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We Have Intubated Another Cat
May. 19th, 2023 08:47 pmLucy's health has been up and down, but mostly down. We had her in at the vet on Monday, and since she wasn't seeming any better we got subcutaneous fluids and anti-nausea drugs to give her.
And then after two days of that she was seriously perked up. Active, happy, begging for food. And eating a little bit. Maybe a quarter of a can of Fancy Feast each day, which obviously isn't much, but the trend seemed very good.
So Lucy's third vet appointment was yesterday. We reported that her eating was still poor, but improving (and saw that she'd lost a half-a-pound over the previous week, which she fortunately now *has* to lose, after we've finally got the prednisolone working for her).
And then we took her home and last night she was back to eating just a few bites at a time, no more than a minute at a food plate before she walked away.
Kimberly and I talked about it this morning, while I was not being very successful at working. One of the things that really disturbed us was that the fluids and anti-nausea drug we were giving her seemed to have NO direct correlation with when she begged for food and when she ate (as it were). I mean overall, there was improvement. But often it was just before or immediately after we gave her the anti-nausea pill (which is supposed to take an hour to two to take effect) that she was begging for food. We wondered if she wasn't actually nauseous, or if the drug just wasn't working.
So we wasted some time googling, and eventually just decided to call the vet and give him our impressions and say she was back to eating poorly.
He called back, said he really didn't know what was going on because her tests were all good, and made the same suggestion his daughter had last week: that we give her a feeding tube.
We were resistant last week because Lucy was doing so badly at the time, and it was super triggering because it reminded us of how badly Callisto was doing when we got her a feeding tube a year and a half ago and how much the poor baby fought us when we fed her. We didn't want to go through that again. We didn't want *everyone* to be that miserable especially if it was a lost cause.
But Lucy is now doing great other than the not-eating bit. She's happy, friendly, even seems in a bit better mood with the orangies, with them having to get a little closer to her before the growling starts. She's not hiding or trying to get away, not running a fever all the time.
Kimberly and I had a hard discussion and decided to get the feeding tube put into Lucy. That happened sometime this afternoon. We picked her up just before 4 and the vet tech demonstrated the feeding, which got Lucy probably more food than any day recently.
We'll try it ourselves in a little bit. (She probably needs 3-4 feedings a day). Hopefully it'll go as well.
But it's still triggering because of how miserable that last month (and that last week) was with poor Callisto.
--
Meanwhile I picked my folks up at the airport this afternoon, back from visiting their granddaughter in California. It was a good break because I wasn't getting much work done today.
So our routine is settling back to normal, and we'll have a bit more support out here again.
--
And I did finally manage some writing after I got home from that. The second section of Chapter 11 of This is Free Trader Beowulf. Hoping to get the third section sometime this weekend (just as a bit of catch-up) so that I can dive into a bigger history on Monday. (I'm going to run out of time this month, I'm afraid. But we'll see how my last four days of my own work go.)
And then after two days of that she was seriously perked up. Active, happy, begging for food. And eating a little bit. Maybe a quarter of a can of Fancy Feast each day, which obviously isn't much, but the trend seemed very good.
So Lucy's third vet appointment was yesterday. We reported that her eating was still poor, but improving (and saw that she'd lost a half-a-pound over the previous week, which she fortunately now *has* to lose, after we've finally got the prednisolone working for her).
And then we took her home and last night she was back to eating just a few bites at a time, no more than a minute at a food plate before she walked away.
Kimberly and I talked about it this morning, while I was not being very successful at working. One of the things that really disturbed us was that the fluids and anti-nausea drug we were giving her seemed to have NO direct correlation with when she begged for food and when she ate (as it were). I mean overall, there was improvement. But often it was just before or immediately after we gave her the anti-nausea pill (which is supposed to take an hour to two to take effect) that she was begging for food. We wondered if she wasn't actually nauseous, or if the drug just wasn't working.
So we wasted some time googling, and eventually just decided to call the vet and give him our impressions and say she was back to eating poorly.
He called back, said he really didn't know what was going on because her tests were all good, and made the same suggestion his daughter had last week: that we give her a feeding tube.
We were resistant last week because Lucy was doing so badly at the time, and it was super triggering because it reminded us of how badly Callisto was doing when we got her a feeding tube a year and a half ago and how much the poor baby fought us when we fed her. We didn't want to go through that again. We didn't want *everyone* to be that miserable especially if it was a lost cause.
But Lucy is now doing great other than the not-eating bit. She's happy, friendly, even seems in a bit better mood with the orangies, with them having to get a little closer to her before the growling starts. She's not hiding or trying to get away, not running a fever all the time.
Kimberly and I had a hard discussion and decided to get the feeding tube put into Lucy. That happened sometime this afternoon. We picked her up just before 4 and the vet tech demonstrated the feeding, which got Lucy probably more food than any day recently.
We'll try it ourselves in a little bit. (She probably needs 3-4 feedings a day). Hopefully it'll go as well.
But it's still triggering because of how miserable that last month (and that last week) was with poor Callisto.
--
Meanwhile I picked my folks up at the airport this afternoon, back from visiting their granddaughter in California. It was a good break because I wasn't getting much work done today.
So our routine is settling back to normal, and we'll have a bit more support out here again.
--
And I did finally manage some writing after I got home from that. The second section of Chapter 11 of This is Free Trader Beowulf. Hoping to get the third section sometime this weekend (just as a bit of catch-up) so that I can dive into a bigger history on Monday. (I'm going to run out of time this month, I'm afraid. But we'll see how my last four days of my own work go.)