[kitty] addendum
May. 12th, 2006 07:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wispfoxSince more than a few of you seemed shocked by the suddenness, I wanted to note that it was pretty sudden on this end, too.
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jasra takes over typing]
Tuesday - Ash had a weird episode where he was sitting down in the kitchen watching us, and was holding his paw up with a very confused expression, as if he didn't know where it should go. He put it down on the opposite side of his body and continued to look puzzled. I went over and he leaned heavily against me. Next thing I was aware of, he was lying on the floor on his side, with his front paws moving as if they weren't under his control. His back legs then proceeded to also move in a similar uncontrolled way. After a few moments of this (he looked a little like he was drugged), he started to try to crawl instead of getting up and walking. At that point, we called the vet and got Ash into his crate.
He was seeming to be able to walk fine nearly immediately after putting him in the crate (that's his "I don't _need_ go to the vet!" behavior). We brought him to the vet, she took blood for testing, and she asked about his eating and drinking behaviors, as he was slightly dehydrated and had lost 2 lbs since September. The vet and I discussed that Ash's tumor seemed larger than it had in October. Later, after getting home, we noticed that not only had he not finished his dinner the previous night, he hadn't had much to drink. Later, we realized that we weren't sure when he had last eaten his dry food. He did finish his wet food Tuesday night, but still didn't drink very much, and he hadn't been begging for food or trying to convince us to go to bed on time, or doing his normal kinds of bitching about things since at least the previous day.
Wednesday - He didn't finish his wet food, continued to not eat dry food, and had very little water. He stumbled using the litter box (he did this crazy perch-three-legs-on-the-side-of-the-litter-box thing when he was peeing). He was also showing some reluctance to jump up on the couch or my bed. (He hadn't actually been doing his normal spending-time-with-me-before-I-went-to-sleep thing for a while, not sure how long.) This is the day we found out his blood tests showed nothing.
Thursday - He didn't finish his wet food, would try to drink tuna juice if we gave it to him, but wouldn't finish it either, and had very little water. He also stumbled again in the litter box and also when he was trying to come out from under the chair that he liked lying under. We got in touch with the vet on this day, and she suspected possible seizures, suggested Pepcid AC in case he had an upset stomach, was going to schedule an ultrasound, was going to try antibiotics in case his teeth were hurting and making him not want to eat, and wanted me to call if things seemed to be getting worse and either way, on Saturday.
Friday - He had _maybe_ a couple bites of food and very little water, and had awakened me at 5 am, with the apparent purpose of getting me to follow him to the bathroom (where his food is), presumably because he wanted me to find him food he could eat. At this point, since he had eaten so little, I knew that I needed to call and get him in as soon as possible. If nothing else, he had not had enough food since Monday to feed him a single day, let alone 5.
We brought him in (to a different vet since the one we'd been seeing was out) at around 11 am. The vet checked all of his normal vitals. There was an odd ulcer in his mouth, his skin was paler than normal around his eyes, and I was really feeling like we needed to look at the tumor. She had also checked his heartbeat, and seemed to think his heart sounded more irregular than usual. She strongly suggested (and I fully agreed) that the next course of action needed to be an ultrasound of his heart and his abdomen. So we left him at the vet with instruction to call by 3 if we had not heard anything. It was 1:45 when I got a call from the vet saying that they had only done the abdominal ultrasound, and it showed that the tumor had metastasized to most, if not all, of his internal organs. And that the doctor who did the ultrasound, who tends to be very strongly in favor of doing as much as possible, did not suggest trying to do anything in this case.
I was kind of expecting this at this point, although I couldn't really tell you why, but even so it was one hell of a difficult thing to deal with. I agreed that trying to do anything was unkind to him, and did not think that it made sense to take him home for the evening for a last bit of time with him because he _hates_ going to the vet, and it would have required bringing him back yet again. Also because we'd both had a fair bit of time with him all week when he seemed to be having trouble. And because delaying it was not going to make this any easier.
So an appointment was made for 4 pm to put him to sleep. We went and spent a bit of time with him, petting him, saying goodbye, and telling him that he was a really good kitty and we'd miss him. Then I held him and bothjasra and I pet him while the injection was given. There was, as you may imagine, many tears during all of this, and on the phone earlier in the day.
So, basically, this went from seeming to possibly be a seizure on Tuesday, to being something that there was no way anything could be done for, today. It really _was_ that sudden, even though I knew that it was fairly likely to eventually happen once he was diagnosed with the tumor.
[
jasra takes over typing]Tuesday - Ash had a weird episode where he was sitting down in the kitchen watching us, and was holding his paw up with a very confused expression, as if he didn't know where it should go. He put it down on the opposite side of his body and continued to look puzzled. I went over and he leaned heavily against me. Next thing I was aware of, he was lying on the floor on his side, with his front paws moving as if they weren't under his control. His back legs then proceeded to also move in a similar uncontrolled way. After a few moments of this (he looked a little like he was drugged), he started to try to crawl instead of getting up and walking. At that point, we called the vet and got Ash into his crate.
He was seeming to be able to walk fine nearly immediately after putting him in the crate (that's his "I don't _need_ go to the vet!" behavior). We brought him to the vet, she took blood for testing, and she asked about his eating and drinking behaviors, as he was slightly dehydrated and had lost 2 lbs since September. The vet and I discussed that Ash's tumor seemed larger than it had in October. Later, after getting home, we noticed that not only had he not finished his dinner the previous night, he hadn't had much to drink. Later, we realized that we weren't sure when he had last eaten his dry food. He did finish his wet food Tuesday night, but still didn't drink very much, and he hadn't been begging for food or trying to convince us to go to bed on time, or doing his normal kinds of bitching about things since at least the previous day.
Wednesday - He didn't finish his wet food, continued to not eat dry food, and had very little water. He stumbled using the litter box (he did this crazy perch-three-legs-on-the-side-of-the-litter-box thing when he was peeing). He was also showing some reluctance to jump up on the couch or my bed. (He hadn't actually been doing his normal spending-time-with-me-before-I-went-to-sleep thing for a while, not sure how long.) This is the day we found out his blood tests showed nothing.
Thursday - He didn't finish his wet food, would try to drink tuna juice if we gave it to him, but wouldn't finish it either, and had very little water. He also stumbled again in the litter box and also when he was trying to come out from under the chair that he liked lying under. We got in touch with the vet on this day, and she suspected possible seizures, suggested Pepcid AC in case he had an upset stomach, was going to schedule an ultrasound, was going to try antibiotics in case his teeth were hurting and making him not want to eat, and wanted me to call if things seemed to be getting worse and either way, on Saturday.
Friday - He had _maybe_ a couple bites of food and very little water, and had awakened me at 5 am, with the apparent purpose of getting me to follow him to the bathroom (where his food is), presumably because he wanted me to find him food he could eat. At this point, since he had eaten so little, I knew that I needed to call and get him in as soon as possible. If nothing else, he had not had enough food since Monday to feed him a single day, let alone 5.
We brought him in (to a different vet since the one we'd been seeing was out) at around 11 am. The vet checked all of his normal vitals. There was an odd ulcer in his mouth, his skin was paler than normal around his eyes, and I was really feeling like we needed to look at the tumor. She had also checked his heartbeat, and seemed to think his heart sounded more irregular than usual. She strongly suggested (and I fully agreed) that the next course of action needed to be an ultrasound of his heart and his abdomen. So we left him at the vet with instruction to call by 3 if we had not heard anything. It was 1:45 when I got a call from the vet saying that they had only done the abdominal ultrasound, and it showed that the tumor had metastasized to most, if not all, of his internal organs. And that the doctor who did the ultrasound, who tends to be very strongly in favor of doing as much as possible, did not suggest trying to do anything in this case.
I was kind of expecting this at this point, although I couldn't really tell you why, but even so it was one hell of a difficult thing to deal with. I agreed that trying to do anything was unkind to him, and did not think that it made sense to take him home for the evening for a last bit of time with him because he _hates_ going to the vet, and it would have required bringing him back yet again. Also because we'd both had a fair bit of time with him all week when he seemed to be having trouble. And because delaying it was not going to make this any easier.
So an appointment was made for 4 pm to put him to sleep. We went and spent a bit of time with him, petting him, saying goodbye, and telling him that he was a really good kitty and we'd miss him. Then I held him and both
jasra and I pet him while the injection was given. There was, as you may imagine, many tears during all of this, and on the phone earlier in the day.So, basically, this went from seeming to possibly be a seizure on Tuesday, to being something that there was no way anything could be done for, today. It really _was_ that sudden, even though I knew that it was fairly likely to eventually happen once he was diagnosed with the tumor.
