8.19.2003
Poor Jefferson... he's been through so much these last few weeks. He finished the amoxicillin on the 13th and Thursday when I got home from work, I saw him sitting in the litter box for a long time. We figured out it had been about 24 hours since he'd last urinated. I went to rehearsal and when I got home he seemed worse, and seemed to be getting worse just while we were trying to decide what to do. Chris took him to the vet at about midnight, and it turned out he had a urinary blockage. This is the second time this has happened - the first time was back in March (looks like I didn't write about it, but it also happened late on a Thursday night, and that time, we knew something was really wrong when Jefferson hissed at us). Basically, he has struvite crystals in his urine and when they get more concentrated they eventually plug his urethra. If we didn't get him to the vet he would die in a matter of hours from the buildup of toxins in his kidneys, etc. They kept him overnight and did an x-ray. His bladder was about 3 times its normal size. They catheterized him and flushed his bladder, and also kept him Friday night, because they wait about 24 hours to remove the catheter. We couldn't bring him home Saturday morning because he wasn't really well enough and we both had to go out of town with The Raleigh Ringers. We picked him up Sunday night when we got back to town and then we both ended up being home yesterday - it was nice to keep an eye on him. He's on another course of amoxicillin, which is pretty customary after being catheterized, although I'm scared in a superstitious way about what will happen when he finishes it, based on what happened last week. He does seem to be feeling pretty good... he's been a little more frisky and seems to be getting over any irritation the catheter may have caused.
This whole situation is pretty tough. These emergency trips to the vet aren't cheap and the amount we've spent on him in the last 10 months is getting on up there. We've put him on canned Purina UR formula - it's supposed to help with the struvite crystals. If this doesn't work, the only other option would be a surgery that would basically reconstruct his urinary tract to be more like a female cat's. Unfortunately, this surgery is also not cheap and there's no guarantee that it would solve his problems. He could still experience blockages and he would probably be more susceptible to bacterial infections. I guess I might as well just go ahead and tell the truth... we've basically decided that if he gets blocked again in the next few months, we're going to have to put him down. I am struggling with this in a huge way. Anyone who knows me in real life knows how much my pets mean to me (well, you can probably tell just by looking around this website). It's hard because while I know these episodes are painful and he hasn't felt well a lot of the time, he's still got the will to live... he likes to eat, go outside, etc. etc. But the poor guy is still just a kid... he'll be three years old in a couple of weeks. And, we have the baby to consider, and that's got to be our first priority.
I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say... I think I'm rambling. I feel so guilty and awful about this... I feel like a horrible pet owner and a bad person. I honestly don't know how I'm going to hold myself together when the time comes, if it comes. I guess I'm just hoping and praying that the special diet does the trick and we don't have to face this anytime soon.
This whole situation is pretty tough. These emergency trips to the vet aren't cheap and the amount we've spent on him in the last 10 months is getting on up there. We've put him on canned Purina UR formula - it's supposed to help with the struvite crystals. If this doesn't work, the only other option would be a surgery that would basically reconstruct his urinary tract to be more like a female cat's. Unfortunately, this surgery is also not cheap and there's no guarantee that it would solve his problems. He could still experience blockages and he would probably be more susceptible to bacterial infections. I guess I might as well just go ahead and tell the truth... we've basically decided that if he gets blocked again in the next few months, we're going to have to put him down. I am struggling with this in a huge way. Anyone who knows me in real life knows how much my pets mean to me (well, you can probably tell just by looking around this website). It's hard because while I know these episodes are painful and he hasn't felt well a lot of the time, he's still got the will to live... he likes to eat, go outside, etc. etc. But the poor guy is still just a kid... he'll be three years old in a couple of weeks. And, we have the baby to consider, and that's got to be our first priority.
I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say... I think I'm rambling. I feel so guilty and awful about this... I feel like a horrible pet owner and a bad person. I honestly don't know how I'm going to hold myself together when the time comes, if it comes. I guess I'm just hoping and praying that the special diet does the trick and we don't have to face this anytime soon.
8.06.2003
I am in a ranting kind of mood today, plus I'm feeling the need to write about Jefferson. He's sick again. Let me back up a bit. When I was on tour with The RRs at the end of June, Jefferson had a couple of health issues at one time. Chris took him to the vet the day after I left to get him vaccinated now that we're letting him be outdoors whenever he wants. I'm not sure if we asked for it or if it was part of the checkup, but he had a urinalysis done that day as well. That same week Jefferson started vomiting after eating, and by the time I got home on a Sunday he was eating tuna fish and rice and was keeping it down. The next day when I went into work, there was a message on my voice mail from the vet's office telling me that Jefferson had a UTI and we needed to get the antibiotics. This message was left only at my work number on June 21... by the time I got it, it was June 30. I called the vet and told them exactly what I thought about them letting Jefferson go for 9 days with a UTI and no medication. I prefaced my story by telling the woman that this was partly a customer service issue. At some point fairly early on in the conversation she asked my phone number so she could look up the records. I gave it to her and she pulled up our records right away. She then proceeded to tell me that she didn't have our phone number. HELLO??? I explained that the only reason I'd ever given them my work number was so that someone could return my call during the daytime, and that I knew for a fact we'd updated our home address and phone number recently because we'd just moved in March. Not once did she apologize for what had happened... she handled the whole situation poorly.
Anyway. So we gave Jefferson the course of amoxicillin and he seemed to be fine in the urinary department, but he was still vomiting. The tuna fish and rice was no longer working and so we switched him to single ingredient meat baby food (we alternated between turkey and chicken). It was like last fall although the vomiting was much more intermittent, so at least we didn't have the concern of him not getting enough calories. However, we just couldn't seem to get him back on track.
This past Saturday we had an appointment for him to receive a booster or something for one of his vaccinations, and while we were there we brought up the whole vomiting thing. It wasn't five minutes until the vet jumped on the food allergy bandwagon and was trying to talk us into buying whatever formula of Hill's prescription diet that would suit this particular problem. I entered into quite a discussion with her about foods and how I didn't really think he was allergic, but finally she wore me down. The thing is, at the same time she decided to prescribe prednisone, and she wanted us to start him on that and the new food at the same time. Excuse me, but aren't you supposed to be trained in the scientific method? Anyone who has ever done any sort of research (and I would assume that's a requirement for vet school) knows that you don't apply two treatments at the same time... there's no way to sort out which one had an effect. After we got out of there I just decided we'd start the prednisone and hold off on the new food.
Basically what I think it boiled down to was that she wanted us to buy the food and to have to buy more of it. I so do not like this Hill's prescription diet business. The food she sent us home with cost $4.50 per pound. $4.50!!! There's not much in the way of human food in the grocery store that you can buy that costs $4.50/lb. I think that vets these days are way too quick to jump on diet as a solution to whatever problem your pet is having. These vets also give us the runaround about cats... they say, "Oh, cats' anatomy is mysterious and we often just don't know what is going on." Hills makes a zillion of these foods and I think the vets fall back on that as a way to get out of doing any real work. I also suspect that the vet practice gets quite a nice kickback from sales of the prescription food. I mean, if you went to the doctor with a problem and the doc said, "Hey, I don't know what's wrong with you but you just need to go buy some Kroger brand pickles and all will be well... and no, you can't buy Food Lion brand, it has to be Kroger..." wouldn't you start to think that maybe Kroger was sending some cash to your doctor? Also, apparently Hills now makes a brain formula or something... Chris and I decided that after the baby is born, I can work from home as a veterinarian to cats and I can just tell people that cats are mysterious but look, Hills has this brain food, and if you feed it long enough your cat will be able to tell you what is wrong with it!! I can charge exorbitant prices for the food and the advice and I'll never have to work a real job again!
Well, back to the facts... Chris took Jefferson back to the vet tonight because he'd gone about 48 hours without urinating. Of course, he did manage to empty his bladder right before they left, but the vet went ahead and assumed the UTI without a urine sample (the emergency vet is the best one of the whole huge bunch... too bad we can't see him during the day). He prescribed a week's worth of amoxicillin. He also gave him a steroid shot that is supposed to help with urinary and digestive inflammation, so Jefferson is off the prednisone for a week, and then we're supposed to put him back on it. Poor kitty, he's got more drugs than Winona Ryder.
So, who knows where all this will end up? I just really would like to see him get well and stay well for more than 6 months at a time.
Anyway. So we gave Jefferson the course of amoxicillin and he seemed to be fine in the urinary department, but he was still vomiting. The tuna fish and rice was no longer working and so we switched him to single ingredient meat baby food (we alternated between turkey and chicken). It was like last fall although the vomiting was much more intermittent, so at least we didn't have the concern of him not getting enough calories. However, we just couldn't seem to get him back on track.
This past Saturday we had an appointment for him to receive a booster or something for one of his vaccinations, and while we were there we brought up the whole vomiting thing. It wasn't five minutes until the vet jumped on the food allergy bandwagon and was trying to talk us into buying whatever formula of Hill's prescription diet that would suit this particular problem. I entered into quite a discussion with her about foods and how I didn't really think he was allergic, but finally she wore me down. The thing is, at the same time she decided to prescribe prednisone, and she wanted us to start him on that and the new food at the same time. Excuse me, but aren't you supposed to be trained in the scientific method? Anyone who has ever done any sort of research (and I would assume that's a requirement for vet school) knows that you don't apply two treatments at the same time... there's no way to sort out which one had an effect. After we got out of there I just decided we'd start the prednisone and hold off on the new food.
Basically what I think it boiled down to was that she wanted us to buy the food and to have to buy more of it. I so do not like this Hill's prescription diet business. The food she sent us home with cost $4.50 per pound. $4.50!!! There's not much in the way of human food in the grocery store that you can buy that costs $4.50/lb. I think that vets these days are way too quick to jump on diet as a solution to whatever problem your pet is having. These vets also give us the runaround about cats... they say, "Oh, cats' anatomy is mysterious and we often just don't know what is going on." Hills makes a zillion of these foods and I think the vets fall back on that as a way to get out of doing any real work. I also suspect that the vet practice gets quite a nice kickback from sales of the prescription food. I mean, if you went to the doctor with a problem and the doc said, "Hey, I don't know what's wrong with you but you just need to go buy some Kroger brand pickles and all will be well... and no, you can't buy Food Lion brand, it has to be Kroger..." wouldn't you start to think that maybe Kroger was sending some cash to your doctor? Also, apparently Hills now makes a brain formula or something... Chris and I decided that after the baby is born, I can work from home as a veterinarian to cats and I can just tell people that cats are mysterious but look, Hills has this brain food, and if you feed it long enough your cat will be able to tell you what is wrong with it!! I can charge exorbitant prices for the food and the advice and I'll never have to work a real job again!
Well, back to the facts... Chris took Jefferson back to the vet tonight because he'd gone about 48 hours without urinating. Of course, he did manage to empty his bladder right before they left, but the vet went ahead and assumed the UTI without a urine sample (the emergency vet is the best one of the whole huge bunch... too bad we can't see him during the day). He prescribed a week's worth of amoxicillin. He also gave him a steroid shot that is supposed to help with urinary and digestive inflammation, so Jefferson is off the prednisone for a week, and then we're supposed to put him back on it. Poor kitty, he's got more drugs than Winona Ryder.
So, who knows where all this will end up? I just really would like to see him get well and stay well for more than 6 months at a time.
