Or perhaps more appropriately to my climate, when it snows, it blizzards ... and Billy is his own blizzard.
For those of you who don't know or have forgotten, Billy is my elder cat. He has multiple health issues (CRF, hyperT, chronic herpes eye infections, skin cancer that already necessitated the removal of one ear pinna, arthritis, etc.). Well, as if he didn't have enough physical challenges, this weekend he developed a very nasty tooth infection that caused him considerable pain and left him neither eating nor drinking from early afternoon on Sat until late Monday night. The infection spread into his facial tissue, causing his gums, lips, and chin to swell, as well as making him unable to open his left eye. It also prompted a flareup of his herpes which made both eyes get all yucky. His face and mouth were so tender that he couldn't tolerate having his head touched, which meant that I was unable to administer any of his necessary daily meds. The only thing I could manage to do for him was to give him subQ fluids so that he could maintain adequate hydration. And of course this all happened over the holiday weekend while my vet was out of town visiting family.
So I watched my poor old man get more and more swollen and painful and miserable until my vet finally got home late Sundsy night, then drove him directly to the clinic where Paul was exhausted and bleary-eyed. Since there is no safe anti-inflammatory for even healthy cats, much less one in renal failure, we had to decide on a course of painkiller and antibiotics to try to pull Billy through the crisis. After much discussion of the pros and cons of various treatment options, we decided on the opioid, Tramadol, for pain relief and injectible Baytril as an antibiotic that I could administer without having to deal with Billy's mouth any more than absolutely necessary. I knew that if this combination didn't work to make it at least possible for Billy to eat (or me to syringe feed him) very soon that I would have to make the painful decision to let him go.
Well, yesterday morning when I woke up, the Tramadol had clearly taken effect. I found Billy sitting up in the guest bedroom, completely spaced out. Tramadol isn't supposed to have an hallucinogenic effect, but you'll never convince me otherwise. Billy was trippin', and he couldn't so much as close his eyes, much less lie down and nap, until around 12:30 yesterday afternoon! But he did take a couple of licks of cat food soup on his own, and I was able to give him his thyroid med and then syringe feed him small amounts about every hour all day. Finally last night he started to eat on his own again (after the Tramadol had worn off and the antibiotics had started to kick in. Today Billy is eating pretty well, though his mouth is still swollen, and he still doesn't appreciate me administering his oral meds. But at least he's pulling past this crisis and giving me time to figure out how I'm going to address what will probably be an ongoing problem with that tooth unless I have it surgically removed, which in itself is a very risky proposition for Billy.
Oh, and did I mention that BooBoo developed a major UTI last week and spent several days doing nothing but walking from spot to spot around the house, peeing on EVERYTHING? And then there's Mew who's recently decided to groom all of the hair off of the insides of his back legs (never had this problem before I switched to raw feeding ... hmmm). Can't forget to mention that Pretty was gimping around on Saturday like she'd broken her right front foot (thankfully the limping has resolved on its own).
Seems to me like every year right around this time when everybody is too busy to deal with any more stress, my animals decide they ALL want to visit the vet! If this is Santa's idea of an early Christmas present, I wanna refund!!!
Laurie
