I just wanted to let you folks know that the next week is liable to be on the erratic side where posts are concerned.
I’m sure I’ll still be posting each day, because I’m an addict, but I try to only post when I’m either happy, excited, or pissed. Not depressed.
And since Thursday, I’ve been fighting severe depression, mostly by playing woW and Guitar Hero 2.
The thing is, we have three cats. We have Molly, who has been with us since well before my son Alex was born. We have Shadow, who my mother in South Florida had as part of a litter, that we met while down there on what we laughably called a vacation (which was actually our secret “Hi mom, we’re having a baby” trip), and whom we loved so much we decided to fly back up to the frozen north to join us. And we have a third kitty, who we were told was named Boo when we adopted him about two months ago, but whome I prefer to call ‘Boozer’.. pretty much just to annoy Mrs BBB.
Well, it’s the holiday season. And for various reasons, it’s been both chaotic, and stessful. I’ve been taking care of our kitties and everything, but I haven’t been spending as much quality time with all three as normal. Molly normally is a little shy, and Shadow and Boo take the lead in demanding affection.
Wednesday it occured to me that I hadn’t seen Molly being out and about as much as normal for a few days, and so I went on a kitty hunt. I found her chilling out in our family room, sleeping on a blanket in a corner. When Cassie and I petted her and said Hi, I noticed that she was feeling awful skinny. Now, normally she’s pretty plump. And has been for years. Not fat, just plump.
Well, she sure seemed pretty damn skinny to me, and it seemed pretty sudden. So I was worreid that Boo, our new cat, who is a voracious chowhound, had been stressing her out fighting over food and she wasn’t eating right. We isolated Molly in a spare room, with her own food, water and litter, and let her chill out for the night.
Thursday, Cassie called me at work to tell me that she thought Molly still wasn’t eating but that the water might have been licked, and she had set an appointment for the vet for that afternoon.
Since then, we have been told that Molly has what is called ‘fatty liver’. It’s mostly caused by a cat stopping eating, for whatever reason. After a while, the cat has no appetite at all, and the liver develops this condition, and stops eating and drinking entirely. And it’s pretty much fatal if untreated.
The vet, whom I have magnanimously chosen not to beat the shit out of for severe incompetance and the worst bedside manner in history (I have given up counting how many times she has hinted that maybe we didn’t want to ‘deal with the hassle’ of nursing Molly through this. I feel like telling her to do her kids a favor and call Dr Kevorkian the next time they get the flu) tells us that it’s fifty/fifty if Molly will survive. And with her incompetance and lack of any organization skills, it takes us a while to forcibly drag out of her that the 50/50 she is citing is if we have complete 24 hour hospitalized care. As in, if we take Molly home like she was suggesting at first, and force-feed her with a syringe to get food down her throat, then the odds go down to like 20/80. That kind if thing is nice to know when making decision, ya know?
Anyway, the only way to help Molly get through this is to force food and water into her and get her liver to regain normal function, until she regains her appetite and starts eating and drinking on her own again.
We’ve had her in overnight care for two nights until we brought her home today, and now we have her back in her room, where she is intubated and we’re feeding her a liquid high-calorie solution that goes directly into her tummy. We feed her every couple hours, plus some anti-nausea medicine every 4 hours to try and prevent her rejecting the food.
We’re hoping she will show some signs of recovery in about a week, although I expect to be keeping her isolated from the other cats to rest and reduce stress for at least the next two weeks.
Anyway… I know that there are far worse tragedies going on in the world, and most likely in the lives of many of my readers’ right now. I’m not writing this to bitch, piss or moan, but just to let you know where my heads’ gonna be at for the next week or so.
Hopefully, everything will turn out okay. But what will be will be, and all we can do is the best we can to help Molly be comfortable and get the care she needs.
I thank you in advance for your understanding and patience. I hope that the New Year brings you and your loved ones peace and plenty.
Entries (RSS)