A sad day...

After years of dealing with our cat, Theo's ongoing health issues: pancreatitis, diabetes, colitus, worms, dental issues, a difficult eye virus we've always been very lucky with him. He's strong and has great stamina and has led a very happy life. But, a few days ago his appetite dropped quickly, weight was dropping and finally he stopped eating. We took him in and the xray found something that we finally couldn't deal with: a large tumor in his stomach area. The poor sweet cat has gone through medical hell his entire life but always he's dealt with health problems extremely well and has lived a very happy life. We've had a wonderful life with him and him with us for over six years. We adore him as he clearly feels the same about us . Today, is our worst day as we have to take him in and let him go...

What I wouldn't do for my cat...

The big questions we all ask ourselves. Nice article in Salon Magazine....

What I wouldn't do for my cat

After shelling out $1,300 on a vet bill, I had to wonder: How much is too much to pay for your pet...

....Ada Calhoun

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2008/02/08/my_1300_cat/

The Eyes Have it

Theo, our wonderful Aby cat has always been a challenge health-wise. Colitus, Pancreatitus to Diabetes is quick succession has kept us on our toes. Having a weakened immune system, now we have something new to deal with. He has a form of Herpes in his eye, of all places! The result is black spot that sits on the surface that's certainly blocking some of his vision. So, what this means is a couple of types of antibiotic eye drops, and something to add to his food.

Despite all this, he's really kind of a healthy guy overall.

Always a challenge....

Dawn of Destruction

Lenny broke my alarm clock the other day. Knocked it off the bedside table and whack! there went my plastic, ugly little clock with the dayglow hands. It wasn't expensive but I had some sentimental attachment to it. I'm learning to wean myself off sentimental attachments to anything that can't be nailed down or encased in a block of lucite.

Lenny likes to chew paper and plastic, and anything new that arrives indoors. He likes to chew on older things (including me) if he hasn't seen them for more than 5 minutes. Any bookmark sticking out of a book becomes perforated and all ripply (so do books themselves, if I don't catch him in time). He has scratching posts but prefers to scratch my desk chair. I have one plant in the house. Its leaves are now as tattered as the flags in an old used car lot. The paper for my printer must be hidden away. The mail gets mauled. Fresh flowers get gnoshed on as vases break on the floor. He once managed to shove a heavy, 19th century bronze Buddha statue off a shelf, leaving a nice gouge in the hardwood floor.

Lenny coughed up a hairball onto the precise center of my DSL modem, instantly killing the Internet.

Closing Lenny into the bathroom for a "time out" is fruitless: He gets into the shower shelves and knocks bottles of shampoo to the floor, then chews up any and all loofa puffs, sponges and washclothes. He punctured my bath pillow. He opens the cupboard under the sink, then licks emery boards and eats cotton balls.

Lenny is an enthusiastic climber yet often uncoordinated, a sort of heavy-bottomed Weebles toy of a cat. I no longer flinch when I hear something crash in the basement. "I'm sure it was something I don't need, anyway" I tell myself calmly, while crafting a tiny protective helmet for my other cat, the gentle BlueMoo.

There's a new Dawn of Destruction in my household. As Lenny is under two years old and bursting with health, we're truly looking at a Long Day's Journey into Night.

He's Back....

Theo, our thoughtful, sweet and challenging cat is back at it, yet again. After five wonderful, drug free months our little cat's ills are back again. Poor cat. One day he started tossing his cookies and with a whole lot of water intake we knew we were in trouble. Testing his blood sugar revealed he was back in the twilight zone range of 5-600. Diabetes was back. 

We could see he was in pain and after consulting with our vet we are back on antibiotics and regular insulin injections and daily testing. 

He's better now, but what a challenge!

A New Healthy Challenge

Theo. The forever challenging cat has made an interesting u-turn health-wise. Theo has pancreatitis which means his pancreas has inflammation or an infection. This in turn has resulted in diabetes in our little cat. He was pretty sick when all this hit and was up to 5 units of insulin twice a day for a couple of months. Because we do monitor our cat's blood sugar with one of the glucose meters you can find at any drug store we found recently his numbers started looking good. In fact too good. We started backing off his treatments over several weeks and went all the way down to one unit once a day. And then finally he was down enough we are able to stop the treatment.

All of this is quite challenging. Because of the serious dangers of giving an animal insulin when they don't need it, you've got to be on your toes. And, because the pancreatitis just might find it's way back, periodically we need to keep an eye on symptoms and occasionally check his blood sugar.

Now if we could just fix the colitis!

When your sweet cat has a dark side

Ahh, Jetson (RIP) he was a lover cat, he loved people and spent most of his day worshipping in front of the heater God (aka heat vent). So mild mannered and sweet, EXCEPT when he saw another animal, then it was Mr. Hyde time. Strange yowls and hisses would this come out of his small delicate mouth. He'd puff up, the hair on his back and tail standing on end. It was well known in our house, if Jetson glimpsed the neighbor cat you better watch out. He was an indoor cat, so he never got in a cat fight, but cats weren't the only potential targets. He'd attack the closest thing that moved. One morning I was the victim of one such attack. One Saturday morning I heard the plump, neighbor cat Scooter outside. I went out to give him some pets and when I opened the door to go back inside, Jetson was right there all puffed up. I quickly put my foot up to block his exit, and in a panicky instant he chomped. Chomped my ankle. I remained calm and got back inside, Jetson was freaked. I couldn't be mad at him, it was temporary insanity, I know. But it hurt like hell and by the next evening my ankle was throbbing and swollen to over twice it's normal size. Monday I went to the doctor who prescribed heavy duty antibiotics. I was cured, and gave Jetson a wide berth when he was in his dark side possessed him.

Note: If you're bitten by a cat, go to the doctor right away, it will certainly cause an infection.