Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

During a better week.

My kitties are having a really rough time. Maggie hasn’t been eating at all. She’s been to the vet twice. There are calcium oxalate crystals in her urine, but no stones were visible in her x-ray. They put her on special food, but she isn’t eating it at all, and now she’s just not eating anything. Yesterday, she weight 8 ounces less than she weighed 10 days earlier. What’s weird is that she isn’t acting all that strangely. She’s still peeing outside the box sometimes, and she’s definitely staying close, but she’s willing to play, and she seems happy. It’s weird. She just won’t eat. I got her to eat a bit yesterday and the day before after buying her a different type of food, but today, it’s back to no eating at all. Earlier, when she woke me up, I tried feeding her, but she didn’t want to eat. So finally, I gave her the appetite stimulant pill the vet game me. She then proceeded to puke it up. Sigh… The pill was whole, so I cleaned it off and crushed it up into her food. She still wouldn’t eat more than a bite or two. She just woke me up again, and I tried to get her to eat. No dice.

Jeep is another story. She’s kind of crazy. When I take Maggie to the vet, Jeep freaks out completely. Yes, you heard right. Jeep gets very stressed by the smell of Maggie after she arrives home. So she was already stressed by Maggie’s vet trip, and then she herself had to go to a new vet. This has been scheduled for several weeks. She is participating in a pain study at the NCSU vet school. So I take the poor girl over there. She HATES the car (got some audio of that)…

Once we arrived, there was a lot of paperwork for me. And meanwhile, in the same exam room, Jeep was tested for arthritis. This was sad and kind of funny, too. They basically stretch her in various ways to test for pain. My question was this: “I know she’s going to growl at you the entire time, so how will you know when she’s in pain?” Apparently, the growl from pain is different than the regular growl. Poor girl, to see her arms being pulled, along with the crescendo of growls… She was NOT happy. They found what I expected they’d find: pain in her hips. They kept her for a few hours. She was sedated and x-rayed. The x-rays revealed visible signs of mild degenerative joint disease in both hips. She was given a collar that monitors her activity level, and I received detailed instructions about what I need to do to until my next visit there.

The bad part of all of this is that because Jeep was sedated, she now has dilated pupils, poor vision, and is really sensitive to light and noises. She also seems to have no balance at all. So she’s pissed, walking into things, hissing constantly, a real delight. And Maggie doesn’t really know what to do with her. Jeep has been hanging out in my closet with the lights off, and Maggie has been following me around wanting attention, but not food.

I’m glad I have nowhere specific to be today. Think I might take Maggie back over to the vet (it’s very close by) and see if they can get that appetite stimulant down her without her puking it back up. That might make the day a little better. Since I’m stuck in, it might be a nice movie/reading/photo editing/cleaning day… although I REALLY want to vacuum, but I don’t see that as a good idea, given Jeep’s fragile state.

Oy Gevalt!