Monday, February 9, 2004 I think every cat has been hit by the cold. I think most of the cats are almost over the worst part. Daniece is still pretty bad. I was just checking on her and she sneezed so hard, her little nose started to bleed. She was talking to me and trying to purr. My poor little Neeceygirl. Mystie’s eyes look bad, but she’s back to wanting to be held and eating okay. As a matter of fact, this morning was the first morning in over a week the cats polished off the chicken I put out for them. DeeJay still shows signs of the cold, but it hasn’t gone full bloom like it did with some of the other guys. I hope it doesn’t. His system is so weak already from the kidney disease.
I got the cats in fairly early last night and didn’t think much of the fact that I didn’t see Gracie when I fed the cats dinner. Gracie has this damned cold, too, and she’s been hiding quite a bit. Well, when Pete started his early morning meowing this morning, I got up and opened the sliding door. Odd, I thought, that the screen was opened about four inches. I tried to go back to sleep, but Oliver’s wheezing made it hard. He’d have some quiet breaths, then a noisy one. I started just waiting for the noisy one. I ended up going out to lay on the sofa. I thought I heard a cat on the roof, but it was just Jackson trying to come in the cat door (which I don’t usually open at that hour, they have to use the door off the patio). I got up and opened that door and went back to the sofa. When I finally got up at six, I started looking for Gracie. I couldn’t find her anywhere in the house. I checked outside and didn’t see her, and got Brian to help. We finally found her in the bottom of the cathouse by the pool. I got down on my hands and knees and got her out, bringing her into the house.
I will be so happy when they’re all well again. I just called the vet’s office about Daniece’s bleeding because she’s sneezing so much (she’s not the only one, there was some blood on the counter this morning, I think from Marco or Sagwa) and he wants me to bring in one of the cats who’s having this problem and he’ll prescribe something for everyone. I’m supposed to be there in a half hour. I’m taking Daniece.
So, that’s it for now. I have to go get out of my walking clothes and into some street clothes.
Update: 1:43pm Got back from the vet about 11:30. What we have is a herpes virus. Highly contagious (duh). Daniece didn’t have a fever, but she does have a stuffed nose. Very stuffed. He prescribed Temaril-P for the sneezing. This is an antihistamine with a little bit of predisolone in it for the inflammation. And Orbax for the infections. There’s enough here to treat eight cats (for the Orbax) more for the Temaril-P because that’s dosed by weight. So far I’ve done DeeJay, Georgie, Gracie and gave Temaril-P to Annie, who resisted and bit my finger. I have to print up some sort of table to mark off who’s been done and who hasn’t. DeeJay is a definite do because of his existing disease.
The vet said earlier this year they got a couple of kittens in from the El Cajon Shelter that had the shelter crud. It infected the clinic cats, it infected the cat room, one of the tech’s cats got sick and even a couple of client cats got sick. He said it took a full six weeks before it was over and done with. When he was examining Daniece, he was asking about the symptoms of the other cats. One of the questions ‘was there any drool?’ Well, you know, dear reader, that Jackson was drooling. I guess there’s a possibility he might have mouth ulcers. But he didn’t drool past the first couple of days so maybe he didn’t have them or they resolved on their own.
I’m also to give the cats l-lysine.
We haven’t seen Notwally or Notnotwally since early last week. And we haven’t seen SpotTee since late last week. It would appear that little miss Little Bit is with kitten. And the neighborhood boyz have gone in search of more fertile ground. SpotTee stuck around to make sure she was okay with KittyMeeze, then he took off. And even though KittyMeeze does what he can to do the job, he can’t do any harm since he’s fixed (I’ve got them in compromising positions in the past). *sigh*
Well, the pills must be having some effect because Georgie really wants to be held, DeeJay wanted to eat and Annie is eating as we speak. Amazing how much better you feel when you can breathe.
Oh, thank you JS for the donation! It came at a great time, with the vet’s visit and medications. I really appreciate it. I noticed on today’s bill that he’s raised his prices again. Even with the discount he gives us, we still pay a lot. One of these days we’ll go to someone else, but I’m reluctant to move on, because how many vets would work with us like he has? And he knows the cats. That’s really important. Thank you again.
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