Cinders' Blood Test Results

Cinders is feeling better. She moves very slowly and rests a lot. 

Most times, Cinders follow EJ round the house. On Sunday, EJ decided to follow Cinders when she walked towards her toilet tray. EJ wanted to check whether there were any blood traces in her urine.

Cinders pooped! Not much but this meant she ate enough for this to happen.

EJ never knew that watching a cat poop could give such happiness. And finding an empty food dish gave even more happiness.

Cleaning herself after eating. The arrow shows the area shaved for blood extraction from the carotid artery.

Late yesterday afternoon, Cinders' vet phoned and said the blood tests confirmed that Cinders has Chronic Renal Failure (CRF). And off EJ went to the vet to discuss what is best for Cinders at this stage.

A daily dose of five pills, a supplementary powder plus potassium citrate liquid was prescribed. Among the prescription is Azodyl. This was packed with ice on the way back from the clinic and has to be put in the fridge immediately on reaching home.

To put it very briefly, Azodyl is a non-prescription nutritional supplement designed to help slow the advancement of chronic renal failure in cats and dogs. It contains bacteria believed to support the "flushing out" of the waste products associated with azotemia, a condition where creatinine, urea and other nitrogen-based toxins are not properly filtered by the kidneys. 

SubQ fluid has not started yet and will be done when needed.

EJ shudder to think of the number of pills and medicine Cinders has to take. Not being sick often, EJ, a human many times Cinders' size, need at least half a glass of water to swallow one pill and would certainly need many hours to finish what Cinders has to take.

PS: We thank all for the purrayers, purrs, positive thoughts and vibes, and still may not visit as often as we would like to.

For more cat stories, please visit http://gattinamycats.blogspot.com

Cinders' Appetite and Blood Test

Despite appetite stimulants, Cinders still refused to eat. Her weight dropped rapidly from 2.68kg two weeks ago to 2.5kg last week and now 2.34kg.

Special food AD formula (AD stands for anorexia diet) could not entice Cinders to lick from EJ's finger. Feeding via the syringe was messy resulting with most feed flung all over instead of inside Cinders' mouth. 

Lately EJ resorted to forcing wet food like mashed tuna and AD formula down her throat. Each time only a 'nail-sized' amount could be consumed. Cinders fought violently and pawed seconds and thirds.

During the visit to the vet this morning, Cinders was a good girl when blood was drawn from her carotid artery. Some tests were done immediately. Her glucose level was normal meaning she is not diabetic. She is also FeLV and FIV negative meaning she does not have feline AIDs or leukemia. The rest of her blood was sent to the lab and the results will be known next week.

In the late afternoon, not wanting to waste an opened can of chicken kept in the fridge, EJ decided to heat it for the other greedy cats who had been clamouring and meowing for Cinders' wet food. Suddenly EJ found Cinders at the foot looking up hungrily. And gave it to Cinders.

Cinders ate!

EJ was so happy and promptly phoned the vet to say, 'She is eating! She is eating!'

Cinders received all those get well purrayers and wishes from world-wide blogger friends and all who did. EJ would like to convey many thanks to them all.

Right now late at night, Cinders is resting behind EJ as EJ pounds the keyboard to post this.

These photos are Cinders' second round of eating -- at night.

An anorexic Cinders.

She is eating.

A short break between slow eating.

Cinders' Turn

When everything seemed to go well, Cinders took a turn for the worse end of last week.

There were spots of blood in her urine again and she refused to eat.

The visit to her vet last Sunday morning showed that her white blood cells were high indicating infection but without a temperature. She lost weight and is now getting anorexic.

(This photo was taken in late February. Cinders is much thinner now.)

Antibiotics, appetite stimulants, vitamins and Cystaid were prescribed. 'Assisted Feeding' was recommended to prevent her from losing more weight.

The term 'Assisted Feeding' is preferred as the cat is helped to eat, not forced though the cat may disagree. 'Assisted Feeding' refers to finger feeding or syringe feeding. EJ is using both methods. But still Cinders is not eating enough as more energy is used up during sickness. EJ is trying very hard to coax her to eat.

Cinders howls a lot lately. Other cats sort of avoid her but not good-natured Tommy. Good old Tommy keeps her company by squatting beside her and gives encouraging support with cleaning licks.

EJ is keeping an eye on Tommy too as he has not recover fully.

For more cat stories, please visit http://gattinamycats.blogspot.com

We are still stylish!

Having received many 'get well soon' and 'healing' purrs from bloggers all over the world, both Cinders and Tommy are much better.

EJ would like to thank all for those positive thoughts, prayers and vibes, and believes that it helped greatly to put these two on the road to recovery.

Cinders' urine is not bloody anymore but is straining to urine constantly and a little  each time which means she probably has incontinence. 

To make it easier for her to take her medicine instead of shoving the capsule down her throat, the powder from the capsule is mixed with wet food. With that strong fishy smell of wet food easily permeating throughout EJ's small house, all the other cats clamoured to have a part of it. There were times when EJ had to give the other cats the same wet food so that Cinders could have hers with 'hidden medication' in peace. 

There is still another week of medication before evaluation of her progress on whether antibiotics and other medication is necessary.

This picture shows one of Tommy's scratch wounds below his ear clearly. The smaller ones are near his eyes and nose. 

These wounds healed after being cleaned with antiseptic liquid and as soon as scabs formed, Tommy would scratch till it bled and the whole cycle starts again, at times creating an even bigger wound. Temporarily, steroid cream for these wounds have been stopped to prevent adverse results, so EJ has to be more diligent in monitoring and cleaning the wounds. EJ is happy that the wounds are now getting smaller.

Even in dire discomfort and itch, Tommy relax in style with paws crossed. Cinders lost a bit of weight and is resting well on the right. That furry butt below belongs to Pebble.

For more cat stories, please visit http://gattinamycats.blogspot.com

Bladder Out

Being out and busy yesterday, EJ came home in the late afternoon.

As soon as EJ opened the door, Cinders, a senior cat, walked out to the porch to greet EJ which was unusual. Before leaving in the morning, EJ left Cinders to roam the whole house while the other cats were limited to their room and yard.

On entering, EJ was horrified to see the state and mess the house was in. There were drops of blood on the floor.

Her vomit was on some old newspapers and her wastes on the floor mats. Two floor mats had to be thrown away as it was too messy to clean.

Cinders has urinary problems with blood in her urine. A phone call was promptly made for an appointment with her vet this morning.

By the time the cleaning the whole house of the mess was finished, EJ was too zonked out to do anything including checking emails and blogs.

The journey to the vet this morning was full of wails from Cinders.

Being 17 in 3 months', her vet decided against giving any antibiotics. Instead Cinders was given Cystaid Capsules, a complementary feed to sustain the production of Glycosaminoglycans in the bladder. 

Tommy, still suffering an allergy from mosquito/insect bites, had his bath this afternoon to help clean and ease the itchiness from the healing scratch wounds.

EJ is tired and may not be able to visit as many blogs.

For more cat stories, please visit http://gattinamycats.blogspot.com

Black or White

It's Sunday!

'It don't matter if you're black or white'...so sung Michael Jackson. 

Yes, it don't matter if you want a cosy corner to nap. And EJ was lucky to have snapped this shot as Tommy and Tanya don't exactly nap in sync with senior Cinders eyeing them.

Pet Pride

Imaginary Foe?

The saying goes 'Curiosity killed the cat'. This does not apply in our home.

Captain Jack Sparrow HAWK, though timid, is one very curious cat and a busybody. He never fails to check out new things or stuff that fancies him.

Somehow there is this EJ's favourite old, very comfortable apple-green drawstring pants that seems to irk Captain Jack. Each time EJ wears it, Captain Jack would stand up fully stretched to claw the pants down or fight with its drawstring. So far the pants held up and has never gone down, luckily.

Captain Jack eyeballing the imaginary foe...

...and whack...

...whack, whack...

...sniff, sniff. Still alive?

Whack, whack, whack!

For more cat stories, please visit http://gattinamycats.blogspot.com