I haven’t stopped blogging, but the little energy that I’ve had has been going to other things. Mainly, work, class, and worrying about my little Squirt. A wonderful Slow Food event last night, but I’ll have to write about that later.
I’ve known deep down that something was not right with Squirt for a while. He has lost weight and developed an obsession with the water bowl. Then he started throwing up a lot of water because he drinks so much. Early this week, I prepared myself with information about feline diabetes and took Squirt to the vet.
He weighed 6.5 pounds, down a pound from two months ago. They did extensive, expensive tests and the good news is that he does not have diabetes, which was the diagnosis I dreaded and expected to hear. However, he has a host of other serious problems, including a large (hopefully) benign tumor on his thyroid, the beginning of kidney failure, a bacterial infection of some kind, a heart murmur, and really bad teeth. Basically, what is going on right now is that his metabolism is running so high that he can’t eat or drink enough, and he was slowly starving.
Squirt is very much like a child to me – I handfed him when he was an itty bitty sick feral kitten and we developed a very strong bond. He is ten years old now, and although he is the second youngest of my six cats, the vet considers him to be geriatric. I consider him to be my baby.
I’ve had the conversation with myself quite a few times that I wouldn’t have Squirt too many more years, and I’ll have to deal with that when the time comes. I hope that we’ll get him through this and I’ll get to enjoy his company for ten more years.
The medication and treatment is not onerous at all, not at all what I would have been facing if he had had diabetes. I give him an antibiotic at night in a pill pocket or in his food, and he is so ravenous that he gulps it right down. The thyroid medicine goes into his ear twice a day. And he loves the new food that I have to buy from the vet for him for his kidney problem. It’s expensive and the other cats are jealous – they want some too. I have to stand guard until he finishes eating.
The vet says that she feels good about his chances so once I got over the shock I started feeling better too.
Now I’m off to the vet to buy some more food and then on to the farmer’s market for my groceries. I’m by myself this weekend and looking forward to some quiet time. My plan is to finish my essay and portfolio for my capstone project so that I can graduate in December, which means I am going to try to keep the distractions down. Once that is accomplished there will be one less source of worry for me.
slowly she turned 