Good news – finally, a diagnosis: Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Very treatable.
Bad news – there are now FOUR medications that Fancy has to have EVERY day, and three of them TWICE a day. She’s in hell, and she hates my guts. But she gets some chicken or tuna after every dose, so maybe that eases the pain a bit. I hope.
Perhaps if I simply belly-kiss her enough, the sheer power of love alone will cure her.
Fancy had her endoscopy and biopsy yesterday. If I keep taking her in for these procedures, eventually I won’t even have to get her hair cut because she’ll be bald anyway. She now has a patch on her neck shaved where Dr. Fisher drew blood, her tummy shaved for the ultrasound, and a small patch on her arm shaved all the way around for the IV yesterday. It looks like she’s wearing one little boot, and it’s driving my inner OCD crazy.
Good news so far – Dr. Cummings has narrowed it down (again) to Inflammatory Bowel Disease (which is not as funny as some would believe it is, Smith!) or intestinal lymphoma. The results of the biopsy should be back on Monday.
Things are getting back to normal in our household. We’re in a holding pattern until we get the results back, then we can talk about treatment. It’s just a huge relief not having the liver cancer cloud hanging over our heads at this point. Fancy’s putting on weight, getting stronger, and behaving as normal. She met me at the door this evening and is following me around the apartment, so I assume she’s finished being mad at me, although she may be simply studying my patterns, my habits, identifying my weaknesses, and plotting when to strike.
In other news, I think I may be in love with her internal medicine specialist. He’s precious and has been incredibly patient with me as I’ve asked crazy catmom question after crazy catmom question. And he has a very firm handshake. If we get Fancy healed, I may have to keep thinking of reasons to take her back to see him, although I’m not sure I can afford many more $1,200 procedures just to make mooney eyes her doctor. I’ll have to do an ROI analysis before proceeding with that.
Today is Maybe Diagnosis Day. If they were able to make the diagnosis definitively with the liver aspirate, we should hear today. I’ll not exhale until after that call.
Got the call at 1:00 this afternoon.
NOT LIVER DISEASE!!! The tissue samples showed no signs of cancer or other disease and they concluded that the inflammation was secondary to her not eating, and that the problem must be in her upper GI tract. She is scheduled for an endoscopy and biopsy tomorrow.
She’s been acting perfectly normal all day. Ate a full can of food between this morning and this evening. Pee but no poopage. At 6:35 pm, she did vomit twice, but only a small bit of bile, and she resumed normal activity afterwards. Even ate a bit of dry food about an hour later.
I cannot put into words exactly how relieved I am. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high, as we could still find out that it’s stomach cancer or something equally horrible. But it could also be something as mundane and treatable as an ulcer.
Here’s to tomorrow!
10:30 am – Fancy was back to her usual up-and-down/on-and-off the bed routine last night. Poop in the litter box this morning. Again, it was black. I sucked up whatever shred of dignity I may still be clinging to and got a Ziploc bag and kept a tiny sample in case they need it tomorrow. I have such a newfound appreciation of the things my parents must have gone through when I was a kid.
I will say, scouring the litter box every day is kind of like a treasure hunt. I wake up every morning and run to the bathroom to check it with all the fervor of an octogenarian who sent in her Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes form weeks ago. Get that little scooper out and start digging around. . . pee clumps are good, promising, but no one should ever be so happy to see cat poop as I’ve been the past couple of days.
It’s a Prednisone day. She fought rather roughly today but I think she got most of it down. I’ve been giving her a bit of tuna or canned food afterwards to calm her down and keep her from smacking her lips to try to get the medicine back up, which causes her to drool something fierce. It’s working well for the most part.
Ate a bit of dry food.
12:30-1:45 – Fancy resting in her corner
5:15 – Home from seeing parents. Fancy still resting in corner. I get the impression she’s been there all day. She eagerly ate about 1 ½ tablespoons canned food and pumpkin.
9:00 ish – Ate some more canned food and pumpkin. Came out and played around for a while. Seems to be fine.
And with that, we go to bed. Tomorrow we should get the call about the tissue sample results.
7:15 am – We have poopage! Massive, too, for such a tiny kitty. Worrisome; it was black, indicating presence of blood, possibly from an ulcer. I will keep an eye on this until Monday. If she doesn’t go today, I will give her some more canned pumpkin tonight and see if it’s clearing up. Investigative petting reveals some stomach distension, but less than last night. Promising.
4:00 pm – Fancy came running from the living room to meet me when I came home from school. She seems perfectly okay and I’m elated to see her as such. She peed a bit while I was away and ate some dry food. Belly distension is virtually non-existent. Still, just to be safe and keep everything flowing, I thought I’d try to trick her by mixing some canned pumpkin with her wet food. I never thought she’d go for it but she’s chomping and smacking away over there. Excellent. This makes me wonder how many times my mother tricked me into eating strange stuff when I was a kid.
11:45 pm – Fancy met me at the door when I arrived home from an MBA association social event. Peed a little, no poopage. I’m okay with that, though, for now. Seems to be her old self again. Keeping fingers crossed until Monday.
Fancy stayed on the bed with me from 4:00 am until I woke at 7:00. Administered prednisone at 7:00 and followed with 1 tbsp of tuna, which she ate eagerly. Peed a little around 8:00 am and returned to her corner to lie down.
Returned home from studying around 1:00 pm. Fancy had eaten a bit of dry food. No litter box activity. Fancy slept in her corner until 2:45, when I picked her up and put her on the bed to take a nap with me. She did not want to be on the bed but was hesitant to jump off, so I placed her back on the floor. She walked to the kitchen and lay down on the floor. I offered her approximately two tbsp Science Diet canned food and she devoured it. Immediately after finishing off the food, she went to the litter box and peed, but she has not pooped since Tuesday, and that makes me sad. Not good.
After the litter box I wondered if watching out her favorite window would lighten her spirits and placed her on her favorite chair in the living room to do so. She immediately jumped down and I picked her up and carried her to her corner. She began grooming and definitely has more interest in grooming than she’s had in the past week. Briefly batted at Mr. Ribbon but quickly lost interest.
4:30 – Fancy went to the kitchen and drank some water. Afterwards came and sat in front of me for a while, judging me, then walked away. I assumed she’d gone back to her corner, but found her in the living room lying in a sunbeam. I sat down to type and she jumped onto the table as she used to do all the time when I would be at the computer. Almost seems like she’s starting to act like her old self a bit. But still too soon to say.
8:30 pm – Fancy met me at the door when I arrived home from dinner with friends. She had eaten quite a bit of dry food while I was out. No litter box activity.
She’s considerably more active today than she has been in the past 10 days.
9:30 pm – Fancy ate about a teaspoon of canned food and went pee-pee. While petting her, I noticed that her tummy is fairly distended. Seeing as how she hasn’t pooped since Tuesday, I wonder if this is due to constipation or if she’s simply not digesting food. I spoke to someone at the Jefferson Animal Hospital who advised me to offer her some canned pumpkin to relieve possible constipation. I offered it to her and she wanted nothing whatsoever to do with it. I managed to get about ½ teaspoon down her with a syringe. Fingers crossed. If she hasn’t pooped by the time I get home from school tomorrow, I may consider taking her into Jefferson.
As of midnight or thereabouts, Fancy has been up to her old tricks, staying right by my side all night. She’s lying on the table while I type, she sat with me on the couch while I studied, she follows me from room to room and seems to be in good spirits. Some kind of critter was making a huge ruckus outside of our living room window and she was on seriously high alert, ears forward, pupils big as saucers, whiskers at the ready, but didn’t jump off the couch to investigate further. She’s occupying all of her old favorite places again – the table, random sunbeams, the left arm of the couch. Drank a hefty helping of water around 11:30.
Aaaand we’re spent. Bedtime.
When I was a kid, I was sick all the time. Literally, every month or so, I’d have a new infection or asthma attack or bug or some kind of weird whatever. Every time I had to go to the hospital, I’d get a doll or some candy or some kind of toy. So, when Fancy came back from the ultrasound* today, it only felt right. Here’s what she scored from her harrowing ordeal:
I sat the fish in his little cup down in front of her on the table when I walked in the door. She vaguely registered that something had been introduced to her environment. Sniffed at it with complete disinterest.
Me: “That’s your fishy!”
Fancy: *silence*
Me: “What are we going to call it?”
Fancy: *ear twitch*
So, we are now the proud new owners of one crazy-looking red betta fish named Twitch.
*We need some time to process everything we learned today, and should know more on Monday. I’ve been shuffling, cataloging, and reorganizing all the information, possibilities, probabilities, and prognoses into one thousand different “what if” scenarios all day and we’ve both been to the gates of Hell and back today. My mind is too cloudy to write about it today, but suffice to say, so far, it’s not horrible, it’s not wonderful, and we’ll know more by Monday. Until then, we’re just gonna keep on keepin’ on.Arrived home from Metropolitan Vet Specialists at 2:00 pm. Fancy immediately ate a substantial amount of dry food and drank some water. Afterwards, she lay down in her corner and slept.
Arrived home from work approximately 4:45. Fancy came to meet me at the door. No evidence that she had eaten any more since 2:00. Ate approximately 2 tbsp tuna.
Arrived home from grocery shopping approximately 8:30. Fancy ate ¼ small can of Science Diet food and drank some water. Played with a new catnip toy I bought for her for a short period of time, then returned to her corner. Overall, seems to have a healthy appetite since receiving the B-12 shot on Wednesday, August 20.
No litter box activity.
Fancy has some strange nocturnal habits. When I go to bed, she remains in her corner until five minutes after the lights go out, then she jumps onto the bed with me. She sleeps on my pillow for about 15 minutes, then moves to “her side” of the bed, where she sleeps for another 15 minutes, then she jumps off the bed and goes to eat or use the litter box, then returns to her corner. Throughout the night, she jumps on and off the bed several times. I’ve noticed over the past week that she’s having difficulty making the jump both onto and off of the bed. I’ve set up boxes beside the bed to act as “steps” to assist her in getting on to the bed but she will not use them. The jump off of the bed and onto the floor seems to cause her pain. She stands very still for several seconds after jumping off.
As she’s walking from room to room, Fancy will often stop, stand still for several seconds, then lie down. She seems uncomfortable when lying down and will shift from her stomach to her side several times.
She is responsive to strings and other toys for only a few moments before losing interest. She still sits in her favorite chair to look out the window and will lie on the couch with me in the evenings for brief moments before returning to her corner. I get the impression she’s simply trying to placate me.
“All the time we spend anthropomorphizing our animals – do you ever get the the feeling that they’re just animorphizing us?” – Angelina Jolie in “Playing By Heart”
So Fancy decided this evening that she’s ready to eat.
She was ready to eat my crescent roll. I sat down at the table for dinner, up she came, and began sniffing it. I didn’t think anything of it, given that this cat has not TOUCHED not ONE single MORSEL of human food in TWELVE years of life. But then she started licking it. Under normal circumstances I would have stopped her with a gentle “No, no, baby, that’s for mere mortals,” but seeing as how she hasn’t eaten in a WEEK, I figured I’d see what happened. She licked the thing to death, put a good silver dollar-sized hole in it. Then sat back and licked her lips, cleaned her paw, as if she were quite pleased with herself.
Color me confused.
A crescent roll? Seriously? After a week-long fast, that’s what you want to go with?
So, call it divine inspiration, whatever, but I got an idea. I took a can of tuna out of the pantry, opened it, and sat it down in front of her on the table. A sniff. A tentative itty-bitty taste test on the tongue, and then she dug in. She nommed a good tablespoon or so before I pulled it back due to mercury/diarrhea/possibility of cutting her tongue on the edge of the can concerns, but I let her drink all the juice out of it since she needs all the fluids she can get.
She’s happy as a little clam now.
I just simply don’t fricking get it.
She’s still going to have her liver ultrasound and stomach scope tomorrow. Hope she doesn’t think this new, warped cooperation is going to get her out of that.
UPDATE – 10:16pm
We have eatage! After giving her some space and going to swim for a while, I came home with a new can of tuna, the watery contents of which I poured over Fancy’s regular cat food. Immediate nommage. That was around 9:00; just now she came out and had some more, plus a hefty helping of water.
I wouldn’t say she’s out of the woods yet, seeing as how she still has to keep all of this down and still needs lots more water to be adequately hydrated, but it’s a start. I’ve pulled up her food bowl for the night, pending stomach scope-age tomorrow morning.
*fingers crossed*
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