Monday, November 12, 2007

Cat Crisis Update

Well, we're all still standing. Newfie is home right now, but it's tentative at best. She has some serious issues going on, but right now we're focused on getting her to eat again - she has an Ellipsis or something that is pronounced they way I just spelled, and it has something to do with a lot - I'm talking waaaay too much - gas in her intestines, which is causing her discomfort, resulting in her lack of appetite. Her lack of appetite causes her blood sugar to dip, which in turn causes all the other problems - cold body, lethargy, glassy-eyed stare, weak in the limbs. It's a terrible domino effect.

Our first step is to work on getting her to eat again, so I brought her home because it's particularly hard to get a cat to eat under the duress of being in the cat hospital. She has a medication that will hopefully help to stimulate the appetite, which will get the intestines to work again. That's the hope.

Once we get her eating again, we're going to work on her insulin levels. The vet is hoping by Friday, so we're not anticipating a rapid change in behavior right now.

The most concerning part - and the one that we're going to address last - is some spots creeping up into her lungs that may be cancer. Cancer that would be stemming from some other area, of which we're not sure (and probably won't be). Veterinary medicine is a lot of guess work, probably because the animals can't really tell ya what's hurting where.

So that might be the long-term problem, but right now - today - we're focusing on keeping her warm (her body temperature was dangerously low yesterday) and trying to get her to eat drink and poop again. I've built her a cat tent out of blankets by a chair and the heat vent, it's creating a very nice little warm cocoon for her. Now if she'd only have a bite to eat...

Oh yeah - Twinkle hissed at her when she came home and the other cats treated her like they'd never seen her before. It wasn't a very friendly homecoming for her.

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