What is it about pets & children and 2AM?
May. 8th, 2006 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kisthaSo, After the cage construction everything seemed fine with Tayet.
Meanwhile Ankhet got her own mini-trauma
Took Ankhet to her ultrasound. I got covered in cat fut and she made a horrible fuss it was a very long, active hour. Turns out that she has Pancreatitis of some kind. Unfortunately in cats, that's kind of going from knowing nothing to knowing you are stuck in a fog bank and have only the vaguest idea of where you are. Since then we've been waiting for blood tests, and debating on surgical biopsy, or treating Pancreatitis (using one of the couple of methods available) and doing another ultrasound in three months. I put forward the idea of a needle biopsy (like they would do on humans) today and Dr. B says he'll see what kind of success there has been with it on cats. Since none of her liver values were inflated on her original blood work, it seems that IBS or liver disease is unlikely, and that put surgical biopsy in second place to treatment. Since Ankhet is back to normal, and not in crisis, we wait and talk about options until we get the blood work back.
Tayet adjusted to his confinement pretty well until...
Friday night when we got home and went into give him his nightly meds, we discovered that he had managed to get out of the e-collar. Again! This is the "harness" method, where you tie the collar on around the neck, then cross it, and go behind the 'elbows' and tie it under the belly. Seeing him there, all nice and groomed, with the collar sitting in the middle of the cage with the gauze doubled neatly on top I nearly blew a gasket. Letting him out we drugged him, dosed him with the anti-biotic and then I tried it again, with the hard e-collar and the 'soft' e-collar and he had both versions off in seconds. I tied it so tight I was afraid I'd choke him, and the little bugger just reached back with both paws, got a hold of it behind his head, and pulled it off. Put him back in the cage and called the vet. The only advice she could give was to watch him as much as possible and if he started over-grooming or pulling at the stitches, he'd have to be boarded at the hospital or our regular vet office since there isn't a better way to tie a collar. Luckily he's kind of chubby, so he can't easily get to the wound, and he's never been an over groomer. So by Saturday night the scab was kind of turning gray which worried me, but since it wasn't red or inflamed I let it be, but I also saw some whitish fluid Sunday morning. So I called the vet. As long as there's no change in personality, eating, drinking, redness or swelling of the site, excessive diarrhea (slight diarrhea is a side effect of the antibiotics) or vomiting he should be OK. Since the fluid could also be exudate or serous fluid both of which are totally OK without redness or swelling, we needed to watch for the other signs.
Last night however his diarrhea was up a little, water consumption was down a little, and when I gave him his antibiotic he was salivating and foaming way more than usual*, and he seemed a little punky. Hard to tell when he's stoned out on narcotics, but still. Just before bed doing a last check at 10 we found that he'd vomited a huge amount on his bed. Usually cats will try to get away from where they sleep. Ours usually try to even get off the carpet if possible. So cleaned up the vomit, and headed to the Vet. They got slammed with 5 other people at about the same time with emergencies (way worse than us) and it was 12:45 before we saw the Dr. The Dr. thinks it's the antibiotic, and since there is no sign of infection and the antibiotic was the standard post op procedure rather than for an existing infection she thinks that discontinuing it should do the trick, and if it doesn't, come back. So we head home, and I'm annoyed that I was right about the antibiotic, since it's meaningless as I'm not willing to "guess" about my pet's health. His bedding is all in the washer, so I have to scavenge more pet towels to replace all the dirty ones. We finally get everything done and fall into bed just before two.
One good thing, is that when I asked; this Dr showed me around the wound site, and what everything was, and why the scab is so important. And that the scab is OK, that the gray is just from the fur, and really it's OK. (As I said, if I found anything looking like this on a human, I'd be soaking it off and heading to the ER for Penicillin.) So now I know better what to look for, and he's off the antibiotics, so hopefully this will be the last midnight run. Please Gods, Please. Could we just uneventfully heal from here on out *pretty please*?
Huge downside - had to cancel my B'ham trip this morning with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
writersweekend. I was really looking forward to spending some no stress hang-about-time with her. Instead I'm home checking on the cat at regular intervals, and being honest, sleeping. *blinks blearily*
Maybe we can get together later this week and bum about around locally. I wonder if she tried the Colophon Cafe? It has the best food, and it's also is/was a bookstore. I love the Colophon. I especially love the garlic chicken sandwiches and the Cream of Dill Pickle soup. Today's soup would have been Dutch Tomato Gouda so I probably wouldn't have indulged in the soup of the day. Now if it had been Thursday and the Cream of Mushroom I totally would have paid the price.
*Why on earth is cat antibiotic banana flavored anyway??
Meanwhile Ankhet got her own mini-trauma
Took Ankhet to her ultrasound. I got covered in cat fut and she made a horrible fuss it was a very long, active hour. Turns out that she has Pancreatitis of some kind. Unfortunately in cats, that's kind of going from knowing nothing to knowing you are stuck in a fog bank and have only the vaguest idea of where you are. Since then we've been waiting for blood tests, and debating on surgical biopsy, or treating Pancreatitis (using one of the couple of methods available) and doing another ultrasound in three months. I put forward the idea of a needle biopsy (like they would do on humans) today and Dr. B says he'll see what kind of success there has been with it on cats. Since none of her liver values were inflated on her original blood work, it seems that IBS or liver disease is unlikely, and that put surgical biopsy in second place to treatment. Since Ankhet is back to normal, and not in crisis, we wait and talk about options until we get the blood work back.
Tayet adjusted to his confinement pretty well until...
Friday night when we got home and went into give him his nightly meds, we discovered that he had managed to get out of the e-collar. Again! This is the "harness" method, where you tie the collar on around the neck, then cross it, and go behind the 'elbows' and tie it under the belly. Seeing him there, all nice and groomed, with the collar sitting in the middle of the cage with the gauze doubled neatly on top I nearly blew a gasket. Letting him out we drugged him, dosed him with the anti-biotic and then I tried it again, with the hard e-collar and the 'soft' e-collar and he had both versions off in seconds. I tied it so tight I was afraid I'd choke him, and the little bugger just reached back with both paws, got a hold of it behind his head, and pulled it off. Put him back in the cage and called the vet. The only advice she could give was to watch him as much as possible and if he started over-grooming or pulling at the stitches, he'd have to be boarded at the hospital or our regular vet office since there isn't a better way to tie a collar. Luckily he's kind of chubby, so he can't easily get to the wound, and he's never been an over groomer. So by Saturday night the scab was kind of turning gray which worried me, but since it wasn't red or inflamed I let it be, but I also saw some whitish fluid Sunday morning. So I called the vet. As long as there's no change in personality, eating, drinking, redness or swelling of the site, excessive diarrhea (slight diarrhea is a side effect of the antibiotics) or vomiting he should be OK. Since the fluid could also be exudate or serous fluid both of which are totally OK without redness or swelling, we needed to watch for the other signs.
Last night however his diarrhea was up a little, water consumption was down a little, and when I gave him his antibiotic he was salivating and foaming way more than usual*, and he seemed a little punky. Hard to tell when he's stoned out on narcotics, but still. Just before bed doing a last check at 10 we found that he'd vomited a huge amount on his bed. Usually cats will try to get away from where they sleep. Ours usually try to even get off the carpet if possible. So cleaned up the vomit, and headed to the Vet. They got slammed with 5 other people at about the same time with emergencies (way worse than us) and it was 12:45 before we saw the Dr. The Dr. thinks it's the antibiotic, and since there is no sign of infection and the antibiotic was the standard post op procedure rather than for an existing infection she thinks that discontinuing it should do the trick, and if it doesn't, come back. So we head home, and I'm annoyed that I was right about the antibiotic, since it's meaningless as I'm not willing to "guess" about my pet's health. His bedding is all in the washer, so I have to scavenge more pet towels to replace all the dirty ones. We finally get everything done and fall into bed just before two.
One good thing, is that when I asked; this Dr showed me around the wound site, and what everything was, and why the scab is so important. And that the scab is OK, that the gray is just from the fur, and really it's OK. (As I said, if I found anything looking like this on a human, I'd be soaking it off and heading to the ER for Penicillin.) So now I know better what to look for, and he's off the antibiotics, so hopefully this will be the last midnight run. Please Gods, Please. Could we just uneventfully heal from here on out *pretty please*?
Huge downside - had to cancel my B'ham trip this morning with
writersweekend. I was really looking forward to spending some no stress hang-about-time with her. Instead I'm home checking on the cat at regular intervals, and being honest, sleeping. *blinks blearily* Maybe we can get together later this week and bum about around locally. I wonder if she tried the Colophon Cafe? It has the best food, and it's also is/was a bookstore. I love the Colophon. I especially love the garlic chicken sandwiches and the Cream of Dill Pickle soup. Today's soup would have been Dutch Tomato Gouda so I probably wouldn't have indulged in the soup of the day. Now if it had been Thursday and the Cream of Mushroom I totally would have paid the price.
*Why on earth is cat antibiotic banana flavored anyway??
