Sorry, couldn't resist that pun in the post title. It just seems like my life lately is cats 24/7. Cats, cats, cats, cats, cats and oh, btw, did I mention, cats? It isn't, really, although the cats have been sucking up an inordinate amount of time lately. The abridged version:
- Dolly is on a new med, budesonide, for her symptomatically-diagnosed IBD. She seems to be doing better ito
vomiting, but she continues to have regular diarrhea. We need to weigh her to make sure she's at least maintaining her weight or, ideally, gaining. - Smudge has tested zero for his fungus; he'll be taken off fluconazole once he's had a few zero results in a row. This is especially nice bc the vets expected him to always have a fungal reading of some sort, perhaps in the 3-4 units range; but
he's actually got zero! Thing is, he continued to lose weight even as the fluconzole was doing its antifungal best. He seemed fine otherwise: good appetite, good attitude, good functions, etc. Turns out he has low-grade lymphoma, a slow-moving cancer. He'll soon begin treatment with prednisone and lucarine (sp?). Remission is typically 18 - 24 months. Longtime readers may recall that Smudgie's littermate, Archie, died of high-grade lymphoma three years ago. - Clara is currently in isolation bc somebody had bloody yak and diarrhea recently and we think it might have been her. She wasn't eating for a couple of days. She may not have been eating much or at all before that, but Smudgie unwittingly covered for her. We only noticed she wasn't eating when Smudge was gone for a
couple of days recently for his biopsy. She continued to not eat (?) for a couple of days in isolation. Now she's been eating for a couple of days. No output yet. That's the key: knowing who did what so that we don't treat the wrong cat. It's possible she had a reaction to the post-dental antibiotic she was on quite recently. She's had IBD in the past; it's possible it's returned. If her output - when it resumes - continues to be bloody, we'll treat her w/flagyl. If it's normal and she continues to eat, then we'll probably attribute it to an antibiotic reaction. - Nosey gets his urine tested every 6 weeks or so bco his diabetes. A recent test
turned up blood in his urine. He was on clavamox for a while and the amount of blood in his urine did decrease, but it did not clear up entirely. Now he's on baytril, a stronger AB. - Miles, one of our foster kittens, has a problem with his right eye. Cats have a third eyelid, called the nictitating membrane, which provides protection and moisture to the
eye. The third eyelid usually stays hidden; Miles's is halfway out. This may or may not be a problem, but we're (no pun intended) keeping an eye on it. He's currently getting ointment in that eye and Dr. Slade will look at it when she next visits in a week or so. - Miles and Lizzie continue in isolation bco possible disease transfer. They look healthy, but they might still be carrying something. We know they have worms and they are being treated for that. They're too young to be reliably tested for other, more dangerous diseases. Also, they haven't had all their shots yet bc they're not big enough to get some of them. It's unlikely that they have rabies, but you cannot be too cautious about something like that. Of course, our resident cats are vaccinated against rabies, but you don't want to mess w/rabies at all. We do take them out of their confinement room; it's not as though they're always in there. Proper socialization requires frequent handling. They've seen the other cats, but they do not share boxes, food, water, bedding, anything and they
certainly don't get close enough to touch each other. Kevin and I watched Oliver Twist the other night, so we - okay, I - dressed them up for a night at the movies and we snuggled them the whole time. These kittens are soooo mellow; I hope that's just their personality, and not that they have some kind of energy-draining illness. - Fortunately, Eddie and Lizzie seem to have zero problems whatsoever. 2 out of 7.
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