Tuesday, February 24, 2004 DHS…..poor little Ciara…
So, I call my vet’s office yesterday for the check up, right? The appointment was for 11:30. I gave her the flagyl (which is a very chalky type pill and if it doesn’t go right down, it is so bitter she just foams at the mouth, dripping saliva for quite a while after taking the pill) and her fluids. She still wouldn’t eat.
I had to go to the bank, so I made it there and back just in time to get her into the carrier and off to the vet. We didn’t have to wait long. The vet came in, checks her over. Poo just drips from her. He doesn’t like that at all. Said it’s not a normal diarrhea thing, that this would appear to be something wrong in the colon or bowel. He took blood so that he could run a blood panel and also wanted a sample of stool, which he couldn’t get from her (believe it or not). He asked about the other cats, did any of them have problems with diarrhea (no). You can actually see him thinking, searching through information in his head. He gave me a little cup and I had to scrape some poo off of a towel here at home and take it back. He suggested using baby wipes for her bottom, not the Desitin or the panalog, said they’d be greasy and along with the nasty poo it wasn’t helping her. When he took her back to take the blood, he also trimmed more of her fur off so that it would be easier for me to keep her clean.
He wanted a sample of her stool so that he could send it off and have it tested for Giardia. I came home, got the sample and took it back. Then I came home. He called a couple of hours later, to tell me that the blood test showed that her albumin was low and that it looked like she had malabsorption syndrome. Her body wasn’t digesting the proteins and stuff in her food and it was going right out of her. Now, we had to find out why this was happening. He advised putting her on prednisone for at least three weeks to see if that would help with the inflammation going on inside of her (and on her poor little butt). He said there was a possibility that she would have to be on these indefinitely. We’d start off with three weeks, I’m to bring her back in a week so that he can recheck her Albumin values.
I had some prednisone on hand, only enough for five days, so I had to go get more. I gave her one and she foamed it all over the place. I had to come up with something to get these pills down her. On my way to pick up the additional pills, I remembered people talking about gel caps. I asked Liz at the vet’s office about them. She said she could order them for $17.00. I said I’d check Henry’s (a local health food chain). I found some there, only $3.15 for a hundred but they were huge. I dropped by the vet’s office on the way home and showed them to her. If they could get smaller ones, I’d prefer smaller ones, because I dreaded trying to get this humongous thing down that little throat. No, she thought that’s all that they had.
I came home and opened up the bag and looked at them more closely. Gosh, they were big. I knew that we’d had them smaller in our human herbs and stuff. I started looking at all the pills we had and found that the milk thistle was in small gel caps. I took a couple of those and dumped the milk thistle out (it’s not harmful to felines or canines, Junior used to get one a day), ground up the prednisone and the flagyl together and poured them into the empty gel cap. Then, I gave it to her. It went right down.
Grinding her meds and putting them in gelcaps has made it a lot easier to pill her. Before, the pills were so bitter, if they didn’t get down her throat, she’d foam really bad. Who knows how much of that little pill was actually getting into her tummy and how much was dripping out as foam? I ordered smaller ones online last night. They should be here Friday or Saturday. Until then, I’ll keep dumping the milk thistle and using those. The first time I gave her one, last night, I thought maybe it was a fluke that it was gone down before I knew it. This morning was the same. So, that’s good, I know she’ll be getting her medicine, no more finding spat out pills later.
And the vet called this morning, the stool was negative for Giardia, which is a good thing, because now I don’t have to treat the rest of the family. He also asked if she’d eaten, and as far as I could tell, she hadn’t. But I went in a little bit ago with a new jar of turkey baby food and she ate almost a third of the jar! The most she’s eaten in days!
She’s still dripping. The only way I have to describe it for those of you who’ve never dealt with this, is when you’re menstruating and you have absolutely no control over what your body does. I started using pee pads under her and I think that’s helping a lot. The towels, even though I changed them often, still let her get damp. I think the pee pads are better because they trap her runny poo and she’s not laying in it. I still change those often, more often than the towels, because I can actually see how nasty they are.
The doctor said she should be doing noticiably better tomorrow.
Just a little while ago, she wanted out of the bathroom. I let her. She went outside and traversed the yard, sniffing as she went along. I think the fresh air and little exercise was good for her. After about a half hour or forty five minutes, I had to search for her. She was laying under the wheelbarrow on the cold wet dirt (we had considerable rain the past couple of days). I figured she was tired and brought her back inside. She almost went over to eat the shredded chicken I boiled up earlier today (I quit giving the cats chicken in the morning; we were going through a twelve pound bag a week and it wasn’t a treat like it started out being, something special for those days we wouldn’t be home and they had to stay inside), but saw me watching and passed. *sigh*
Now, I’m back to waiting. Waiting to find out if the pred helps. Waiting to see if she starts eating again. Waiting to find out exactly what is wrong with her. Hoping it’s not cancer.
I finally got some pictures up on my new photo album. Feel free to check them out. As you can see from the categories, I’ve got quite a bit more to add. cathouse album
I’m really tired. I’m worn out. I’ve had a headache for days now and my lower back really aches. I want to sleep, I want to not be worried about this cat or that. I’m so tired.
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