Hello everyone...
It pains me to know that my first thread, on what appears to be a great, loving community, has to be about my cat's current situation...
So she's... about 13 years old. Quite an oldie huh...? Her story is pretty interesting. Me, my aunt and grandmother, were taking a stroll through a local forest and we heard some "meowing" coming from inside this thorn riddled plant... After closer inspection we saw 3 kittens all very young, I couldn't just pull them out because I could actually hurt them with the thorns.. But my passion for cats was (and is!) so huge that I rolled up my sleeves and started smashing up the thorny plant (Sorry Nature, it was for a good cause..) and eventually made way for them all to be safely extracted... It was an interesting situation... One of the kittens was black, another white and another striped (gray and black with hints of white) and sure enough, I had to pick the odd one, the striped one! So we brought them to my aunt's house etc... And they drank milk like crazy, really hungry.
In the end, I ended up "adopting" that cool looking feline and named her "Nani" (No not the footie player at all. WAY before he was even known) and brought her to her new home.
Now, after all these years of happiness and a healthy life, she had barely ANY trip to the vet and was never seen under the weather... Until recently that is...
It's been really hot here (Portugal...), temperatures going to about 32ºC or even 35s... And unfortunately for our beloved cat, we don't currently have a/c... So it gets pretty hot usually. I'm pointing this out because recently she started going extremely (apparently) lazy.. walked a bit and would just bog down and lay on the floor... I thought it was because of the heat, so we set up more drinking spots for her all over the house, to ensure she would never be short on water... Unfortunately she started losing interest in both eating and drinking.. doing both of those in very small amounts, and her behavior was becoming very apathetic... Little to no interest in her surroundings was really troubling as she was always "on her toes" and very curious... So I took her to a local vet, the first time one night.. I didn't even have the guts to take her there and had to ask my parents to do so (The thought of losing her or just receive bad news made me have a complete breakdown - I was in complete tears, just holding her before my parents took her to the vet and when the door closed, the sight inside was not pretty for at least 30 minutes, before I calmed down.) and soon after, with feelings of anxiety mixed with fear, I called them and they said they were waiting for the blood-test results... Soon after they came home.
They couldn't really specify the problem... But she had relatively high sugar levels, so all seemed to point towards diabetes... I was shattered.
However the vets told us to get a urine sample and go there the next day. So we did (Yes I went this time) and to my surprise I wasn't told that her Hemogram had not been analyzed the night before and they had just received the results. Suddenly I was confronted with the idea of my cat having no diabetes (Sugar level rising due to stress)... But instead have a very big infection. I was told that the white blood cell count was supposed to be at around 18, and the report showed my little baby had 32, which was considered very high. Okay, some more hours of waiting without my beloved cat...
Then I was called in to go pick her up and get the "scoop" on what was going on... So I went, and I was greeted by a not-so-positive vet that started going through all the mumbo-jumbo about the cat's situation... Apparently she had a tumor in one of her breasts that even if not malignant, was straining her immune system and thus allowed infections to take advantage of the situation... She was reported to have a bladder infection, and on a not so serious note she had a small number of feces and gas in her stomach.
She was prescribed with an anti-biotic for the infection (Small pills), "Laxatone" (Gel for fecal obstruction etc - Laxative) and a food can that supposedly is very nutritious in small doses, so it'd be perfect for her since she ate in such small doses. (Mousse like food that was said to be given 3 times a day, 2-3ml only)... So I thought everything would be fine in just some weeks (15 pills - 1 every 12 hours)
It's been about 2 days since that.. And I know she dislikes the fact that I NEED to "shove" the pills down her mouth... (Open mouth and stick it inside, surely she can't spit it out.) and the Laxatone has to also be applied in a similar way..
The real reason for this post, after all that ranting, is simple ... I just wanted to give as much detail about her as possible so I .. kind of got carried away I guess. Anyway... I would like to ask for a few advices on how to handle this whole sudden-illness case... Since she never EVER needed this much extreme health care, I'm quite clueless.. And would love some downright and simple advice to how I can improve her condition...
I'm open to every advice, I'm desperate... I feel pretty down, and consider her condition as my own fault... My parents have even told me I'm beginning to have symptoms of depression. But I can't help it, she's been my lifelong partner and I'm not ready to lose her. I really am not.
Anyway... Thanks for going through all that reading, if you did, I know I ranted on about a couple of things... This took quite a while to type but I don't really care because I really love her and I'd hate to lose her now...
Thank you for reading, and I seriously hope a reply comes soon
...
Oh, and have a picture of my beloved one too!
She's extremely beautiful.
It pains me to know that my first thread, on what appears to be a great, loving community, has to be about my cat's current situation...
So she's... about 13 years old. Quite an oldie huh...? Her story is pretty interesting. Me, my aunt and grandmother, were taking a stroll through a local forest and we heard some "meowing" coming from inside this thorn riddled plant... After closer inspection we saw 3 kittens all very young, I couldn't just pull them out because I could actually hurt them with the thorns.. But my passion for cats was (and is!) so huge that I rolled up my sleeves and started smashing up the thorny plant (Sorry Nature, it was for a good cause..) and eventually made way for them all to be safely extracted... It was an interesting situation... One of the kittens was black, another white and another striped (gray and black with hints of white) and sure enough, I had to pick the odd one, the striped one! So we brought them to my aunt's house etc... And they drank milk like crazy, really hungry.
In the end, I ended up "adopting" that cool looking feline and named her "Nani" (No not the footie player at all. WAY before he was even known) and brought her to her new home.
Now, after all these years of happiness and a healthy life, she had barely ANY trip to the vet and was never seen under the weather... Until recently that is...
It's been really hot here (Portugal...), temperatures going to about 32ºC or even 35s... And unfortunately for our beloved cat, we don't currently have a/c... So it gets pretty hot usually. I'm pointing this out because recently she started going extremely (apparently) lazy.. walked a bit and would just bog down and lay on the floor... I thought it was because of the heat, so we set up more drinking spots for her all over the house, to ensure she would never be short on water... Unfortunately she started losing interest in both eating and drinking.. doing both of those in very small amounts, and her behavior was becoming very apathetic... Little to no interest in her surroundings was really troubling as she was always "on her toes" and very curious... So I took her to a local vet, the first time one night.. I didn't even have the guts to take her there and had to ask my parents to do so (The thought of losing her or just receive bad news made me have a complete breakdown - I was in complete tears, just holding her before my parents took her to the vet and when the door closed, the sight inside was not pretty for at least 30 minutes, before I calmed down.) and soon after, with feelings of anxiety mixed with fear, I called them and they said they were waiting for the blood-test results... Soon after they came home.
They couldn't really specify the problem... But she had relatively high sugar levels, so all seemed to point towards diabetes... I was shattered.
However the vets told us to get a urine sample and go there the next day. So we did (Yes I went this time) and to my surprise I wasn't told that her Hemogram had not been analyzed the night before and they had just received the results. Suddenly I was confronted with the idea of my cat having no diabetes (Sugar level rising due to stress)... But instead have a very big infection. I was told that the white blood cell count was supposed to be at around 18, and the report showed my little baby had 32, which was considered very high. Okay, some more hours of waiting without my beloved cat...
Then I was called in to go pick her up and get the "scoop" on what was going on... So I went, and I was greeted by a not-so-positive vet that started going through all the mumbo-jumbo about the cat's situation... Apparently she had a tumor in one of her breasts that even if not malignant, was straining her immune system and thus allowed infections to take advantage of the situation... She was reported to have a bladder infection, and on a not so serious note she had a small number of feces and gas in her stomach.
She was prescribed with an anti-biotic for the infection (Small pills), "Laxatone" (Gel for fecal obstruction etc - Laxative) and a food can that supposedly is very nutritious in small doses, so it'd be perfect for her since she ate in such small doses. (Mousse like food that was said to be given 3 times a day, 2-3ml only)... So I thought everything would be fine in just some weeks (15 pills - 1 every 12 hours)
It's been about 2 days since that.. And I know she dislikes the fact that I NEED to "shove" the pills down her mouth... (Open mouth and stick it inside, surely she can't spit it out.) and the Laxatone has to also be applied in a similar way..
The real reason for this post, after all that ranting, is simple ... I just wanted to give as much detail about her as possible so I .. kind of got carried away I guess. Anyway... I would like to ask for a few advices on how to handle this whole sudden-illness case... Since she never EVER needed this much extreme health care, I'm quite clueless.. And would love some downright and simple advice to how I can improve her condition...
I'm open to every advice, I'm desperate... I feel pretty down, and consider her condition as my own fault... My parents have even told me I'm beginning to have symptoms of depression. But I can't help it, she's been my lifelong partner and I'm not ready to lose her. I really am not.
Anyway... Thanks for going through all that reading, if you did, I know I ranted on about a couple of things... This took quite a while to type but I don't really care because I really love her and I'd hate to lose her now...
Thank you for reading, and I seriously hope a reply comes soon
Oh, and have a picture of my beloved one too!
She's extremely beautiful.