One day I was doing laundry and cleaning up around the house. In my hurry, I put a pile of clean sheets on top of the dresser and went back into the bathroom to finish scrubbing. When I came out of the bathroom, ready to put my sheets on the bed, this is what I found:
I got this by email from my dad, but I could have written it myself to Cassius.
Jason and I have been worried that our kitty baby, Cassius, has been getting bored lately. He doesn't like to play with his little jingle-balls as much as he used to and his old string just got too ratty. I found this funny little mouse on a string that you attach to a doorway at the grocery store today. The little mouse squeaks and it's on a rubber band-type string. I put it on the door and this is what happened:
So.........it's been a while since my last blog post. Raise your hand if anyone is surprised.
Anyone? Anyone?
I'll admit it; my hand was down, too. Here's what's been going on. My brother came home for a two week leave from Afghanistan two weeks ago. He had been overseas for 6 months and will return afterward for at least another 6 months. He flew in the day before Halloween into San Antonio. It had been a several day wait for him because no one knew when he was in the air. He called to let us know he would be flying to Kuwait first and would give us a call to give us more details. Unfortunately, his cell phone that he bought overseas doesn't work anywhere except Afghanistan. So, when I got a phone call at 2 am from an unknown number, I didn't answer, I went back to sleep. I felt horrible! He had called to say he was in Kuwait and that he would be leaving soon. Long story short, he called me again from Ireland to let me know he would be arriving in Dallas the next day and from there, he hoped to catch an earlier flight into San Antonio.
Because he was able to catch a last-minute standby flight to San Antonio (rather than have his original 7 hour layover), my parents weren't able to get here fast enough to meet him at the airport. My aunt, Grandma and I decided to meet him instead. My cousin had made him a welcome home sign even though she couldn't come! Poor Houston....he was so embarrassed when he saw us waiting there with a sign! He hates flying in his military gear because of the attention it attracts and we made it worse by singling him out! He was happy to see us and ready to get out of airports. There are pictures, but they're on my aunt's camera. I'll post them if I get a copy.
I took him back to my house, let him change and then we went to eat at Chuy's. I know he was deprived of Mexican food and beer, so I made it my mission to alleviate that! He had his first Shiner Bock and just stared at it for a while and then took about a 5 second chug. We probably should've ordered two to start.
We got our food and he chowed down. He couldn't remember when he had eaten last because he'd been in an airplane so long. Afterward, we headed to Sam's so that I could stock up on some essentials in our house.....namely toilet paper. As I headed towards the bread, I felt the basket take a sharp right. My brother left me in the dust quickly as he discovered we were passing the beer section! Ha ha! He picked up a case of the Shiner Family Reunion before we could move on.
Later that afternoon and a few beers later, my parents arrived and another hugfest commenced. We made dinner, talked and drank more beer. By Halloween morning, we were in dire need of more beer. I didn't want to disappoint my beer-starved brother, so we headed to the grocery store to get some food supplies for dinner and beer.
We spent Halloween night cooking shrimp on the grill and also made some type of shrimp diablo indoors. Too bad I didn't bother to take pictures. Blame it on the Kosmos! I handed out candy to a ton of trick-or-treaters and tried to keep Cassius from escaping outside. I was not successful at least two of the times.
We had an excellent weekend spent catching up. My parents and brother left that Sunday to go back to the hometown and Jason & I planned to catch up with everyone again the following weekend.
They like to play...
And play....
And they don't like it when you try to take their toys away....
They walk away when you hit the snap button....
And they sulk when you actually get them to sit still. Except you forgot to set the flash to on.
Darn those sneaky kittys!
Cassius had a follow-up with his vet yesterday and..........we got great news! His kidney values are now normal! We suspected this since he has been acting like his normal self. About 10pm every night, he races up and down the stairs, then jumps up on the balcony and swats at things that only he can see. We finally found a cat food that he likes and he's eating like he used to. The only problem with a cat that has kidney damage is the litter box. Our cat pees a gallon every other day. I'm constantly filling his water bowl and he's constantly emptying it back out. We're still giving him sub-Q injections twice a week, but that's okay. We'll take a little inconvenience if it means that our kitty is healthy. Hooray!
Read more...Jason came home one day last week exhausted. He said he was going to go change and then come upstairs with me. I went to check on him and this is what I found:
Cassius was asleep too, but he heard me turn on the camera. Jason ended up taking a two hour nap that night!
We were finally able to take Cassius home today. He still has to go into our regular vet daily for IV hydration and is on antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection. He was sent home with a halo on and his catheter still attached to his leg, but he's back to his old charming self. The staff at the Emergency Pet Clinic were sad (but happy!) to see him go because he is such an affection hog. Here's a picture of he and I tonight:
We took Cassius back into the Emergency Pet Clinic last night. He was getting progressively more sluggish and still wasn't eating. I had to take him into the vet Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to get manually fed. On top of that, he was also given a subcutaneous injection of saline on Wednesday because he was dehydrated. By Wednesday afternoon, I noticed that he wasn't drinking any water and I got worried.
We decided to take Cassius back to the kitty ER. They ran blood tests where they found out that he was in renal failure. His creatine levels were 15. Normal levels for a cat are between 2 and 2.5, with 12 being severely critical. He was immediately put back on an IV to help jump start his kidneys.
By this morning, he was already looking better. He was more alert and had actually eaten on his own that morning.
When we checked on him tonight, he was more like his old self, purring away and trying to convince every worker in the clinic that they should be loving on him. His creatine level dropped to 6.3, which is good. The vet had warned me that he may not drop quickly, but he did. By tomorrow, we hope that his creatine levels will be back to normal.
We will still have to keep him on an IV for his duration in the ER. Then, we'll have to follow up daily, then every few days for subcutaneous injections to keep his kidneys working. If all else goes well, his kidneys will heal back to normal, but it's still too early to tell. We just know that we can't take Cassius off of the fluids too soon or he could crash again.
I will visit him again tomorrow morning and night. Hopefully, we can take him home on Saturday morning. I'll update again as I get more news.
Cassius is doing better. He's home and has been meowing up a storm when he's awake. He's been sleeping much more than usual. Jason & I were worried because he's still not well when the realization hit us that he almost died and that people nor cats bounce back from that quickly. He has to take a pill twice daily that will help jump-start his bladder. He still doesn't have complete control and will leak a bit. He is making frequent trips to the litterbox which means he's trying. The doctor said it will come back with time. In the meantime, we have all furniture completely covered in plastic and sheets!
He also takes an antibiotic to help stop the infection. Luckily, this is syringe form and is fairly easy to administer. Finally, Cassius wasn't eating much (or anything) so I took him back in. The doctor gave me another pill to give him that will make him hungry. So far, no good.
He looks at the food, but then just walks away. They fed him yesterday through a tube down his throat just to get him some nutrition. Now I have to take him back in this morning to have it done again. This may be a side effect of the antibiotics, so we also may switch to a new one.
Other than these problems, Cassius is still his lovable self. I even had a nurse call me from the Emergency Pet Clinic to check on him because she liked him so much. So, to wrap things up, here's a picture of him sleeping in my lap two days ago. This is his most favorite things to do. You can even see one of the places where he was shaved. :(
No, not the kind you're thinking.
Our kitty, Cassius, is very sick. After coming back from the Thanksgiving holiday, Jason wakes up on Monday to find him laying in his litter box. Not only is this weird and disgusting, it's really out of character for Cassius. We decide to take him to get a bath to get rid of the "ick" factor when petting him. He acted a little strange, so we searched for vomit, but luckily he spared us.
He did vomit while at the vet's and they gave him some anti-nausea medicine. When I got him home late in the afternoon, he vomited again. Cat vomit is not all that strange, so we decided to watch him. He tried to drink some water that night, but couldn't keep it down. But then again, water is hard to keep down on an empty stomach. Hangover memories anyone?
The next day, we called the vet and they made an appointment for the following morning at 8:30am (Wednesday). She said to watch him all day (Tuesday) and see how he is. He still looked bad in the morning, but by afternoon, we thought we could see some improvement. He was weak, which we attributed to not eating and drinking, but he was moving himself around a little. He also kept trying to go the bathroom. We didn't think that was a problem. We just thought he was dehydrated from not having any water. We planned to keep his vet appointment and take him in regardless.
Wednesday morning comes and Jason checks on him. Cassius' breathing is very shallow and he's not responding too much. He's awake, but not by much. He wouldn't even pick up his head when we tried to pet him. At this point, we knew we didn't have much time. It was 7:20am. I got out of the house by 7:30am and raced (as best I could in morning traffic) to the Emergency Pet Clinic. We didn't think he would make it to his 8:30am appointment. I arrive by 8:00am and bring him in. They immediately take him in and start to work on him.
Right away, the on-staff vet knew what was wrong with him. It is called Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease or FLUTD. Please read about it here. It's an infection of the urinary tract that results from a blocked urethra. In males, it's even more dangerous because their urethra is so long and narrow, it gets blocked easily. This is what happened to Cassius. Once it's completely blocked (i.e. can't pee), they have 24-48 hours to live. We think we were on the last part of the 48 hours.
When I was able to see Cassius, he was under a warming blanket because apparently he was hypothermic. He had a catheter inserted with blood coming out and an IV inserted to rehydrate him. He had a halo on so that he wouldn't try to take out the IV or catheter. He had several blood tests taken so he was shaved in weird places. He was sprawled out on a counter because he had no energy. The vet told me very bluntly that my cat was dying and he was going to try to save him. I nearly lost it at this point. I felt like the most horrible pet owner ever.
We were very lucky that the Emergency Pet Clinic had such a great staff on board. I arrived during their shift change, yet it didn't affect how they worked on Cassius. When I came to see him with Jason that afternoon, he was already looking better. He was more aware and was holding himself up. He was still out of it due to the anesthesia, but he looked a little more like himself. The vet told me that we were very lucky and that he was already doing better.
I visited him today and he was almost himself. He saw me as soon as I walked in and responded well to all the love I gave him. Everybody knows that Cassius is a sucker for pets. I called in the afternoon and the vet told me that they had removed his catheter and that he was urinating well. We expect him to be released sometime tomorrow. I will pick up Jason from the airport in an hour and go straight over to see him again.
What we've learned is that if your cat has trouble urinating, then you need to treat it as an absolute emergency. It will back up his/her system, putting their pH level out of whack and begin to shut down their body organs. We will most likely have to change his diet completely and not deviate from that. But if it keeps him healthy, it's worth it. Had we realized what a problem this was on Monday, we could've taken Cassius in and simply fed him some medication as an outpatient.
I never thought I'd be the person that would throw back $1500 on a vet bill, but as Jason said, "He's family and you can't put a price on that." So please keep this little guy in your prayers. He will appreciate it.
So I've been feeling a little sorry for myself lately. Now that the house is fairly settled into, I've gotten bored. There's only so much TV and cleaning you can do in a week. I've been looking for a job, but there's just not much out there. And with companies like Citicorp that are laying off 50,000 people, this may not just be a short trend. It would be nice to have more disposable income, but the truth is that I'm just bored. I would like to have some more adult interaction and responsibility.
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