Krista's Care

[daftcat75]

Hey, by any means necessary, right? Cats do puke sometimes.

She can't afford to be puking right now. I'm not even certain six ounces a day is enough to stop the weight loss. But if the dentist next week says he can help her and gives us a high degree of confidence, I will stick a feeding tube into her to get us from here to there. I won't intubate her if there's no endpoint. But I won't deprive her of an opportunity to improve or heal in the long term just because she's having a rough time right now.

I got her X-rays. They didn't know how to email them to me so they gave me a thumbdrive of images and an image viewer for their x-ray software files. I have more imagery of my cat than I know what to do with. But I also don't have to worry about any disconnect between current vet and dentist.

Now I just have to hope the dentist office isn't evacuated by the Kincade fire that's sent evacuation orders to three or four towns over.

 

[daftcat75]

I got up to pee and came back to crouching Krista in the dining room: “I could eat a meal.” I bet you could. Let’s go fix you one. At 3am. One of us should be snacking at this hour.

 

[daftcat75]

The canned plates looked untouched from the overnight. But when I weighed them, I discovered I have a stealth nibbler in the house. I have no idea when she was nibbling away at those because I never saw it. Final score yesterday was 5.75 oz. I took away the ounce she barfed so she actually put away more than that. But we're also burning through the last Rad Cat. I need to find her turkey giblets, more specifically, hearts, so I can make another batch for when the Rad Cat runs out.

She's at 1.5 ounces at 9am. I'd like to get another ounce in her before I break away for the afternoon. That doesn't seem too difficult as long as her first 1.5 stay down.

 

[daftcat75]

Whew! Finally got 2.5 oz in her. Now I can take my afternoon break before looking to get 1.5 more ounces in her for the dinners and let her nibble the canned on the overnight.

I hope I can find her turkey hearts locally because it's a three hour errand to pick them up from the "local" raw feeders co-op. Same hearts except the BARF has them separated already whereas the butcher sells me bags of frozen giblets and I have to hope I get enough hearts.

 

[daftcat75]

That's Krista's dental appointment on Wednesday in the middle of PG&E's potential power shut-off zone.

The green bed-looking thing just shy of the purple evacuation zone is an evacuation shelter. Not very far from that is our hotel for Tues and Wed nights.
I don't need this additional level of stress.

I'm also starting to regret not taking the cancellation appointment from another dentist for next Friday. I didn't think I would need to squat a backup appointment and wanted to give another desperate cat a chance.

 

[Furballsmom]

Best of luck!!

 

[daftcat75]

Needless to say, I will be packing an air purifier in the car with me for the hotel room.

 

[daftcat75]

“Oh! You want more? Just because you’re eating turkey doesn’t mean I have to stuff you like a turkey. Besides, where would the gizzard go? Where’s your gizzard, Krista? If you had a gizzard, we wouldn’t have to drive into the fire next week to see the dentist. We’d have to find a gizzard wizard!”

Typical dinnertime conversation with my cat.

 

[daftcat75]

I wonder if I’ve really been measuring her nibbling when I weigh the plates of canned I leave out, or if I’m just measuring the evaporation rate.

 

[Furballsmom]

I don't think there's that much to evaporate...--?

 

[daftcat75]

I don't think there's that much to evaporate...--?

Rawz is 78% moisture. Of the 30 g, I plate, 23 g of that is moisture. I could close a plate off in the office one day and see how much mass it loses over the same time frame.

 

[Furballsmom]

makes sense

 

[daftcat75]

I missed my window to bupe her earlier and now she’s not touching second dinner. Then again, she did have a big first dinner. It could be that too.

Also, I need to wash the inside of her ears. I think I’m layering the bupe over dried bupe and it’s not absorbing as effectively anymore.

Tomorrow is make-or-break. I’m expecting to run out of Rad Cat tomorrow. I need to get another batch made that she will eat. I’ll mirtz her in the morning to see if I can get her nibbling the canned again as well.

 

[daftcat75]

She had a small meal at 3am that brought her to 4.5 for the “day.”

Then this morning it was a struggle to get her to eat 6 g. Couldn’t even eat one more gram for the quarter oz. So I took the opportunity when she retired to the office tree after “breakfast” to bupe her. It was the first one off the new syringe so it was a little larger than her normal dose. I have been wondering if I was under-medicating her. She came around for another 6 g. Again that’s all I could get into her.

And then not an hour later, it all came back. Both portions. So I guess I know what over-medicating her looks like.

Now she doesn’t want to touch the Rad Cat.

So now what?

I called the vet office and had it out with one of the techs who answered the phone saying, “I’m not happy with this doctor and his habit of dropping callbacks. But I need a prescription he recommended last week and then dropped the callback when I asked for it. This is not acceptable! Corner this dr this morning and make this happen!” I will drop in in person later if I still don’t have a prescription ready.

I need to try pred with her. Bupe alone isn’t working and even mirtz doesn’t seem to be working anymore. Although the last time I mirtz’ed her was the last time she threw up after breakfast. Was it the mirtz or was it just a casualty? I don’t know. But I need bigger guns.

Her weigh-in is stable to only slightly lower. I can’t get two consistent readings out of my scale.

 

[daftcat75]

I’m about ready to bust out the tuna. It will probably irritate and possibly inflame her. But if she won’t eat anything else???

 

[daftcat75]

She’s actually been nibbling her canned again since I’ve mixed in Tiki Cat Ahi Tuna. I can’t tell how it’s treating her yet. She doesn’t seem distressed. Hasn’t thrown up anymore since this morning’s fat bupe dose.

Got the pred prescription in my least favorite form. 1 mL of cherry cough syrup tasting liquid. No thank you! But she has a prescription on record at the vet. I will go to Wedgewood or Diamondback and have it compounded to something more appealing and easier to give.

Spent three hours making a new batch of cat food. That’s start to finish. She’s eating the new batch though. I even mixed it with Rad Cat just now and she ate both. Hopefully this holds and I can phase out the very last of the Rad Cat while switching her to the new batch.

I bought a CBD oil for dogs. CBD is CBD but this is more concentrated than the cat product so I don’t have to give her so much. I could be imagining it, but the few drops I gave her over dinner seems to have knocked out a need for the bupe. Also she has been coming out with a little more appetite tonight.

Final score today? I don’t know. I stopped tracking her input today when I brought in the tuna. I have been giving her small portions all day but not recording them. I don’t want to get competitive or pressure her with a new food. We can resume tracking tomorrow. Assuming the tuna and new batch don’t blow her up sometime over the night.

 

[daftcat75]

She really likes the tuna and rabbit mixed together. She finished a half ounce of that on the overnight. This morning I plated an ounce after I gave her a half ounce of raw. She’s not just nibbling. I hope she paces herself! I also gave her three more drops of the CBD oil because that seems to be doing her good already. She danced all over me last night and this morning. And found her morning voice.

 

[daftcat75]

For about an hour and a half, she was super chill on the drive up. Then as we were driving past San Quentin, she started singing her own jailbird song.

“Can you hold it for twenty minutes? We’ll pull off somewhere I know.”

Pulled off into a hotel parking lot (still an hour away from ours), parked in the shade, and deployed a litterbox in the passenger side.

“I don’t need that. I just need to stretch my legs.”

She’s moving pretty good getting up on the dash and all around the cabin before I nudged her back into the carrier and moved the box back to the trunk.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. Traffic. But nothing terrible. She even trilled at me a few times when I told her we’re almost there.

It’s surreal driving to the fires or basically as far as anyone should be driving. The evacuation shelter is just a few blocks from the hotel. The hotel itself is hosting more evacuees as well.

It was a long drive up and a long couple of hours settling her in, getting supplies, feeding and cleaning up after her and finally settling into the World Series myself.


She’s making the rounds. Once I saw that she could jump to the kitchen counter, I knew it was a foregone conclusion that she’d find the highest spot she could reach.

They have some huge furry spiders here.


Cute though!

 

[Furballsmom]

What a look! What a darling face!

It’s surreal driving to the fires or basically as far as anyone should be driving.

Hang in there!!

 

[daftcat75]

Glad I’m staying an extra night. Having trouble sleeping tonight and having trouble gauging how early I need to start to make a 7:30, 10 minutes down the road. Except it always takes me longer than it should to get ready. So my alarm is set for 5:45. That’s fifteen minutes from now. So for 15 minutes I’ll entertain Krista in my lap and check things like weather, traffic, and the fire map.

And when we’re done at the appointment, I’m coming back for more sleep. I only wish the bed was more comfortable.