Worried about my kitty

I am so, so sorry. *hugs*

You are in my thoughts

I'm sorry SnS. I only hope your kitty won't suffer

Mixed news. Ariel is coming home this afternoon, but we don't know for how long. His kidney function never came back up
very high -- his life expectancy is only in the weeks given that anyway. The abdominal xray showed no obvious mass and given his life expectancy I can't imagine treating for cancer at this point, so we won't take him to the specialty clinic for further diagnostics. He'll come home with SQ fluids and antibiotics, and we'll just have to see what his quality of life is. I will give him as much quality time as I can, but if he's not having any fun, I won't hang on past the point of reason either.



If he does VERY well, next week becomes an issue. I'll be with Bill in Death Valley from Saturday through Friday and possibly into the following weekend. He may have to board at the vet's while we are gone, I'm not sure I'd like to leave him with the sitter coming in twice a day under the circumstances. I wish I didn't have to plan around that.

It is what it is and we just have to do the best we can.

Yes, but sometimes it's hard to define "best" and "can".

I feel for ya ,Deb.

ScooterNScotty wrote:

If he does VERY well, next week becomes an issue. I'll be with Bill in Death Valley from Saturday through Friday and possibly into the following weekend. He may have to board at the vet's while we are gone, I'm not sure I'd like to leave him with the sitter coming in twice a day under the circumstances. I wish I didn't have to plan around that.

Not to be morbid, but do you think he'd prefer to hide under your bed and die than in a cage at the vet's?

patdbunny wrote:

Not to be morbid, but do you think he'd prefer to hide under your bed and die than in a cage at the vet's?

At first I thought you were being snide, but then again, I'm not sure I actually know the answer to that question. Except at the vet's he wouldn't have to do it slowly, if he's THAT sick I'm not going to hang on to him nor do I think the sitter would. It's just that she's only going to be in twice a day.

I should know in the next couple of days if he's going to do OK on the fluids or not. Right now he seems subdued but he's getting around OK. Been to visit the food dish, which seemed like a good sign. Now he is, in fact, under the bed. I'm sure the four days of incarceration were hard on him. Honestly I'm not sure how I feel right now. In a way bringing him home at all was hard, and I am fully prepared to say goodbye to him in a couple of days. It really depends on what quality of life he has. So far I'm not wildly encouraged, even with the residual IV fluids in his system he seems markedly weaker than he has been. Of course he's been in a small "condo" at the vet's office (I got to go back and visit him there a couple of times, they are pretty cool about that).

Actually right now I mostly want to scream and tear my hair out, but I have a trek across DV to get organized.
'

I hope your kitty gets better. I was a mess when I lost the cat I had for 14 years, so I know how you feel.

ScooterNScotty wrote:

patdbunny wrote:

Not to be morbid, but do you think he'd prefer to hide under your bed and die than in a cage at the vet's?

At first I thought you were being snide'

Sorry if it came across that way. I meant it in all seriousness.
One of our old cats was on its way over the Rainbow Bridge and the vet and I discussed that I'd take the cat home and let it die there. We discussed how much distress it would be in before I'd take it back to get put down. But she basically clocked out and died pretty quickly at home.

patdbunny wrote:

Sorry if it came across that way. I meant it in all seriousness.

I may be feeling a tad sensitive. Ya think?

I suppose he might just crawl under the bed and die, but I don't think it would be in his best interests to leave him to do that if he was clearly uncomfortable or distressed. I'm particularly worried about the sitter and leaving her with life and death decisions, which doesn't seem fair. But I think I should not think about it too much more until we've had 24-48 hours to see how he is doing.

It's hard to say anything in that kind of situation.
My dog died in my arms and I'll never forget that. My bunny after his livers shot down, I go to vets ER to not seeing him suffer. His body was cold. After short consideration with vets, I made the call to put him to sleep to not suffer.
There is never a good advise for such a situation...

I usually tell people they will know the right thing to do... it's a lot easier to tell someone else that than yourself.

He came out from under the bed, had a meal and hopped on top of it, so right now he's doing quite OK. I'm going to have to drag myself out to the store to get some Maalox for him and some dinner for us... (the Maalox helps bind up the waste products, he also gets Pepcid to help keep his tummy feeling good, and the antibiotic and the fluid. Good thing he's a complete sweetie to handle! I can flip him on his back and trim all his toenails.).

ScooterNScotty wrote:

I usually tell people they will know the right thing to do... it's a lot easier to tell someone else that than yourself.

Again - I didn't mean to come across as insensitive.
I think when the time gets closer, you WILL know what needs to be done. Just hard not to over think it right now.

patdbunny wrote:

ScooterNScotty wrote:

I usually tell people they will know the right thing to do... it's a lot easier to tell someone else that than yourself.

Again - I didn't mean to come across as insensitive.
I think when the time gets closer, you WILL know what needs to be done. Just hard not to over think it right now.

Oh, no hard feelings! That was aimed more at Margaret's comment about giving advice, and I was thinking that's what I usually do when someone asks my advice in this situation, but that I can't really effectively give myself the same advice.

KayLayUh wrote:

I hope your kitty gets better. I was a mess when I lost the cat I had for 14 years, so I know how you feel.

Ditto to this comment. We lost our 15 year old cat not that long ago, and the whole family was like this, including me and I'm not a "cat person" However this guy was one I had rescued so I was devastated, even though he was so old.



Let's face it, this is a member of your family, no way is this easy. Take care Deb, our thoughts are with you.

I guess to me 14 seems young... This is the third cat I've had with some degree of kidney failure. Merlin's kidneys went downhill so fast that by the time I realized he was ill, he never came home. He was 16. Kira lived to be 21, and she had chronic renal failure and IBD for the last 2-3 years. I did SQ fluids for her for a long time. Ariel is "only" 14.

At any rate, right now he seems like himself. I should know by the end of the day tomorrow what his baseline is going to be like with the SQ fluids and other meds. I'm not particularly looking forward to sticking him, but Kira never seemed all that resentful of the procedure.

hope your kitty does well...don't blame yourself


dusty

Thanks. He's holding his own still, doing his normal things. I cant' tell if he's eating, though, since he tends to do that in the middle of the night. The SQ fluids were a piece of cake this morning, but he HATES the Maalox.

I'm not having a great week, though. I got a stop work order on one of my projects this morning -- the budget stuff is already affecting us and I'm sure there is much more and much worse to come. It's only 10% of my income, but was covering 50% each of two who are working for me. Not good.

Yeah ,i'm afraid your on the "cutting edge" in that department

I'd hate to think my job depended on Fed grant money

henpecked wrote:

I'd hate to think my job depended on Fed grant money

Yeah. Thanks. There are few scientists whose doesn't! NSF, NASA... we're all potentially very screwed. Even the tenured college profs depend on observing grants to support travel, page charges, grad student salaries, postdoc salaries.

Anyone want a slightly used astronomer?

Kitty still holding his own. I need to figure out if he's eating. He tends to do it secretively.

It's unfair IMO if people with education, who hade to spend so many years and money and their time to have that knowledge, get treated like that, but let's face it: that's life...
Deb, I hope you'll be fine with your husband and find some way out...
Kitty, hold on there and be strong

No, he's in the same boat, we are both working in space-based astronomy. We can only hope we aren't the first ones off the sinking ship, or are the few that remain clinging to the floating boards. I've worked at the same institute for almost 23 years and now I am facing a potential need to reinvent myself. As is he, although he was an auto mechanic before he was an astrophysicist! We'd almost certainly have to move someplace cheaper as our mortgage swallows a lot each month. We bought at the very top of the market, and our home value has come down some much we no longer have much equity at all.

What he would like to do is open a running store, but this seems like a terrible time to go into retail and neither one of us is that good with finances! I'd love to make a living writing or making jewelry but those don't seem like good bets in a down economy either. I did a brief search a while back (I spent half this year waiting for the axe to fall and take me down to half income, now I'm reinstated but don't know how I'm getting paid after September) and apparently the most in need profession is being an undertaker....