My husband's cat, Bright Eyes, has been diagnosed with lymphoma. He's lost a huge amount of weight; at this point I think he's about kitten weight. And Roger, my husband, is in a nursing home because of an injury and has now caught COVID-19. I'm not telling him that his cat is dying; right now he has other things he needs to concentrate on.
On top of everything else, Bright Eyes has bad teeth, and because of the weight loss he's a bad candidate for surgery. General anesthesia would likely kill him immediately. But because of his teeth, Bright Eyes has trouble drinking. Most of what he drinks ends up on his chin, his chest, and his front paws. I have a pile of shop rags next to my chair so I can dry him off when he wants a lap.
We're treating him with pain meds and prednisolone (lymphoma in cats seems to respond well to steroids); and I'll determine when to send him to the rainbow bridge depending on the effectiveness of the prednisolone, but it's just palliative. This is going to kill him.
However, one of the things I need to do is to give him subcutaneous saline solution because he's dehydrated. The first time I tried I got confused about how to work the setup and then actually missed getting the needle through his skin, so I just turned him into an even wetter kitty than he already was (poor baby). The second time I started with some how-to videos on YouTube and actually succeeded in getting the saline into him, but he was not happy about it. My impression is that the room temperature saline solution is too cold for him.
The setup involves a large syringe. You manipulate a switch (kind of like a train switch?) to control which line is open, un-clamp the line from the bag to the syringe, and pull on the plunger to draw fluid into the syringe. Then you re-clamp the line from the bag, insert the needle under the skin, move the switch towards the needle line, un-clamp that line, and push the plunger to force the liquid out through the needle.
I'm wondering whether I could use, say, a rice sock wrapped around the syringe to pre-warm the fluid before I send it into him. Does anyone have any experience with this, or any other ideas of ways to warm the fluid? I don't want to try to microwave it.
Margret
On top of everything else, Bright Eyes has bad teeth, and because of the weight loss he's a bad candidate for surgery. General anesthesia would likely kill him immediately. But because of his teeth, Bright Eyes has trouble drinking. Most of what he drinks ends up on his chin, his chest, and his front paws. I have a pile of shop rags next to my chair so I can dry him off when he wants a lap.
We're treating him with pain meds and prednisolone (lymphoma in cats seems to respond well to steroids); and I'll determine when to send him to the rainbow bridge depending on the effectiveness of the prednisolone, but it's just palliative. This is going to kill him.
However, one of the things I need to do is to give him subcutaneous saline solution because he's dehydrated. The first time I tried I got confused about how to work the setup and then actually missed getting the needle through his skin, so I just turned him into an even wetter kitty than he already was (poor baby). The second time I started with some how-to videos on YouTube and actually succeeded in getting the saline into him, but he was not happy about it. My impression is that the room temperature saline solution is too cold for him.
The setup involves a large syringe. You manipulate a switch (kind of like a train switch?) to control which line is open, un-clamp the line from the bag to the syringe, and pull on the plunger to draw fluid into the syringe. Then you re-clamp the line from the bag, insert the needle under the skin, move the switch towards the needle line, un-clamp that line, and push the plunger to force the liquid out through the needle.
I'm wondering whether I could use, say, a rice sock wrapped around the syringe to pre-warm the fluid before I send it into him. Does anyone have any experience with this, or any other ideas of ways to warm the fluid? I don't want to try to microwave it.
Margret