Poor Callisto
Nov. 18th, 2021 07:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aMan, having a sick pet, and especially a chronically sick pet, and especially a mysteriously chronically sick pet, really fucks up your life. This morning I was just dreading emerging from the bedroom to the day, because I knew I'd have to give Callisto her food, and she wouldn't eat it, and I'd have to give her her pill, and it'd be a desperate drooling battle, and thus far she doesn't seem any better for all of it.
But the real killer is that we can pump her up on anti-nausea drugs and painkillers and at this point she begs for food and doesn't eat more than a bite or two. What can we even do with that!?
Did I mention that it's been a month at least since I had a week when I wasn't at the vet at least once, and sometimes two or three times? This week's count is twice so far: Monday for a big work-up which turned up very little and Wednesday for fluids and anti-nausea drugs, because Callisto hadn't been eating and we still then thought the anti-nausea would turn things around, because it always had before.
It's exhausting. And expensive, but honestly the exhausting is the big problem right now.
I should rewind. Last week this time, Callisto very much seemed to be on the mend. Oh, she was still picky with her eating, often not finishing her meal, but there's a mile of difference between ate-slowly-and-didn't-manage-to-finish and ate-two-bites. We thought the prednisolone and doxycyline she'd been prescribed the week before had done the job, that if she'd had some slight pancreas inflamation it'd come under control.
But when I got up last Saturday, she was acting super skittish, and I discovered bloody patches under both her ears. She was also starting to hide again. So we called up the vet and got her an appointment for Monday. She then hid through the weekend and ate less day by day.
Monday's appointment: they discovered she still had a fever, and it was up to 104. They cleaned up her ear wounds and cleared out her ears, but didn't see anything causing problems there.
But after the lingering fever they decided to keep her on for some x-rays and ultrasound. That all got sent off for consultation, and they started talking about cancer as a possible cause.
But the find of the day was bloody urine, which they said was a UTI, and so it was off to a new broad spectrum antibiotic. Meanwhile, we were waiting on all the results, from those consults to a culture of the urine to figure out what exactly was getting her.
It felt like progress. Oh, we certainly were unhappy by the backslide in health, when we were just getting our happy, chirpy kitty back, but it felt like progress.
Three days later.
Callisto has hidden in her cat carrier 99.9% of the time.
Her eating declined day by day from Monday, to just a few bites on Wednesday morning when we took her in for anti-nausea and fluids. And that didn't change a damned thing.
Last night she was clearly in pain and she we gave her her opiate for the first time in more than a week.
Three days of new antibiotics and it doesn't seem to have made any difference. I'd hope we'd be seeing _some_ change, today at the worst, but nothing.
The consultation on her scans came back and they said everything looked totally normal. No cancer. Presumably nothing ingested. Nothing of note.
This morning she scratched one of her ears bloody again.
So we have a beloved cat who was totally healthy before her sudden night of gagging two and a half months ago. Who was mostly healthy other than some eating reluctance until two and a half weeks ago. Who was recovering until last weekend.
We've done thorough blood tests and x-rays and ultrasounds and other than the obvious signs of infection, nothing.
We've given a full course of doxycyline and are three days into a seven-day broad spectrum antiobiotic, nothing.
This is so frustrating and so hopeless.
Part of the frustration is the horrible state of vets in the pandemic.
We can't go in with her. We have to report status on long notes, so that the vet gets some context before seeing her.
There's fundamentally no pet emergency service on the island (which I heard is mostly the case even back in the Bay Area) and getting urgent care is always a fight, such as Saturday, when we had to wait for Monday after the sudden new decline.
My only salvation in all of that is that Dr. I., our vet recommended by a friend, or rather local family of a friend, just writes in Callisto on her schedule when she decides on an appointment and tells the staff they just need to bring her in when she needs fluids or shots.
We couldn't take her to another vet for a second opinion even if we wanted, because it's a multiple month wait to see a new pet. (Months? I'm not even sure how we get her to Monday or Tuesday when we get those urine culture results back.)
Another frustration is that three times now when they've been held over at the vet all day, our cats came back with a cold. Callisto was held over on Monday, and now she has runny eyes and Lucy is sneezing. Poor babies! And poor Callisto, sick on top of sick!
Is Callisto actually getting adequate care? I dunno. Is this just some really tough illness to fight? I dunno. Could she suddenly make a turnaround tomorrow? I dunno. Might the revelation from the urine culture next week give us a new avenue of attack? I dunno.
But this is horrible and frustrating and constant.
It's only NOW, but it's a never-ending NOW.
And our poor kitty is clearly suffering.
We want her to be her happy, chirpy, gluttonous self again.
We want her to sneak over to Lucy's food plate, rather than vice versa.
We want her to assault us with her head and her body and refuse to settle down.
We want her to beg for the food that she loves so much and actually eat it.
We have no idea if this is possible.
But the real killer is that we can pump her up on anti-nausea drugs and painkillers and at this point she begs for food and doesn't eat more than a bite or two. What can we even do with that!?
Did I mention that it's been a month at least since I had a week when I wasn't at the vet at least once, and sometimes two or three times? This week's count is twice so far: Monday for a big work-up which turned up very little and Wednesday for fluids and anti-nausea drugs, because Callisto hadn't been eating and we still then thought the anti-nausea would turn things around, because it always had before.
It's exhausting. And expensive, but honestly the exhausting is the big problem right now.
I should rewind. Last week this time, Callisto very much seemed to be on the mend. Oh, she was still picky with her eating, often not finishing her meal, but there's a mile of difference between ate-slowly-and-didn't-manage-to-finish and ate-two-bites. We thought the prednisolone and doxycyline she'd been prescribed the week before had done the job, that if she'd had some slight pancreas inflamation it'd come under control.
But when I got up last Saturday, she was acting super skittish, and I discovered bloody patches under both her ears. She was also starting to hide again. So we called up the vet and got her an appointment for Monday. She then hid through the weekend and ate less day by day.
Monday's appointment: they discovered she still had a fever, and it was up to 104. They cleaned up her ear wounds and cleared out her ears, but didn't see anything causing problems there.
But after the lingering fever they decided to keep her on for some x-rays and ultrasound. That all got sent off for consultation, and they started talking about cancer as a possible cause.
But the find of the day was bloody urine, which they said was a UTI, and so it was off to a new broad spectrum antibiotic. Meanwhile, we were waiting on all the results, from those consults to a culture of the urine to figure out what exactly was getting her.
It felt like progress. Oh, we certainly were unhappy by the backslide in health, when we were just getting our happy, chirpy kitty back, but it felt like progress.
Three days later.
Callisto has hidden in her cat carrier 99.9% of the time.
Her eating declined day by day from Monday, to just a few bites on Wednesday morning when we took her in for anti-nausea and fluids. And that didn't change a damned thing.
Last night she was clearly in pain and she we gave her her opiate for the first time in more than a week.
Three days of new antibiotics and it doesn't seem to have made any difference. I'd hope we'd be seeing _some_ change, today at the worst, but nothing.
The consultation on her scans came back and they said everything looked totally normal. No cancer. Presumably nothing ingested. Nothing of note.
This morning she scratched one of her ears bloody again.
So we have a beloved cat who was totally healthy before her sudden night of gagging two and a half months ago. Who was mostly healthy other than some eating reluctance until two and a half weeks ago. Who was recovering until last weekend.
We've done thorough blood tests and x-rays and ultrasounds and other than the obvious signs of infection, nothing.
We've given a full course of doxycyline and are three days into a seven-day broad spectrum antiobiotic, nothing.
This is so frustrating and so hopeless.
Part of the frustration is the horrible state of vets in the pandemic.
We can't go in with her. We have to report status on long notes, so that the vet gets some context before seeing her.
There's fundamentally no pet emergency service on the island (which I heard is mostly the case even back in the Bay Area) and getting urgent care is always a fight, such as Saturday, when we had to wait for Monday after the sudden new decline.
My only salvation in all of that is that Dr. I., our vet recommended by a friend, or rather local family of a friend, just writes in Callisto on her schedule when she decides on an appointment and tells the staff they just need to bring her in when she needs fluids or shots.
We couldn't take her to another vet for a second opinion even if we wanted, because it's a multiple month wait to see a new pet. (Months? I'm not even sure how we get her to Monday or Tuesday when we get those urine culture results back.)
Another frustration is that three times now when they've been held over at the vet all day, our cats came back with a cold. Callisto was held over on Monday, and now she has runny eyes and Lucy is sneezing. Poor babies! And poor Callisto, sick on top of sick!
Is Callisto actually getting adequate care? I dunno. Is this just some really tough illness to fight? I dunno. Could she suddenly make a turnaround tomorrow? I dunno. Might the revelation from the urine culture next week give us a new avenue of attack? I dunno.
But this is horrible and frustrating and constant.
It's only NOW, but it's a never-ending NOW.
And our poor kitty is clearly suffering.
We want her to be her happy, chirpy, gluttonous self again.
We want her to sneak over to Lucy's food plate, rather than vice versa.
We want her to assault us with her head and her body and refuse to settle down.
We want her to beg for the food that she loves so much and actually eat it.
We have no idea if this is possible.