The Latest on The Cat

The vet and I are still scratching our heads a bit about the whole "not eating" thing, not to mention the traumatic ultrasound that showed nothing, but one theory we came up with was that The Cat stopped taking steroids abruptly.  Going "cold turkey" with steroids instead of tapering them off could throw the adrenal glands out of whack and make her lose her appetite.

So Friday she received two injections, one to calm her nausea and the other was a long-acting steroid.  I hate putting her back on the steroid merry-go-round, but if it gets her eating and settles the stomach/intestinal problems that started to crop up again, then fine.

The vet also gave the O.K. to increase the dosage of her anti-thyroid medication to twice daily.  And we brainstormed some things to entice her to eat, like chicken livers (yuck) or canned tuna.

It was a rough weekend.  She was back to her old ways of crying all morning, so I was not a happy camper at Mass and wound up taking a nap this afternoon.

I am happy to report that she enjoyed some tuna juice (liquid from canned tuna) this morning and afternoon, and tonight she even ventured into the kitchen to meow at me--probably didn't hurt that I had beef in the slow cooker all afternoon and the aroma is all over the place--so I gave her a little canned cat food and she took a few bites.  It seems to be staying down, so Hooray! 

I'll admit, I have been trying to make peace with the whole "If she doesn't eat she's dying" thing but it has been tremendously hard when there seems to be no real explanation for it.  

And part of me wants her to be here for her sixteenth birthday in a few weeks, you know?

  

Comments

ccr in MA said…
Of course you want her to be there for her birthday! And hopefully she will be. I've only had one "when do I decide" experience and it really was clear to me when it was time. Up to then, we went happily along with the status quo, which was not ideal, but was better than nothing (until it wasn't).

I wonder if she'll eat the chicken livers? A cat we had when I was a kid loved them, but I tried them on Carlos and he was uninterested. Cats are so individually weird. (I knew what you meant by tuna juice--that's what it is to Carlos, too, and he wishes it came along more often.)
Kate P said…
Tuna juice is still the hands-down favorite, CCR, with the chicken livers not yet tried but perhaps tonight. Status quo is how it looks right now.

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