the news on my voice mail.

The news is…there’s not really any news.

Usually, with a fine needle aspirate, the results show cancer or no cancer. But Jasper’s results were not 100% in either direction. The official result is that the cells are “highly suspicious for cancer.” So, we still don’t know.

In his message, the doctor offered the option to do a biopsy on Jasper’s mass to find out more. But that involves being put under anesthetic, and I don’t want to put him under for that (with a heart murmur, there is added risk).

Since I’ve decided to let Jasper live his happy life with no invasive medical treatment, I am able to enjoy his company without bawling my eyes out. He’s returned to his normal pampered state, sans cat hospital visits. Now, my only plan for him is to beef him up. I’m going to a Giants game tomorrow night so maybe Mr. Bonds will share some of his juice with the little man. Can’t hurt to ask. But seriously, I’m going to ask the vet about maybe feeding Jasper kitten food, or go the raw food route, like Mere is doing for her kitties. Lower litter box output would be an added bonus.

Thank you all for your kind words and support, once again. Sorry for the lack of update, but if anything earth-shattering arises, I will post it here. And if he gains a pound, you’ll be the first to know. 🙂

XOXO

Thank you all for the well wishes for Jasper. It’s so amazing that people I haven’t even met can comfort and support me and my little feline buddy. And I feel the love from those I do know, as well. XOXO.

Today was a stressful day for Jasper. He got dropped off at the vet at 7 a.m. to wait for the mobile ultrasound unit to arrive and take pictures of his little body. And wait he did. Until nearly 3 p.m. I wish he could have stayed home and just showed up at the office when the ultrasound folks did, but once the ultrasound people got there, they were very quick, and even called me during it to say he’d be ready to pick up in a bit.

They completed 2 ultrasounds: one of his chest cavity and one of the abdominal cavity. There is (of course) good news and bad news. The vet told us the good news first. Jasper does not have heart disease. His murmur is a little worse than it used to be but we just need to keep an eye on it with future ultrasounds.

The abdominal scan did not have good results, as I feared after Saturday’s visit. Jasper has a mass on his left kidney, about the same size as his actual kidney. They did a fine needle aspiration so they could examine some cells from the growth and I’ll get the results Wednesday. If it is cancer, this test should show it. If it isn’t cancer, it won’t be so easy to diagnose what else it could be. But I’ll know more in a day or so.

I listened to the options: surgery to remove his kidney, chemotherapy (if it’s cancer), or surgery to remove the mass. I just can’t make my little man endure any of that. He’s 14 years old. Kidney removal is a big surgery. He’s gotten so thin, and frail-looking I don’t know that he could recover well. And I’ve always said I wouldn’t give him chemo. It’s not about money. If I could pay $5,000 to make him better without causing him pain, suffering, or risk, I would do it. But Jasper is too special to me and has been such a wonderful companion, I can’t force something like that on him. He deserves better and I want to keep him happy. (As I type this, he’s purring on my lap, making it hard to maneuver my way around the keyboard, but I don’t care. I welcome it. But if there are any typos, it wasn’t me.)

Thank you again for your kind words and good vibes. I won’t turn this blog into a daily cat diary, don’t worry. Just for now, it’s therapeutic to share my thoughts.

Today I took the little man (aka Jasper) to the vet. He eats and eats and eats and doesn’t gain weight, but looks skinnier and skinnier. He’s lost 10 more ounces since October, and my once 11-lb. kitty now weighs a scrawny 8.4 pounds. The vet said he’s not just skinny. He’s bony. And older cats tend to gain weight more than they lose it (Jasper’s 14 years old). I thought for sure he had a hyperactive thyroid. I wish that was the problem. He’s got a couple of other issues instead.

For one, his heart murmur is worse. His breathing is irregular, and the vet fears he may have cardiomyopathy. This could possibly be treated with meds, but we’ll need to do an ultrasound to find out more of the story. This makes me sad. And scared.

But the possible cardiac disease is not why he’s so skinny. There’s something else wrong. One of his kidneys is huge. So we’re doing an ultrasound on that too, along with some other lab tests. Depending on what they find, it may be treatable with meds. That is my hope. I will force pills down Jasper’s throat for the rest of his life if I have to. I don’t care. I would daily hand-feed him caviar from a sterling silver spoon from Tiffany’s, if that would help. We are talking about my little man here. He was my family when I was homesick in Kentucky and breaking up with my boyfriend, and Jasper made the flight back to CA in his carrier at my feet. He’s seen me through ups and downs of the last 12 years, and he has me wrapped around his little paw, getting me up at 6:30 every morning to feed him smelly canned cat food.

While we waited in the room for them to bring him out after preliminary x-rays, I didn’t want to discuss Jasper’s health with Matte. Instead, we “awwed” at the 2 kitten sisters across from us, Gina and Sophia (named after Lolabrigida and Loren). It wasn’t until I got into the comfort of our home and set Jasper free from his carrier that I broke down and cried. The uncertainty and helplessness is what’s getting me. I don’t want to think the worst, and I know I should wait until the results of Monday’s ultrasound, but I can’t help it. Just knowing something serious is wrong with my little man breaks my heart.

So for those of you who have kitties, or doggies, or rabbits, or any pets, give them some extra attention today.