The kitty seems slightly better today. Didn’t throw up at all yesterday. The fluids went slightly better last night. Pat and I changed how we were doing things a little so that we can both hold onto Dumas. And it takes both of us. He is a flexible cat.

I have given him 2 cc food per hour since 6am, so he has had more food today so far than he had all day Thursday. His 4 meds are 1cc each, 2 twice per day, 1 once per day and one 6 times per day so if you can only give him 1cc per hour, his meds take up about 45% of the possible feeding times.
Poor Kitty.

He started throwing up on Monday 6/5. All over the place. I finally took him to the vet’s on Wednesday. We just thought he had the flu or something, but I knew something was pretty wrong when he didn’t want the canned chicken water I put out for him.

Just a note: if your kitty throws up more than a couple of times, take them to the vet. Apparently, they get nauseated easily, then they stop eating, and then their liver fails.
The vet thought that he might be constipated, so home we went with sub-cutaneous fluids and instructions to come back if he was still throwing up the next day but had used the litter box.
He was and he did, so back we went on Thursday. Vet took blood for tests and did more fluids. One of the test results (a liver function) came back that evening elevated. There are at least two enzymes they look at with that test. One changes if the cat is not getting enough nutrition, and the other is an indicator of inflammation. He had the inflammation one.
So he went into the vet’s Friday morning to be placed on constant drip fluids. He stayed Friday night and still had not eaten on his own by morning. So he got a feeding tube in Saturday afternoon. The feeding tube is inserted through an incision below his larynx and below the junction of the air pathway, so he can eat and breathe at the same time.
We picked him up on Saturday afternoon after he got 2 different tubes. The first one doubled up on itself, so the vet had to put in a less flexible one.
He was sick immediately when we got home. The vet had told us that if he continued to vomit to take him to Pet Emergency. We called and they said that we could wait if we wanted to because he might just be carsick. We waited a while and the tried to feed him. 12cc slurry (food blended down with water enough to be pulled into the syringe) followed by 3cc water over only about 5 minutes. Didn’t even keep it for 3 minutes. Into Pet Emergency. Doc looked at him and said to slow down the feeding and make sure that everything is at room temp. Went home and watched a couple of episodes of Enterprise. Fed 12cc food and 3cc water over an hour and a half. That is equivalent to a Tablespoon. That is not very much food, but apparently it was too much for him. 15 minutes this time. Back to Pet Emergency at 12:30 AM Sunday. It was very reminiscent of when the dog was so sick not long after we got her. At least this time the animal was not throwing up blood. They kept the kitty overnight so that they could drip fluid into him and try to feed him. They did not manage to get anything to stay down until 11 Sunday night. In theory, we were supposed to be able to sleep since they had him. Didn’t happen. I think I started having an anxiety attack at some point on Sunday and didn’t stop until Tuesday or so. My heart was beating so hard that it hurt. Every time I would start to fall asleep I would hear him Meow. Every time Pat would fall asleep, he would hear Dumas run up the stairs in the normal Midnight Crazies mode.
One of the tests that the Vet had pulled blood for is only done out of Texas A&M, so the results can take as long as 10 days. None of the possibilities of what was wrong was very nice. We debated whether we needed to put him down or not. The Vet seemed hopeful, but none of the things she told me did. She was talking about biopsy. Cutting my baby boy open to try to figure out what was wrong. I hate that idea. And as much as I hate this, money was starting to have to be an object in the decision. Pet emergency was quoting about $500 for every 24 hours. I had been told that the tube placement was going to be about $800 (it wasn’t. Thank God.)
Dumas went into pet emergency 1 am Sunday. On Monday at noon, my parents went with us to Pet Emergency to see the kitty. We were pretty sure that he was done. But he was curious and restless and purry and lovey. My dad said that he had expected the cat to be a lot worse. We told him that he had been.
My wonderful parents very unexpectedly offered to pay for some of the bill. We had decided that we could squeeze another 12 hours for him out of our finances. No new mattress and likely no trip to see my Grandparents in the fall. We haven’t seen them in 3 years. What flavor of guilt would you like?
So, kitty got to stay until 12 Tuesday. Pat took Tuesday afternoon off to stay with him. They had had him on continuous pump on the food, so could manage to do it much more slowly than humanly possible. We weren’t so lucky. He was sick three times after he got home that day. Part of the problem was that his neck bandage was wrapped so tight that trying to get to the feeding tube was choking him, so after he threw up while we had the cork out of the tube (gross), we changed that bandage. Luckily I am a First Aid Freak, so we had everything that we needed. Called Pet ER and they said to lay off food for the rest of the day, give anti nausea at 10 and then try again the next day. Pat took Wednesday morning off. I was brushing my teeth and the kitty came and sat on my feet. Usually, I have to push him away when I brush, because he likes the smell and taste of the toothpaste. I bent down to blow in his face and noticed that the leg that was bandaged from the IV was twice the size it ought to be! They had wrapped that too tight too! We unwrapped it as fast as possible. Things started to go a little better.
Pat took Thursday off, and I had a Rheumatologist appt. The vet called about 1/2 hour before I left to tell me that the TX A&M test had come back. Not Pancreatitis, which as far as we could tell would have been the best case. Vet wanted to start him on Prednisone and I mentioned that we were having trouble feeding him up, and keeping him hydrated because he can only handle a small amount. She said to come in a 4 and she would give the Prednisone and use the Clinic Cat Malikei to teach me how to do the sub-cut fluids. I called Pat to meet me there and went to my appointment. We had agreed that if it was not Pancreatitis, but one of the worse things, we should put him down.
My Doc said that my chest pains are not my heart, but inflammation in the cartilage between my ribs and sternum, and inflammation in the tendons between sternum and shoulder. Advil twice a day for me. That I can handle. Kitty only threw up once all day. Food was increased to 1.5cc. We went to the vet’s without the kitty at 4. Doc told us that the high small intestine and the liver are involved. It could be either cancer, or Inflamed Bowel. Both are incurable but can go into remission. We decided to try. I don’t know whether this is the best thing or not. Talking to one of the Pet ER docs on Monday, I said that I didn’t feel I had the right to kill him. Her reply was that I couldn’t think of it that way. She said that she became a Vet instead of a people doctor because at this point you can be more humane with animals than people. She said that it is my responsibility to make sure that the animal under my care is healthy and comfortable. If I couldn’t provide that for him it was time to let him go. I actually felt a little better about it after that. It is all in the semantics.
We both worked on Friday, so I used a little vacation time to come home and do the anti nausea at 9:15 and 2. No throwing up at all. 🙂 Food increased to 1.75cc per time.
Today, he seems to be doing pretty well. A little lip-smacky, but he is getting twice as much food as he was yesterday, so his tummy is probably feeling pretty full. I gave him anti nausea stuff at 9:20 so I think I will give another 10 min and try another 2cc feed.

This has been one of the worst experiences of my life. This has been as long and drawn out and scary as when my RA was starting to really manifest and we didn’t know what was wrong with me. And I thought I was dying. It hurts me that I can’t do more for him. It hurts me that I don’t know if keeping him alive is the right thing to do for him. If we get his numbers more stable in the next week, he has a shot. If not, we loose him on Friday. If they do get better, and we treat what Could be wrong with him, there is no guarantee that it will work. If it does work, he could have a relapse in 6 months, a year, or more.
I know, I know, I could get hit by a truck tomorrow. There is no point in worrying what might happen. Knowing that does not change my basic nature.
There is a saying at my office, because people in this industry (and maybe it is every industry) tend to think that you will know things by osmosis… “Sorry, my crystal ball is broken.”
I wish mine wasn’t.