I think we almost lost Georgie last night. To heat stroke.
It's been miserable hot here, I can handle the hot, but I can't handle the humidity this heat has with it. We ran the A/C for a week, but money's tight and it's not quite as hot (low 90s instead of high 90s) and I think the humidity has dropped a little so the house is open, fans are running.
The cats have been laying on whatever is cool, kitchen counter, floors (we've got tile), anywhere that doesn't hold a lot of heat. On the freshly watered lawn. Lots of fresh water with ice cubes. I didn't have anything defrosted for dinner and I really didn't want to turn on the oven, so we had Jack in the Box (with coupons). Brian got two ultimate burgers and shared with the cats. Georgie liked it.
Miss E and George get fluids twice a week via two 60cc syringes. I heated the fluids up in the microwave as I usually do. They're not hot, but warm to the touch. George knows when he's going to get fluids. He runs. I found him under the coffee table in the living room, carried him back to the sofa and gave him the fluids.
He seemed to take them well, but as the evening wore on, he got more and more lethargic and his right side was sore. He climbs and jumps on counters in the kitchen and we've seen him slip. He growled at me when I touched his right front leg. It hurt him all the way down. He was on a blanket on my desk and I watched him. He wouldn't drink any water at all. He did eat some tuna, though, quite a bit, then back to the office. I checked on him at 11:30 last night and his breathing was rapid.
I picked him up and he was burning up, very, very hot. I took him into the family room, put him on a chair and got a Coldpak wrap and lay it next to him. I got a little blue ice pack and put it against his back paws. And I sat on the floor in front of him for forty-five minutes, watching him. I took his temperature with an pet ear thermometer and it was 104.5°. An hour later it had dropped a degree. His breathing gradually slowed down. Two hours after this started, he went into the laundry room and peed. Then back into the family room where he drank a good amount of water. Then he laid down on the tile next to the water bowl, where he slept for a couple of hours.
I was on the sofa with a flashlight and I kept checking on his progress. Eventually I put him back on the chair (his paws and ears were no longer hot, but cool to the touch, his temp was now 100.4) where he stayed until the sun was up. I had a wave of relief when he gave me a gentle headbutt on my face when I started to pet him. Then came the purr. A huge wave of relief.
Looking at him now, you'd have no idea he had been in such distress just hours before. He was on the kitchen counter begging for food, jumped from the counter to the stove looking for breakfast pans to lick (they don't go into the sink until they've cooled down, safest place to cool down is the stove).
What I figure happened is he might have taken a tumble from the counter (his back legs are a little wobbly, he is, after all, nineteen and a half years old). He was hot and the warm fluids did not help. I think this brought on heat stroke.
Note to self: when it's hot, give fluids in the morning, when it's still fairly cool.
 |
Yeah, I can do this. I dropped and went back inside, planning on going up to my room. I walked over to the elevator and everybody was so nice. I vaguely recall thinking they were Canadians. They were happy and making jokes. I got into the elevator and noticed a different exit. I went through it into this really wonderful toy shop.
